Eyeshot

by Lynn Hightower

  “Hey, Blair. Your little girl still belching the alphabet?” Gruber. He looked tired and depressed, tie hanging to one side.

  “She’s got refinement now, Gruber. She’s quit with the alphabet and moved on to Figaro.”

  Sam looked up. “Really? The whole score?”

  “No, just the first few measures.”

  “That’s still pretty damn amazing.” Gruber settled into his chair. Sighed. “This dieting shit is not for me. You ever heard of this fat burning diet?”

  Sonora shuddered. “There are about a million of them. How’s the clown thing going?”

  “Guy uses deer slugs. So even if we get a weapon, which so far no luck, not like he leaves it behind, but even if we get the weapon, they won’t have rifling to ID it with. He could wrap the damn thing and send it Fed Ex with roses, we couldn’t nail him with it.”

  “The guys getting hit have any connection?”

  “Well, gee, Sonora, you mean besides being clowns in dunking booths who insult one guy too many?”

  Sonora looked at the sludge in her coffee cup. Thought of going to the bathroom to rinse it out. Sanders was probably still in there, crying or decorating. “So what are you saying, Gruber? These guys are getting killed because they’re obnoxious?”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  “They are obnoxious,” Sam said.

  “Best lead we got is stuff from the guy’s shoe, just don’t ask me yet where it’s gotten us.”

  “What shoe?”

  “You didn’t hear? Cinderella dropped a tennie. Wal-Mart’s own version of a Nike. We been thinking about going door to door with every deer hunter we know and inviting them to try on the golden slipper. We’re just awaiting authorization to go out and buy us a velvet cushion to carry it on.”

  Sonora dumped the sludge into Molliter’s coffee mug and filled her cup. Put in a double portion of cream to turn things light brown, instead of tobacco brown. Time to branch out. No sense getting into a rut.

  “So what was it?” Sam said.

  Gruber scratched his chin. “What?”

  Sonora looked up. “The stuff on the bottom of his shoe. Bubble gum? Name, rank, and serial number?”

  “Creosote,” Gruber said.

  Sonora leaned against Sam. “Creosote. Where do you find creosote?”

  “Places,” Gruber said.

  Sam stuck his tongue in his cheek, thinking. “Telephone poles. Maybe this guy’s a pole climber for the phone company.”

  “Ought to be easy to find if he uses a deer rifle to reach out and touch someone,” Sonora said.

  Sam nodded. “Poor son of a bitch is probably just trying to find his own true voice.”

  Gruber looked at them. “You guys through? I mean, I don’t want to interrupt if you got more of this shit to get out of your system. And don’t think just because I already heard all these bad jokes at least twice is any reason not to carry on there.”

  Sam grabbed Sonora’s coffee cup out of her hand, took a sip. “I don’t think our humor is appreciated.” He picked a scrap of pink paper off his desk. “Before I forget, you also had a message from Money-Wise Rent-a-Car.”

  Sonora took the scrap of paper Sam was holding. “That’s Julia Winchell’s rental company, Sam. You’re just sitting on this?”

  “They said personal.”

  “I told them to ask for me personally.” Sonora frowned. Now Molliter knew they’d found Julia Winchell’s car. She didn’t feel good about that.

  “Think her car’s turned up?” Sam said.

  “It’s got to be somewhere. We could call the psychic hotline, or we can call the guys from Money-Wise. What would you do, Sam?”

  “I’d get more sleep so I wouldn’t be such a …” He looked at her. “Irritable person.”

  37

  It drizzled on the way to the airport. Sam drove, air conditioner on high, windows steaming as cold air mixed with hot humidity and tiny slips of rainwater. The roads were slick in spots, drizzle mixed with baked grime and oil spills.

  “Turn the wipers up a notch,” Sonora said.

  “Who’s driving, girl, you or me?”

  The windshield wipers were on the low, occasional setting. In between swipes the drizzle piled up into what Sonora considered to be intolerable levels.

  “I thought Money-Wise didn’t have an office at the airport. Sonora?”

  “I’m not telling you a thing till you turn the wipers up.”

