Eyeshot (35 page)

The camera took them up the metal steps, three of them, Sonora counted. Started with the car where Sonora and Sam had found Collie.

Caplan had given that car the VIP treatment, though Sonora hadn't noticed until she'd seen the tape for the first time. It was clean inside, no broken windows, no trash. A lamp from home, two comfortable chairs, a CD player.

The camera zoomed in on the brown-faced man, kicked into a corner. His hat had come off, revealing the tied-off opening at the top of his head. The courtroom went silent and tense. People watched and waited.

Everyone had been warned.

Sonora saw herself, just a flash, as she walked away from the camera. She looked hot on film, cheeks flushed, hair drenched with sweat. The camera caught a look of concentration on her face that could have been mistaken for anger.

Sweat lightly coated the palms of her hands. They were getting close. The camera would pan the overturned chair, the plastic bag Sam had ripped away from Collie Caplan's face. She waited for the close-up of the ropes, hanging loose from the back of the chair, severed clean by Sam's pocketknife.

A woman sobbed, then choked it back. Sonora turned and looked, like everyone else. Liza Hardin was leaning forward in her chair, one arm wrapped around her middle as if her stomach hurt, the other entwined with Butch Winchell's elbow. They edged closer together, holding hands.

The camera moved into the next railroad car, caught a state police crime scene technician bending over the deep sink that Caplan had put in one corner. The technician looked up at the camera. He wore a jumpsuit and thick latex gloves with dark stains that were clearly blood. He stepped backward and out of the way, motioning the camera closer with the bloodstained gloves.

Caplan had no running water, just jugs of High Bridge Springs Mountain water, stacked in a corner, so the sink was never properly cleaned.

The camera lingered over a clog in the drain. Hair and bone fragments, Sonora knew, glad that Liza Hardin and Butch Winchell could only see an innocuous wad. She could not help what they might be imagining.

The camera pulled back, taking a wide view of three mannequins—two of them dressed with care and a certain expense. Wigs, shoes, makeup. One of the mannequins had short black hair and wore a skirt and a tiny pink sweater with pearl buttons that Dorrie Ainsley had positively identified as belonging to her daughter, Micah. The other had a long dark wig and wore khaki pants and a sleeveless denim shirt, thought to be the clothes Julia Winchell disappeared in. The other mannequin had not been dressed. It stood next to the others, bare and faceless.

The forensic psychologist had thought it was interesting that none of the mannequins had been made up to look pregnant.

Sonora saw a flash of movement, looked back over her shoulder. Jeff Barber was bailing out, the dark-haired girl at his heels.

She studied the jury. A woman in a black power suit looked from the screen to Caplan. He smiled at her and she looked away. The rest of them stared straight ahead. Most sat quietly in their seats. One shredded a tissue in her lap.

The camera was on the move again, swinging left to right across a table that was covered in plastic, focusing on a brand new Craftsman hacksaw that sat in the center of the table, price tag still on the handle. The camera did a swift pan, lingering a moment, as per Sonora's own instructions, on an open box of lawn and garden garbage bags that had been placed under the table. Terry had matched the garbage bag dredged up out of the Clinch River with the roll of bags in the box.

The camera veered upward suddenly, when the operator tripped, and everyone got an unexpected view of the cobwebs in the ceiling of the railroad car. The screen went fuzzy. Gradually the image sharpened as the focus was readjusted.

Gage Caplan had treated himself to a brand new Kenmore deep freeze.

It was white. The lid was up. Water had made drip marks down the front, and there were smudges under the lip, in the center.

The camera zoomed in for a tight shot.

There was ice, bags and bags of it, lumped around the nude torso of a woman—positively identified as Julia Winchell. One slim arm, unattached and separately wrapped in clear plastic, lay beside the swell of frozen hip on the torso's left side, as if Caplan had not been able to part with it at the last minute.

Liza Hardin wailed and Sonora bowed her head.

