Powers of Arrest

Chapter Seventeen

Cheryl Beth visited her daughter early that morning. Eighteen years old now: past childhood that went so fast and nearly an adult. She had Cheryl Beth’s face, hair, and eyes. They were nearly carbon copies. She could do anything she wanted, live adventures her mother had never experienced, give her so much to be proud of. Someday give her grandchildren. Cheryl Beth imagined the years of pink dresses and stuffed animals and squeals of laughter over the most trivial delights. She was not like her mother had been, telling Cheryl Beth all that she could not be, subtly upending her dreams at every corner. At eighteen, her daughter would be confident and kind, full of wit and decency, so intelligent it would continually astonish Cheryl Beth.

If only she had lived.

As she had for fifteen years, Cheryl Beth sat on her daughter’s grave, arranged fresh flowers for her birthday, and wept. Time did not heal some things.

Time did not heal this gaping hole in her heart. It did little better than, very slowly, to dull the pain from losing her father when she was nine, that big, rough-handed, laughing bear of a man she had so loved. She had been a daddy’s girl. He had a good job on the L &N Railroad until the day it killed him. She still heard his voice. She still felt that anguish beyond words. Time didn’t heal.

The best you could do was try to take one step forward, then follow it with another, and try to go on. For years, this had been a day Cheryl Beth would take off, even calling in sick if necessary. She could now at least function enough to go to the hospital after saying a long prayer for all the lost children, all the lives that were never lived, the eighteenth birthdays that were marked on the dewy grass of graveyards until they could see each other again at God’s table.

She used her index finger to trace the name on the headstone. The green and gold of the newborn grass mocked her. The trees flaunted their beauty, unconcerned with her cares.

She had lied to Will last night when he asked if she had children. This honorable man and she had lied, as she always did. No: That was always her response. Ask a little more and she would say, the timing didn’t work out. Damned straight. Fifteen years and she still couldn’t talk about it. The only people who knew were her family, and the family of her ex-husband. Their marriage hadn’t survived the death. Cheryl Beth had barely survived. Oh, so many years she had cried an angry prayer of why didn’t you take me? Even now, she could work in any unit of any hospital but peds.

She was put together again by the time she arrived at the hospital and the intensity of the morning shift let her put that one foot forward once again.

At lunch, she had to get out. So she walked up and down the broad lawn that ran from the main entrance to Auburn Avenue. The groundskeepers probably wouldn’t like it, but the spring sunshine and the shade of the trees was healing, these and her fast stride back and forth. Across the street, the occasional car would pull into the William Howard Taft National Historical Site, honoring the only president from Cincinnati. She wasn’t hungry.

On her third circuit, she noticed Allison Schultz watching her.

The funeral for Cincinnati Police Officer Kristen Gruber was held at ten a.m. at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral. It was a grand, Greek revival building with a tall, slender steeple at Eighth and Plum downtown. It sat across the street from the brick Victorian mass of City Hall and the delicately Moorish-Gothic Isaac M. Wise Temple, home of Reform Judaism. Church and state in the Queen City. Inside the cathedral was a magnificent pipe organ. Cops from three states came, all in their finest dress uniforms. Will would later learn that 1,200 mourners filled the church. He wasn’t among them. Instead, he sat in his car and watched the crowd. Another detective was concealed among the television crews, filming the people as they walked up the steps. The process would be repeated when Kristen’s coffin, an American flag tight across the top, was carried back out, a police bagpiper in front, on its journey out to St. Mary Cemetery.

Will despised the sound of bagpipes. He had barely slept the night before. It was even worse than usual. He sat in the chair at the foot of the bed, shaking his tense right leg until what he called “shift change” caused his left leg to start its own little hell. Then he would have to walk on it. His back hurt from the fall in front of Cindy’s house. His hands were raw. He didn’t want to know about Drainmaker shoes. Tens of thousands must have been sold. But then there was that knife in John’s pocket, that damned knife. And his odd visit to Will’s townhouse. His instincts told him something was wrong.

Calling Cheryl Beth to thank her for a nice evening-that was the good thing on his mind. But he might seem to be coming on too strong. In any event, he had to watch carefully. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but this was S.O.P. It didn’t surprise him that Kenneth Buchanan wasn’t there. Her lover the sergeant walked by in dress uniform. From another direction, several minutes later, the diving instructor mounted the steps and disappeared inside.

“You’re mighty inconspicuous.”

Dodds climbed in and sat, momentarily tilting the car. He slid Will’s cane out of the passenger seat.

Will said, “And now I’ve got a fat black man in his band uniform to complete the picture.”

“Anything happening?”

Will shook his head.

“I’m sorry, partner. I tried to fight for you.”

Will’s stomach turned sour. “What?”

“They didn’t tell you? Fuckers. Fassbinder’s made me the lead on Gruber. You know how he can get. You never feel the knife until it’s in your back.”

“The chief put me on this case.”

“I know. But it’s a done deal. The case is moving too slowly for command. They want somebody in custody. Hell, Kristen’s face is on the cover of People magazine, all over the blogs, and the Cincinnati Police can’t solve the murder.” He sighed. “I was able to keep you as the liaison detective with Covington.”

Will fought to control his emotions, without much success. “It’s not one of her boyfriends, unless it’s the lawyer, Buchanan. And he’ll sue us if we push too hard. You know how these things go.”

“That’s why I fought for you,” Dodds said. “I told them you were the best homicide investigator in the department…”

“But all they see is this goddamned cane.”

Dodds was silent as Will thought about his father’s full-dress funeral. That day it had rained.

His call sign came over the radio.

“Meet the officers, Spring Grove Cemetery.”

He told the dispatcher he was on special assignment. To Dodds, “Is this some PIO shit work for me?”

Dodds shrugged.

“Break away from that,” the female voice came back immediately. “Respond code three.”

“You coming?”

“Why not?” Dodds said. “Hey, isn’t that your boy?”

Sure enough, John was walking up Plum Street, wearing a dark suit. He didn’t see Will and walked quickly up the steps into the cathedral.

“It is.” Will was thankful that Dodds didn’t ask more. He started the car, made a U-turn, and rolled away from the curb, only hitting the siren when he was a block away.

Allison Schultz was the student Cheryl Beth worried about. Her bookwork was perfect and she was competent clinically. But she was so shy, so unsure of herself. It meant she had a difficult time communicating with patients. She wouldn’t have the confidence to push back on a doctor, question a dosage, or find a mistake. Now she was slowly walking toward Cheryl Beth.

“Do you mind if I talk to you?”

“Walk with me,” Cheryl Beth said, and they started out toward the street.

“Are you all right?” Allison asked.

“I’m tired.”

“They think Noah killed Lauren and Holly.”

“That’s right.”

“They’re not going to let him come back, are they?”

“I think it’s unlikely, Allison. I really can’t discuss this with you.”

“He’s got his whole life aimed at becoming an R.N.” She mustered more assertiveness than Cheryl Beth had ever seen her show. She started to say that class and his career were the least of his troubles, that Hank Brooks wanted him on death row. But she walked on.

“He saw things in the wars, you know,” Allison said. “He was deployed five times. He has nightmares. Sudden loud noises make him afraid. But he’s a good man. I don’t care what they think they know, there’s no way he could have done this.”

