Eyeshot (20 page)

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.

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.