Eyeshot

by Lynn Hightower

“It’ll make me carsick.”

  “Then you drive and I’ll read it.”

  Sonora glanced back at Heather, breathing deeply and evenly, eyes shut tight. Her hand rested on her cheek, vibrating with the movement of the car.

  At the next bathroom break, she would call home, and this time, Tim would be there. She did not like driving home late at night, in the fog, wondering if he was okay. She glanced back toward the cooler, bent down to the maroon vinyl case by her feet.

  The zipper seemed loud in the cab of the car, road noises muffled by the fog and darkness. She looked at the white envelopes.

  “Turn the fog lights on, Sam. Switch on the left. Next to that other one.”

  “What other … oh, here.” He clicked a switch. The beams of light changed, penetrating the mist instead of reflecting back. “Girl, you could’ve brought this up a while ago.”

  Sonora opened one of the envelopes. “Bill from Victoria’s Secret. Julia Winchell ordered a black silk teddy and a Wonderbra.”

  “What size?”

  “Medium.”

  “I meant the—”

  “I know what you meant. She owes forty-two dollars and sixty-eight cents. Guess what the interest rate is on this thing, Sam? It’s god-awful. Guess.”

  “Wages of sin.”

  “Sam, it’s not sin, it’s lingerie.”

  “What else you got?”

  Sonora opened the other white envelope. “Stuff from the conference, looks like. Information on panels and stuff. The Small Business-Person Interfacing with the Local Chamber of Commerce. My God, no wonder she had an affair. Anything would be better than listening to this crap.”

  “Typical. Get the information out after everyone’s left town.” He gave her a sideways look. “What’s the balance on your Vicky’s Secret account?”

  “About the size of the national debt.”

  “What kind of stuff do you buy?”

  “Every flannel nightgown they sell.” She held up the big brown envelope.

  “Open that,” Sam said.

  Sonora looked it over. “Cincinnati postmark. Dated, let me count on my fingers here. Twenty days ago? Yeah. About the time she was calling home saying she wasn’t coming back.”

  Sonora was getting queasy. She took a breath, closed her eyes. Ripped open the envelope. Inside was a cassette tape. PROPERTY OF JULIA WINCHELL had been written on a label in black felt pen. On the other side, PERSONAL, in capital letters.

  “Whoa,” Sonora said.

  “What?”

  “It’s a cassette tape.” She held it up.

  “Give it here, let’s play it.”

  “No, don’t put it in my player, it eats tapes. I’ve lost two Bonnie Raitts, one Rod Stewart, and a Beatles in the last six weeks.”

  “Doesn’t anything you own ever work?”

  Sonora shrugged.

  “I don’t blame it for spitting out Rod Stewart.”

  “Are you trying to start a fight?”

  25

  Sonora bent the bobby pin, pushed it into the lock on her son’s bedroom door. The door jammed, but she shoved harder, and slid through the narrow opening.

  Tim was sound asleep in his bed. Dirty clothes, dropped in the doorway, made a pretty good barrier.

  They had stopped at a rest stop somewhere near Berea, Kentucky. Tim had been home, cooking a frozen pizza, no clue as to where anyone was, no clue Sonora was looking for him. He had seemed genuinely shocked that his mother might be expecting him to make it home somewhere within a two-hour range of when he’d said he’d be in.

  Sonora ventured another three feet into the room to retrieve the cordless phone, placed with precision in the boot of a shiny black Rollerblade skate. She took another look at her son, grimaced at the glass that held what looked like old, furry orange juice, and scooted back through the door.

  A relief to see him home safe, asleep in the bed. Tomorrow she would ground him.

  “Two days, or three?” she asked Sam, who was heading down the hallway, Heather over one shoulder.

  Clampett knocked Sam sideways, leaped at Heather, then turned his attention to Sonora, pinning her to the wall with his front feet.

  “Get down,” Sonora said.

  The dog dropped to three legs immediately, and took the sleeve of Sonora’s shirt in his mouth.

  “Drop,” Sonora said.

  Clampett wiggled and wagged.

  “Drop.”

  “Two or three what?” Sam asked.