Cheryl Beth remembered the way Noah had reacted when the police were trying to run him down in the grass. It was a classic post-traumatic stress disorder response. But how did Allison know any of this?

“He was my boyfriend,” she said simply.

Cheryl Beth stopped and looked at the ordinary, slightly chubby, pale brunette with out-of-style eyeglasses and a ponytail standing beside her. Noah and Allison? Lauren and Holly were young thoroughbreds. Allison was like a doorknob next to their polished jewels.

“I’m sorry.” Cheryl Beth sighed heavily. “Have you told this to Detective Brooks?”

“I was afraid,” she said. “And I was angry. That he would be with Lauren and Holly. They could have their pick of any guy, why take mine? I called him Saturday night and he never called me back. But, then, he was with them, wasn’t he? He did this to me, cheated. I was sick about it, and I was so mad at him. He betrayed me! I thought he could rot in jail and think about the damage he did. But then I calmed down. I knew he was innocent of murder…”

“So maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought. Maybe he could also be a killer. There are PTSD incidents like that all the time. Soldiers come home and kill their families.”

“No.” Allison spoke softly but with finality. Then she started sobbing and wrapped her arms around herself awkwardly until Cheryl Beth hugged her. She said, “I don’t believe he did it. I’ve seen how Noah reacted to things, loud noises, things like that, and he was never violent. He was scared.”

“He was Special Forces?”

“No, he was a combat medic. He was assigned to a Special Forces base once. But he was there to help people. He watched his friends get blown up by I.E.D.s. He saw a lot. Too much.”

“Why didn’t he call you from the jail?”

Another sob, and then: “Would you call your lover after getting caught like that?”

“I guess not.”

The men and women who built Cincinnati were under the sod of Spring Grove Cemetery. Like so much else in town, it was a National Historic Landmark. Amid the trees, flowers, ponds, and chapels were the monuments and mausoleums carved with names such as Kroger, Procter, Gamble, Chase, Lytle, Fleischmann, and Taft. This morning, beyond the oxidizing statue of a Civil War soldier with a bayonet attached to his rifle, there were also five CPD patrol cars. Will parked behind the last one and they walked up the sloping drive.

Dodds, who had a solid sense of dignity, straightened his dress uniform and precisely placed his cap. He uncharacteristically slowed his pace to match Will’s.

“Detectives.” A female sergeant met them. “Thanks for getting out here. There’s something you should see. Over here.”

A body was sitting against a large marker overseen by a statue of a weeping angel. It was a male in his twenties, completely nude, with bloody wounds between his legs, his clothes neatly folded in the grass, and more gore around his mouth. The sudden knowledge about what was in his mouth made another observation secondary. A piece of paper was attached to his chest.

“Fuck me…” Dodds whispered.

The newly dead was leaned precisely against the monument, so it appeared as if the angel, its head down and wings drooped in grief, had discovered him that moment.

His penis had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth.

His hands were cuffed behind him.

A sheet of white paper was attached to his chest by the large safety pin run through his right nipple. It was encased in a clear plastic sheet and looked like ordinary printer paper, with large typed letters in a single paragraph.

Both Will and Dodds were slipping on latex gloves.

Dodds bent forward and read aloud:

“Detective Borders, meet Noah Smith. I had planned to kill him along with the women, but things didn’t work out. It spoiled what would have been a masterpiece. I couldn’t let the police give him credit for my art, now could I? Kristen was easier, but the result was beautiful. I cut them where they get their pleasure and I watched them die. Don’t think I’m bragging. I have a lot to learn. But you probably won’t hear from me again. Serial killers don’t know when to stop. My deathscapes are rare and executed with discipline, like all great art. I wish we could have spent time together, detective. On my terms, of course. I’ve seen how you struggle to walk, how your affliction keeps you up all night. But I know you would fight and it would be beautiful. I think about this temptation…”

Dodds turned back and faced Will. “Looks like you’re still on the case.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Okay, Devil, advocate.”

It was one of their procedures when they were partners and Will happily took the cue.

“He’s a copycat claiming credit for all the other murders.”

“Nope,” Dodds said. “He said he ‘cut them where they get their pleasure.’ The genital mutilation is information we held back and they also held back in Butler County.”

“Maybe the killer is law enforcement.”

“That can’t be ruled out.”

“These are still separate murders. The same subject who did the two nursing students killed Noah Smith. But Gruber is separate, another murderer. This killer is claiming credit for her.”

Dodds thought about it. “You’ve got the same problem with him knowing that Kristen was mutilated. Lucky guess? Maybe. The scenes weren’t exactly the same. The two female nursing students’ clothes weren’t neatly folded, like with Smith and Gruber. Their purses and wallets were still there. Their panties were gone. Unlike Gruber, he took the handcuffs off the bodies.”

Will leaned against another gravestone. It was as tall as he was and green with moss. He tried to choreograph it. “So the killer is watching the three of them get it on…”

“How come I didn’t have a college life like that?” Dodds complained.

“I hear you, but stick with me. They’re screwing and making out. It’s arousing the killer, enraging him. One of the girls said she thought someone was watching. At some point, when they’re mellow from the Ecstasy, he comes behind Noah and hits him with something, knocks him out. He threatens the girls with the knife.”

“Why don’t they try to outrun him?”

“Maybe they’re worried about Noah. Maybe he’s got a gun, too. But they submit. They’re scared. They want to live. Happens all the time in rape cases. ‘I’m only going to rape you. So if you want to live, go along with me.’ Or, ‘go along or I’ll kill your friend.’ So they do, until it becomes clear he’s a killer and the one girl makes a break for it, he runs her down and stabs her. It’s also pretty isolated up there where these killings took place. So that would add to their terror. Anyway, either the girl trying to escape or even something else, like car headlights or somebody walking nearby, threw off his timetable for arranging things.”

“Why did he take the handcuffs?”

Will thought about it and had no good answer. “We’ll have to ask him.”

“Consistency is the hobgoblin of little criminal minds.” Dodds shrugged. “So keep going. Argue me out of the logical conclusion.”

“It’s more than one person, a gang, claiming to be a single serial killer.”

“Could be,” Dodds said. “That would explain how a trained police officer was overpowered and how the three students were successfully attacked up at Miami. It would make it more likely that one would turn on the other.” He sighed. “But my golden gut says it’s one guy. Strong as hell, too. Try again.”

“Smith killed himself,” Will said. “He killed Kristen. Oxford already liked him for the murder of the nursing students. He was driven crazy by remorse, so decides to off himself.”

“Cold-blooded, man,” Dodds said, admiringly. “But when you think about it: you’ve cut your own dick off, so what do you have to live for? Case closed. But you’d have to be one disciplined dude to pull it off. I couldn’t cut my own dick off if I’d killed everybody above the rank of sergeant, and don’t think I haven’t thought more than once about doing it.”

“The problem is no knife,” Will said. “And no confessing suicide note.” He limped over to the clothes: blue jeans and a cotton short-sleeve shirt, and examined them. “His wallet and keys and underwear are gone. Trophies. I think the guy who wrote the note is the real deal.” He returned to his trusty headstone and again rested against it. “I think he’s the one who stuck the key in the door at Kristen’s condo the other night. Fuck, we were that close!”

