Powers of Arrest

Chapter Twenty-four

Will looked very debonair-yes, that was exactly the right word-sitting across from her. His charcoal pinstripe suit looked new, and his crisp white shirt was set off with a purple tie that had a subtle pattern. She was feeling the shortness of the black dress she was wearing, her legs encased in sheer black stockings, but he definitely noticed and complimented her twice about how good she looked. “Smashing,” was one tribute; rather like “debonair.”

It was wonderful to be out with him, and especially in one of her favorite places, the Palm Court at the Netherland Plaza Hotel downtown. She gloried in its long, spacious, art deco expanse. She always expected to see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers at another table. The rich, dark wood of the walls alternated with elaborate golden sconces and frescoes running up into the roof. The first time she ever saw the place, it looked like a combination of an ancient pagan temple and a glamorous setting from an old movie. The bar in the center of the room was right out of the 1930s and a pianist was playing jazz on a grand piano. They both appropriately ordered gin martinis.

It seemed like the right nightcap to the classical evening. Cheryl Beth also adored Music Hall, even though she hadn’t been to the symphony in two years. To live in Cincinnati was to be immersed in music, from the symphony and chamber orchestra, to the Pops and the May Festival’s choral extravaganza, which was coming right up. And Will had not disappointed. He had great seats in the orchestra section with as perfect sound quality as she had heard there.

As always, the stately old building seemed to levitate with an exciting glitter on a concert night. She didn’t really know much about classical music. She knew what she liked, what transported her. But from the day she had arrived in Cincinnati, the symphony had been part of her self-improvement program, to lift herself out of the small-town South.

Will, surprisingly, did know classical music. Now he talked in that calm, sexy voice about the night’s program, about the history of Beethoven’s King Stephen Overture and the Second Piano Concerto. But he wore his knowledge easily. His face was relaxed and happy.

“Beethoven turned the piano into the monarch of romantic instruments,” he said.

“You play, don’t you?”

He gave a dismissive shrug. “I wouldn’t call it that, now. It’s hard to sit properly at the keyboard after my surgery and impossible to use the pedals… And I’m lazy and now I’m a little afraid of the thing. But I would much rather have been a pianist than a cop.”

“Really?” This surprised her.

He smiled. “Who knows?”

“You wouldn’t have to carry that.” She indicated the small walkie-talkie radio sitting on the table next to his drink. “Maybe you’ll play for me sometime. I’ll sit next to you and stabilize you.”

“Maybe I will.”

“I thought the tribute to the cellist was very moving,” Cheryl Beth said. “So much has happened this week that I had forgotten about that.” She shivered slightly, and not only from the cool air on her legs. So much violence had been visited in a few days.

Tonight’s program had been modified to include a piece dedicated to the murdered musician, with the cello solo played by a tall, willowy blonde. Although the program’s listing of her accomplishments made it clear she was at least fifty, she looked much younger, with Nordic features and flawless fair skin.

“That was Stephanie Foust,” Will said. “She was Jeremy Snowden’s teacher and mentor.”

“She said he could have gone to Julliard, but chose to stay in Cincinnati and study at CCM. If he hadn’t stayed, he might not be dead. It’s so sad. She seemed really on the edge of losing it. But she did a beautiful job.”

Will nodded. “Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise arranged for cello and orchestra. It’s such a hauntingly beautiful melody. She chose well.”

“It almost made me cry,” Cheryl Beth said.

“I think it did the same to her. Remember the final statement of the theme, which actually occurs in the orchestra. Stephanie was playing a counter-melody. It closes the work in the upper stratosphere.”

“I remember. It was magical.”

“But if you listened closely, she was so spent, so devastated, that she missed her entrance to the final repetition of the melody.”

Cheryl Beth hadn’t noticed.

He said, “She recovered in time… Most people wouldn’t even hear it. Sorry, I sound pompous.”

“You don’t!” Cheryl Beth said. She was rapt listening to him. “I love to learn about this from you.”

“I’ve heard the piece many times. It’s one of my favorites.”

“Well, thank goodness the police got the guy.”

Will’s face was thoughtful. “They think they did.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” Will gave a smile short of sly. “Only a feeling I have.”

She reached over and took his hand. The abrasions from his fall were healing, but she wasn’t examining him, only wanting the closeness.

“There’s so much to you, Will Borders.”

He gave a self-deprecating shrug.

“The symphony president thought so. She specifically came up to you at intermission to thank you for your help. All those important people were watching her and wondering who we were. A cop and a nurse.”

Will chuckled. “Notice how she avoided Dodds, even though he was no more than twenty feet away? He wasn’t deferential enough to the symphony, which is a high crime in Cincinnati, so I had to go over and smooth ruffled feathers.” His eyes brightened. “Here’s a secret.” He leaned in closer, still holding her hand.

“Her husband was one of Kristen Gruber’s lovers.”

Cheryl Beth felt her eyes widen.

“Yep. He berths his boat right next to hers at the marina. And he’s a middle-aged bald man.”

“Oh, my god…” She felt the big room closing in to envelope the two of them.

“He’s a very high-powered lawyer. I met with him. He was belligerent. Of course, he doesn’t want his wife to know he was with Kristen. He said he had an alibi, that he was with his wife last Saturday night.”

“Too bad,” she said.

Will leaned in closer. “It may be too bad for him. Remember when Mrs. Buchanan spoke to the audience before the Rachmaninoff tribute to Jeremy Snowden? How she said that it was only last Saturday night when she had heard him play there, and then she had gone to a party with him and other musicians after the concert. Her husband said they were alone at home Saturday night.”

“The bald man who stalked Lauren…”

“If only I can sell it to the bosses.”

Afterward, they walked across the street to Fountain Square. Will walked best when he could swing his left arm, but he took Cheryl Beth’s hand and moved even slower. She didn’t seem to mind. The most famous public space in the city was deserted except for the lights on the Tyler Davidson Fountain, illuminating the water falling out of the hands of the bronze woman who kept watch from her granite perch. Even many natives didn’t know the fountain was actually called the Genius of Water. They sat on the lip and felt the spray in the cool night.

He couldn’t keep his eyes off Cheryl Beth: she had never looked more beautiful.

“Are your friends watching us?” she asked.

He nodded. “See that Ford that’s illegally parked?”

“So I guess we can’t get naked in the fountain. Why are you doing this, Will? Making yourself a target.”

Things had happened so quickly he didn’t have an easy answer. It seemed to come naturally with the job. And with Dodds taking over as lead, he felt more insecure about even keeping the PIO position.

“Don’t try to be macho,” she said. “That’s not you.”

“No. I don’t want this guy to get away, and this way is our best shot at luring him back. I’m careful. If you’re worried about the cane and all…”

She touched his face. “I’m not worried about that. I want you to be safe. So I’m glad they’re watching.”

She asked him about his day and he told her. It started with a call from Diane Henderson in Covington; she wanted to meet across the bridge. There she told him that his stepson had come to her and said he had boarded Kristen Gruber’s boat early Sunday morning. He acted surprised but told Cheryl Beth about forcing John to go to the police. Then he received a mega-ass-chewing from Fassbinder over the news, full of threats and menace. Fassbinder was a political commander and had forced better officers than Will out of the unit, even off the force. John hadn’t been taken into custody-that was good. But Henderson said she considered him a person of interest-that was bad. Of course there was the mandatory call from Cindy, in hysterics over the developments with John, which were somehow his fault.

“He’s fortunate to have you,” Cheryl Beth said.

“I’m not sure he sees it that way.”

“Why didn’t you and Cindy ever have children of your own?”

He sighed. It was a question he had asked himself many times, and the straightforward answer was that Cindy didn’t want more children. She became more and more invested in her career. He wanted to be supportive of that. And they had John, who for so many years seemed like his own son.

“Now I’m afraid for him.” He watched the sparse traffic on Fifth Street and Vine.

“Of course, you would be,” she said. After a pause, “Are you afraid of him?”

“Maybe.” He paused. “Whoever wrote the note pinned to Noah Smith knew I was investigating the death of Kristen Gruber. Hardly anyone knew that, and almost nobody in the public. But I remember now that John stopped by my place a few days ago and I told him.”

