Authors: Jon Talton
Powers of Arrest (16 page)
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.
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.”