  “Why do you have to see? I’m the one driving.” He turned the wipers up a notch.

  Sonora glanced in the rearview mirror. It was just on five and traffic was getting slow and thick.

  “No, Money-Wise doesn’t have offices at airports, ever. But for some reason, this car’s in the B lot with all the other rentals.”

  “How’d they find it?”

  “Their guys cruise the airport lots on a regular basis. Most people don’t realize Money-Wise doesn’t have offices at airports—cars get left there all the time.”

  “So how come it took two weeks to find it?”

  “That’s what I asked. Guy I talked to said there were two possibilities. One, it just got there. Two, it’s the busy season. Nobody’s had time to cruise for cars. Sam, the rain’s stopped and that squeak is driving me nuts.”

  “You want the wipers off now?”

  The representative from Money-Wise Rent-a-Car was young, hair trimmed short, neatly dressed in a suit in spite of the heat. He stood with an air of possessiveness next to a red Ford Escort. The first thing Sonora noticed about the car was the windshield, which was cracked.

  “John Curtis.”

  The kid smiled at Sonora, shook her hand gravely, and called her ma’am. She wondered what the possibility was that her son would turn out this way. She wondered if she wanted him to.

  The asphalt parking lot was spotted with damp, from the rain. The air had gone steamy, and Sonora’s hair was curling on her shoulders. She lifted it off her neck, thought about cutting it very short.

  Sonora give Curtis a second look. His skin was white and sweaty, eyes red-rimmed. Out late drinking, she knew the signs.

  Typical All-American boy.

  Sonora heard Sam muttering into a radio. “Got a key?” she asked the boy.

  “Yes, ma’am. But I’m not supposed to—”

  “We’re impounding the vehicle, which is now evidence in a murder investigation. You know how long it’s been parked here?”

  “Not exactly, no ma’am. We found it after lunch, a couple of hours ago. It was on our hot list, so I called Mr. Douglas as soon as we found it.”

  “And this is normal procedure? Cruising airport lots for your rentals?”

  “Oh, yeah. People leave them here all the time. Most rental places have airport offices and they assume we do too. But we don’t have one-way rental. You can’t, like, rent a car in Cleveland and leave it in Cincinnati.”

  “Have to take it back where you picked it up?”

  He nodded. “Which means we have to be careful when we do cruise the lots. Sometimes people leave them in the airport lot and want it there when they get back. They’re not too happy if it isn’t there waiting for them.”

  Sonora nodded. Curtis had the air of someone who faced the firing squad when a customer got unhappy.

  Sonora touched Curtis’s arm. “Look, it’s hot out, and you’ll excuse me for being blunt, but you look like you’re going to vomit in my crime scene, so—”

  “We were out late, entertaining clients. Is this a crime scene?”

  “Yeah, and you look like you entertained real well last night. Why don’t you go on inside where it’s air-conditioned, find yourself a men’s room, and throw up. We’ll talk some more when you’re done.”

  He gave her a grateful look, headed for the terminal, moving fast.

  “Did I hear you tell that kid to go throw up?” Sam. At her elbow, cheek full of tobacco. He was wearing some kind of shaving lotion that made her want to get closer. She didn’t.


  “Yeah, so?”

  Sam got closer to the car. Sniffed, tentatively. “No body.”

  Sonora dug in her purse for gloves. “No flies, anyway.” She checked her recorder to make sure it held a fresh tape.

  “Kid get in the car?” Sam asked.

  “Says not. We’ll get his prints just in case.” She pointed to the crack in the windshield. “What do you think of this?”

  Sam circled to the front of the car, squatted in front of the bumper. “No damage, here. Wasn’t caused by a fender bender. Makes me wonder how it did get cracked.”

  Sonora opened the driver’s side door. Stuck her head inside. The car had been shut up, sitting in the hot sun for days. Heat hit, surly and sweaty, and Sonora took a deep breath, sweat trickling down the small of her back. Hot air filled her lungs. If she was a dog, she’d flop down in the shade and go to sleep.

