“If it wasn’t for Collie I don’t know what would have happened. But thanks to her I see a lot of Mia and I love Collie like she was mine. I can’t imagine why a high-rolling son of a bitch like Gage married her. She’s too good for him. But it was a godsend for Mia, and for me and Grey.”
But Sonora knew exactly why Gage had married her. Vulnerable, unattractive—but intelligent, playful, fun. Strength of purpose just when you expected her to fold. A quality woman with a clown face.
This was one he could break, and control, and play with for a while.
44
In the best of all possible worlds, which this was not, the men would not have come back in until Sonora was ready to be interrupted. They did not head back into the living room, for which she was grateful, but settled in the kitchen. Sonora heard the refrigerator door open and close. The clink of ice in a glass.
“Can I get you something?” Dorrie Ainsley slid forward on the chaise lounge, but Sonora shook her head. “This little Jenny girl that came to see me. You say her name is Julia? Who was she, then? Was she one of Gage’s girlfriends?”
“No ma’am. She wasn’t one of Gage’s girlfriends.”
The refrigerator door slammed again, and Grey came in, followed by Sam, holding two glasses of lemonade.
“How about that?” Grey handed a glass to Sonora, and one to Dorrie. “You girls are doing an awful lot of talking. Probably need something to—” He looked at Sonora, face darkening to a dusky red. “Not supposed to call you girls, am I?”
Sonora smiled. “Ten points toward being politically incorrect.”
He gave Dorrie a second look, then turned to Sonora. “She’s been crying, so I guess you’re all filled in on the Gage and Micah situation.” He sat down on the edge of Dorrie’s chaise lounge. “We got no choice but to get along with the boy. No matter what we think happened. It isn’t an easy thing.”
“No,” Sam said.
“But it’s been a whole lot better since he married Collie.”
Not for Collie, Sonora thought.
Grey was nodding. “Over a hundred and ten percent. She makes it easy on us. She was scared to death to meet us, bless her heart. She and Gage come down to use the cabin, and no telling what he told her, but—”
“What cabin?” Sonora asked.
“We have a cabin down on Laurel Lake. It’s got a little dock, and we have a boat we take down there, to fish and swim. It’s real pretty out there. It was one of Micah’s favorite places. I think Gage and Collie get down there more than he and Micah did—Collie likes to bring Mia down. I pretty much give them free rein of the place. Dorrie and I just don’t get out there, and I get to see my granddaughter when Gage and Collie bring her down.”
“They’re supposed to come in the next couple of days,” Dorrie said. “They’re going to leave Mia with us and take the boat out, though dragging Collie out in this heat with her so pregnant seems the height of stupidity. But maybe that’s just me. I don’t like the heat.”
Sonora considered the cabin, thinking that if Caplan killed Julia Winchell in the rental car, like she thought, he’d have to have somewhere private to butcher the body.
“What time did Julia Winchell leave? That day she came down?”
Dorrie looked at Grey. “A little before one, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. She had a drive back, and she was anxious to hit the road.”
“And how far is it from here to Clinton?” Sam asked.
“No more than an hour, hour and a half.”
“You stay on I-75 to get there?” Sonora asked.
“Up until you get to the exit,” Dorrie said.
Sonora exchanged looks with Sam. He stood up.
“You folks mind if we take a look at that cabin?”
“Hell, no,” Grey said. “Take you out in the boat, too, if you want to go.”
45
The cabin was a good sixty feet from the lake, one of those vacation home packages, with a roof that slanted in a V and a wood deck wrapped all the way around. Sonora heard the waspy buzz of a boat engine, somewhere close on the water. There were other houses, close by and in sight, scattered at random in the trees, all with boat docks and trails to the lake.
Would Caplan have brought Julia Winchell here? Lots of people around, in the summer, lots of people to see.
But at night, with the body wrapped in plastic, he could have lugged her in under the trees. People were camping, fishing—who was to say he wasn’t lugging a sleeping bag or something for the boat?