  Sonora twisted sideways, opened Heather’s door with her free hand. She followed Sam into the bedroom, walking sideways, dog still attached to her sleeve.

  “How long I should ground Tim.”

  “My mama would have blistered me and grounded me for a month.”

  “Overkill.” Sonora straightened Heather’s unmade bed.

  “You going to worry about toothbrush and jammies?”

  Sonora shook her head. Heather was barefoot. Her little sandals stuck out of Sam’s pants pockets. “She hasn’t stirred since we dropped the cooler off.”

  Sam took the sandals and set them on Heather’s dresser next to a stuffed penguin. Sonora settled Heather in the bed and covered her up. They left the room, pulling the door almost shut. Clampett tried to nose his way back in. Sonora took his collar.

  “Time for you to go out.”

  Sam shook his head. “Too late. Better check the hall by the kitchen.”

  “He’s just glad to be home.”

  “The wee of joy. You got a boom box for cassettes?”

  “Yeah, if it works.”

  “If it does, I’ll give you five dollars.”

  26

  Sonora sat back on the couch and took the first sip of a Corona. The bottle of beer was icy cold and a small wedge of lime floated at the top. She tasted lime pulp on her tongue, leaned back into the couch, and pulled a quilt over her legs.

  Sam looked up from the tape recorder. He sat awkwardly on the floor, too big to be cross-legged comfortably, unlike Sonora.

  “You could turn the air-conditioning down.”

  Sonora closed her eyes—her new response to suggestions she didn’t like. Passive resistance. She was learning it from her youngest, the resident expert.

  Sam picked up the recorder and tilted it sideways. “When’s the last time you cleaned the heads on this?”

  “Never.”

  Clampett padded in, tail wagging. He nudged Sam, bulking him with sheer size. The boom box slipped out of Sam’s hand and he dropped Julia Winchell’s cassette.

  Clampett had it in his mouth before Sam or Sonora could move.

  “No.” Sonora set the beer on the floor, grabbed the dog by the mouth. “Drop.”

  Clampett looked at her, brown eyes apologetic. But his jaw muscles were tight, and he clamped down harder.

  Sonora smacked his nose.

  The dog stared at her. Wagged his tail.

  She tried to pry his jaws apart.

  Clampett ducked his head, held on harder.

  “Drop, dammit.”

  Sam took the dog by the collar, tried his jaws. “At the rate you’re going, that dog’s going to think his name is dammit.”

  “Get him a cookie, sometimes he’ll trade. Get the chocolate chip ones in the top of the pantry.”

  Sam went into the kitchen. Sonora tried the dog’s jaws. No luck. Clampett gave her a sad look. He was a retriever. He was retrieving. His expression begged for understanding.

  “Drop,” Sonora said. “Sam?”

  “No cookies.”

  “I just—”

  He peered around the corner, held up an empty, crumpled Chips Ahoy bag. “This it?”

  “I just bought those yesterday. Okay, there are sausage biscuits in the freezer. Get me one of those.”

  “Frozen?”

  “Clampett won’t care, he eats firewood.”

  Sonora heard the freezer door open and close.

  “Gone,” Sam said.

  “Couldn’t be. Not already.”
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  “Empty box in the freezer. Want me to throw it away?”

  Sonora heard him tapping cardboard against the counter. “No, I want it as a keepsake. Look in the fridge for leftover meatballs. Drop, Clampett.”

  Drool slid down the side of the dog’s muzzle and hung in a line of saliva.

  “Sam? Meatballs?”

  “Nope.”

  “What is in there?”

  “Pickles.”

  “The one thing he won’t eat. Okay. Oh, shit, he’s chewing. Stop it, Clampett.” Sonora held his head.

  “Don’t you have any dog biscuits or treats, or did the kids eat those too?”

  “Go back in my bedroom, and look in the shoe box on the back left-hand side of the closet.”

  “Don’t give him a shoe. Smack him.”

  “I already did.”

  “Let me get a rolled-up newspaper after him.”

  “No, that just makes him playful. He thinks it’s the hit-the-dog-with-the-newspaper game. Go get that shoe box.”