“Oh…”

For a long time they listened to the mesmerizing voice of the intricate Victorian fountain. Around them were flavorless modern box skyscrapers, except for the 1930 masterpiece of the Carew Tower, with its setbacks and soaring tawny walls, Cincinnati’s own miniature Rockefeller Center. Will remembered Pogue’s Department Store had anchored the arcade that was part of the tower and the Netherland Plaza. It was long gone, as was the big Shillito-Rikes over on Seventh. They had been so full of magic and big-city bustle, especially at Christmas. Now all that was left was the little Macy’s west of the square, a concession to Macy’s headquarters city and plenty of city subsidies. South of the Carew Tower, he could make out the lit whiteness of the 1913 PNC Tower, still the Central Trust Tower to natives, with its Greek temple at the top.

“Will, I’ve lied to you.”

She took her hand away from his and faced toward the glassy front of the Westin across Fifth.

“You’re married?” He tried to make light, but the change in her voice made him uneasy.

“Just hold me.”

That was easy. He wrapped his arms around her and she leaned into him. He could barely hear her when she started talking.

“When I said I didn’t have children, that was a lie. I’ve been telling that lie for so long that it comes naturally…”

She clutched him back tightly.

“I had a daughter. She died. She was born with a bad heart, and when she was three…I couldn’t stop it. Her name was Carla Beth and today is her birthday and she would have been eighteen years old…”

All this came tumbling out at a speed to match the cascade of the fountain. He held on and kissed the top of her head. Her hair was very soft.

“I can’t explain to you why I told this lie,” she said. “There’s no good reason. I loved that little girl so much. She was mine. And the grief was mine. Now I realize she didn’t belong to me. She belonged to God, and if she had lived she would have made her own decisions. But for so many years I couldn’t let go. I didn’t want to try to have another baby because I couldn’t stand another loss…couldn’t face it again…and I never found the right man. But I had my grief… It was easier to wear this disguise. I don’t want that with you.”

For the first time in so long, his mind wasn’t regretting the past or fearing the future. He was there in that space and moment, under the golden light of the fountain, feeling her heart beat wildly inside her chest.

She raised her head and looked at him straight on. Her eyes were wet but fierce. “Don’t make me regret that decision, Will Borders.”

He pulled her in and held her close, whispering, “Never…never going to hurt you…never going to let you down…” again and again. The splash and murmur of water, the song of this river city, under the statue’s outstretched arms, consecrated their moment.

Chapter Twenty-five

They walked back to his car in silence, still holding hands. Cheryl Beth felt strangely free and light after telling him. She felt safe with him knowing. It was as if a new world had opened at her feet. He started slowly up Vine Street, past Piatt Park where the murdered President James Garfield looked out on the city from his statue, past the public library and Scotti’s Italian restaurant with its red-and-green neon sign and red door. After Central Parkway and the monotonous Kroger tower, Vine would enter Over-the-Rhine and then climb into Clifton, back home.

“Let’s go to your place.” Her voice sounded normal again.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

She put her hand on his knee. “Yes. It’s a wonderful idea.”

“Me, too.”

She had never even seen the little street that held Will’s townhouse. It was a block from the mishmash of wide Liberty Street, but it was quiet and secluded. The townhouse itself must have been more than a hundred years old and yet it looked to be in good shape. The interior was completely restored and modernized, even if the granite kitchen countertops weren’t quite to her taste.

“Is this your son?” She held up a photo of a tall, dark-haired young man. He smiled awkwardly at the camera.

“Stepson,” Will said. “His biological father showed back up, rich in Boston, and now my ex has remarried. The kid doesn’t want for fathers.”

She liked it that he had an old Baldwin upright piano, a bookshelf with titles that looked as if they had actually been read, and on the wall was a framed movie poster from The Violators. Will explained how he had bought the townhouse from a P &G guy who had done the rehab as he showed her though the downstairs.

“Play something for me.”

“I can’t really,” he said, embarrassment clouding him. “I tilt now.”

“I’ll sit next to you.”

So they did. His fingers tentatively began The Blue Danube, gathering confidence as he went. It was all wrong: he couldn’t use the pedals. “I played this by ear when I was six. It made my mother think I was some kind of musical genius. Hardly.”

“I love it,” Cheryl Beth said.

Then he tried “Isn’t It Romantic” from memory. She leaned into him. It felt like magic.

He left on a low lamp as they walked back into the living room. She mock-pushed him onto the sofa and straddled him. Now the dress was much shorter and she didn’t mind. She felt his hands on each side of her face as he pulled her in close for a kiss. It was easy to respond to his lips and she kissed back, using her tongue, too. He was a good kisser. Then his hands were on her hips, pulling her closer. But his eyes held a wariness.

“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered and kissed him deeply.

“I worry…”

“I have worries,” she said. This confession didn’t keep him from nibbling on her neck, which set many nodes of her nerves into a delighted alert status.

He whispered, “What?” His mouth again met hers again and their tongues danced around together.

“I worry you won’t be a legs-and-butt man and you’ll want a 44-D woman.”

His face gave up a broad smile. “I am a legs-and-butt man, all the way, lifelong. You couldn’t be more attractive to me, Cheryl Beth.” His hands were moving up her legs inside her skirt. It had been a very long time since she had felt this, and he had a light, teasing touch.

She leaned back and touched his nose. “Then don’t worry. Remember what I told you after your surgery when you were still in the hospital?”

“You told me to stick out my tongue and wiggle it. I did. And you said, ‘You have all that any man needs to satisfy a woman.’ ”

He lightly licked her wrist, ran circles around it with his tongue, and kissed the inside of her forearm. She sighed happily. “Oh, you do remember that. I had said that to so many patients, but with you I was very…”

“You turned red.”

“Yes, I did, because I was attracted to you, Detective.”

“And I was to you, pain nurse.” Will pulled her in for more kissing. It had been so long since he had been with a woman. And this woman had been on his mind for so long. Part of him could barely believe it was happening, that he could be doing this after his surgery and with the day-to-day of his disability. But all of him was enjoying it, with every kiss, touch, and pressure of body on body sweeping away his apprehensions.

As she rocked against his pelvis, she let out a moan.

Still, he felt an obligation, almost like the need to give her a Miranda warning. “What if I get another tumor and end up in a motorized wheelchair or dead?”

She felt heat spreading down to her feet. “What if I get hit by a bus tomorrow?” she whispered.

Then she was taking off his tie, unbuttoning his shirt. “So stop worrying. Anyway…” Her hand was playing with the fly of his slacks. “Something’s happening down here.”

“Mmmmm?”

“Now relax, sir, I’m a nurse.”

They lay together in his bed upstairs, the room dark except for pale blue light filtering in from the street. Cheryl Beth looked forward to taking in the view Will’s balcony displayed, but they had other things to do when they first came up to the room. His suit and her black pantyhose were downstairs. She felt spent and completely content. His face looked almost boyish, his hair curled up on the pillow, and his sleepy eyes barely open.

He stuck out his tongue.

She smiled. “You’re a very good bad boy, Will Borders.”

Slipping on his dress shirt, his only piece of clothing that made it upstairs, she stepped out on the narrow balcony.

“This is beautiful,” she called back inside. To her left, she could see the back of Christ Hospital.

“Down below is Jackson Hill Park,” he said. “It’s where the old Mount Auburn incline ran. Most people don’t even know that park exists. I wish they wouldn’t have torn out all the old inclines.”

She stepped back inside, closed the door, and lay beside him again.

“By the way,” he said. “You have perfect breasts.”

She ran a hand down his chest. “I’m glad you like.” She had always thought they were too small.

“And legs and mind and face and…”

“What was that clicking on your radio after we turned off the light downstairs?” she asked. “It was like, click-click, then a pause and it happened again.”

“Oh, those jerks. They were only messing with me.”

“I hope they couldn’t hear us.” She giggled, not really concerned.

Will explained how a double-click of a mic button could signify “okay” or “affirmative.” After the second double-click, a dispatcher had come on to tell the units to keep the channel clear.

“You guys are as bad as nurses,” she said, nestling her head into his shoulder. The sheets smelled like Will, and now like both of them, and that made her happy. His heart was beating normal sinus rhythm. That made her happy, too.

His right leg suddenly thrust up in a crooked position.

