Authors: Jon Talton
Powers of Arrest (3 page)
With an hour to spare before her meeting started, Cheryl Beth locked her car and began her walk across campus. It was the loveliest day she had seen this year, as mother nature felt the intoxicating sense of her power to give rebirth. A rainstorm had come through in the early morning and now the day was sunny and warm. She gloried in the bright green of the Ohio buckeyes, the sweetgums with their star-shaped leaves, the dense beech trees. A woodpecker was working on an oak, a scarlet crown on his head. Her mother had taught her to identify trees when she was a little girl. She had given her that, at least.
The morning fast-walks were important, Cheryl Beth knew. After she had turned forty, she could no longer keep weight off effortlessly. She was still an attractive woman, with light brown hair worn in a long shag cut and large brown eyes in a face that still held the too-young look that had often caused her to be underestimated. She smiled easily and men still noticed her. But she was trying to be healthier. Too many years as a nurse had taught her the senseless, incomprehensible ways our bodies could go wrong; no need to help the process along.
Her surroundings made such worries seem impossible. The surreal beauty of Miami University never failed to move her. It was like a college setting out of a novel, with stately brick buildings, a lush, precisely maintained campus, and the quaint town of Oxford. The sense of safety was overwhelming. What a change from the grittiness of the old hospital in Cincinnati. She started through the dogwood grove that would take her to the Formal Gardens. It was one of her favorite spots.
This was the first time in her career when she wasn’t practicing as an RN on a hospital staff. It felt strange to go to work as a teacher of nursing, not to be in scrubs but dressed up. She had worn scrubs for more than twenty years, working in the hardest jobs at the hospital that handled the toughest cases. She was known as the best pain management nurse in three states and wouldn’t dispute it. But she needed this break. She was a natural teacher, and the clinical part of the job still gave her hospital time.
She liked her students, even though their reputation at “J. Crew U.” was supposedly that of clueless privilege. Many were older, starting new careers. A few were her age, and quite a number were men. The clinical work in the hospital came naturally. She cared less for the nursing classes that were held in Middletown and Hamilton, the onetime industrial towns being so forlorn. So she appreciated the few times she actually got to teach on the main campus. Some days she thought about moving to Oxford and saving the drive from Cincinnati, but it was still early in this new work and she couldn’t shake her love of the city. Her black Audi A4, her one serious indulgence, made the trip easier.
Much of the time she missed the old hospital for all its flaws. She missed the patients, and especially her old coworkers and their mostly endearing eccentricities. The university had plenty of smart, pleasant people, but it was very politically correct. The old Redskins mascot had been changed to the Red Birds. The nursing faculty was highly capable, but she knew she could never make the dark jokes or have the irreverent fun with them that she so enjoyed with the staff at the hospital, things that had kept her sane.
As she came closer to the Formal Gardens, she saw the police cars. She had only seen so many in a single place one other time. The cars were from the campus police, Oxford Police and Butler County Sheriff, all crowded together, many with their lights flashing.
“I can’t let you go closer, Professor Wilson.”
A young man with close-cropped hair, wrap-around sunglasses, and uniform stood on the sidewalk. He was a campus officer she had become acquainted with when he helped her get a jump-start on her car back in the winter. He had all manner of things on his uniform belt besides his gun and handcuffs, and she couldn’t say what half of them did. “Professor Wilson” was still new to her, and she urged her students to call her Cheryl Beth. But this young man was one of those who couldn’t break the habit. Maybe saying “professor” made them feel as if they were getting their money’s worth.
“And you’re probably not going to tell me why.” She smiled and he reluctantly smiled back, shaking his head.
“You know how it is.” He slipped off his sunglasses. Over his shoulder, she saw some officers erecting a blue tarp beyond the circle of benches that stood at the heart of the Formal Gardens.
“Kind of ruining my walk,” she said, and instantly regretted it, not even knowing what tragedy was unfolding at the head of the long string of police cars. As if she herself hadn’t had enough dealings with the police to last a lifetime.
Then she saw his eyes.
“Are you all right, Jared?”
He stared at her and then looked at the ground. Even with the activity, it was quiet enough to hear birds singing. His eyes were red and his complexion had that greenish-gray tint of the nauseated, reminding her of when nursing students attended their first autopsy.