  Instead, she leaned awkwardly over the driver’s seat. “What’s this? Sam, we got smears all over the—” She squinted, looked closer. “Jesus. Is this what I think it is?”

  Sam was over her shoulder in an instant.

  “Look, Sam. Footprints, right? Heel scuff here. Toes here and here, smeared like a kick, then dragged across the glass.” Sonora pointed, not touching, not quite.

  Sam pointed at a spot to the right of the steering wheel. “Point of impact. Must have been a hell of a kick.”

  “Big struggle, and she kicks the windshield.” Sonora got out of the car, walked around to the passenger’s side, opened the door. “Dent, right here in the armrest. Ah. Okay. Let’s say her head’s here, butted up against the door.”

  “If her head put that dent in the headrest, it was some kind of struggle.”

  “No blood anywhere I can see, so he didn’t cut her up in here.”

  Sam looked at Sonora. “He killed her here though. Look at that windshield.”

  “The M.E. says her hyoid bone was broken, and she had patriarchal hemorrhaging in that left eye.”

  “Conclusion strangulation.”

  Sonora felt queasy. The heat was getting to her. “So let’s say he’s driving. She’s sitting here.” Sonora pointed. “He stops the car, turns sideways, leans over her, puts his hands around her neck.”

  Sam nodded. “Her head slips down to the armrest, she kicks like a son of a bitch and cracks the glass in the windshield.”

  “But he’s a big guy and she’s dead. Why didn’t he clean up?”

  “Time? No paper towels?”

  “He had time to play butcher and button button with the body parts.”

  “Interrupted?” Sam said.

  “Maybe. This is her car. He kills her in the car, then moves the body someplace where he can take his time. Meanwhile his car is clean.”

  “Yeah, but then why does he drop her car off at the airport and not clean it up?”

  “He’s not going to want to be seen with her car. And now he’s got a body on his hands, he’s got to get it to a safe place. Remember that guy we found with his wife in the trunk?”

  Sam grinned. “Wasn’t his lucky day.”

  “It’s a pretty safe bet the car rental guys are going to clean up the car. If this had been Avis or Hertz, the car would have been processed and cleaned that day or the next. Maybe he doesn’t realize Money-Wise doesn’t do airports. You didn’t.”

  Sam spit tobacco. Nodded.

  “There you go, then.” Sonora stuck her head back in the car. Sniffed. Hot vinyl. Baked Armorol. “I think she died here, Sam. I think he strangled her right here in the front seat.”

  “Makes it our jurisdiction then, for sure. She may have been dumped all the way up and down I-75, but she got killed in Cincinnati.”

  38

  It was close to seven when Sonora got home. The sun was still high and hot and it hadn’t rained at her house. She pulled her car into the tiny garage space located between boxes full of what she did not know, garbage bags, and kids’ bicycles. She could not understand how she wound up with two kids and five bicycles, but she knew there had to be a good reason, because Tim had explained it to her once.

  Heather was sitting on the front stoop wearing last year’s swimsuit. Her chin was propped on her hand and she looked thoughtful.

  Sonora got out of the car, skirting a hockey stick, and an open bag of unused grass seed from a yard project, unfinished, as usual. She could not look at the garage without getting depressed. She did not look.

  She left the garage door open, and went up the front steps.

  “What you doing, kidlet?”

  “Hi, Mommy.” Glum.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I was going to swim, but Clampett won’t get out of the pool. Can you take me swimming, Mommy?”

  Sonora considered it. Public pools. Band-Aids floating in the water. Children screaming. The humidity and the heat and trying to fit into last year’s swimsuit. Attractive.

  “Did you forget, it’s your night with Baba. And I have a date.”

  Heather lifted her head. “Is it that guy who took me to the park?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will he bring his dog?”

  “Heather, I never try to predict what a man will do on the first date.”

  Sonora went in the front door, thinking clothes, hair, makeup. Someone had left a squeeze bottle of Aunt Jemima’s genuine imitation maple syrup in the foyer, and the find had been discovered by an orderly line of fat black ants, their bodies sleek and shiny like patent leather.