The sunlight gleamed off Dodds’ immaculately shaved dark-brown head. He indicated blood spatter with a gloved finger. One long strand of dark red reached under the angel’s wing. “It happened here. The vic wasn’t killed elsewhere.”

Will took it in and agreed. Birdsong and wind through the trees were the only sounds. They had caught a break: All the media were covering Kristen’s funeral.

“How’d he overpower a well-built young man?” Will asked.

Dodds stood, the three medals of valor on his dress uniform jangling. “I would have carried a gun. Ordered him to disrobe, get on the ground, and handcuff himself. Maybe I’d make him think I only wanted to scare him or suck his dick, whatever. Then get out my blade and take care of business.”

“Okay, so you’re the vic. Why wouldn’t you run if you knew you were going to die anyway? Why would you handcuff yourself and take away your last chance to escape or fight?”

“Nobody knows how they’re going to react on the business end of a gun,” Dodds said. “Anyway, look.” He leaned back and yelled for the sergeant. “Did you folks make this?”

“No, detective.” She was huffy about it.

The grass was pulled up a few feet from the body, with fresh dirt exposed. Next to it were indentations on the grass.

“Maybe he did try to fight.”

“Quiet part of a quiet cemetery,” Will said, halfway to himself. “A fight or calls for help wouldn’t be heard. Killer could have gagged him at first. Actually, you can probably get a lot of noise from the trains at Queensgate Yard, especially in the middle of the night. Maybe you can build on the respectful relationship you’ve started with the sergeant and get some unis canvassing the houses across on Winton Road, see if anybody heard anything. We should talk to the groundskeepers, see what kind of security they have here. Looks like a place where anybody can jump the wall and be easily hidden.”

“Smell that?” Will said.

“Bleach.” Dodds pointed to the gore of Smith’s groin. “He poured it down there.”

“Exactly like with Gruber,” Will said. “When I first heard about that I thought the killer might have thought he would mess up the DNA analysis, that he had left semen inside her. But this tells me…”

Dodds completed his thought: “He did it to torture them. Let it burn in the wounds as they died.”

They looked over the scene silently for several minutes.

“This guy’s got balls,” Dodds said. “The killer, I mean, not the vic. He does this guy in public, in one of the most prominent landmarks in the city. If his note is accurate, he set out to kill three healthy young people in one shot. Thinks he’s the god of murder.”

“Those are the ones I like to take down,” Will said. “I’d love to know where the lawyer was over the past twelve hours.”

“You think this Kenneth Buchanan is really the one?”

“I don’t know,” Will said. “He had a connection to Kristen. A motive, too, if he was jealous of her other lovers. A crime of passion, however twisted. But maybe the asshole is really a psychopath? So he kills the girls up at Oxford for the fun of it and then has this guy for dessert.”

Will drifted into thinking again about John, about his stepson’s visit earlier in the week, and about the shoeprint found on Kristen’s boat.

Dodds said, “You don’t like his ass because he reminds you of Cindy’s new husband. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to send a lawyer to the express lane at death row. But we’re going to need more before command will let us lean on him.”

“We can still ViCAP his ass,” Will said, referring to the FBI’s colossal Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database. “He came here with his wife from Atlanta. It will be interesting to see if they have some unsolved homicides with this kind of mutilation.”

Five days, four victims. Will said, “Now we know they were all tied together, but we still don’t know how or why he chose them. Kristen’s a cop on national television. The two vics at Miami were nobodies. Same with this guy. Not only did they have different hair colors and body types, they were different genders. Did you know Cheryl Beth was one of the instructors of those dead students? And Smith asked her to come out and talk to him at the Butler County jail?”

“No shit?” Dodds’ back was to him, as he closely examined the body. “So how was your date?”

“It was nice.”

“How many positions? What does she look like naked? Tell an old married man everything so I can live vicariously.”

Will felt his face flush. “We had dinner and beers and talked. It was nice.”

Dodds simply shook his head.

A uni brought up a middle-aged man who had found the body an hour before. He was a gardener. They went through the usual: Did you touch anything? Was anyone else nearby when you found the body? Was anything amiss elsewhere on the grounds? They got nowhere.

“If I found some guy with his penis stuck in his mouth, I’d run like hell and call the cops, too,” Will said.

“Shit, it’s beautiful here,” Dodds said, snapping off his gloves, rolling them inside each other, and sticking them in his pocket. It was an understatement. A person could spend days wandering the lanes, taking in all the architecture driven by grief and vanity, reading the history carved in stone, and loving the nature. “All these important dead white people, and I’m-a walkin’ on ‘em.” He laughed, but not loud enough to attract attention.

“I keep going back to the note,” Will said. “He addressed it to me. How did he know I was investigating this case? That information isn’t out there.”

“Again,” Dodds said, “could be a cop and maybe somebody we know. Who else knew you were investigating Gruber?”

“Buchanan,” Will said. “Otherwise, I don’t know. I was on the other side of the levee when they brought Gruber’s body up. There was a little group watching, looked like locals.”

“So how do you want to play it?”

Will cocked his head.

“I thought I was the PIO again.”

“Quit feeling sorry for yourself. I need your brain here, partner. This guy’s obviously into himself.”

It was an understatement. He wanted all of Cincinnati to know that a dangerous murderer was loose, somebody who had made fools of the cops, and had gotten away with it.

“We could report minimal information,” Will said. “Unidentified body found in Spring Grove Cemetery. Cheryl Beth said Smith didn’t have any relatives. So no relatives are going to be interviewed on television. We can order the gardener to shut up. This killer wants to be famous. He wants everybody peeing in their pants wondering where his next ‘art show’ will be. Notice how he types and prints out this note, then puts it in a plastic cover, in case it rains. He wants attention. We could take it even further and say we don’t know whether it’s a suicide or a homicide, or even the cause of death. That’d mind-fuck this master criminal back.”

“I like it,” Dodds said. “The only problem is, he might be tempted to send the note to the newspaper. Hell, he might be tempted to try another killing.”

“So?” Will said. “He addressed the note to me. Who do you think his next victim would be?”

Dodds studied him and raised his eyebrows. “I hope to god you sleep with Cheryl Beth before he cuts your dick off.”

Chapter Nineteen

Cheryl Beth was finishing up the post-shift conferences with her students when she saw Will walking down the hall. He looked handsome, but he was holding one shoulder too high, and his face looked exhausted. She complimented him on how he looked in his suit.

“Can we go somewhere?”

“Yes.” She steered him into a family waiting room that was remarkably empty and they sat down.

“What happened?” She took his hands. They were well-shaped and warm, but had fresh abrasions.

“I fell last night.” He smiled. “You swept me off my feet.”

“Are you hurting?”

He shook his head. “Cheryl Beth, Noah Smith is dead.”

Somewhere deep inside she had somehow been expecting this news. Still, it felt as if the end of a baseball bat had been driven into her stomach. “Oh, no. Suicide?”

“No. He was killed like the others.”

“What?”

As he gave her the details, she was first slightly nauseous, then frightened. She was good at controlling herself, but she knew this showed all over her face. She could hear her mother’s voice: “You’re an open book, Cheryl Beth.”

“And he left you a note?”

