Read Online A Shot to Die For by Libby Fischer Hellmann - Free Book Online Page B

of triumph in them. “I’ve only been here a few months, you know? But my mama, well, she always told me to use your head for something besides a hat rack. So I pay attention, you know?”
    “Is that so?” She had my attention now, and she knew it.
    “Mind you, the first time I saw them together, I didn’t know.”
    “Who?”
    “It was about a month ago.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Maybe a little less. She come in kinda late. Around eleven. I was on break. She come into the ladies’ room first. Set herself down in front of the mirror. Put on a fresh lipstick, combed her hair just so. The way you do when you’re gonna meet someone you like, you know?”
    I knew. What I didn’t know was why Pari was telling me about it.
    “Then she set down at the bar, right next to him.”
    “Who? Who did she sit down next to?”
    She took a breath, then blew out the name, as if it was just too much for her to hold on to anymore. “Luke.”
    “Luke?”
    “Luke Sutton.”
    “Who is Luke Sutton?”
    Pari eyed me as if I was the most ignorant woman she’d ever met. “Only one of the richest men around here. Family’s got one of those big places on the lake, you know?”
    “No. I don’t.”
    Pari looked around. “He comes in here sometimes. Him and his brother. He’s okay. The brother, that is. A good tipper. But maybe I shouldn’t be saying nothin’, you know?” She looked away.
    I rubbed my forehead with my hand. Pari Noskin Taichert and her mountain manners were starting to grate. “Why not?”
    “I need this job.”
    “You’re not saying you could get fired for telling me who Daria Flynn was drinking with?”
    She hesitated. “Let me put it this way. What would you think if you saw someone cozying up to someone else in the bar, sittin’ real close, smilin’ from here to yesterday and back, and then you don’t hear nothin’ more about it after she turns up dead?”
    “The police followed up on it, didn’t they?”
    “There ain’t been no one comin’ around asking questions.” She hesitated. “On my shift, at least.”
    “Not even after you told them?”
    She looked at the floor.
    “You did tell them, didn’t you?”
    She shifted her tray to her hip. “It waren’t no secret, you know. Plenty other people saw them together. It waren’t just one time, neither.”
    “You didn’t tell them.”
    An edge came into her voice. “Look, I can’t go to the police. I just thought maybe, if you was friends, you might want to know.”
    Why was Pari confiding in me instead of the police? What did she expect me to do?
    “He flies a plane,” she said quietly. “Uses the airstrip in back here to land and take off. But I haven’t seen him around since—since….” She shrugged.
    “Pari, were you and Daria friends?”
    She shook her head. “She put on airs, you know?” She picked up my wineglass, empty now, and Mac’s drink. “She had no use for me.”
    I recalled my first impression of Daria on the cell, demanding to know why she’d been abandoned. I suppose someone might have labeled her arrogant, although I’d thought she was just upset. Still, that didn’t change the fact that this barmaid had an important piece of information about her. “Pari, you have to go to the police.”
    But Pari was already on her way back to the bar and out of earshot. I didn’t stop her. It was possible the police already knew about Daria’s meeting with Luke Sutton. Pari did say other people besides her had seen them, and while I’m no cop, following up on something like this seemed pretty basic. Perhaps the police had already talked to this Sutton man.
    If that were the case, though, why hadn’t Kim or Irene Flynn said anything about it? When they came to my house, they’d been pumping
me
for information about the mysterious boyfriend. They claimed to have no idea about any man in Daria’s life.
    I thought about it. It wasn’t my responsibility to tell the police. I barely knew Daria Flynn, and I