Eyeshot

by Lynn Hightower

  She’d seen janitors with better accommodations.

  The drawers in the filing cabinet had not been closed in years—much too full. Boxes of papers and forms and computer printouts were stacked chest-high in every corner, and the folders on top of the file cabinet were an exercise in balance.

  A round metal trash can had been turned upside down so the security guard, P. Fletcher Hall, could use it as a footstool. Sonora wondered where they threw trash. Although it was possible, looking around the tiny office, that they kept it.

  “That clock keep good time?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah,” Hall said, attention on the cabinet he was searching.

  Sam grinned at Sonora. The clock was missing a minute hand.

  The guard nodded his head. “Yep. Here it is. Thought he’d have it. Lieutenant don’t throw nothing away.” He read it first, while they waited, which irritated Sonora, then handed it across to Sam, which annoyed her again.

  He seemed amused, mouth set smugly. “The girl was clearly a nutcase, unless it was one of those sorority things. She causing trouble?”

  Sonora looked up. “That what the guy said in the report? Nutcase?”

  Sam leaned over and showed her the acorn that had been drawn in the top right-hand corner of the form.

  The call had been logged at 10:48 P.M. According to the security guard, Marsh, he’d been standing on the top of the concrete bridge that led from the fifth floor of the Braunstein Building, taking advantage from the let-up in rain for a smoke break, when a young woman who was later identified as Julia Hardin of Clinton, Tennessee, and a student at UC, had come tearing out of the fourth floor exit in a condition described as hysterical.

  Marsh had watched her, alarmed. She was clearly in a panic, screaming for help. He had been about to call out when she spotted him. It was dark, but the embers of his cigarette were glowing, and there was light spillage from building security lights. She had run in circles for a moment, trying to find the outside staircase that led to the bridge, and was out of breath by the time she made it up.

  Sonora knew who not to call in an emergency.

  Marsh had clearly been suspicious of drug-induced hysteria. He had spent some time describing her physical appearance, including bloodshot eyes, and respiratory distress with a cough and a runny nose.

  She had been crying and nearly incoherent. She had told him that a pregnant woman was being murdered in the women’s bathroom on the third floor.

  She had specified the third floor, which, in addition to her appearance, had put him on guard. The third floor was a parking structure.

  He led her back into the building and took the elevator to the third floor. When the elevator opened onto the parking structure, she had become hysterical, and in order to placate her, they had searched all of the women’s bathrooms, working from the top down.

  Nothing out of the ordinary was found.

  She had settled on the fourth floor as where the alleged murder occurred, convinced by the presence of the Resource Room/Multimedia Lab and the mannequins in the fashion design classroom. But there had been nothing to see in the bathroom. No blood. A little water on the floor, but that could easily have been caused by a toilet overflowing.

  He had questioned her carefully on drug use, but other than saying she had taken Contac for a sinus headache, she swore she was clean.

  He had suggested taking her to a hospital emergency room, and at that point she had given up, except for insisting on an escort back to her dorm.

  Sonora shook her head. No wonder Julia Winchell had never forgotten.

  “Marsh still work here?” she asked.

  “Dead two years ago, over Thanksgiving. Pancreatic cancer.”

  “We take this, or get a copy?” Sam asked.

  “I guess I better make you a copy,” Hall said. “Believe it or not, I let that out of here, lieutenant will know somehow it’s gone.”

  Sonora took a last look at the office before she walked out, grateful that there were one or two places left in the bureaucracy that had not been computerized for efficiency. They’d never have found it otherwise.

  57

  Sam’s pager went off while they were in the student center, looking for a place to pick up a sandwich. He headed to the bank of phones near the stairwell.

  It was quiet inside, dark and cool. The lunch hour was long over and the fast food outlets were dark, locked behind metal grills. Midsummer, hot as hell in the late afternoon, very little activity.

  Sam was making notes. Sonora sat on a bench and crossed her legs. Her jeans were getting looser. Had the weight-loss fairy finally come?