“It was addressed specifically to me,” he said. “Otherwise, they were going to take me off the case. Goddamned cripple.” His face was a mask of disgust.

“Stop that. You’re not a cripple. You only walk with a cane. It adds character. I think you’re very attractive.”

He let himself smile. “That’s funny, because I think you are, too.” After a pause: “I used to be good at flirting, but I’m way out of practice.”

She patted his arm. “You’re doing well, detective. I don’t understand how this could happen. I saw Noah in the bookstore yesterday. He actually tracked me down. Kind of surprised me, but he seemed desperate for someone to believe him. He thought Hank Brooks was following him.”

“Oh, hell,” Will said. “Give me a minute.” He pulled out his cell phone and had a brief conversation-with Brooks, it was soon evident. After he hung up, he said, “I hate these multi-jurisdictional cases. I forgot to tell him about Smith’s body being found. Now he claims he never really thought Noah did it. And he denied following him.”

“But Noah was certain he was being followed,” Cheryl Beth said.

“Maybe by the killer.”

The chill returned to her bloodstream. “The killer who writes to you personally. Oh, Will…”

“I want to show you some photographs,” he said. “Let me know if any of them are familiar. Anybody you’ve seen hanging around campus or the hospital. Anybody who might have seen these three students.”

She ran through ten photographs and none looked familiar. One was a bald man, although he looked distinguished in a suit and tie. She went one by one again, trying to remember. She finally shook her head.

“I’m sorry.”

“You lingered on one,” he said.

“Only because he was older and bald. I keep thinking about what Lauren’s sister said, about how Lauren was afraid she was being stalked by an older bald man.”

“Something’s got to tie them together. Three separate attacks, sixty miles apart from each other. One was on a trained police officer, and I can vouch for her toughness. Another was on a well-built young man. And this guy went after two young women at the same time, and after knocking Noah Smith out. Then he comes back and kills him. Thinks he’s an artist. Now we know all these killings were done by the same guy. But we don’t have the key that connects them.”

“Aren’t there random murders?”

“Sure,” he said. “But this random is very rare. It’s common to read about supposedly random murders, but the victims are all prostitutes, sometimes all working on the same strip. Or they’re dark-haired women who remind the killer of someone in his life. Anyway, whoever wrote that note was taking credit, as if he specifically chose his victims. They’re going to bring in an FBI profiler. But I already know what he’ll say. White male. Narcissist, sense of grandiosity. Probably had a screwed-up childhood. Maybe impotent: none of the autopsies showed the presence of semen. Noah and the girls used condoms, and the killer took them. He’s very precise. He’s done it before…”

“Hold that thought.” Cheryl Beth stood and sprinted into the hall, catching up with Allison. She brought her back and introduced her to Will.

“Allison was Noah’s girlfriend,” she said. The girl sat, but upright in apprehension, and Cheryl Beth thought about breaking the news to her easy, she was very good at that. But, no, she would trust Will.

“Allison, I’m a detective with the Cincinnati Police,” he said, his voice even and friendly. “I’m working on some cases that are related to what happened to Lauren and Holly.”

“Yes.” A little girl voice.

“Were you friends with them?”

“Only school friends,” she said.

“Ever hang out together?”

Allison shook her head.

“How long have you been seeing Noah?”

“About a year,” she said. “Ten months.”

“Did you ever feel like anything wasn’t right?”

She clenched her hands. “If you mean do I think Noah did it, the answer is no. There’s no way. He’s gentle and kind and…”

“It’s okay,” Will said. “I meant something else. Did it ever seem like anyone was following the two of you? Anonymous phone calls? Anything creepy?”

She was silent, and then shook her head.

“We were normal. We went to movies. We rode our bikes together. Noah’s in a lot better shape than I am.”

“Does he have any enemies?”

Cheryl Beth was struck by how Will used the present tense to refer to Noah.

“No!” Allison shook her head adamantly. “He made friends so easily.” Then, tonelessly, “Especially women.” She raised her head and spoke more forcefully. “Do you think someone is trying to frame him for killing Holly and Lauren? Please tell that awful detective from Oxford.”

Will nodded. After a silence, He produced the same file folder. “I want to show you some photographs. I’m not saying these are suspects. But they might be. I want you to take as much time as you like, and really look at each one. Ever see any of these men.”

He handed her one photo at a time. She took the each one and slowly ran her fingers over it, then handed it back. He was very patient and Allison was diligent. It took a good fifteen minutes. Cheryl Beth was impressed that Will was eliciting information now, before Allison knew the worst and would probably fall apart.

She handed them back. “I’m sorry, Detective Borders. I’ve never seen any of them.”

“I know this seems out of left field, but did you guys ever watch LadyCops: Cincinnati? The reality TV show?”

“No. There’s not much TV time when we have a slave driver like her.” She smiled fondly at Cheryl Beth.

Will smiled slightly and let a couple of beats pass. “Did you ever go to the bar where Noah met Holly and Lauren that night.”

She pursed her lips. “Yeah, we used to party up there…”

Cheryl Beth watched Will’s expression subtly change. The color momentarily left his face. Then he rearranged himself and leaned forward.

“Allison, there’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’m going to say it…”

Chapter Twenty

Will was usually aware of every difficult step, but the long walk from the hospital floor back to his car was over before he even realized it. His mind was in a bad place elsewhere. Back in the car, he filed the mug shots in his brief case. The photos had included Kenneth Buchanan-taken off his law firm’s Web site-the sergeant and diving instructor who were also Kristen’s lovers, along with three other cops and four sex offenders. He pulled out his iPad, logged into the department intranet, and posted what he and Dodds had agreed on to the publicly available police blotter.

Body found in Spring Grove Cemetery

By Detective Will Borders

A man’s body was discovered at approximately 9:30 a.m. Thursday in Spring Grove Cemetery. The unidentified male was white, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. Cincinnati Police Department homicide detectives responded, although the cause of death was unknown and may be suicide. A routine autopsy will be conducted. Anyone with information in the case should contact Cincinnati Police or Crime Stoppers.

He clicked “post” and the system responded immediately.

Then he sat back and digested the words of the mousy little nursing student: We used to party up there…

Those were almost the same words John had said to him when they were sitting on Will’s balcony, talking about Miami. Will hadn’t thought about it much at the time, but why would John be hanging around Oxford?

Why did John have the same brand of shoe that left a print on Kristen Gruber’s boat? For that matter, why had John gone to Kristen’s funeral, a woman he had met once? It’s not as if John was deep into the life of the city or looking for an excuse to dress up.

Will stared at the steering wheel, feeling numb inside. If he were examining this evidence about anyone else than his stepson, his son, he would think this is the only person he had encountered who had a connection between Kristen and Oxford. John had met Kristen. He had partied up at Oxford. It was circumstantial, so far. But circumstantial evidence could be the building blocks of a homicide case.

He laughed mordantly. Cindy was afraid John was involved with drugs. Right now that would be a relief.

John had wanted to tell Will something when he stopped by on Monday night. Did he intend to confess? The memory made Will angry and woozy at the same time. He should have pushed him.