Grey led them up onto the porch, engine running on the blue Chrysler LeBaron in an attempt to keep the interior cool for Dorrie, who had insisted on coming along. He seemed shy suddenly, shoulders stiff, wiping his feet on the deck for no particular reason.
He unlocked the front door and pushed it open, but did not go inside. “I best let you do your job. I’ll go keep Dorrie company in the car. Holler if you need something.”
Sonora smiled at him, relieved. It was inhibiting to search a house under the homeowner’s worried eye, and she was grateful Ainsley had the grace to go back to the car.
Sam nodded thanks and Sonora led the way.
It took a minute for their eyes to adjust, even with the lights switched on. All the windows had blinds and they were down and shut tight, like eyes that would not see. Sonora sniffed. Some odor here, familiar, but she could not place it.
“What’s that smell?”
“I don’t notice anything,” Sam said.
Sonora headed to the kitchen, sniffing again. Just a trace. She could not place it. A sort of clean chemical odor, and she knew it was common as eggs. What was it?
The cabin was immaculate. Living room carpet newly vacuumed, tread marks showing. None of the furniture was new, everything had the secondhand air of things that were pre-owned and serviceable. There were prints on the wall of farms in winter—the kind of thing that provided color for under twenty dollars.
Sonora checked the kitchen sink. Dry as a bone and gleaming. She opened the cabinet underneath. It was the usual lair, dark and scummy. A green cleaning bucket, an open canister of Comet—yellow top, so it had a lemon scent. Sonora sniffed it, frowned. Not the smell she’d noticed—too lemony. A sprinkle of the blue/yellow powder had spilled onto the bottom of the cabinet. Sonora opened the door wide. The cleaning supplies had been crammed in so tightly that a plastic squirt bottle of Windex had fallen sideways on top of the Endust and the Four Paws Pet Stain Remover. The can of Raid (Kills Bugs Dead) was laid sideways across a black box of ant traps.
But on the right-hand side was an empty spot, a blue dusting of Comet trailing across the circle of empty space. Sonora picked a yellow tab of cardboard off the pile of blue dust.
It had come from a box of garbage bags, Dairy Co-op House Brand, the large lawn and leaf size.
Julia Winchell’s head, hands, and feet had been tied in brown plastic bags, lawn and leaf size. Sonora wondered if they could match the roll.
“Find anything?” Sam said, sticking his head in the door.
Sonora rocked backward on her heels and lost her balance.
“Sorry, girl, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I meant to do that. No, really, my knees were tired.” She looked up. “Got your little penlight?”
“Yeah.”
“Shine it in here.”
“Sonora, if it’s something horrible will you just tell me first?”
“You never did get over the time they sent you into that dark room when you were a uniform and you screamed.”
“Damn right I screamed. Place was dark as an oven, and when I turn on the light there’s a body hanging from the ceiling fan? What would you do?”
“No body parts, Sam, come on, shine it in.”
He squatted down beside her, groaned when his knees cracked.
“Getting too old for this, Sam.”
“All ex-football players have bad knees. Even the young ones.”
“So you must have had yours
for years.”
The, light made bright circles in the dark recesses of the cabinet.
“Did you know that when you say ‘must’ve’ is sounds like ‘mustard’?”
“You know, Sam, you are the only person who tells me things like that. Thanks for being a friend.”
Sam squinted, looking inside the cabinet. “Is this doing anything for you? Because it’s not doing anything for me.”
“Okay, see that?”
“See what?”
He was close enough to kiss and he had that little smile that Sonora didn’t see very often, and the tone of voice he’d used to say “see what” was without a doubt flirty.
Her voice, worldly wise and jaded, came back to haunt her, and she had a mental image of herself, preaching to young Sanders, about how she had taken the cure and was henceforth no longer interested in married men.
She wondered if there was some universal force that got set in motion to make people eat crow when they made noble pronouncements.
“There, Sam. In the scum, by the Comet.”
“I … Sonora, I think it’s a clue.”