  Sam hung the phone up, and sat down beside her on the bench, flipping open his notebook. “That was the maintenance supervisor, returning our call. Here’s what we got. Braunstein Building stays open and unlocked twenty-four hours a day, people in and out at all hours. Classrooms, offices, and labs for biology, chemistry, fashion design, genetics, and biochemistry.”

  Sonora tapped the bench. “Sam, it’s all falling into place.”

  “Just because the building’s unlocked twenty-four hours a day doesn’t prove he did it. If you think I’m going back into Crick’s office with anything less than solid, you think again.”

  “All I’m saying is it shows opportunity. So far, so good.”

  “May as well forget lunch, everything’s closed down. Let’s have at it.” He flipped his notebook shut, stuck it in his pocket. “They got maps at the information counter.”

  The campus could not have been called crowded. The occasional students wore loose shorts, sandals, backpacks hanging off their shoulders. A few suits here and there—administrative types. No one else dressed like that in the heat. A background cacophony of jackhammers and beeping machinery kept a film of grit in the air. Construction workers in yellow hard hats were grimy with heat and sunburn.

  Sam studied his map, stopped in front of the ground floor entrance to the Braunstein Building. A truck pulled up. Sonora saw Sam’s mouth move. She waited till the truck, brakes squeaking, lumbered away.

  “What’d you say?”

  “I said she probably came in right here.”

  Sonora pointed. “Concrete bridge, right up there. Probably where she saw the security guard.” Sonora tried to imagine the place at night, in the rain. “You really think she saw him in the dark?”

  Sam scratched his chin, stepped off the curb, looked around. “Yeah, probably. There’d be lights on. She might even have noticed him as she went in. I’ll buy it. Come on, let’s find us some air-conditioning.”

  The double glass doors led into a foyer, dark tile, staircase to the left, and a drink machine glowing DIET PEPSI in the right-hand corner. Sam opened the metal doors on the right, like he knew what he was doing.

  “I think we should go left,” Sonora said.

  “Are you serious? Go right, come on.”

  The metal doors slammed behind them, making an echo, like prison. The walls were beige, concrete block. Ugly mustard-yellow doors led into the FRESHMAN RESOURCE ROOM & MICROCOMPUTER LAB.

  “See that?”

  Sonora looked inside. Bookshelves, tables, plastic chairs. Study carrels, and to the left a computer lab. The room smelled old.

  “It’s where she left her purse,” Sonora said. “I’ve got the weirdest feeling. Like she’s right here beside us.”

  “It’s the heat, girl. Fried your brain. Do us both a favor and don’t mention things like that to Crick.”

  A girl in a study carrel looked up. Sonora and Sam ignored her. Police business. They left the lab and moved back into the hallway.

  A door squeaked loudly and boomed shut, making what Sonora knew her son would call reverb. Their footsteps were loud. Sonora’s Reeboks squeaked. The hall had a yellowed look, linoleum buffed over a heavy wax buildup. Big round clocks stuck out from the wall, like in elementary schools and hospital rooms. The minute hands jerked with the pulse of every second. The lighting, fluorescent and harsh, spilled squares of re
flected light on the overwaxed floor.

  Sam stopped at the floor directory, studied it for a minute, went left down the corridor. Voices echoed, Sonora could not place where. She imagined Julia Winchell, coming into the building from the dark, rain-swept campus. She would be drenched, her feet wet, sandals squeaking like Sonora’s tennis shoes. She would pass the glowing drink machine, the metal doors would clang behind her, and she would stand, worried, in front of the resource room.

  Her purse would be sitting on a desk, right where she had left it. She would take a minute and look inside—checking for the fifty dollars and the earrings from her sister. And they’d be there. She’d be relieved and happy. She would think that her ordeal was over.

  “Here,” Sam said. “Four-thirty-two. Micah Caplan’s office. Her old office.”