“Did you do that deliberately?”

“No, it’s the spasticity. It usually kicks in an hour or so after I lie down. Then I have to sit up and shake my leg until it calms down, or I fall asleep in the chair and have bad dreams. Whine, whine, whine.”

“Poor baby.” She kissed his right thigh. It was remarkably muscled up compared with the left. “Here.” She pushed it down and it immediately pulled back up. “Going to be stubborn, eh?” She rose up from beside him and swung across his leg, sitting on the quads. The muscles fought her but gradually eased up.

“Better?”

“It feels great.”

Cheryl Beth felt a little sizzle from pressure of his quads between her legs, and managed, “Uh-huh.”

She was about to come again when the phone rang.

Late-night phone calls were never good. As a pain nurse, Cheryl Beth knew they meant something was wrong with a patient, that she would have to throw on clothes and rush back to the hospital. She felt Will’s body tense beside her but he made no attempt to answer. In a few seconds, a voice came on his machine. The voice sounded distorted, like a robot out of an old sci-fi movie.

“Detective Borders, are you fucking with me? ‘Cause of death unknown…may be suicide.’ Are you not taking me seriously? If your situation didn’t interest me, I would immediately release the truth about my deathscapes to the public. Let the police be shown for fools. Let the city live in fear. I know you’re there, detective. I know you can hear me. Don’t assume you or the pretty nurse are safe…”

Will grabbed for the handset, nearly sending Cheryl Beth tumbling off the bed.

“Gone,” he said and cursed. He spoke into his hand-held radio. “He called a minute ago. Did you get it on the land-line tap?”

“Affirmative, 7140. Too short for a trace. Sounded like the voice distortion machine you can buy in any spy shop.”

“He’s watching my house.”

“It’s all clear out here. He may have seen you at Fountain Square or the symphony.”

Will set the radio back on the bedside table and pulled her close to him. She laid her head on his big chest and listened to his heart slowly stop its race. She could feel her own, whacking away under her sternum.

“He knows I’m a nurse,” she whispered.

“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry I got you into this.”

“You didn’t.” She liked it that he called her “baby.” She said, “He killed three of my students. For all I know, I was in this before you were.”

He stroked her hair and thought about that. Then: “Do you know how to handle a pistol?”

“My daddy taught me.”

“Good. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“I know.”

He started to speak again, but she held her hand against his cheek, “Now, hush,” gently, and they held each other, skin on skin from face to toes, the best feeling in the world, no matter what waited tomorrow, what waited outside the bricks of the wall. She felt a brave peace.

Saturday

Chapter Twenty-six

Lieutenant Fassbinder called an all-hands meeting for ten. Everyone was fueling up on coffee and in a bad mood for being brought in on the weekend. Once again, Will was back on the fifth floor of 800 Broadway, sitting at his old desk. He was the only one not in a bad mood, and the reason, Cheryl Beth, was sitting in the waiting room.

“Ideas, people,” Fassbinder was saying, pacing a trench in the floor. His voice was businesslike, but his hands kept clenching and unclenching. “I need ideas. The brass are on me like white on rice and that means I’m going to be kicking every little turd from them right down on you. Ideas!”

“We need somebody with Cheryl Beth,” Dodds said.

Fassbinder stopped and gave Will a stare so filled with anger that no one would have been surprised if he had started foaming at the mouth. “I think Borders has that covered. Don’t you, Detective Borders.”

Dodds persisted. “Starting Monday, she’s going to be back on the job. She’s a target. Do you want me to replay…”

“No, I don’t want you to replay the goddamned recording. We’ve heard it five times.” Fassbinder stalked to Dodds’ desk and rapped his fist on it. “Do you know how much overtime this is costing?”

“The chief said we could have unlimited overtime,” Will said.

Fassbinder fixed him with the suppressed homicidal look again. “Well, your friend the chief doesn’t cut me that kind of slack, Borders. My old man wasn’t killed in the line of duty. I don’t limp with a fucking cane. It’s a week since Gruber’s death and we don’t have shit. That’s the world I live in. The only thing Covington has is your goddamned son as a person of interest. Your son!”

“John only stepped on the boat,” Will said. “After the murder took place. He voluntarily came forward as a witness.”

The lieutenant ignored him. “Do you know we have eleven open homicides this year besides Gruber and this kid in the graveyard with his cock cut off? Last year, we had seventy-two and half of them are unresolved.” He wheeled back around and continued pacing. “Skeen. You play nurse, starting Monday.”

“I hope it’s as much fun as playing doctor,” she said, but no one laughed.

That gave Will some piece of mind. So did arming Cheryl Beth. He had given her his old backup weapon, a snub-nose.38 Chief’s Special. It was small, lightweight, and lethal. When he handed it to her, butt-first, she immediately opened the cylinder to make sure it wasn’t loaded. Then she hefted it and did some dry-firing. Will had kept it clean and oiled for years, and the mechanism worked like new. She had been taught well by her father. He loaded the revolver and she gently slid it into her purse.

Fassbinder kept talking, “I’m bringing in narcotics and Central Vice to help tail Borders.” Everyone groaned and cursed. There was a long-standing feud between narcotics and homicide. Several years ago, a narc had tossed a firecracker into the homicide office. One of the old homicide detectives, now retired, had fashioned a bomb from a printer cartridge filled with shredded paper and set it off in narcotics as retaliation. It took them years to get the burned paper off the walls and desks. Unfortunately, Fassbinder had come over from narcotics four years before. So no one took it further than assorted “fucks” and “shits,” spoken in the tone of members of the police department’s most elite and seasoned unit.

“What do you want me to do?” Fassbinder said. “I need homicide detectives working this homicide case, not tailing Borders.”

“What if the killer is on the force?” Dodds said. “Whoever wrote that note knew Will was working the case. We need to keep this in-house, inside homicide.”

“No.” Fassbinder said. “What are you still doing on Gruber, Borders?”

“I’m going though her old arrests and I have a disk off her hard drive with twenty-one-hundred photos, give or take.”

“Hand off the arrest records to Kovach,” Fassbinder said. “He’s the new liaison with Covington, too. You’ve got a conflict of interest. Dodds, make sure you have the Gruber casebook from Borders. He can go through the pics while he’s sitting at home.” He wagged a finger at Will. “And that’s what you will do when you’re not on a PIO call. Now, people, listen up: I don’t want to get distracted with this Oxford homicide. Focus on Gruber. What do we know?”

Will said, “Lieutenant, Gruber is connected to the Oxford murders, and sooner or later somebody is going to put this together and it’s going to be public. We have four murders in four days committed by the same guy. Jack the Ripper only killed five in two months, and then he disappeared forever. What if this guy does the same? Covering our asses will be the least of our worries.”

“Oxford P.D. and Butler County have agreed to sit on our story for now,” Fassbinder said. “Nobody’s mourning Noah Smith and calling the media about him.”

“These killings are all connected,” Will said. “We need to go public.”

A long, furious silence sat in the room. Finally Will went through Kristen Gruber’s last twenty-four hours. She had worked day shift out of Central Vice a week ago Friday, made eight routine arrests, nobody resisting or making threats. She went off duty and spent Friday night with her sergeant friend at her condo. They had breakfast at First Watch at Rookwood Pavilion on Saturday morning a week ago. At 2:38 p.m., she withdrew a hundred dollars from an ATM. Sometime after that, she took her boat out from the marina. Nobody saw her leave. Not one tip had a witness placing her on the water; therefore, they didn’t know who was on the boat with her.

Fassbinder said, “I want something real, and I goddamned want it before Sunday night.” He called out names and assignments, and Will knew springtime weekend plans with families were being demolished.

Will tried to stay in the zone of the previous night, with Cheryl Beth sitting astride him on the sofa and lying beside him in bed. He could still feel her sweet breath on his eyelashes. He said quietly, “I want to bring in Kenneth Buchanan for an interview.”

The room was silent for a good minute. Even the radio monitoring eight police frequencies didn’t make a sound.

Will made his case: the attorney gave a false story about his whereabouts a week ago Saturday night; he was Kristen’s estranged lover who said he was jealous of her other men, jealous enough to fight with her about it. He moored his boat next to hers at the marina, he phoned her on Saturday afternoon, and a middle-aged bald man had stalked one of the Oxford victims. Kenneth Buchanan was a middle-aged bald man.