“Pull me the hell up off of this floor and I’ll explain it to you.” She held up her hands.
Sam stood up, bent over her. He still had that smile. “What will you give me, if I do?”
“Anything you want.”
“Yeah, I heard that about you.”
She shoved him out of her way. Wondered if he knew he’d just missed being kissed by an expert. “Okay, here’s the deal. See, under the sink, the clear spot? Something’s missing.”
“For one thing, there aren’t any sponges.”
“What?”
“No sponges, no cleaning rags. See, look in that bucket. Plastic gloves and a toilet brush. No sponges. Where are they? Because somebody’s gone over this place, and they had to use something.”
“Used the sponges to clean up something nasty, like blood and guts and bits of bone?”
“Eye of newt.” Sam lowered his voice. “So that’s the big clue, Sonora? Empty spot under the sink?”
“The big clue is a tab from a box of garbage bags that were bought in Cincinnati.”
“Lawn and Leaf? Brown? Like we found her in?”
Sonora nodded.
“Millions of them out there.”
“We need to find the box. Match the one we found to the roll.”
“Yeah, plus we need to find a murder weapon and walk on water. All in a day’s work.”
“Remind me to stick a gold star on your forehead.”
Sam looked at the carpet. “Okay, you think Caplan was up to no good, right here in the in-laws’ cabin. Let’s run with it. Where’s the vacuum cleaner? Might be interesting to burrow into the bag.”
“Being a cop means never having to say you’re normal. Let’s try the closet.”
“First one finds it buys lunch.”
Sonora headed toward the stairs that led to a loft. There was a closet in the pocket of space beneath. She put her hand on the knob, then looked at Sam over her shoulder.
“Wait a minute. First one finds it buys lunch?”
He grinned.
She opened the door and looked inside. “Extra blankets, a humongous jar of banana peppers.”
“Banana peppers? You liar.” He was there, looking over her shoulder. “Banana peppers. One of those things you buy at Sam’s Club when you start getting carried away.”
“But no vacuum cleaner.”
They checked upstairs. Found a loft bedroom that had a pine dresser with coloring books and crayons, and a little girl’s swimsuit hanging in a genuine cedar closet. A comfy red quilt was spread across a double bed, but no vacuum cleaner.
Sonora peered out through the bedroom window. The lake looked green and clean, shocks of sunlight bouncing off sedate ripples. It was a good deal cleaner than the Clinch River, where they’d found Julia Winchell’s remains.
Sonora wondered where the rest of her was. Were there arms and legs, discarded by the side of the road, awaiting discovery? Had they been carried away by animals?
Where was the torso?
“What you looking at?” Sam said.
“Boathouse, or toolshed. Some kind of thing.”
He looked over her shoulder through the blinds.
The toolshed was up the slope from the muddy edge of the water, about a hundred yards from a wood picnic table that bordered the tree line on the left side of the property. It was the kind of inexpensive storage shed you could buy at Sears and put together in an afternoon, the kind where you stored your lawn mower and grill.
Sam squinted. “Can’t tell from here, but looks like a combination lock on that door. I’m sure Grey will let us take a look. Think there might be a vacuum cleaner in there?”
“God knows. Make sure Grey doesn’t follow us down there.”
“I wasn’t planning to. Don’t backseat cop, Sonora.”
46
A fly buzzed Sonora’s head as she picked her way down the muddy path that led to the storage shed. She listened for the telltale hum of a swarm, but heard nothing out of the ordinary. A breeze blew in off the river.
No body parts, she decided, trying not to feel disappointed.
Sam was muttering. “Eight, twenty-six, four. Eight, twenty-six, four. Eight—”
“Why don’t you write it on the palm of your hand.”
“Hush.”
The door on the shed was bowed in so that Sonora could see the particleboard flooring—beige with an overlay of grime. Red rust flaked on the door hinges. Sam worked the combination lock, fingers thick and graceless. The lock clicked open. He glanced at Sonora over his shoulder.
“Drumroll right about now.”
“Ta da, Sam.”
