Eyeshot by Lynn Hightower Page A

It’s too hot to sit in the car.”
    Smallwood glanced across the water to the little park full of swing sets, Softball players, lush green grass, and noisy children.
    â€œWhy don’t I take her over there till you get done with your business?”
    Sonora hesitated.
    Smallwood smiled patiently while she turned the pros and cons over in her mind.
    â€œYou sure you don’t need to go down there with me?” she asked.
    â€œI’ve seen a trotline before.”
    â€œNot like this one, I bet. And how you getting over there to the park?” She glanced at the sheriff’s patrol car.
    â€œI’ve got my Jeep just over there. You didn’t think I walked down from London, did you, Sonora? Brought my dog too. We’ll take yours along, and they can keep each other company.”
    Sonora frowned. “Clampett’s kind of big. He can be a little aggressive.”
    Smallwood grinned. “I figure Tubby can handle the shock.”
    â€œDon’t let Clampett hurt him.”
    Smallwood laughed and Sonora gave him an uneasy look.
    â€œHeather, you want to go to the park with Deputy Smallwood, and swing on the swings?”
    â€œClampett’s coming with me?”
    Sonora nodded.
    Smallwood put his sunglasses on. “Everything’s under control, Mama. You go ahead and do the nasty down-there, and I’ll take the dogs and the kid to the park.”
    Sonora hugged Heather, told her again to be good, and headed back the way she had come. She turned back once, as she hit the tree line, and looked over her shoulder. Heather was skipping along beside Smallwood, asking him about Tubby, Clampett at her heels, tail wagging.
    Sonora frowned. She was very cautious about allowing men into her children’s lives. She barely knew this man and she’d broken relationship rules already. Not that she was planning to have a relationship.
    She brushed the hair out of her eyes and headed back through the trees to the water that had hidden Julia Winchell for the last couple of weeks.

17
    When Sonora came through the trees to the muddy edge of the river she heard the hum of insects, and the low, easy laugh of men just beginning to feel comfortable with one another. Sizemore and Cheatham had known each other for years, and Sam could always be counted on to work that good ole boy magic that is the special province of Southern men.
    They were sitting on an old yellow rowboat that had been turned over to expose flaking paint and a hull that had been scraped raw.
    Sam was eyeing a white plastic bucket with a John Deere symbol on the side, flies thick at the edges. “How long’d you keep it in there?” He got up and peered inside. Grimaced.
    â€œKeep what in there?” Sonora asked.
    George Cheatham looked up. “The, um—”
    â€œThe plastic bag,” Sheriff Sizemore said, at the same time Sam said, “Make a guess, girl.”
    Sonora looked inside the bucket, which held about three inches of dirty brown river water, two tiny silver fish with meaty white bellies, and something that seemed to have the teeth and tail of a fish, and the hands and feet of a ’gator. Dead flies skimmed the top of the water.
    â€œWhat is that?” Sonora asked, pointing to the ’gator thing.
    â€œWater dog,” George said.
    â€œGar,” Sizemore told her.
    Sam looked at Sonora. “You really never saw one before? They bark when they’re onshore.”
    â€œThey do not,” Sonora said, frowning at him, but Sizemore was nodding his head. “Was it, that gar thing, was it in the bag with the … was it in the bag?”
    Cheatham nodded. “Smell of blood attracted it, then it tore on in there. I kilt it with a baseball bat I keep in the bottom of the boat.”
    Sonora looked at the boat, mud banked against the edges where it had dripped water. She looked back in the bucket. A sliver of brown plastic floated next to the gar, whose damaged head