“Are you out of your mind?” Fassbinder said. “He’d call every city councilman, the mayor, the chief, and have a harassment lawsuit filed first thing Monday.”

“He said he was with his wife Saturday night. He wasn’t. She told a thousand people last night that she was at the symphony last Saturday night, listening to Jeremy Snowden play for the last time, and then she went to a party with the musicians. So either he was with her, and he lied to me about going to the symphony, and why the hell would he do that? Or he lied because he wasn’t with her. He was on the river. Let’s bring him in.”

Fassbinder shook his head. “You call that probable cause? You’re crazy, Borders. We can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Dodds said. “Because he’s white? Because he’s rich and lives in Indian Hill? If we had the same P.C. against some black kid in Avondale, he’d be in jail.”

“Don’t.” Fassbinder aimed a finger. His face was nearly crimson.

“Just sayin’. You didn’t complain when I brought in the guy who did the cello player. Right color, I guess…” Dodds knew how to push everybody’s buttons. It was one of his useful characteristics, as long as you weren’t on the receiving end.

Will persisted. “Let’s put a tail on Buchanan. See where he goes. Let’s interview people at the marina about him. Maybe somebody saw him leave on Saturday evening in his own boat.”

“No.” Fassbinder’s eyes were bloodshot with anger. “I mean it, Borders. You’re hanging by a thread here. I’ll take your pension. I’ll make sure you end up on Social Security disability eating dog food. Do not go off the reservation. The only reason I don’t bring you up right now is the chance our guy might try to kill you.”

Dodds caught up with Will and Cheryl Beth at the elevators.

“Fassbinder was way out of line,” he said, “bringing up your father like that. The whole unit thinks so.”

“Thanks,” Will said, feeling raw and tired from the meeting.

“I’ll have your back,” Dodds said. “You ask for it, I’ll do it. I think I can speak for everybody.”

“Then you be the one who tails me today. Keep the others away for a few hours.”

Dodds didn’t ask why. He merely nodded.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Cheryl Beth arrived well before the service was scheduled to begin. She hadn’t been to Dayton in years. It was still a pretty city, laid out in a valley where the Great Miami River makes a wide bend. But she was stunned by the sense of collapse: the shuttered factories, empty buildings, and dead downtown. Even NCR’s headquarters was gone. It was the story of the Midwest now.

She diligently checked her rearview mirror, but was sure she wasn’t being followed. She felt Will’s absence and thought about the previous night. She had held her love for a long time and now she could see herself falling for this man. He was smart and gentle. She was not a girl now, and yet she felt emotions that made her feel seventeen. All her life, she had wanted to be kissed in Fountain Square underneath the statue with its falling waters. Will Borders was the man who had done that for her. It was thrilling and frightening. She had never let a man this close, this fast. Yet it felt right.

Through the thin partition at the homicide bureau, she had heard the raised voice directed at Will. She didn’t want to hate his lieutenant but it was hard. His father had been killed when Will was only twenty-two, a rookie patrolman. It was one of their bonds: she had lost her father when she was ten. She had felt like an orphan girl after that day. She was now older than her father was when he died.

Woodland Cemetery was a lovely garden of graves southeast of downtown Dayton. Everything was blooming and budding. She parked behind the long procession of cars and made her way across the grass to a group of three dozen people. Her students all came, and for a long time they stood in a tight circle, hugging and talking.

Then she introduced herself to Lauren Benish’s parents. They were only a little older than her, but had the shattered, numb look of the grieving. She had seen it so many times in the hospital. It contained a special dark quality when it was a parent facing the death of a child. To outlive your child: she knew it so well and struggled not to let her own tears turn into sobs.

April Benish looked nothing like her sister. She was short, trim, and blond. Her work as an R.N. at Miami Valley Hospital had inspired Lauren to go into the nursing program. She and Cheryl Beth had a long, deliberately light conversation while everyone waited for the minister. Lauren’s casket sat in a silver frame, a spray of lilies on the top, the hole in the ground in which it would descend kept well concealed.

Then April struggled through a eulogy, even mentioning Cheryl Beth as Lauren’s favorite instructor. It embarrassed and moved her. Lauren’s brother played a guitar and sang Amazing Grace in a scratchy tenor voice. She closed her eyes and listened to the minister. She was very conscious of the revolver in her purse as the reverend started his talk.

“Friends, we have gathered here to praise God and to witness to our faith as we celebrate the life of Lauren Benish. We are here together in grief, recognizing our human loss. But beyond these tears, we celebrate Lauren’s life. We pray that God grants us grace, that in pain we may find comfort, in sadness hope, in death resurrection…”

Cheryl Beth tried to pay attention. Lauren’s death was so senseless, the act so evil. The man who did it was still out there, and maybe even here. She looked around the cemetery with fresh, suspicious eyes. Will was aware she was coming up here to the memorial service, but she knew he didn’t want her to play amateur sleuth. Still, her gaze patrolled the crowd.

She joined in by rote: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” hearing an echo with the other voices among her.

Someone had sought out Lauren, Holly, and Noah. Was it even someone in her classes? Could it have been one of the janitors who cleaned the classrooms in Hamilton? Patients: what creepy or odd people had Lauren cared for as a student nurse? She would have to go back through the records. No one immediately came to mind.

None of this would explain the murder of Kristen Gruber. She was a cop. But a monster that saw murder as an art chose each of the victims. She looked for a bald man, found none, looked for a serial killer out of a movie, a creepy unshaven fat man or a sleek sinister-looking figure. All she saw were people fighting unbearable sorrow. She thought about Will and took comfort.

“…Keep true in us the love with which we hold one another…”

It had been years since Cheryl Beth had been to church. She considered herself a believer, and certainly spiritual. But something about leaving a small town where church attendance was mandatory, whatever was in your heart, had driven her away from organized religion. Or maybe she was lazy. She would have to think about that.

“…In all our ways we trust you. O Lord, all that you have given us is yours. You gave Lauren to us and she enriched all our lives. Now we give Lauren back to you…”

And suddenly it was over and people were walking away in twos and threes, the car engines starting amid the silence in a cruel benediction that life would go on. When Cheryl Beth felt the brush against her sleeve, she jumped.

“I’m sorry!”

The young woman beside her had short brown hair parted in the middle, a pleasant heartland face, and permanently sleepy eyes. She apologized again and introduced herself as Melissa.

“April said I should talk to you.”

“What about?”

She hesitated. “Lauren. I was with her that night at Brick Street.”

“The bar in Oxford?”

The woman nodded. “Lauren and I were best friends since high school. We both went to Miami. But I saw less of her after she started spending more time in Hamilton for the nursing classes. So we decided to catch up that day. We went riding, and then we changed and came into Oxford to have a few drinks.”

“When was this?”

“It was two weeks before…” She looked away at the casket, where only Lauren’s parents now stood wordlessly.

“Two Saturdays before she was killed?” Cheryl Beth asked.

“Exactly.”

Melissa said the bar was crowded and they were standing, drinking beers, when a man approached Lauren and started a conversation.

“He was very funny. He obviously knew how to talk to girls.”

“What did he look like?”

“I didn’t get a great look at him. At first, I was pretty much ignoring him. Then I got separated from Lauren and was talking with some friends at a table. He had a great body. It wasn’t that warm outside, but he wore tight jeans and a T-shirt. He was very well built. He had no hair. He was bald or shaved his head, and didn’t have a beard or anything.”

“Middle-aged?” Cheryl Beth said. “April told me that Lauren said it was a middle-aged man.”

“Lauren couldn’t tell age. This guy might have been a little older, but not like my father, you know? He was obviously more interested in Lauren than me. I was used to that. She was always the pretty one.” She stifled a sob. “She told me he said he was an artist and wanted her to model for him.”

The skin on the back of Cheryl Beth’s neck tingled. It was enough to make her look around to confirm that they were alone.

“And Lauren said no…”

“That was when he got mean. By that time I was watching them. He called her names, really nasty stuff. I swear to God he went from Mister Charisma to Mister Creep in a heartbeat. She wasn’t mean to him. But she had a boyfriend and wasn’t interested in whatever this guy wanted. The bartender told him to leave and I went back over to Lauren to make sure she was all right.”

