She rubbed herself on him, gently up and down, and he made a noise that let her know she had his undivided attention.
He felt good. God, he felt good.
She lowered herself ever so slowly until he took her shoulders and pushed.
They both sighed.
He wrapped his arms tightly around her back, pulling her in close and hard, and something about the position made him hit her in just the exact right place.
She thought she might not get rid of this couch after all.
He kissed her while he made love to her and she liked that very much. She came quickly and hard, Smallwood right behind her, gentlemanly, as always.
40
Sonora woke up suddenly, feeling like she couldn’t breathe. Her left foot and arm were numb. She was still on the couch, and Smallwood had her encircled in a tight grip. She knew she was breathing, but did not feel she was getting enough oxygen. She felt hot.
It was a feeling she remembered from years ago, sliding down that long icy slope toward divorce, only Zack had died before they’d gotten to the courtroom.
Panic attack. Smallwood. Not a good sign. What on earth had possessed her to wind up on the couch like this?
Sex, she guessed. That old thing.
It was heavy dark out, probably around two or three. She had taken her watch off, so she wasn’t sure.
She missed Keaton. She missed how familiar he was, and comfortable, and right.
She wanted a long hot bubble bath and her very own bed, all to herself. Mainly she wanted to be able to breathe. The first thing she needed to do was get out of this death grip.
She moved Smallwood’s arm slowly, and when that didn’t work, shoved and got up. He stirred. She went into the bathroom. Decided it was best not to turn on the light and look. She brushed her teeth, splashed water on her face. It helped a little but not a lot.
She looked into the mirror, saw the outline of her face in the dark. That’s what you get when you bring a man home and move too fast. Trapped.
Now what?
She headed back toward the kitchen, saw Smallwood standing in the hallway. He smiled sleepily and pulled her into a hug. She hugged back politely, but she wanted him to leave. He muttered something, headed into the bathroom, and she went into the kitchen thinking sex was one level and intimacy was another, and maybe things worked better when you were ready for both at the same time.
The light over the sink had gone out. She opened the refrigerator, reached for one of the emergency cans of Coke she had hidden in the vegetable crisper. She put one on the counter for Smallwood. Rubbed her forehead. Wondered how long he planned to stay. Wondered why it was up to him.
Maybe Sam’s Southernness was wearing off on her and she was getting too polite.
She did not particularly want to think about Sam right now. He violated the three rules of successful singlehood—don’t sleep with married men, your coworkers, or your friends. She wondered who she was supposed to sleep with.
If Smallwood said anything to anyone about what had happened between them, she would deny the hell out of it. Then she would kill him.
She noticed a shadow in the doorway and looked up.
He had not bothered to put on any clothes.
She held up the Coke. “This or beer?”
She handed him the Coke before he answered. No more beer, she wanted him to drive. He took the Coke, but didn’t open it.
“I’m not an insecure man, so there’s no way I’m asking how it was.”
Sonora wished he would not make her laugh. It made her like him too much. “Oh baby, oh baby, I want you. Feel better now?”
“It’ll do.” He scratched his stomach absently.
She wondered if she knew him well enough for him to be scratching his stomach in her kitchen. Ridiculous. She’d just slept with the man.
“You have a nice comfortable bed somewhere, or are we stuck on the couch?”
She wondered why he expected to stay all night. And why she was difficult enough to object. Somewhere, someone must have written rules about this, and she wished she had a copy. First encounters entitle both parties to fifteen minutes in the host’s bathroom, and twenty minutes of postcoital small talk is considered polite. Anything else is pushing it.
She knew she was being a pig. In the movies, they always woke up together in the morning, unless the man snuck out and left the woman a note. It had always seemed callous on the man’s part, but she began to see the point.
If he was expecting omelets and fresh-squeezed orange juice, he was going to be disappointed. There was nothing in the house but Lucky Charms.
She would never have had this problem if this had been Sam. She pictured him suddenly, reading Green Eggs and Ham to Julia Winchell’s babies.
Focus, she told herself. Think fast.
Sonora frowned at Smallwood. “Sorry if the phone woke you up.”
“The phone?”
“Yeah, that’s what got me up, but I was hoping you’d sleep through it.”
“Something up?”
Sonora sighed. “Heather, again.”
“Your little girl? She okay?”
“Oh, she’s fine, she’s just missing Mommy. She does this. Says she wants to spend the night, then I get these”—she glanced at the clock on the stove—“these three A.M. phone calls and she’s homesick for Mommy.” She made a silent apology to Heather, who generally tramped off to overnights without a backward glance for anyone except Clampett.
“You need to go pick her up?”
Sonora ran her hands through her hair. “I don’t know. Usually I just go over and get her, but maybe it’s time she outgrew this kind of thing.”
Smallwood put the Coke back on the counter. “Don’t do it on my account. Maybe you better go on and get her.”
“But what are you going to do? Did you get a hotel room?”
“Nah, I was just going to drive on back.”
The hell you were, she thought. She had felt guilty about throwing him out. Now she felt better.
She followed him into the living room, watched him put on his clothes. He smiled at her while he pulled his pants up, gave her a quick kiss and fastened up his jeans. Now that he was leaving she was a little bit sorry to see him go. He was very cute.