  Sonora listened for Sam’s footsteps in the hallway, heard the squeak of her closet door opening.

  “Jeez, Imelda—”

  “Get the shoe box, and keep the mouth.”

  She heard rustling noises. The bedroom door shut.

  “I’m not going to even ask, Sonora, why you keep Oreo cookies in a shoe box in your closet.”

  “For emergencies, obviously. If it isn’t nailed down or healthy, the kids inhale it. Clampett’s lucky he can run fast.”

  Sam looked at the three-legged dog. “Looks like they’ve been snacking on him.”

  “Cookie please. No, hold it up.”

  Clampett looked at the Oreo cookie, strained forward. Sonora kept a tight hold on his collar.

  “Drop for a treat,” she said.

  Clampett opened his mouth and the cassette hit the floor. He jumped for the cookie and snapped it out of Sam’s hand. Sonora grabbed the tape and wiped it on her shirt. Clampett looked from her to Sam, black cookie crumbs on his muzzle.

  “Give him another one,” Sam said.

  “Chocolate is bad for puppies.”

  “And firewood isn’t?”

  Sonora put the cookies back in the shoe box and stuck them in the refrigerator. Clampett curled up like a tiny puppy on three-quarters of the couch. She rescued her beer.

  Sam pushed her sideways into the dog and took the end of the couch.

  “This is cozy,” Sonora said.

  Sam held up the tape. “Specialist Blair, please explain to the jury why there are tooth marks on Exhibit A?”

  “Shut up and play the tape.”

  27

  The first sound out of the boom box was a squeak, followed by a hiss and a string of noises you don’t want to hear when you value the tape inside. Sonora looked at Sam; then, like magic, a woman’s voice came through amid the crackle of cheap cassette and dirty heads.

  Sam grinned.

  Sonora wondered how often she and Sam had wished out loud that a murder victim could talk. This one was going to.

  “This is Julia Janet Hardin Winchell, recorded in the Orchard Suites Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio.”

  Her accent was hard to describe—a unique blend of midwest Chicago and Southern Tennessee. It hit the lush lower registers. She spoke slowly but without hesitation.

  Sonora closed her eyes, picturing the long dark hair, the widow’s peak, full cheeks, dark slanted brows. Even dressed in the jeans and torn sweatshirt she’d been wearing in one of Butch Winchell’s pictures, she had a Victorian look about her, an air of fragile quality.

  No wonder Jeff Barber had pursued her across state lines. Sonora wondered what it was about him that had attracted Julia—fill a room with men and she could have had her pick.

  Why did she go for Barber, a needy, difficult male? Was she acting out some doomed karma, forever selecting men who would be dependent and smothering, always going for the wrong guy, like every other woman alive?

  Good question. No answer. Sonora sat back, closed her eyes, and shut everything out, except Julia Winchell’s voice.

  “An odd and upsetting thing has happened, and I am setting down my thoughts and my memories on tape. I am a believer in fate. I think this had to have happened for a reason.”

  Sonora noted the clear enunciation, the self-confident tone of voice. She wished that she, too, believed in fate. It might make her job a little easier.

  “Today I opened the newspaper and saw the face of my killer.”

  Sonora exchanged looks with Sam. My killer. Presumably she meant the guy she’d seen all those years ago. But she was dead now, and she’d said my killer.

  “When I opened that newspaper I saw a face I saw eight years ago. His name is Gage Caplan, and he is the Cincinnati District Attorney who is prosecuting that ex-football player who ran down the Xavier University co-ed. It is so strange, to have a name to go with a face I can’t get out of my head. And to find him in the DA’s office.

  “Eight years ago I was in school at UC, the University of Cincinnati, living in the dorm. I was having a bad day—I had one of my sinus headaches, plus I’d lost my purse. So I took a Contac and went to bed early.

  “Just when I was about to fall asleep, I remembered one place I might have left my purse that I hadn’t looked. I had met a girlfriend for lunch, and we’d connected up in the media room in the Braunstein Building. I thought maybe I left it in there. I’d looked everywhere else.