“Was he a student, Melissa?”

“I’d never seen him before around campus, but there are fourteen thousand students. Something about him didn’t fit in…” She dug in her purse and produced a cigarette. “Do you mind?”

“No.” In the presence of so much else that could kill a person, Cheryl Beth wasn’t going to give a healthy living lecture. Melissa lit up and took a long, deep drag.

“This reminds me,” she said. “Sense memory. I’m a theater major. Lauren and I ducked outside a few minutes later to have a smoke. And he was there, maybe half a block away, watching us. He was under a streetlight. His look was really unnerving. We got a couple of guys to walk us to our cars that night.”

“Lauren told April she thought this man was stalking her.”

“She told me the same thing. We talked on the phone and texted, I didn’t see her again. But I know she saw him once at Hamilton and again on campus at Oxford. Both times, he started following her.”

“Oh, my god. Why didn’t she go to the police? That would have been the first thing I did.”

“She thought she was being paranoid. She thought if she ignored him he’d go away.” The reality set into her tear-reddened eyes. “Do you think he was the one who…?”

“Have you talked to the police?”

“I got back to town this morning,” Melissa said. “I’ve been in Chicago for a week. When I heard about Lauren, I went to pieces. I thought they had the killer in custody.”

“They had the wrong man.”

Cheryl Beth dug into her purse and handed her Will’s card. “I want you to call this man. He’s investigating this case. You need to tell him everything you told me.” She thought about it. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Well, I…”

“I want you to come back to Cincinnati with me, Melissa. This is life or death.”

She wore her tough nurse expression and the young woman didn’t argue. They walked toward their cars.

Cheryl Beth ran the new information through her head. Then, “So this guy picked Lauren out of a crowded bar?”

“I guess so,” Melissa said, blowing a plume of blue smoke away from them. “No. No, that’s not true. He said he’d seen us that day on the bike trail.”

“What bike trail?”

“On the Loveland bike trail.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

The bad thing about stakeouts in Indian Hill was that the wealthy enclave was built for privacy, with winding streets, cul-de-sacs and plenty of trees. The good thing about Kenneth Buchanan’s manse was its proximity to Indian Hill Middle School. Nobody could come or go from the dead-end street without passing the school. Will pulled into the parking lot and shut down the car, preparing himself for the dullest part of the job. In any event, he wasn’t going to sit and wait for the killer. He was going after him. Only Dodds knew he was here. Now, if only Buchanan was home, and if only nothing major happened that required the PIO. So far, the radio was quiet.

It was difficult to think of much beyond Cheryl Beth. He was worried about her going to Dayton for the dead girl’s funeral. Mostly, he kept reprising their night together. He had gotten and maintained an erection, no small accomplishment. That he had even kissed, much less made love with this woman seemed like an impossible fantasy. Yet it was real, and he had slept last night without dreaming. Now, he missed her intensely.

The dark Mercedes hurried past, going south, Buchanan’s distinctive head clearly visible.

“That didn’t take long.” He started the Crown Vic and sped out of the parking lot.

Buchanan turned onto Shawnee Run Road and Will gave him a quarter-mile distance as they passed more expensive real estate and made the green light at Miami Road. A car from St. Gertrude’s Church pulled between them. That was good, especially when the driver matched Buchanan’s speed. The three vehicles continued west to Camargo Road. Buchanan barely stopped and turned south again. Will did the same. Camargo cut through hills and thick trees. Traffic was light and Will gave him plenty of distance. A right on Madison and they were headed toward the city. Big cotton-ball clouds were floating in the sky.

“7140, check in.”

If it would have been anyone’s voice but Dodds’, his gut would have tightened.

“7140, all secure.”

Two clicks of the mic responded. Anybody listening thought Will was still at home.

By this time, they were crossing Red Bank Expressway and almost to the point where Madison juked southwest. Buchanan could have taken Red Bank north to hit the interstate. He didn’t. He was definitely headed into the city. Traffic was getting thicker and Will worked to close the gap, letting two cars stay between him and the Mercedes, but sticking close enough that he wouldn’t get caught at a light. As it was, they moved at a unit, making and stopping at the same intersections. As they passed through Oakley, Will thought of ice cream with Cheryl Beth. That hadn’t even been a week ago.

They stayed on Madison past the Rookwood shopping center, which was packed, past the edge of Hyde Park and the Cincinnati Country Club and the old mansions of Annwood Park and Scarborough Woods. The street changed as they approached the imposing St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church and touched East Walnut Hills. The traffic became thicker still, and Will had to gun it to make the light at Woodburn. Madison became Dr. Martin Luther King Drive and Buchanan turned south again on Gilbert, for the long dip into downtown past old factories that had been turned into offices. Buchanan was driving into his own downtown office on a Saturday. Oh, how Will wished he were going to the marina to get on his boat.

But he did neither. He crossed over Interstate 71, got on Reading Road, and then turned again on Liberty Street. The steeples, spires and towers of the old city spread out ahead. It was as if he were driving to Will’s house. Will was about to alert Dodds when Buchanan sped past the familiar turnoff and kept going. They were in the heart of the city now. People were on the sidewalks. It occurred to Will that all this time he had been following Buchanan, he had never checked to see if someone was following him. The rearview mirror looked benign, but would he really know?

They drove straight through Over-the-Rhine doing fifty, making every light. Buchanan slowed at Linn Street and turned left, barely missing a pedestrian. Will was right behind him. It couldn’t be helped if he was going to make the light. Now he backed off and gave the Mercedes plenty of room. Only an unmarked police car in the West End, where the old housing projects once stood-nothing suspicious, Mr. Buchanan, drive on. Enjoy the majestic half rotunda of Union Terminal off to your right. They were not far from the Laurel Homes, now demolished, where Will’s father had been gunned down on a domestic abuse call. It was a reality never far from his mind.

After several blocks more, Linn lifted up over the massive gash of Interstate 75. Buchanan turned west again on Eighth Street and they plunged into the warehouse district and under the railroad tracks. The main police channels remained on routine business.

Now Will was growing curious. Despite what many east-siders thought, there were some lovely neighborhoods west of I-75, the Sauerkraut Curtain-although old-timers applied that term to Vine Street-but Buchanan was not driving into one. When the sunlight found them again on the other side of the railroad underpass, they were in Lower Price Hill. He could keep going and follow Glenway’s rightward arch around the tree-covered bluff ahead of them and keep going uphill. But he was slowing down.

They weren’t on a hill. The real Price Hill was directly ahead, and it, too, had once been connected with an incline railway, but Will couldn’t say exactly where. Lower Price Hill was in the basin above a broad swoop of the Ohio River, and although the city had designated it a historic district that couldn’t make up for the blight and crime. He had been on a shooting call here a week ago Wednesday, on Neave Street. Many of the rowhouses held the classic Italianate features found in Over-the-Rhine, but few people were trying to gentrify the properties. Vacant lots and junk cars proliferated. It was slowly falling apart.

If Kenneth Buchanan “spoke Cincinnati,” he would know that he was among the briars, the local term for poor Appalachian whites. This had long been a closed, clannish part of town. Once the briars had migrated down the river, then on the railroads, finding decent jobs in the factories around the rail yards of Mill Creek. It was their way out of the coalmines. Now most of those manufacturing jobs were gone. The factories were being gutted, their scrap sold to China. Some of the junkyards were in this neighborhood. Poverty was high. The place was also growing more African-American, and that made for racially charged confrontations. Like most of the older, poorer parts of the city, it was losing population.

And here was Kenneth Buchanan, white-shoe downtown lawyer.

He turned down two-lane State Avenue, going twenty-five. Will waited for the red light and sat, watching him slow. Then a truck passed, obscuring the view, and when it was gone so was Buchanan’s Mercedes.

Will turned left and cruised slowly down the street. Some large old multi-story brick apartments were on the left, and a few forlorn rowhouses stood on the right.

“Hello,” he said to himself.

Buchanan had parked in an empty lot next to a two-story brick rowhouse that had lost both its siblings. The front windows were boarded up with old wood and the paintless door looked barely on its hinges. Buchanan’s car was empty. Will picked up speed, went to the next intersection, turned around, and found a place behind a rusty pickup truck. He called Dodds.