All Will needed was some of John’s DNA to test against the hair found on the boat. Matching the shoe-print could also be probable cause. So would getting Cindy’s permission to enter the house, where he could search John’s room, and find Kristen’s badge, gun, wallet, and keys, as well as the underwear of all the victims. Right that moment, he should pull out his cell phone and call Diane Henderson or Dodds. Then he should call the police in Oregon and find out if they had any unsolved homicides from the time John was in Portland, especially ones involving a knife.

He left the phone in his suit-coat pocket.

Maybe that female nursing student-Allison?-was a potential suspect. She would have a motive to kill two rivals being screwed under the stars by her good-looking boyfriend, and then coax him to the same fate. She didn’t have the strength for it. And how did she know Kristen? He was reaching to the moon.

He and Cindy hadn’t been the best parents, but had they raised a killer? The thought crowded out all his body’s other complaints. John had never killed an animal-that Will knew of. He had a Siamese cat for fifteen years while he was growing up, and was nothing but affectionate toward it. Would he write that kind of letter? The language sounded more mature. John didn’t even know Will had been the lead detective on the Gruber case. But he could also hear Dodds’ voice in his head: “Who the hell knows why or when somebody becomes a monster.” Killing at his stepfather’s alma mater, killing his famous and attractive colleague, addressing a note specifically to Will. If he stepped back, all of this would make him one thing: suspicious as hell.

The sound of a car’s tires squealing on the concrete made him jump. Here he had a killer at loose, taunting him with a note pinned through a dead man’s skin, and he’s in a reverie in a deserted parking garage.

“Smart, Borders,” he said, and started the car.

Before he drove out, he checked the Enquirer’s Web site. What he wrote was already there, as a brief, with his headline. The only editing was to attribute the information to him, rather than giving him the byline. He thanked God that the tough old police reporters who dug and worked closely with the cops had all retired, and now the people down at the paper pretty much only took dictation.

Chapter Twenty-one

Heather Bridges lived in an apartment in a turreted three-story brick building off Hamilton Avenue in Northside. It was a neighborhood above the split between Interstates 74 and 75, and sandwiched between Spring Grove Cemetery and Mount Airy Forest, and Will was amazed how quickly it had gone from down-on-its-luck Rust Belt to Bohemian trendy. Cincinnati had plenty of such districts, but only a limited number of Bohemians, especially with money.

He had gotten rid of his police tail with some difficulty, telling Dodds that he had to run an errand for his ex. Now he was telling lies for John. They called that “accomplice” in his business. But he didn’t need Dodds or some other detective following him up here. He was bait now. The letter on Noah Smith was addressed to him. With luck, good or bad, the killer might come after him. He successfully argued against wearing a constant wire. But he had a hand-held radio with him at all times. Now he carried it in his left hand as he used the right, as always, for the cane.

A girl’s voice answered the intercom after a long wait. “Cincinnati Police” was enough to get him buzzed in. Oh, for a day without a long stair climb. He made it. She was waiting on the second floor, with the door cracked and the chain on. He showed her his badge, now draped in black, and identification.

“You’re John’s dad.”

“May I come in?”

The chain slid off and he stepped inside a high-ceilinged living room. It held a few pieces of expensive new furniture and art posters on the wall. He didn’t take time to read the details of galleries and dates, although one prominently featured the avant-garde Contemporary Arts Center downtown.

“I’m only living here through the summer. Until I go to college. But I didn’t want to be stuck out at the parents’ house, if you know what I mean, nothing wrong with parents, mine are cool, but I love this area…”

The chirping young woman was tall, with reddish-brown hair falling in tendrils over her shoulders, high cheekbones, and shapely legs shown to advantage in shorts. He could see why John was attracted to her. Still, she was mussed and out of breath.

“Let’s sit down,” he interrupted. She sat quickly and nervously. He turned down the radio and set it on the cushion beside him.

“We need to talk, Heather.”

“About what, Will?” A smile to light up a city. The sense of entitlement he had expected from her parents’ bankbook.

“Let’s get off on the right foot,” Will said. “I’ll call you Heather. You call me Detective Borders.”

“Okay.” A pout descended over her lovely face.

“I know you and John were on the river Saturday night and early Sunday morning…”

The pout was turning to unconcealed alarm when a closed door fifteen feet down a hallway was thrown open and a man angrily strode toward them. He was only wearing boxer shorts.

“What’s going on, Heather? This dude bothering you?”

Will made no effort to react. If the guy got in his face, the steel shaft of the cane would make an excellent impression on his nose. As he came into the light, Will saw how young he was. He was John’s age, maybe a year or two younger, and his stride was all confidence. He was lean and fit in an untested way, with stubble on his pretty-boy face, stubble on his head, and no hair on his chest. Beyond his belligerent posture, he wore a sleepy expression. When the fly of his boxers came open as he walked, Will could see the piercing. Lord, he didn’t understand this. But that was a reflection deep inside. His face was all cop.

“Who the fuck are you, kid?”

“I don’t have to…”

“Actually you do, asshole,” Will said, flashing his badge. The young man was momentarily deflated. Long enough for Heather to say, “This is my friend, Zack.”

“Go put on some clothes, friend Zack.”

The young man stared defiantly, then padded back to the bedroom, cursing under his breath.

“What’s Zack’s full name?”

She meekly complied. “Zachary Paul Miller.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

She shrugged. “We hook up. Friends with benefits, you know. Or maybe you don’t…” She glanced at the cane, and for a nanosecond he wanted to beat her to death with it. The urge passed quickly.

“So is John an F.W.B.?”

Heather smirked. “Oh, my god, no.”

“But you went to meet him on Saturday, for a date?”

“Not a date.” She fluffed out her hair and smoothed it down. “He’s sweet. But…”

Zachary Paul Miller stomped back and sat next to Heather. His jeans were so low on his hips that Will didn’t know how they didn’t fall to the floor.

“Stop talking.” He looked like he was going to slap her. To Will: “We don’t have to tell you anything, Borders. I’ve got the family lawyer on speed dial.” He dangled his iPhone. “Kenneth Buchanan. Ever hear of him, cop?” He laughed, a surprisingly high-pitched sound.

Will lifted himself up and walked two paces. He shifted the cane to his left hand. Then he delivered a hard jab to the young man’s abdomen, where it would hurt the most and leave no trace.

He was a tough-guy, at least in his own mind, but he let out a sound between a belch and a pig squeal. Tears came to his eyes as he struggled to breathe.

“Oh, I’m so sorry I fell against you, sir,” Will said. “It’s this whole cane thing. I get unstable. Damned cripples, and we get all the best parking places.”

Will returned and sat down again. “Now listen to me. You may be the king stud of Summit Country Day School, but if I make one call you’re going to be nothing but another jailhouse chicken who’ll get sodomized all night by very muscular men below your social class. They’d love to get hold of your virgin ass and your Prince Albert piercing. Only one night in lockup, you know, before the lawyers can sort things out. Jeez, I’ve seen it happen so many times to the East Side kids.” Will shook his head in mock sympathy. Zack’s eyes widened with terror.

Will continued. “I’ve already talked to Mr. Buchanan.” Technically true. “I’m hoping we can settle this without trouble: the kind that would keep you from your Ivy League future. This is a homicide investigation.” He paused and watched the color return to Zack’s face and quickly flee again. “I know you want to cooperate, Mr. Miller.”