“It’s a long drive,” Sonora said. Not that she gave a shit.
“Hell, I do it all the time. I’ve had a good sleep, I’m fine.”
“Well,” she said. “If you’re sure.”
Sonora took a long hot bubble bath (pineapple and mango), then curled up into a tiny ball beneath her favorite blue quilt. It felt so good to have the bed to herself that she let Clampett up to share it.
But she could not sleep. When she closed her eyes, she saw Keaton, and wondered if she would ever feel that way about anyone again.
Clampett scratched frantically. He looked at Sonora and gave a mournful whimper.
Flea bath, she thought, visions of flea bombs and daily vacuuming dancing in her head. Bad idea, letting him up on the bed.
She patted his head, rubbed a silky ear. “Let me bring Caplan down, okay, Clampett? Then I’ll take care of you.”
She spent the rest of the night curled up with autopsy reports. Cop glamour.
41
Sonora arranged to meet Sam, early, at Baba’s. Heather had forgotten her stuffed penguin and Sonora had promised to drop it by. And they could catch the sixty-four exit about five minutes from her motherin-law’s street.
No one was awake at Baba’s, so Sonora left the penguin on the kitchen table, locked the front door on her way out. Sam was waiting for her in the circle driveway, leaning up against their official Taurus, arms folded. He looked like he’d just stepped out of the shower, fresh shaved, cheeks still pink. It was already getting hot out. His sleeves were rolled up. White cotton shirt, khaki pants.
“No tie?” Sonora asked.
“It’s in the car. You tied yours wrong.”
“Please. No criticism before coffee.”
“Ooou, it’s cranky this morning. When did you get to bed last night?”
Sonora gave him a second look. She had not mentioned dinner with Smallwood. “I was up all night with autopsy reports. Julia and Micah. Tell me why the district attorney didn’t indict, when Micah died.”
“They don’t usually go after the grieving husband unless they’ve got a pretty sure thing. And his family has money, I think.”
“I’ve gotten death penalty convictions on less stuff than they had him on. I mean, Sam, she had skin frags under her nails. And he said she scratched his back during sex? Her body is found by the creek, and she’s supposed to have drowned there, but there’s no creek water in her lungs? That makes sense?”
“It may not make sense, but it doesn’t convict Caplan.”
“He’s got no alibi during the time of the killing. He had scratches, which he said were from hiking. I saw the shots they took of his arms and those scratches looked fresh.”
“Sonora. His wife was seven months pregnant with his child. She was held under water in a creek on a rainy night. You going to convince a jury a man’s going to pull something that vicious, you better have it sewed up tight. He’s not just killing the wife, he’s killing the baby. And don’t forget that little overnight case she had in the backseat of the car.”
“Yeah, Collie, his other wife, she brought that up. Like at seven months pregnant, Micah is having a thing.”
Sam put on his turn indicator. Pulled into the parking lot of a McDonald’s, went for the drive-up window. “You hungry?”
Sam ordered an Egg McMuffin and coffee. He looked at Sonora. “What’ll it be?”
“Three hash browns, and a large coffee with cream.”
Sam made her wait till they were on the interstate and down one hash brown before he swallowed a large bite of Egg McMuffin and cleared his throat to talk.
“The overnight case made it look bad, Sonora.”
“She was seven months pregnant. At the end of the day with her feet swollen double you think she’s off to meet a lover? You think Caplan didn’t pack the damn thing himself and stick it in the backseat?”
“Yeah, actually, I do. And I also think we’re going to catch six kinds of hell going after him. And I think he’ll be hard as hell to convict. You haven’t been into the office this morning, but I have.”
“What do you mean?”
“On your desk, and mine. A thousand and one little messages. Inquiries from everybody who is living and breathing in the DA’s office. Some of them I thought quit years ago.”
“What do they want? Are they threats?”
“Threats? Get real. Of course not. Just requests for information, cooperation, copies of this, that, and the other. Pain in the ass make-work on every case you and I ever touched, and some that we didn’t.”
“That’s good, Sam. We’re getting to him.”
He didn’t answer.
“Sam? You want to back off?”
“Hell, no. Let’s fuck up our careers and go after the bastard.”
42
It was a little after 11 A.M. when they took the second London exit and headed left down a two-lane country road that led them past a tiny, whitewashed Baptist church. The highway had been a wagon train of cars from Ohio, towing boats. They’d passed two exit signs for Laurel Lake, Holly Bay Marina.
“Drop the other shoe,” Sam said to Sonora.
“No, no, that last rest stop should hold me for a while.”
“Maybe twenty minutes. I mean the sign. I’m waiting for your nasty remark.”
“The Dog Patch Trading Center? I figured they had one in every Kentucky town.”
Sam put his right turn indicator on, moved the Taurus out of the intersection. It was a narrow road, a lot of twists and turns, nobody doing less than fifty. Sam was in his element. He had a smile on his face. The closest he ever got to looking angelic.
A car towing a houseboat passed slowly, crowding them close to the edge of the road.