73

The judge had called a recess, the jury excused. The press, excluded from the courtroom, waited in a thick writhing mass on the courthouse steps. Sonora headed for the basement niche she and Sam had discovered years ago. Not pretty, but peaceful.

They were talking death penalty. They had done it before in Cincinnati. They would do it again.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and a force propelling her away from the crowd toward a deserted hallway.

“Molliter? What the hell do you think you're doing? Let go of my arm. I've got a gun, I won't hesitate to shoot.”

“You did not get a gun past the metal detector, and even if you did, I've seen you at the shooting range, Sonora, and I'm not worried right here at point blank range.”

He had a tight grip and it hurt. She dug in her heels and pushed him away. “What are you going to do? Handcuff me in the men's room?”

“I've had enough bathroom conferences to last me a while, thanks just the same.”

She tried not to laugh. It was hard to hate someone when they made you laugh.

“Look, just walk up this hallway with me, okay? Nobody up there, and we can be private. I want to talk to you a minute. Come on, Sonora. Please.”

He hadn't squealed on her. “Okay, Molliter, we can talk. But I've got some people to see so keep it short.”

He took her at her word, and she had to move to keep up with him—he was tall and lanky and he took big steps. He turned a sharp corner.

“Here, okay?”

Sonora nodded. Rested her back against the wall. He turned sideways, shoved his hands in his pockets.

“How long were you stuck in the bathroom?” she asked him.

“Been dying of curiosity, haven't you.”

Sonora nodded.

Molliter rocked up and down on the balls of his feet. “
Hours.
Six, to be exact. The plumber found me.” He sighed. “You have likely been wondering why I didn't go to Crick on this.”

“Nah, I just figured you liked it.”

“Sonora, I am trying to talk civilly to you.”

“Let's get something straight. You want to go running to Crick, you be my guest. Go now. Soon as word gets around you leaked confidential information to the DA's office, and assuming Crick doesn't kick your sorry ass out, you're going to start eating lunch alone. Better get used to it.”

“People talk back and forth all the time. This isn't a new thing.”

“It's always new when you get caught.”

His breathing picked up, quick and shallow. “You have to understand—”

“You know what, Molliter? You couldn't have picked a poorer choice of words. Anytime anybody has ever said that to me, ‘you have to understand,' it means they've pulled some major shit.”

“You listen to me, Sonora. I worked vice and I worked personal crime. Years of it, day in and day out, guys plea bargaining, getting off for lack of evidence, sometimes the same guys, over and over. And then Caplan comes along. This guy is
hungry
and he likes the chase. He goes after child molesters and rapists and pimps—not the girls, Sonora, the pimps. Goes to court on a date rape, when he didn't have a prayer of getting a conviction, but he did it anyway, because he wanted to try. Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how rare it is for a man to be so committed he risks his career for the sake of doing a little good in the world?”

“He had ego, Molliter, not morals.”

“So what, if that's what it takes.”

“Well, Molliter, there's just a small problem with this guy's favorite form of recreation.”

“I'm just trying to make you understand why I did what I did.”

“Understand? Meet Collie and Mia Caplan and give me understand. See a pregnant woman tied up in a shitty railroad car, turning blue with a plastic bag over her head. Give me understand.”

“I'm as sorry as I know how to be. I have prayed over this, and I'm here to try and make things right. The woman is still alive.”

“No thanks to you.”

“What are you going to do, Sonora?”

“Me? Not a damn thing. I had a problem, I took care of it. Crick isn't stupid. Anything further comes from him.”

“He … we've had a sort of talk. I think I'm in the clear there.”

“Good for you. God looks after assholes.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“You don't get it, Molliter. Some things you don't get to do, because sometimes, sorry doesn't cut it. Forgiveness may be divine, Molliter, but it's a separate issue.”

He took it. Stared at her, hands in pockets.

Sonora was never very good at silence. “So what now, Molliter, you holding your temper, counting to ten?”

“Let me put it to you this way. Am I going to be eating lunch alone? When I call for backup, is anybody coming? They going to drag their feet getting there?”