  It belonged to somebody named Harry now. There was a cartoon on the door—an alligator, with the caption, “Trust me, I’m the boss.” The paper was dirty and curling at the edges. Sonora wondered if it had been there eight years ago. She wondered if Micah had put it up.

  She took two more steps, then stopped. “Sam, what floor are we on? I thought we were on the fourth floor.”

  “We are.”

  “Then how come that little black door has a three on it?”

  He walked back toward her. Looked at the opposite wall. “You mean this?”

  “How many other little black doors do you see?”

  “It’s a dumbwaiter.”

  “No kidding. It’s still got a three over top, why is that?”

  “You’re worse than my kid, I don’t know everything.”

  “Yeah, but wouldn’t you think, if you saw a three over a door, that you were on the third floor? This is where she got confused. This is why Julia Winchell thought she was on the third floor.”

  “Don’t go overboard, Sonora, it’s not going to buy us a warrant.”

  “It’s indicative, Sam.”

  “That I’ll give you.”

  “Right before Julia heads into the ladies room and descends into hell, she sees this little black door with a three over it. Which explains why later, when she went for the security guard, she told him she was on the third floor.”

  “Which buys Caplan time to make off with the body. Another thing we’re going to have to figure out.” He headed back down the hallway. “Women’s rest room, Sonora. The scene of the alleged crime.”

  Sonora stood outside the door. She was aware of a metallic background hum, as if they were close to a physical plant. Display cases lined the right-hand side of the wall, with printouts and faculty lists mounted under glass.

  She wondered how it had sounded, the noises coming from the bathroom that night eight years ago. It was an odd, echoey building. People far away sounded close. You could hear voices and doors closing, and still not see a soul.

  What had it been like for Julia Winchell, alone, or nearly alone. Hearing the splash, the choking noises. Having the courage to open the door.

  “Sonora?”

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  He pointed to the blocky black outline of a stick figure in a skirt, denoting female. “I think, seeing how this is the ladies room, maybe you better go in first by yourself, make sure there isn’t anybody else there.”

  Sonora leaned sideways against the bathroom door and pushed. Behind her, someone came out of a doorway. She caught the dark silhouette out of the corner of her eye, before whoever it was turned a corner and was gone. The bathroom door creaked, and she went in.

  “Loud door. Why didn’t Caplan hear her?”

  “Think what he’s doing, Sonora. Micah’s making a lot of noise. He’s involved. Crying, if Julia Winchell didn’t make that up.”

  “You think he didn’t know a thing till he looked up, then voila, there’s Julia? Watching and witnessing?”

  “Celebrate the moments of your life.”

  The first thing Sonora saw walking into the bathroom was the opposite wall. Julia Winchell must have found that disconcerting. Yellow tile wall, mustard-brown linoleum. Then you veered right, and there were the sinks and soap dispensers on the right-hand side, a row of mirrors, opposite a line of individual stalls.

  A towel dispenser and inset trash can were on the far wall. All stall doors were open, all cubicles empty. Sonora opened the door and looked at Sam.

  “The coast is clear, come on in and adjust your panty hose.”

  “I could probably get arrested for this,” Sam muttered.

  “I promise to swear I don’t know you.”

  They stood side by side, staring into the cubicles, as if there was something to see.

  “I wonder which one it was,” Sam said.

  “Which what?”

  “Stall.”

  “That one,” Sonora said, pointing to the one second from the left.

  “Why that one?”

  She shrugged.

  Sam turned and faced the mirrors. “She saw it there first.”

  “The reflection? Probably. Saw something, and turned and looked.”

  The bathroom door opened. A girl in plaid shorts and chunky shoes came in, arms bare and sunburned. She stopped suddenly, looked up at Sam.

  “It’s opposite day, right?”

  Sam and Sonora scooted out.

  Sam took a deep breath once they were in the hallway. “What is opposite day, anyway?”