“Guess where I am?”

“Hope it’s more interesting than my life, sitting outside a cop’s house.”

“Lower Price Hill. Buchanan drove over here. He parked and went inside a house.”

“No shit?” Dodds thought about it. “Maybe he’s a secret meth head.”

“Maybe.” Will watched a young man with mussed light-brown hair, hard-muscled in a wife-beater shirt, walk past giving him the eye. He ignored him. “It’s about the last place I’d expect him. You see anything around my place?”

“Nope,” Dodds said. “I’m encouraging my hemorrhoids.”

Will made a note of the address and waited. It took nearly half an hour before Buchanan stepped down on the crumbling sidewalk and walked purposefully to his car. He was wearing a light-blue shirt, tan slacks, and expensive tasseled shoes. His face was set in a hard look, and he didn’t even turn his head in Will’s direction. Then the expensive car’s backup lights flared and it was on the street. Will decided to stay.

It was another half hour before Will saw movement at the door. First a bicycle tire, then the whole bike being pushed by a woman. She wore blue jeans and a Bengals T-shirt, but what you first noticed was her hair, vivid red and flowing down over her shoulders. She swung a leg over the bicycle seat and pedaled north. Will let her go for a moment, then started the car and followed slowly. Her hair caught the sun and wind, making a lovely orange sail.

“7140, 7140.”

He muttered a profanity and picked up the mic.

The dispatcher came back: “Meet the officers, signal nine, Queensgate Playfield. We have a sixteen at large. Respond Code three.”

“7140 responding.”

It was a shooting with a suspect at large. He gripped the steering wheel tighter but stayed on the girl.

She stopped at Meisner’s market and went inside, bike and all. Will parked in front.

No more than two minutes later, she came back out, stuffing a red-and-white carton of Marlboroughs in her purse. She started to swing over the bike, when he tapped the horn. She looked him over and ignored him. He hit the emergency lights and she paid attention.

He flashed his badge when she came to the driver’s side. “Climb in.”

“What about my bike?”

“Lean it against the front of the car where we can watch it.” For all he knew, it was one of the few things she owned in the world. As she did so, he tossed his cane in the back seat.

Once she was in the car, he could see her more clearly. She was younger than he had first assumed, and her fiery hair framed a lovely face, the home to startlingly blue eyes. Her features were uniformly delicate and her skin was as flawless as Kristen Gruber’s. Put her in different circumstances on the east side and she would have worlds offered to her.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I didn’t say you did,” Will said. Time was running against him, even if the call location was close. If Fassbinder knew what he was really doing, all his dreams of revenge could be quickly visited on Will’s head. He kept the agitation out of his voice. “You had a visitor a few minutes ago, well-dressed man, middle-aged.”

“So?”

“So, are you a pro?”

“No! I don’t turn tricks, don’t do drugs.” She pointed out the window at a passing man. “Why don’t you people do something about the niggers overrunning our neighborhood, instead of hassling me?”

East side, west side, race was never far below the surface in Cincinnati.

“What’s your name?”

“Jill.”

He asked her to show him her driver’s license and wrote down the information: Jill Evangeline Bailey and the addressed matched the shabby place she had come from. She was nineteen.

“You ever been in trouble, Jill?”

“No.”

“Not even a DUI?”

She shook her head.

“You have a job?”

“I’m a waitress at Tucker’s. I ride the bus.”

“So how do you know Kenneth Buchanan?”

She hesitated and ran her hands though her hair.

“Is that his name?”

“That’s his name and you didn’t answer my question. This is a homicide investigation.”

Her small frame went rigid. “I don’t know anything about any homicide.” Her voice became small and trailed off into silence. Finally, “He gave me some money.”

Will waited a few beats. “Why would he do that?”

“I didn’t do anything!” The blue eyes filled with tears. “I was raped last fall by one of these niggers and you people didn’t do anything about it. He dragged me right behind that church one night and raped me three damned times. Right there behind a house of God. This used to be a safe neighborhood. Now the white people can’t even go out at night. You people never caught him. You never even tried…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t think I wouldn’t be gone from this shithole in a heartbeat, but after my momma died that house is all I have. I don’t even have a car.”

“Now you have some money from Mister Buchanan.”

She stared out the window.

“He wants me to get an abortion.”

“How many months along are you?” She wasn’t showing.

“Six weeks.”

“And it’s his baby?”

Again, her silence, and the clock tormenting him. He had to be an asshole cop. “Jill! Talk to me, right here, right now, or downtown and as long as it takes. I don’t care. You’ll only mean more overtime pay for me. Maybe your bike will be here when we get back, probably not. I guarantee you one thing: we’ll take as much time as we need to find out why you were screwing a big-time lawyer.”

“It’s his son, okay? His son and I had sex. One time. I got pregnant. How insane is that? One time and I’m pregnant. Now he wants me to go away.”

If it was the same son, Will thought of the foul-mouthed young man in the ball cap he had encountered at Music Hall.

“You didn’t ask for money?”

“No! I want to have this baby!” she yelled. “I won’t kill it.”

“Sounds like a case of blackmail to me. That’s against the law. You won’t look so pretty after ten years in prison, Jill.”

“His dad gave the money to me! I didn’t ask for anything! I didn’t want anything. I’m sorry I ever told Mike I was pregnant. After he found out, he never took my calls again. Then I started getting calls from his father. He threatened to sue me and take my house. He said I’d taken advantage of his son. As if! I was afraid.”

Yes, he was an asshole cop. He had never seen a human being look more helpless. And here was Kenneth Buchanan cleaning up his son’s casual disaster. He thought about John and his own cleaning up, the knife that he had stashed in his dresser drawer.

“How much did he pay you?”

She stared into her small lap. “Ten thousand dollars.”

He let her get the bike and ride off, then lit up his unmarked cruiser, turned east on Eighth, and accelerated to sixty, the big twin-turbocharged Interceptor engine sounding like a fighter jet closing in on its target.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Melissa spent three hours with Dodds and a police artist. More overtime for Fassbinder to bitch about. She kept protesting that she hadn’t gotten a great look at the suspect, that the bar had been too dim, but a sketch was produced. At five p.m., Will called all the television and radio stations, as well as the city desk at the Enquirer: a press conference would be held in an hour regarding the Gruber murder. That would be enough to draw a crowd. It was agreed that Will would conduct the briefing, the chief overruling Fassbinder’s objections. Will was the one the killer knew, the one he had threatened.

Once again, the room at police headquarters was flooded with television lights. Will wore a dark suit and French blue shirt with a blue-and-burgundy rep tie. He was flanked by the brass and tried not to tilt or hold on too tightly to the podium.

“Thank you for coming,” he began. Cheryl Beth sat in the front row and gave him a secret smile. “Tonight we want to tell you about a new development in the investigation of the murder of Officer Kristen Gruber. What’s being passed around is a sketch of a person of interest in the case. You can also see it on the screen to my right. He’s a white male, twenty-five to thirty years of age, at least six-feet-three inches tall, muscular build, and bald.”

The room rustled with paper and whispers. He waited for it to die down. “Based on our investigation, witness interviews, and a profile of the murderer, I can tell you a few things. He’s a loner and has an anger-management problem that would be noticeable to his friends and family. He might have threatened them. This person might have been seen around the Seven Hills Marina last weekend. He might also have been on the Loveland Bicycle Trail.” He slowed down the next part: “This suspect is impotent and was probably sexually abused as a child.” Maybe those words would smoke him out. He heard a still camera clicking. “It is entirely possible that the person of interest shown in this sketch is our murderer. He is extremely dangerous. If you see this man, you should call nine-one-one immediately. We won’t be taking any questions tonight. Thank you for coming.”

It was eight before they had dinner at Joe’s Diner on Sycamore. The old standby with its chrome walls and a neon sign had been revived from the riots. It was only a few blocks from home. The night was gentled by light rain, and the streets shone. Inside, they got a table without a wait and talked about the day over burgers, fries, and onion rings. “I’ll eat onion rings if you will,” she said, and it was decided. He praised her again for finding the witness and convincing her to come down immediately. She asked about his shadowing of Kenneth Buchanan, and he told the story.

“Do you still think Buchanan did it?”