  She was going to have to readjust her thinking. House, then clothes, hair, and makeup. Should have arranged to meet him somewhere else.

  39

  Sonora realized, as they walked in the front door, that she had given Smallwood the wrong signal when she’d told him the kids were at their grandmother’s and the coast was clear.

  Calm, that was the word she remembered using.

  She could not very well explain that she did not always feel like dealing with the capricious manners of children who had never liked a man on a first date, and had even gone so far as to get rid of one in particular by asking him if he was their new daddy.

  Single men had a habit of not believing you when you said you were not looking for a father for your children. And it was insulting to explain that you did not wish your children to become attached to someone who might very likely be a temporary presence.

  Nope. Smallwood had assumed she wanted sex.

  Clampett was as friendly as ever, which meant that Sonora had to drag him by the collar into the backyard so that Smallwood could regain his balance.

  “How do you take your coffee?” Sonora asked.

  “In a beer can.”

  Subtle, she thought, opening the refrigerator. “You’re not getting any of that Bud Light around here, Smallwood.”

  “What you got?”

  “Corona.”

  “In a pinch.”

  She shoved a bottle in his general direction. “You want to bite the cap off, or do I look for the opener?”

  He smiled the smile of a man who was almost ready to make his move.

  What to do? she thought. She ran the list of body parts and possibilities, deciding in advance what would and would not be allowed. She thought of Keaton. She did not want to think of Keaton. She went back over the mental seduction list, checked off a few more boxes.

  That should keep her mind off things.

  They sat side by side on the couch with the lamp on low. Outside, heat lightning arced against a black sky, and the wind began to blow.

  “Mind if I get rid of the light?” Smallwood asked.

  You could make fun of men for their lack of subtlety, but really, what were they supposed to do? She couldn’t say she hadn’t been warned.

  It had been different with Keaton. She had been sure with him.

  Sonora turned the lamp off.

  Smallwood scooted closer. Put his arm around the back of the couch. Touched her temple with his fingertip.

  “Thanks for having dinner with
me,” he said.

  “Thanks for the dinner.”

  He ran the finger up and down her temple with a firm pressure that felt good. Then he leaned close and kissed her.

  He tasted like beer and he kissed like a man who would not be hurried. He kissed well. But he didn’t kiss like Keaton.

  Sonora leaned close and Smallwood slid a hand into the back of her blouse.

  Too fast, she decided, but did not do anything about it. She closed her eyes, still feeling the wine buzz, liking the way his hands felt on her back.

  His fingers were firm on her skin. Pressing. Slipping beneath the thin strip of bra line. She wasn’t quite sure when it unfastened, because he pulled her close, into his lap, so that she was facing him.

  His right hand went round her neck, fingers stroking her behind the ear. “Such a pretty neck,” he said, softly, in her ear.

  And when he said it like that, so softly, she believed that maybe she did have a pretty neck.

  She was an equal opportunity lover. She began unbuttoning his shirt, which he seemed to take as encouragement. Fool.

  But then he moved his hands to the front of her blouse and lifted it over her head, pulling her into his now bare chest.

  Sonora put her head on his shoulder. Definitely not on the list. He kissed the side of her neck, grazing the skin ever so lightly with his teeth. He dipped his head low and took her into his mouth, hands moving up under her skirt, tracing the insides of her thighs.

  More things, not on the list.

  He had the top of her pantyhose in his fingers, and he was pulling them down, slowly, over her legs.

  The next moments were awkward, but familiar, the kind of moments that made women snort when men spoke of betrayals in terms like “our clothes just sort of came off.” Twisted pantyhose, and socks and shoes, and shock that, yes, a condom was more a necessity than an option. Men were such innocents, Sonora thought. They seemed not to have the faintest idea about babies and AIDS.

  And somehow she wound up bare, in his lap, which any man might take as a yes. But when she looked at his face, she saw Keaton’s face. She closed her eyes and pretended. Smallwood sat up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He pulled her in close until he was touching her, and he would have been bewildered and appalled if he had known she was still making up her mind whether or not to do it.