“Why is it all these people with boats come down from Ohio,” Sonora said. “We got lakes in Ohio. We got rivers in Ohio.”
“We got laws in Ohio.”
They passed farmland. A tractor parked at the crest of a hill.
“I don’t get that,” Sonora said.
“Boating laws in Kentucky are about as common as unicorns and what they have they don’t enforce. You can come down here, drink till you can’t stand up, and drive like a maniac through the water.”
“You kidding?”
“Absolutely not. Hell of a lot of fun.”
“What about the tractor?”
He looked at her. “What tractor?”
“The one we passed. Why did they leave it at the top of the hill? Seems like one push, and—”
“We’re here, Sonora.” Sam pulled the car up, parallel to the yard. There was no curb between the lawn and the street. Sonora opened her door and got out.
The house was a freshly whitewashed wood frame nestled on a large corner lot. A white picket fence surrounded the backyard, and on every tenth picket rested a wooden bluebird, sporting a lush red beak.
Sonora wondered how they had nailed the bluebirds up there. As she got closer, she saw that each bird wore a little tiny vest that she thought might be called a weskit, and each had a different facial expression, more human than birdlike.
There were flowers everywhere, herded neatly into beds that were bordered by landscape timbers. There was a birdbath in the front yard and a bird feeder by the driveway.
The metal storm door had dents in the middle and wasn’t hanging true, but the front door looked like it had been painted a deep crimson just last week. A heart-shaped door knocker, made of wood, said WELCOME.
The man who came to the door had a big smile, and a large hearing aid clipped behind his right ear. His brow was wrinkled, in spite of the smile, and Sonora decided he was worried.
People tended to look worried when the police came to their door.
“I’m Detective Blair, this is my partner, Detective Delarosa.” Sonora showed her ID. “I talked to Mrs. Ainsley a few days ago about coming down?”
The man nodded and opened the door, offered his hand. “I’m Grey Ainsley. Come on inside.”
The house was cool, windows thickly covered, but all the lights were on and it was cheery. The carpet was thick and new, covered with a multitude of bright area rugs. Grey Ainsley led them to a couch and invited them to sit.
“I’ll go and get Dorrie—it’s supposed to be Dorothy, but nobody gets away with calling her Dorothy or Dot.”
“I hear you Grey, I’m coming in. This isn’t Buckingham Palace. I don’t have to be announced.”
Grey exchanged looks with Sam, who grinned, and Sonora saw a quick kindling of the mysterious thing called male rapport. Too bad she could not send them out to play.
Dorrie Ainsley had a small girl candy voice, midregister and soft. She was short, and she walked slowly, leaning on a cane and taking Grey’s elbow gratefully.
“Let me put you in your chair,” Grey said, settling her into a white brocade chaise lounge.
Sonora looked around the room for pictures. A large shot of Collie hung on the wall next to one of Mia and Micah sitting on a pink ruffled bed with a huge stuffed alligator. Sonora made a count. Four of the granddaughter, two with Micah, and one of Collie. None of the son-in-law. Interesting.
“Excuse me for stretching out like this.” Dorrie winced as she settled back on the chaise. “I have terrible knees—degenerative arthritis.”
“She can barely walk. She needs to get those joints replaced.”
“I think I’d like to give them a little more time for research. I want them to get it right.”
“They do a wonderful job with hips,” Grey said.
“Hips aren’t knees.”
Sonora noticed lines of pain on the woman’s face. Likely she’d given the matter plenty of thought.
Sam was looking around the room.
/> “Enough knickknacks in here to start a store,” Grey said. “Dorrie makes them. She paints.”
“Did you do the bluebirds on the fence?” Sonora asked.
It was the right thing to say.
Dorrie’s smile got big and Grey leaned forward. “Did you notice their faces at all?”
“Oh, honey, she couldn’t see something like that from the street.”
“But I did,” Sonora said. “They had people faces.”
Grey laughed and slapped his knee. “Painted one for everybody in the family. Kids, grandkids.”
“Do you have one for Mia?” Sam asked.
Grey was nodding. “Mia, Micah, and Collie. We’ve just about adopted that Collie.”
It was a conversation stopper. Grey fiddled with his hearing aid. Dorrie leaned forward.
“Let me get you something. A cup of coffee or some lemonade?”
“No thanks,” Sonora said. Sam shook his head.
“We’re investigating the homicide of a woman named Julia Winchell,” Sonora said.
The Ainsleys were politely attentive, guarded.
“According to phone records from her hotel room up in Cincinnati, she called your house a day or two before she disappeared. We’re pretty sure she was down here.” Sonora did not explain about the credit card receipts. Either Julia Winchell was here, or someone used her card.
Grey was shaking his head. “Name’s just not familiar. I don’t think we know her.”
Sonora took a picture out of the maroon vinyl briefcase that her children had saved up and bought for her birthday two years ago. She passed the picture across the coffee table, around the potpourri.
“It’s Micah’s friend.” Dorrie had a stricken look. Her voice, soft at the best of times, went so quiet that Sonora barely heard her.
“She was here?” Sam asked.
Dorrie nodded. Grey’s hand went to hers, and she squeezed it. He moved his chair closer to hers.
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