Will took in a deep breath, took stock. “I don’t know. Sometimes in this job you have to avoid the hammer and nail thing…” She smiled widely, a beautiful thing. “When you’re the hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

“I feel for that girl,” Cheryl Beth said. “But ten thousand dollars is a lot of money.”

“Not in Buchanan’s world. And, he wants her to go away. I wonder how many other times he’s had to bail out his son’s stupid mistakes.”

He talked about John and the parallels.

“You love him,” she said. The words made him uncomfortable in that context. He couldn’t say exactly why. It was something to do with the many separations and alienations of recent years: Cindy drawing apart, then a complete rupture, John’s sullen and difficult adolescence, and then the reappearance of his biological father.

“I think my old man would have let me spend a night in jail to get my mind right,” he said. Comfortable in her presence, he talked about his dad. He wasn’t cruel or abusive, a typical father of his era. He didn’t want to be your buddy and you damned sure weren’t his equal. “We didn’t have a bunch of stuff. We didn’t go shopping for recreation. I don’t know. I see kids like John, or this Buchanan son, or the one who was piloting the boat on Saturday night. They’re ruined by money.”

“I never got that chance,” she said.

“I hear you.”

He went on. “My dad really disapproved of me becoming a police officer. He wanted me to be a lawyer. ‘Something respectable,’ he’d say. I never understood why he devalued himself that way.” He felt safe enough with her to go on. “I was working the night he was shot. I was on patrol, District Five, up around Winton Hills. He was a patrol sergeant in District One. Could have been a captain, a fine detective. But he couldn’t stand the politics, he disliked the detectives, and he liked the street. So, that night was busy in his district. He was the first on the scene. A couple was mixing it up in the projects, dad went in and separated them, and the man came back with a gun in his hand and shot him. Once right in the heart.” He had to slow down. “And that was that.”

She reached across and took his hand, holding it tight.

The food arrived and Will let her take the first onion ring; she preferred the small ones. “A perfect match,” he said. “I like the big ones.”

He lowered his voice. “If Buchanan’s not our guy, I don’t even know where to begin. Her two other boyfriends have solid alibis. They’ve found another guy she had an affair with a year ago. He moved to Denver last August, swears it was an amiable separation, he hadn’t heard from her since. He has an alibi, too.” He bit into the ring and soon the whole thing was gone. “Except for your witness, nothing’s going our way. If he doesn’t make a move against me, we’re screwed.” He sighed. “And here I am putting you at risk, too”

“We’ve been through that,” she said. “I hope you don’t have that many girlfriends going.” She put a straw in her mouth and sipped Diet Coke.

“Only one, but she’s really hot.”

“So tell me how you tailed this guy, got an emergency call, and didn’t get caught.”

He laughed loudly and any weight of the day or the past flew off.

They were still laughing as they left an hour later. The rain had stopped so they did not get soaked as Will did his slow-walk with the cane to the car, which was parked in a lot across Grear Alley. One big building, once the School for Creative and Performing Arts, filled the view to the north. Sirens were yowling off to the west. He opened the door for Cheryl Beth and closed it. Then he walked around the car, making an inventory of their surroundings, touching the raindrops on the trunk and fenders. His right hand was hurting from holding the cane. A couple was fighting fifty feet away. A man yelled, “You think because you’re beautiful and men want to fuck you…”

As he started to open the door, he felt something hard and cold right behind his left ear.

“Hello Detective Borders.” The voice was low, barely audible. “Your friends aren’t tailing you tonight.” A small laugh. “I guess they went for donuts. You’ve been searching for Kristen’s gun. I thought I’d bring it to you.” The barrel tapped hard against his skull. The fighting couple got in their car and drove away. They were alone in the lot now.

“Now don’t think about doing anything cute,” the voice said. “You’re going to do exactly what I say.”

If Will were not crippled, he would teach this man cute. If Will didn’t yearn for a future with Cheryl Beth, and couldn’t take chances with her so near, he would give this a lesson. When somebody was holding a gun that close, it was possible to quickly step inside the reach of his arm, inside his firing radius, and disarm him. It was easier when done from the front, but he could do it. He once could have done it.

The hoarse whisper continued: “The first thing you’re going to do is pull out your gun, left hand, please. Then toss it in front of you.”

“That’s not going to happen.” Will decided not to attempt to turn his head and look at the man.

“You’re going to do it, or I’ll shoot you now. Is that your friend, Cherry Beth, sitting there? She’s going to find out if I’m impotent like you said. I’ll fuck the little cunt in every orifice and then watch her die slowly. There’s nothing you can do about it. How does that make you feel, detective?”

He almost looked back, stopped himself. Will was very conscious of each breath, how it barely seemed to fill his lungs. He could see Cheryl Beth’s legs and lap, but couldn’t tell if she could make out his predicament. He asked, “Why did you pick me to send your messages?”

“Later. I may answer your questions, or not. But right now, quit stalling and pull out your gun with your left hand, toss it on the pavement in front of you.”

Breath in, breath out. His right wrist was aching, his hand gripping the cane tightly. His gun was an impossible six inches away.

“Agh!”

Will heard this half-grunt, half expression of pain as the gun that had been behind his ear went airborne and landed a few feet in front of the bumper. Somehow it didn’t go off. A black-clad figure fell to his side and rolled.

Another man yelled, “Motherfucka’, what you think you doin’?” Then he kicked Will’s assailant in the side. “This here’s an officer of the law. Don’t you be disrespecting the po-lice!”

Will said, “Junior?”

“I made bail. Glad to see me?”

Indeed, it was the gang thug he had stopped from stomping the man beside Central Parkway on Monday. The shadow on the asphalt vaulted up and ran. Oh, to see a face, but there was none. And he had hair.

“Yes,” Will said, drawing his service weapon, “glad to see you. Get down.”

But big Junior was chasing the other man and blocking Will’s aim.

“I’m gonna nail you, sucka’. Citizen’s arrest! ”

“Get down, Junior!”

Junior’s three-hundred-pounds made the chase last, at best, a third of the way across the parking lot. Then he was bent over, struggling to catch his breath. The time elapsed for the clumsy pursuit, with Junior’s huge body in the way of Will’s aim, consumed no more then ten seconds. But it was enough. The man in black was gone.

Chapter Thirty

Two hours later, the twenty marked and unmarked units that responded to Will’s broadcast had scattered. The suspect was gone. The unmarked unit shadowing Will and Cheryl Beth had been drawn off by a report of a shooting three blocks away. It wasn’t a shooting. Someone had rigged a fuse with a cigarette to a string of M-80s which did a good job of impersonating gunshots. By the time the unmarked car from Central Vice got back to the parking lot, Will had already taken off, searching for the man who had held Kristen Gruber’s gun to his head. And it was Gruber’s-the serial number matched.

Now they cruised slowly through Over-the-Rhine. Cheryl Beth sat in the passenger front seat, Dodds in back. Nobody talked at first. She was certain that if she were hooked up to an EKG her heart would still show tachycardia. She blamed herself for those moments when Will was in mortal danger. The car had cloaked her from the threat he was facing. She couldn’t see what was happening until the gun flew in front of the car and the big black man was chasing someone. Will had given her gloves and told her to retrieve the gun, then, when she returned, he had revved the car across the parking lot, its spotlight sending a dazzling white cone against buildings and into alleys. After that, it seemed as if the entire police force had descended upon them.

“Here we are again,” Dodds said. “The three musketeers.”

“Let’s hope it’s a little easier this time,” Cheryl Beth said. “Last time, we were trapped in the basement of the hospital, nobody knew where we were, the killer had knocked you out, he was beating the crap out of me, and Will, who was stuck in a wheelchair, had to save us.”

“Details, details,” Dodds said.

Cheryl Beth prided herself on a professional steely calm, hard won in the five years she had spent working in the emergency department. But that was a controlled environment compared with this, even when a gang member would try to barge in and finish off the guy he shot an hour before. She hated to admit it: she was over her head. She stuffed her shaking hands into her lap. Her emotions roiled in a wild bundle of fear and adrenaline, some anger was down in there, too. The son of a bitch had nearly killed Will and he got away, almost as if he were a ghost. The city seemed bathed in an invisible evil.