For perhaps the first time in his life, the kid hadn’t gotten what he wanted. He shut up and nodded, his eyes down, his mouth open, and struggling to refill his lungs.

“So why don’t you tell me what happened on the river last weekend.”

Zack started talking, gradually regaining his voice.

“I was out in my dad’s boat. We picked up some ladies. Your kid tagged along. We went up the Licking to party. No big deal.”

Will watched him. When the silence was starting to make him uncomfortable, Will said, “You want to try again?”

The young man jutted out his chin, then dropped his head. “We saw the boat, okay? Where the lady cop was killed.”

“When did you see it?”

“First when we went up-river.”

Will wanted the time: around three that afternoon. He started making notes.

“It didn’t look like anybody was aboard,” Zack Miller said. “It was tied up. I didn’t think anything about it. Then it was still there when we came back.”

“What time?”

“I have no idea. Way after midnight. We slowed down, thought maybe we could pull a prank. I ran the spotlight over the boat. We called over and nobody called back. So we pulled alongside, and I was going to check it out, make sure everybody was okay. But John went over. I guess he was trying to impress the girls. When he comes back, he said there was a dead woman in the cabin.”

Will suddenly had a headache. “John got onto that boat?”

“Yes, sir, he did.”

“How long was he there?”

Zack shrugged. “A few minutes. Then he came back and told us.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“I wanted to, but John said not to do it. He made us get out of there and I let everybody off at the Serpentine Wall.”

Will wrote slowly, trying to maintain his composure. Even if John hadn’t killed Kristen Gruber, witnesses now placed him on the boat, and the hair and shoe-print were probably his, too. That must have been why John refused to let the others call the police. He would be in deep shit and there was nothing that Will could do to protect him. He had done too much already. But at least John had an alibi for the time when Gruber was murdered.

He faced Heather, wishing he were interrogating them separately. “Is that how it happened?”

She nodded. “Yes.” She immediately looked down and to the left.

Will didn’t trust the story. Zack didn’t seem like the kind of boater or human being that would check the welfare of anybody who couldn’t do him a favor. But he also knew he had to fight against his bias to believe John was innocent.

“So let me get this straight. You go upriver, see the boat, and there’s no activity on it. You party a few miles upstream. Then when you come back, you stop. Why?”

“There was blood on the portholes. It hadn’t been there the first time.”

Will asked him how he knew.

“I know boats. It was a Rinker Fiesta, in pretty good shape. The first time I was surprised that somebody would tie it up and leave it. But there were other boats and canoes on the river. When we came back toward downtown, it was the only boat left. This time I saw the blood, and it wasn’t there before, when we were going upriver.” The more he talked, the greater the confidence in his voice.

“So while you guys are partying, did you notice anything odd on the river?”

The smirk returned. “I was kind of occupied, but no.”

“Only five young people on your boat?”

He lifted one shoulder. “Yep. Unless somebody used the Zodiac while I was busy or sacked out.”

A muscle spasm kicked Will in his side, forcing him to fight to keep his expression neutral.

“What Zodiac?”

Chapter Twenty-two

Will handled a call as PIO and talked on camera. The idea was to have him out there in public as much as possible, to try to lure the killer. After dark, he drove back to Hyde Park, his car in the fast flow of traffic gliding along above the river on Columbia Parkway, his mind forced into a trench of unthinking, if only for now. He didn’t look south, where the big river met its lethal tributary. He didn’t look up the bluff to the north, where Kristen Gruber’s condo perched.

In fifteen minutes, he was on the big-trees street in front of the sprawling Tudor, its blond bricks preening in the ornamental lighting. Every room inside was lit. It would have been a good account for Cincinnati Gas & Electric, if the company still existed, and hadn’t been lost in the endless takeovers that had shaken the city in recent years. Dodds was following him, but it would have to be. Will could make excuses later. He was still running an errand for his ex, more than she knew.

The phone inside rang six times before a man’s voice answered. Will watched him standing in the dining room, with a proprietary hand on his ex-wife’s shoulder.

“Brad, it’s your predecessor, Will Borders. Would you please put Cindy on the phone?”

“Will.” He hesitated. “We sat down to supper a moment ago and Cynthia has had a long day. Maybe I could ask her to call you later.”

“That won’t do. I’ll only take a minute.”

After some muffles and distant, indiscernible voices, she came on the line, her voice brittle with anger.

“You’re very rude.”

She said it after she walked out of the brightly lit dining room and disappeared into some other chamber of the huge manse.

“Is John there?”

“Yes, he’s going to join us for dinner.”

“I want to talk to him now.”

“You listen to…”

“Now, Cindy. I’m in the car right in front. This is police business. Send him out here.”

It took a long time. Then the big front door opened and John walked reluctantly to the curb and climbed in. He was neatly dressed and his hair was freshly cut, but he was everything that Zack Miller was not: a little pudgy, a dusting of acne, no athletic grace in his movements. Will felt sorry for the kid, and reminded himself that John wasn’t a kid anymore. But he also knew how much the surface, how much appearances mattered at John’s age.

He started the car and drove down the street lined with fine houses, turning left on Edwards, crossing Observatory and gliding into Hyde Park Square, where Erie Avenue split around a narrow park that held a statue, fountain, flower gardens, and trees. Each side was lined with expensive shops, galleries and cafés, although it looked slightly ragged from the recession. The night was pleasant and couples strolled under period lampposts. Will had thought about taking a longer drive, maybe all over the city. But he was too tired. And he needed to get back into “bait” mode. He was running out of time. He slid the car into one of the angled parking places a few doors down from the landmark two-story fire station.

“What’s up?”

Will stared straight ahead. He didn’t want to look at John, didn’t want to notice tells that he might be lying. He said, “Where were you on Saturday night?”

“I dunno. I’d have to think about it. Chillin’, I guess.”

He was lying already. Why was he lying? Will was afraid to speculate.

“I enjoyed having a beer with you the other night,” Will said, fighting to change the tone in his voice from accusation.

“Yeah, me, too.” John’s voice was wary.

“I got the sense you wanted to tell me something,” Will said. A young family went by on the sidewalk, two little children squealing in delight. What would they grow up to be? “John, if there’s something you want to tell me, it’s really important that you do it. Understand? It will really matter if you tell me on your own, if you make the decision to come to me and tell me what you wanted to say three nights ago.”

He wanted to say something like, you can trust me, I won’t judge you. And he wanted those things to be true, but he also had the badge and, had, as the young cop said to him, powers of arrest. The inside of the car was starting to warm up but he didn’t crack a window. A noiseless expanse of time did nothing to stop the spasms in his legs. The next sound he heard was John crying. It was an ugly suppressed sobbing. The more he tried to hold it in, the worse it burst out after a few seconds. Will held back the instinct to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“She was…dead in there,” he finally managed. “There was blood everywhere. He’d cut her up between her legs and spread them wide open. And…she was staring at me with those dead eyes…”

“Dead in where?”

“The boat. I went over to check. She was dead…”

“Was anyone else aboard?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Try to remember!” Will knew he shouldn’t have shouted, but his ass was on the line now, too. “You said, ‘he’d cut her…’ Who cut her?”