Sonora folded her arms. “I see, this is all about you. You know, Molliter, I have never been able to stand you, but you used to be a good cop.”

“I have a wife and kids and I'm still a good cop.”

“Fine. I'm not going to gossip about you at the coffee machine, and I'm still going to watch your back. Those the words you needed to hear?”

“Yes. Thank you very much.”

She didn't say anything.

“I try very hard to be a good person.”

“I've given you everything you're going to get, Molliter. There's not going to be any seal of approval.”

“I'd like to try and see if we can be friends again, some time in the future.”

“Look, Molliter, we never were friends. I'd like to go all warm and fuzzy with you, but the truth is, it's not going to happen.”

He nodded. “Okay. I'm sorry, but I thought I was right. Maybe someday you'll forgive me and we can be friends. I'm willing to wait for that day.”

“You still don't get it, and you never will.”

74

Sonora figured on a high probability that Liza Hardin and Butch Winchell would be hiding out in the basement—she had shown them the spot on that first day in court. She rounded the corner, heard voices.

The basement room had been some unfortunate's office at one time or another, and there was still a metal desk, and a couple of padded chairs, a bookcase with dust-enveloped law books. A tiny grilled window at the top of the room sat at street level, emphasizing the feeling of being down in a hole.

Liza Hardin was sitting on the corner of the desk, Butch Winchell looking out the window.

“How's it going?” Sonora asked, pausing in the doorway.

They turned and looked, furtive and jumpy.

Liza had been crying. Her mascara made streaks of black down her face. Someone had brought in a box of tissues, and little white clumps were scattered across the desk. Winchell had a glazed look. The skin of his face sagged with rapid weight loss. Whatever he had lost, Liza had gained. Her face looked bloated, unhealthy, neck puffy.

They would get better, Sonora thought. This was the bad time.

“I came down to check on you. Do either of you need anything? Coffee, something to eat?”

“We don't eat,” Butch said.

Sonora believed him.

Liza slid off the desk and grabbed Sonora's hand. “How do you think it's going?”

Sonora smiled at her gently. “It's going as well as it can.”

“Collie … Mrs. Caplan. She hasn't been here the last two days. Is she okay?”

“She's fine. She only comes if she has to, she's got a baby to nurse.”

Collie had delivered a seven-pound baby boy, early but healthy, several hours after Sam had brought her around. She had named him Grey, for Mia's grandfather. She and Mia were staying with Grey and Dorrie, and thinking about moving to London permanently after the trial.

“Do you think he'll get the death penalty?” Winchell asked. His voice held very little inflection. It rarely did these days, Sonora had noticed that about him.

“I have my fingers crossed, Mr. Winchell.”

Liza looked at her. “You were there. You … saw it.”

“Ms. Hardin, your sister, Julia, died in a matter of minutes. Anything that happened after that—she was long gone. Hold on to that.”

They seemed riveted by her words and she looked into their faces and thought, as she had before, that no one had yet come up with the right configuration of words to handle these things.

“I have something for both of you.”

She saw it in their eyes, a sort of desperate hope, as if she could give them something to make it all better, as if she could give them the only thing they wanted, which was Julia, back home again, safe and sound.

That was the problem, working homicide. Nobody came home safe and sound.

Sonora handed them both a brown envelope. “I'm giving each of you a copy of the tape Julia made a few days before she died. They'll be playing it in court some time this week. She's talking about the murder, getting her thoughts down. I wish it was something else, like her telling you the things she would have said if she'd known what was going to happen, but this is all I've got. Listen to it, keep it for later, throw it away. Whatever you need. Just don't tell anybody where you got it.”

“I won't be able to play it without crying,” Liza said.

Sonora nodded. “That's allowed.”

Butch Winchell fingered the edge of the envelope, as if he couldn't wait. “I'll play this for the girls when they grow up.”

“You do that.”

Sonora shook each of their hands and headed back to the courtroom. At the least, Julia Winchell's daughters would have the gift of their mother's voice.