Will stopped at Central Parkway and Vine, where he pointed to the grand mural on the building on the southwest corner. It looked like a statue standing inside a temple.

“Cincinnatus,” he said. “The entire face of the building is blank, and everything you see is a trompe l’oeil painting. ‘Trick of the eye.’ Done by Richard Haas to mark Kroger’s centennial.”

“I like the statue of him down at Sawyer’s Point better,” Dodds said. “Looks like a real bad-ass. He saved Rome, refused to be dictator for life, and went back to his plow. If it hadn’t been for Cincinnatus, we’d be called Losantiville.”

“Well, technically, we were named after the Society of the Cincinnati, the Revolutionary War veterans,” Will said.

“Okay, know it all,” Dodds said. “What was that building called?”

Will shrugged.

“The Brotherhood Building,” Dodds said. “Which is appropriate as the gateway to Over-the-Rhine, where all the brothers are hoods.”

Cheryl Beth felt her face smile. That was a start, at least, to feeling human again.

Will turned north onto Vine and began an impromptu tour of Over-the-Rhine. A turn of the wheel, and they entered a different world. He pointed out this building in the Italianate style, that one in federal, a hidden garden behind another, and the commercial buildings with their cast-iron fronts. Renaissance revival, Romanesque, Queen Anne. Some had been restored, most had not. She thought the neighborhood was stunning, despite its problems. It held an intimacy and living history that appealed to her. Its streets were meant to be walked to be really appreciated, but the slow drive with Will’s narration was the next best thing. He wore his knowledge lightly and it was coated in the sweetness of his joy of the place.

A man who liked something other than sports and cars: that was a find.

She also realized he was doing this to calm down, and it was helping to calm her, too.

He jigged over to Walnut and lingered in front of the Germania Building with its statue, a woman in a robe, holding a shield. She stood on a setback in the second story of the ornate building.

“This was the German Mutual Insurance Company,” he said. “In World War I, the anti-German feeling was so hysterical, the company became Hamilton Mutual and they draped the statue. They renamed a bunch of the streets, too. English Street used to be German Street. Bremen Street became Republic…”

“You see what it’s like to ride with Mister President,” Dodds said.

“Cheryl Beth, do you know what J.C.’s nickname was when he played football at UC?”

“Now don’t start that!” Dodds grumbled.

“It was ‘Sweet Dreams’ Dodds.”

“Sweet Dreams.” Cheryl Beth suppressed a laugh. “I assume that’s because you hit the other guys so hard it sent them to nap time, along with a potential concussion.”

“Damn straight.” Dodds adjusted his posture. “See, she gets it.”

“Then why are you aggravated when I bring it up?”

Dodds faked a punch at the back of Will’s head. “Man, Borders knows every building, every cobblestone here. He’s a frustrated architect.”

“Maybe an architectural historian,” Will said. “I hate most modern architecture. Except for the Contemporary Arts Center and the P &G headquarters.”

“Which looks like Dolly Parton’s…” Dodds stopped himself.

“Oh, please,” Cheryl Beth said. “Everybody calls them the Dolly Parton Towers. Nurses can match cops any day in inappropriate language. We’re as weird as you guys.”

Dodds chuckled.

“If we’re going to have to do this,” he said, “Why don’t you drive over to the Samuel Adams Brewery. While you regale Cheryl Beth with Over-the-Rhine’s beer history, I’ll break in and get us a six pack.”

“This is the heart and soul of the city,” Will said.

“It’s the heart and soul of scumbaggery,” Dodds said.

“Jeez, Dodds, some guy killed five people in a little town in southeast Indiana last month. Crime happens anywhere. The city has to warehouse so many of the poor and uneducated because they’re zoned out of suburbia…”

“Complex socio-economic-cultural drivers behind this.” Dodds face dropped into mock seriousness. Then his teeth gave an 880-key smile. “My travel tour would be to point out every building where we had a dead body. I could put up about a hundred red targets as a tourist attraction. See that intersection? Three homicides in one week a couple of years ago. That building: stinker on the fourth floor, middle of July…”

Cheryl Beth laughed, glad for the release. “If you do that, I’ll tell you really nasty E.R. stories…”

Will drove on slowly. The streets were deserted, a steady rain now coming down. Not even a wino was sleeping inside a doorway.

“He told me he had ‘Kristen’s’ gun,” Will said. “Not the woman I murdered, or the lady cop, or even Kristen Gruber. But ‘Kristen.’ He said it familiarly. He called me ‘Detective Borders,’ like the letter-writer and the voice on the phone. Then he called you ‘Cherry Beth.’ Has anyone called you that?”

“Not since I was teased in fifth grade. It sounds like a soft drink.”

He went on, “You know what else he said to me? He has the gun to the back of my head, he’s making threats, demanding that I give up my weapon, and he says, ‘How does that make you feel, detective?’ Those are the exact words Kenneth Buchanan used the first time I met him and he wanted me to know he’d already leaned on the chief.”

Dodds took it in and said nothing. Cheryl Beth was interested in the dynamic between the two of them, imagined how effective they had been as partners, but she also checked again to see that her door was locked.

“What else did he say about me?” she asked.

Will hesitated. “It wasn’t good. I would never let anything bad happen to you.”

“I know that.” At that moment, she felt strangely unafraid for herself. She was more concerned for Will. “Did he mention your father?”

“No. No, he didn’t.”

“So he doesn’t know you that well,” she said. “Otherwise, he would have used that to get at you.”

“Good point,” Dodds said. “That might mean he’s not law enforcement. I still don’t know why he chose Borders. So how do we get probable cause that will let us really go after Buchanan?”

They passed a marked unit. Two officers were standing on the sidewalk, talking to three young black men. All were soaking wet.

“I’m not sure,” Will said.

“So let’s find something. Screw Fassbinder.”

“I mean, I’m not sure a man Buchanan’s age could have absorbed that punishment from Junior and still outrun him and gotten away. Also, nothing from ViCAP about homicides in the Atlanta area that match the M.O. here.”

Cheryl Beth asked about ViCAP, and Will told her of the FBI database. Buchanan came to Cincinnati from Atlanta when his wife took the job with the symphony.

“Our guy has killed before,” Will said. “He knows the right moves. He’s disciplined. But Buchanan was in Atlanta for thirteen years and nothing. He only decides to start killing now because he’s in Cincinnati? I don’t know…”

“So you’re doubting yourself now?” Dodds sounded annoyed.

Will shook his head. “I’m missing something…”

“Don’t go soft on me, Borders. It’s becoming a bad habit. You don’t believe I caught the cello player’s killer, either.”

“No,” Will said. “I don’t. Your golden gut is lying to you.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Calm down, boys,” Cheryl Beth said. A dark shape caught her eye: some kind of bundle or bag. “What’s that?”

They were at Fourteenth and Sycamore, back near the diner. Will swung the spotlight toward some bushes at the edge of the Cutter Playground. He pulled across the street and put the car in park. Dodds got out, snapping on gloves.

The intersection was completely empty. A pair of headlights lingered several blocks south, and then turned.

He came back toting a black gym bag and something else.

It was a wig.

He tossed them in the back seat and climbed back in.

“More ammo against Buchanan,” Dodds said, holding out a wig of long, dark-brown hair. “The cure for baldness. Got any large evidence bags?”

Will shook his head.

Cheryl Beth heard a long zipper.

“What have we here,” Dodds said. “Two pairs of handcuffs, his and hers. Two ball gags. Gloves and footies to put over his shoes. He’s very methodical. A folding combat knife that I bet will match the wounds on the four vics. And a bottle of lye.” He carefully placed the items and the wig back in the bag and re-zipped it.

“There won’t be any prints,” Will said.

“You never know,” Dodds said. “I will say you owe Clarence Junior your good word to the D.A. He saved your lives.”

Will was quiet for a long time. The rain was now coming down hard enough that it sounded like small pellets hitting the roof.

Finally, he spoke quietly, all the exuberance of the tour drained from his voice. “We’re not going to get another chance. This was it and we blew it. He won’t be careless enough to come back again.”

“Unless,” Dodds said, “he really has a thing for you.”

Will stared into the wet windshield. Cheryl Beth took his hand and squeezed it. He returned the pressure, but she could tell his mind was elsewhere.