“I don’t know. It was only a figure of expression.” John sniffled loudly. Neither of them had a Kleenex. Will usually kept a pack in the car for moments like this with the family or friends of a victim. “Nobody was on deck. I ran the flashlight into the cabin and I couldn’t see anything at first. Then I saw her, and got out. I was really scared.”

“How did you know she was dead?”

He hesitated, as if he hadn’t even considered it. “There was so much blood,” he said. “It was all over the walls, a big pool of it on the floor, and she was so white.”

“You didn’t check her pulse?”

“I was afraid to step into the blood.”

Will didn’t understand the contradiction: how John could go aboard to see if anything was wrong, but then see a bloody woman and not check to see if she were still alive. He’d been in Boy Scouts awhile and knew some first aid. This was the kind of thing that a skilled interrogator could start to break down, take apart, and drive a truck through. Will realized that he was desensitized to seeing the dead and being up to his elbows in blood. But John’s story still didn’t fit, unless you believed he first really did want to impress Heather Bridges and then, after he was aboard, became frightened and fled. It was all what a jury would believe-Will was that far down the line in his reasoning.

“What else can you remember about the boat? Anything on deck or in the cabin that seemed odd to you?”

“It smelled funny in the cabin,” John said. “I couldn’t place it at first, but now I think it smelled like bleach.”

Will stared at the steering wheel, losing his last grain of hope that John’s presence on that boat was all a big misunderstanding. He had been there. “Did you know who the woman was?”

“Yes.” His voice was quiet. “Kristen.”

Will rolled down a window and the sweet Cincinnati spring breeze unseemly intruded.

“Why were you even on the river that night?” Will demanded.

“I was on a boat with some friends from school.”

He ran John through the same line of questions as he used on his supposed friends from school: What time did they leave the Serpentine Wall, who was aboard, when did they see Kristen’s boat, how far up the Licking River they went, how long they were partying, and when they saw the boat on the return trip. It all jibed. In fact, John had a more precise time for the second encounter with the death boat: a few minutes before four a.m.

“What were you doing upriver for so long?” Will asked.

“We had some drinks. Then Zack handed out E. Ecstasy.”

“I know what E means. What else?”

John rolled down his window and stuck an elbow out. “People started hooking up. I was with Heather.”

“Really?” Will didn’t say it in a scandalized parent’s voice, the way Cindy would, but with a sharp snap of skepticism. John looked at him with hate.

“I guess Zack fucked all three girls,” John said darkly. “Maybe the girls played with each other, too. I don’t know. I passed out.”

Will made him answer it again. He sounded credible.

“I watched Zack and Heather bumping nasties, if you really want to know the truth,” John said. “I didn’t want to see any of it, but they woke me up.”

“Why would you get on the boat with these kids, John?”

“I didn’t want to! Heather and I were going to have a picnic at Sawyer Point. Only us. I asked her out. Thought she liked me. Then that douche nozzle pulls up in his fancy boat and she wanted to go. She invited me. Zack would have been happy to leave me at the wall.”

Will took it in and said nothing.

“Are you carrying your knife?”

The boy stiffened in his seat and nodded.

“Let me see it, please.”

John reluctantly reached in his pants pocket and handed it to Will, who switched on the dome light and unfolded the knife, which locked in place. It was heavy and all black, with a web-textured steel handle and spear point. “Blackhawk!” was emblazoned on the surface of the blade. It was very sharp. Although the blade looked a legal length, the whole unfolded knife appeared almost eight inches long. He examined it for dried blood; found none. John could have cleaned it. The Gruber autopsy showed such brutal knife wounds that it was difficult to determine the shape or edge characteristics of the blade, but it probably wasn’t serrated. This blade wasn’t serrated.

Will asked John if he had bought the knife. He said he had ordered it online for eighty dollars.

“And tell me again why you would carry a knife?”

“So I’d feel safe.”

“Ever been in a knife fight?”

“No,” John said softly.

“Ever use this knife for anything?”

He shook his head.

The motion made Will’s own headache worse. He should have popped some Advils. It was probably only stress. Or a brain tumor.

“John, let me give you a scenario. While your friends were partying and high, or sleeping, or whatever, you unlashed the Zodiac from Zack Miller’s boat and went downriver. You climbed on Kristen’s boat. You threatened her with the knife and made her handcuff herself. Then you stabbed her over and over again…”

“No…No…” He was sobbing again.

“Then you got back to Zack’s boat, tied up, and you have an alibi for when you all discover her later.”

“It’s not true!” he shouted, the streetlights shining on his tears. Some mannerly East Siders walked by a little faster, but didn’t look at them.

Will let out a long breath. “I don’t want it to be true, John. But the police found a shoe-print on the boat, and some hairs. The odds are they’ll be yours.”

John was completely silent.

“Where were you on Sunday night?”

“What is it with you?” John exploded. “I have to account for every second like a ten-year-old?”

Will wanted to say, then stop acting like a ten-year-old. But, calmly, “Two nursing students were killed up at Oxford, John. They were killed with a knife, like Kristen Gruber was.”

A gasp came from the shadow in the other seat. It relieved Will.

“You don’t think…? It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything!”

“But you told me you partied up there. Did you see some pretty nursing students? Maybe they gave you the brush-off in a bar and you decided to get even.”

“I was home with mom. You can ask her. We rented a movie.”

Will finally let out a breath.

“You have to go to the police. I’m going to give you the name and number of a detective in Covington. I want you to call her in the morning. All you have to do is tell her what happened. Tell her the truth. You were scared. But you want to come forward and do the right thing. Now, did anyone see you with this knife that night?”

“No.”

“Think, John. Did they?”

He almost cringed in the seat. “No! Nobody saw it.”

“Then I’m going to borrow it. I’ve borrowed it for a month, okay? So you haven’t had it.”

“I thought you said tell the truth.”

“Yeah,” Will said, both temples throbbing. “Leave the knife out of it. If you’re telling me the truth, then the knife has no part of your story, right?”

He nodded. “Are you going to tell mom?”

“You can do that. You’re an adult now.”

Will slid the knife into his pocket. He hated knives. The Mount Adams Slasher had used a knife, including on Theresa. He started the car and backed out. As he cruised slowly around the park to return the way they came, he asked, “John, why didn’t you call the police when you found her body?”

“I wanted to. Zack wouldn’t let me. He drove out of there as fast as he could, telling me he didn’t want to get caught with drunk underage girls and E on his dad’s expensive boat.”

“Zack said you’re the one who wouldn’t let him call.”

“You talked to Zack? He’s lying!”

Of course he was, Will thought. Zack had control of the boat and could have chosen to stay. But there was a problem of corroboration, and it wouldn’t help John.

“Ask Heather,” he said. “She’ll tell you.”

“I did. Heather backed up Zack’s version.”

Will watched his stepson’s face in the mirror as they drove back in silence. It held a rage that stole all his youth.

Afterward, Will stopped at a United Dairy Farmers store, bought Advil and a bottle of water, and swallowed four of the dark red pills at once.

Chapter Twenty-three

When all the lights had been turned off downstairs, Cheryl Beth walked through the darkness with a glass of Chardonnay. Upstairs, she ran a warm tub of water, lit some candles, turned off the lights, and undressed. The wine and the yellow-orange flickering light relaxed her as she stretched out in the tub. She dunked her head, pushed back her wet hair, and took stock.