The door stuck when he shoved it, but he put his shoulder into it and it slid out of the way, a metallic squeal heralding progress.
It was dark inside. Sonora smelled oil, dust, with lake water and mud overtones. No odor of sweat putridity, no swarm of flies or maggots, tattletales of gore. Sam had the large black Maglite, cop issue, and he held it high over his shoulder, as they’d been taught to do years ago.
There was a sawhorse on the right, dirty and faded beach towels hanging over one end, an old six horsepower boat engine mounted on the other side with a vise clamp. The engine looked dry and rusty, crud fouling the propeller. A dark spot on the floor beneath had dried raisin-black years ago.
“Oil,” Sam said, catching Sonora’s look.
A bottle of Clorox sat to one side of the sawhorse, snug to the right-hand side by the wall. A stack of inner tubes was piled in the left-hand corner, some of them partially inflated. Cecil the Sea Horse, a pair of pink water wings, an orange ring, a purple life vest that had seen better days, and a Mae West that looked like it had been run over with a truck. A red tube-shaped bicycle pump was hung on the left wall, along with a rack of tools. Back in the left corner, behind the vests and water toys, was a red upright Eureka.
Sonora pointed.
Sam grimaced. “If he did bring her here, that bag will be a gold mine. All it takes is some hair. Carpet fiber from the car. Blood traces.”
Sonora went in careful, on the lookout for spiders. “You can’t vacuum up bloodstains, Sam.”
She pulled rubber gloves on, studied the Eureka. POWERLINE was written down one side in black; 9.5 AMPS.
“Canisters work better than uprights when it comes to dust mites,” Sam said.
“When it comes to dust mites, I’ll call you.”
“They’re all around you, Sonora.”
“Vacuum cleaners?”
“Dust mites.”
It was hot and close in the shed. Sweat ran down Sonora’s back. She smelled hot metal. She was tired and annoyed. She was never at her best in the heat.
She popped the hard-shell front of the Eureka. “Yes.”
Sam squatted next to her. “I don’t know about you, girl, but I never thought I’d be this happy over the contents of a vacuum cl
eaner bag.”
“Face facts, Sam, it’s a glamorous job.”
Sam shone the light along the floor. “Look what else.”
“Toolbox!” It was black plastic, from Sears. Sonora bent down and flipped the latch. “What you want to bet there’s a hacksaw in there?”
“If there is, I’ll start believing in the Fairy Godmother Of Evidence.”
Sonora used a gloved finger to poke through socket wrenches, pliers, a hammer. She lifted the top tray and looked into the bottom of the box. She tilted her head to where she could see Sam.
“Bring the light over, and get ready to clap for Tinkerbell.”
“Why?”
“Hacksaw. Right here, in the bottom of the box.”
47
They took the toolbox outside to the picnic table to get a better look. Sonora squinted, tripping on the path. The sun was high and bright and it took a long minute for her eyes to adjust after the darkness of the storage shed. The picnic table was well shaded. It felt good to stand in the shade and feel the breeze coming up off the water.
Sam laid the top tray to one side. Picked up the hacksaw with a gloved right hand. His left was bare.
“Why are you wearing one glove?” Sonora asked.
“Don’t need but one.”
A boat went by on the lake—the boat looked as if it had been painted with blue glitter and it looked new. The man driving wore a red life vest and white swim trunks. He waved at Sonora. Even as far away as she was from the water’s edge, Sonora could see he was very tan.
Her girlfriends were always complaining that they did not know where the men were. Maybe they were all at the lake.
Sam held up the hacksaw. “This thing looks new, it’s so clean.”
“Paint’s cracked all along the handle. Sam, it’s not new.”
“Most of these tools are a sorry mess. Look at the claw end of the hammer.”
Sonora looked. Dried mud and a tangle of grass were caught between the two metal prongs. She thought about what Caplan might have cleaned the hacksaw with, remembered the Clorox bottle in the tool shed, the smell in the cabin kitchen.
Eyeshot Page 18