  “Pay attention, Sam. We got Julia Winchell running screaming out of the bathroom. She goes … this away, maybe?” Sonora headed to the right. The corridor ended in T. Green swing doors, one propped open, which led into a large lab-type classroom. Clustered next to the door were three dress forms and two mannequins, hanging on a wall by the door.

  Sam stopped. “Look at that.”

  “Didn’t she say something—what was it? She thought she saw people, but it turned out to be mannequins?”

  “Everything’s clocking.”

  “God, Sam, can you imagine? She sees Caplan in the bathroom, drowning Micah, she runs screaming for help, thinks she sees people, comes full tilt in here and gets … this. No people. She must have had nightmares for years.”

  “Let’s go back to the bad guy,” Sam said. “What’s Caplan do with the body?”

  “He knows the cavalry’s coming and he’s got to move fast.”

  “There’s a lot of doors, up and down the hallway. He could have gone in any one of them.”

  “At night, Sam? Lot of them will be locked.”

  “The mannequin room isn’t locked.”

  “Think he brought her in here?”

  Sam wandered in, and Sonora followed. He pointed. “Right there. Big black trash barrels. Could have put her in one of those, temporarily. Mail cart right there, could have slid her right on in.” He stepped into the hallway. “Dumbwaiter is right down the hall. Could have loaded her onto that.”

  “Suppose someone was at the other end?”

  “He’s moving fast, now, Sonora, taking risks. How about these lockers.” He stepped out into the hallway, “Think he could have fit her in one of those?”

  The lockers were painted army green. A few had combination locks on them, most didn’t. “Full length. Looks possible.”

  Sam opened the locker that was second from the end. “Get in. She was littler than you are.”

  “Hey. She was pregnant.”

  “Except for that.”

  Sonora ducked and scooted in. “Easy fit, actually.”

  “There must be fifty ways to store this body.”

  “So he stashes the body, then waits till Julia and the security guy leave. Maybe waited a couple hours till everything is dead quiet. She was a little bitty thing. He could have rolled her out in the mail cart. I wonder if he planned to leave her here in the building, his original plan, before he got discovered, or if he’d planned that business at the creek all along.”

  “We’ll never know,” Sam said.

  “Unless he tells us.” Sonora chewed a thumbnail. “If that guy, Marsh, had made a b
etter search, they’d have found her that night.”

  “Sonora, look at it from his point of view. Co-ed comes running out and says there’s a murder going on in the women’s bathroom on the third floor, which just so happens to be a parking lot.”

  “People get confused.”

  “He looked in every bathroom. There was still nothing there.”

  “Let’s take a look at that parking garage.”

  They headed down the hallway, found the elevator. Sam ushered Sonora in, pushed the button for three. Sonora leaned against the wall, thinking about Julia Winchell, pressed against this very wall, trying to catch her breath, trying to get back in time.

  The elevator door opened into a dark cavern of asphalt and noise. The brash sound of a car horn floated in with the smell of oil and gasoline fumes. Sam walked out into the parking lot, looked around, then came back.

  “So he doesn’t have to haul her body out the front door. He can come down the elevator and put her right into the car. Mighty damn convenient.”

  “Hey, Sam.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s one other place he could have hid her.”

  “What?”

  “He could have hung her up, with the rest of the mannequins.”

  “You’re a sick puppy, Sonora.”

  “So is he.”

  58

  Sonora was on the phone with Heather when she heard Sam tell her that Gruber wanted them. She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Just one second, okay, Sam?

  “Yes, I promise to read the whole magazine article, but I’m telling you, Heather, it’s a come-on. We can’t get rich raising chinchillas and the smell is—” Sonora paused. “Heather, listen. You don’t worry about the Visa bill. Mom takes care of that. We are not going to raise chinchillas.” Sonora hung up the phone. “You seen Gruber?”

  “Last I saw he was headed into the women’s bathroom.”

  “Must still be opposite day. Let’s see what he knows about those soil samples on the Bobo killer’s shoe.”

  Sonora and Sam found him washing his hands. He grinned at Sonora as they came through the door.