She didn’t want to hate Hank Brooks for being obsessed with Noah when the real killer was still out there, or for releasing Noah to his fate. Brooks didn’t call her until late in the day. Then he didn’t sound the least bit contrite. Instead, he said how he had doubted that Noah was the murderer, even in the hours after he had been arrested in the Formal Gardens. It was all about Brooks covering his ass. She barely got through the conversation without saying many unladylike things.

She couldn’t imagine the horror Noah had felt there in the old graveyard. Was there something she could have done for him, when he found her in the bookstore? She couldn’t think what is would have been, but she felt guilty nonetheless. Three of her students now dead. She took a deep drink of wine and felt warm water trickle down her back.

She thought of Will and looked at her body illuminated in the candlelight. She no longer had the bloom of seventeen, when she had been a reluctant cheerleader in Corbin, a national merit scholar finalist, too. She had scholarship offers from very good universities, but her mother said they didn’t have the money to make up the difference. Nobody was on her side, the side of a young woman who dreamed of a world outside Corbin, who had the bus schedules out of town memorized.

So she went as far as she could, to the biggest city she knew, studying nursing at the University of Cincinnati. Her mother made her be practical in that choice. She had really wanted to study philosophy or theater. And she took her only boyfriend in tow, a nice but unambitious young man who really didn’t want to leave town. They married too young. Now, past forty, she looked at a body whose changes she was only too aware of, and they were all changes for the worse. It didn’t matter how many compliments she got or how many men hit on her. The years went by and they took and took and took. What a silly, vain thought, when three of your students are dead. Well, she still had nice legs.

As the candles painted shadows on the walls, she wished Will would call. But he was working. She had turned on the news before coming upstairs, and he was on camera twice as the police spokesman: a two-hundred-pound python found in a trash can in Sedamsville, below Mount Echo Park, and a shooting in Corryville, not far from the hospitals on Pill Hill, a few rough blocks from the now-closed hospital where she had almost lost her life. The television reporter said a man shot at a police officer but missed. Will made a statement, the man was now in custody, and then the chief of police talked. So much craziness and violence were a part of his life, and yet he seemed so steady and gentle. Could it be an act? She had been taken in before. Still, she liked the way he opened doors for her, old school, the way he was interested in her, how he kissed, and how he was tall. She liked the way her head tucked under his.

She wished she had brought the wine bottle upstairs.

When the phone rang, she was glad she had it by the tub. She dried off a hand and answered. It was Will, asking if he was calling too late.

“I’m a night owl,” she said. “Too many years spent checking on patients around midnight when the pain got bad. I saw you on television. A two-hundred-pound snake?”

“He was the most pleasant creature I dealt with today. Anyway, lots of face time for Detective Will Borders. Now the question is whether the killer is watching.” He told her about the minimal press release they had put out regarding Noah. “This guy has delusions of grandeur. He addressed the note directly to me. So the hope is if he doesn’t get the publicity he’s seeking, he might come after me.” He sighed. “Or, he’ll stop and we’ll never find him, and in a few years he’ll start again somewhere else.”

“What kind of a person would do these things, Will?”

“There’s a type,” he said. “The scary thing is that sometimes they can fit right into society. They’re not out in the country living alone in a doublewide. Or, like a lot of white folks in this town think, a scary black man asking for change on the sidewalk.”

“Do you think you know who did it? Or shouldn’t I ask that?”

“I met a man who I think is very capable of it,” Will said. “He was one of Kristen’s lovers. But he’s very connected, and we’ll need major probable cause to take it further. I’m not even sure the other detectives would agree with me. This guy’s got an alibi, or he say he does. I’d love to poke a few holes in it and know where he was Saturday night.”

“I hope you’re being careful.”

“Door’s locked, and I’m upstairs with my Smith & Wesson and shotgun.”

“You’re getting me hot.” She smiled.

“And, I have detectives watching from a car out on the street. It could be worse. They wanted me to wear a wire 24/7, so they could even listen in on our conversation. Dodds would especially like that.”

“He’s such a character.” She looked at herself in the tub and thought, Ask me what I’m wearing…

“He is that.” Will paused. “I’m wondering if we should go to the symphony tomorrow night.”

“Are you kicking me to the curb, Borders?”

“No! I’m worried. I have skin in this game. You don’t. I already nearly got you killed when I was in the hospital. I’m afraid of putting you at risk, at even greater risk, because we can’t be sure the killer doesn’t already know about you.”

“As I recall, Detective, I nearly got you killed. The murderer was after me, and your buddies at CPD thought I was a murderer.”

“You know what I mean…”

“And I have skin in the game, too, as you put it. My students are dead.”

Another pause. “Fair enough. But I don’t have the best history this way.”

“Will, why does Dodds call you Mister President?”

He seemed grateful to laugh. “That bastard. Okay, if we’re going to bare our souls, it’s because my full name is William Howard Taft Borders. Named after Cincinnati’s only president, and a failed one at that. My mom was a local history buff. He calls me that it to get under my skin.”

Cheryl Beth smiled and finished the wine. “I like it. Look, Will, I know you feel guilty about what happened with Theresa Chambers. But that wasn’t your fault. It’s in the past and you can’t live your life in fear. Unless…” Her smile faded. “Unless you don’t like me, and if that’s the case, all you have to do is tell me, before I get skin in that game, too.”

“No, Cheryl Beth. I like you a lot. I have ever since I met you. No game.”

“You’re mighty forward.” She exaggerated her accent.

“I didn’t mean…”

“Relax, Will. I’m kidding you.”

“Right.” His voice relaxed.

“Maybe you don’t even like the symphony. You probably use that line to get girls because you know we usually have to drag men to concerts.”

“Yep, that’s me. Be ready tomorrow night and you’ll find out.” His cadence changed. “Tomorrow’s going to be hell day, I’m afraid. I don’t think I told you that my ex-wife has remarried and finally has her big house in Hyde Park. I went over there tonight to talk to my stepson. He’s in trouble. He was on the river Saturday night with some other kids and they found Kristen Gruber’s boat. He went aboard and saw her body. Lord, I wish he would have called the police then.”

“Oh, no.”

“I told him he’s got to go tomorrow and tell what he knows.” The phone line made a lonely buzz, then, “Even though he’s not my biological son and things the past few years have put more distance between us, I feel for him like he’s really my son.”

She managed, “I know you must.”

“Money’s not a problem in his life. Far from it. So different from when I was growing up. But somehow the money is making things worse for him. So I’m not so much worried about the blowback on me tomorrow, and there will be. I’m worried about him. He’s so isolated and…I don’t know. You try your best to raise a child, but you finally realize that you can’t live their life for them, that they aren’t you. They can’t be saved from all the mistakes you had to make. Inside, there’s this individual soul that’s going its own way, for better or worse. I’m rambling, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “Try to be good to you. I worry about you.”

“I’ll try. When do I get to learn some of your secrets, Cheryl Beth Wilson?”

She forced herself to speak. “Maybe I don’t have any. Maybe I’m only a simple, small-town girl from Corbin, Kentucky.”

“I doubt that.”

“Then stick around. Sleep tight.”

“You, too.”

After he hung up, she sank into the water and smiled and sobbed.