  “It was dark out, by now, and raining hard. Not a good idea to be wandering around campus by myself. But I had fifty dollars in my purse, and my driver’s license, and my Sears credit card, plus my address book that I’ve had since my second year of high school. Plus all my keys and a new pair of pearl earrings Liza got me for my birthday.

  “I decided that muggers and rapists didn’t like the rain any more than anybody else, and that the purse might not still be there the next morning, if it was there at all. So I went.

  “It was cold out and I was wearing those dumb sandals everybody wore then. I stepped in a puddle first thing, and got my feet wet. I was wearing a jean skirt and no tights because of the sandals, and because my legs were still tan from the summer. And I got cold.

  “So when I finally got in the building it was warm, and I had seen a security guard up at the top of the building, smoking, so I felt safe. That was the funny part. Feeling safe.

  “I went up to the media room—it was on the fourth floor, which is important. The media room was open, but there was nobody in there. But there was my purse, right on the table where I left it. First I checked the wallet—my money and everything was there, even the earrings. And my head started feeling better, so some of it must have been stress.

  “I remember walking down the corridor, feeling sleepy from the pill—it was just a Contac—and thinking if I could make it back safe across campus to my dorm room, I could curl up in bed with a book and the Snickers bar that was also in the purse, and I remember thinking how great that would be.

  “I know I heard a door close somewhere, but I didn’t see any people. All the lights were on. I know I was making squeaky noises, and little wet footprints on the linoleum. My feet were slipping and I had to go slow. I turned left to go down the corridor—I was kind of turned around, trying to go out the other exit that would be closer to central campus.

  “I remember seeing a little black door that said three. Which I thought meant I was on the third floor. Which I wasn’t. More on that later.

  “I’m walking along and I hear noises. Funny noises, but kind of awful. I heard, like, a sort of cry, then a groan and gurgle. And a man sort of growling at someone. Then somebody crying.

  “I looked around. One of the office doors was open. There was a pink sweater hanging on the back of a chair—I don’t know why I remember that, but I do.

  “There was nobody in the office. Whoever it was, it looked like they just went away for a minute, you know, leaving the door open like that. And I heard some weird stuff, thumps
and cries and water splashing or something, coming from across the hall from the ladies room.

  “I went in there slow. I was kind of holding my purse across my chest, don’t ask me why. I was kind of embarrassed, but there was nobody around. I was scared. It was all kind of weird and out of place.

  “The bathrooms in that building are laid out kind of funny. You go inside in kind of a little hall. Then you turn a corner, you turn right and it opens up into the usual thing—mirrors and sinks and stalls.

  “I heard water, and someone gasping, like they were coming up for air, and a woman—her voice was young and soft and she was like, crying. In a panic.

  “I remember she said ‘please’ and ‘the baby.’

  “So I didn’t think at that point, I just ran in.”

  The voice stopped and the tape ran in silence for a while.

  “This part I remember really well.” The voice had gone flat. “He was … he had her down on the floor, bent over the toilet, like she was being sick. But he was holding her head in the … in the toilet bowl. I saw it in the mirror first, the top of his head. She came up again, she was fighting him, gasping, and he got down on his knees, and pushed all his weight, one hand on the back of her head and one on the back of her neck.

  “She was a little thing. I couldn’t figure how she lasted like she did, because he was a big guy, and he looked strong. She was Oriental. She had black hair. At first I thought she was fat, but then I saw she was very pregnant.

  “And then he … I could see he was crying. So weird. I mean he really was crying. And he pushed down on her so hard, she just didn’t have a chance. She hit her mouth on the rim of the toilet. The seat was … the seat was up, I guess. And I saw blood spurt from her lip and go down the side of the toilet bowl. And he … he slid her head, her mouth off the rim, and shoved her head down in the water. And I think she must have swallowed a lot of water all of a sudden or passed out because you could see her just go limp.

  “And I yelled or screamed at him to stop. And he saw me. And he looked so, stunned, I guess. Tears running down his cheeks. And he kind of strained towards me. I think he was going to come after me, and she moved. At least I think she did, it happened fast, it was hard to tell. But he decided to keep her under, instead of coming after me. He kept her down, her head in that toilet.