“It’s really bad,” he said. “Things like this don’t happen here.” He paused and kicked absently at the asphalt. “I was the first officer on the scene. Oh, my god…”
“You might want to get on your haunches and try to lower your head,” she said. “It might make you feel better.”
He remained standing. He whispered quickly. “I’ve never seen so much blood.”
“Dead?” she inquired, but her middle was already cold.
“Two girls.” He hesitated. “Somebody used a knife. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Oh, no.”
She saw another man walking toward them from the direction of the tarped-off area. He had sergeant’s stripes on his uniform and an unhappy expression.
“Be good to you, Jared.” She turned to leave.
Then she saw the movement out of her left peripheral vision.
It was a man, running and stumbling through the bushes at the foot of a stand of thick trees.
He was completely naked, and seemed to be wearing war paint. But Cheryl Beth had spent enough time in emergency rooms to know that it was dried blood caked on his hands, arms, and face.
“Stop! You, halt!” This command came from the uniformed group near the tarp. Now the sergeant and Jared focused on the man, who was running parallel to them twenty yards away. He was young and his face held a confused madness.
Both officers drew their weapons and ran toward him.
The naked man screamed, “Hostiles! Hostiles! I have wounded!”
Cheryl Beth watched the spectacle with a momentary, anesthetized detachment, unaware of the messenger bag over her shoulder.
Another cop in a different style uniform dashed straight toward the naked man and tackled him, driving him into the grass. He screamed and thrashed but was quickly surrounded as eight men and women in uniform converged on him. He struggled and moaned.
“Quit fighting!”
“Quit resisting!”
The commands came quickly and atop each other. But the naked man dragged himself on the wet grass underneath the cop who had initially tackled him, regained his footing, and ran. The cop tried to grab his ankle but missed and fell face-first onto the grass, taking two other officers down with him.
She knew this man.
It was Noah Smith, one of her nursing students. Grass and mud now mingled with the caked blood on his naked body. Across the grassy distance, their eyes connected, his were full of terror.
“Cheryl Beth! What are you doing here? Help me!”
A female officer used a black baton to strike him in the side of the ribs, the knees. Pain centers. He moaned but ducked past her. She reached for him but lost her balance, spun around, and fell backwards, her equipment belt rattling loudly.
He ran directly toward Cheryl Beth.
Part of her was alarmed, but another was clinical, amused as the Keystone Kops scene unfolded before her. The campus police, city cops and deputies, a dozen now, caught up and surrounded him.
“No, no! Help me!” He dashed toward one cop, then another. They closed the ring, leaving him no escape. Cheryl Beth was now terrified they would shoot him.
“Tase him,” the sergeant said and it was done. The naked young man snapped backwards and arched his back as surely as if he had been defibrillated. Then he lay still on the spring grass, face up.
They turned him over, handcuffed him, and dragged him toward a squad car, opened the back door, and shoved him inside horizontally, hands on his shoulders, legs, and feet. The door shut loudly.
Shock wobbled through her own body. What was Noah doing here, naked and covered in blood? He was a good student, quiet, friendly. Wasn’t that what people always said about serial killers after they were exposed?
“What happened?”
A co-ed asked Cheryl Beth the question, and she realized a crowd had gathered.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly.
“Do you know this man?”
It was the sergeant. He was a deputy sheriff, not one of the campus police officers. He had red hair and a wide, muscular body.
“He’s one of my students.”
“Here?”
Cheryl Beth nodded, and the sergeant wrote down the information, including her name and phone number in a small notebook.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Last week. He’s doing his clinical work.”
She stared at the squad car that held Noah.
“Someone should at least check his pulse.”
“We’ll take care of all that. Now you need to leave.” The sergeant then raised his voice. “You all need to move on. This is a crime scene.”
Cheryl Beth walked back the way she had come, her legs feeling weak and stringy, her mind wondering what had happened. She would read about it in the newspaper, but that would never tell the whole story. She actually knew a cop. But it had been a long time since she had seen him.
“Pee-eye-pee-eye-oh!”
“What do you want, Dodds?”
Will Borders swung his body out of the bed with difficulty. The clock said 6:45. He thought about reaching for his cane and standing, then thought better of it. He already had the cell phone in one hand and his legs were feeling both tight and uncertain. He sat and listened to his old partner sing off-key.
“It’s a homicide, buddy.” His voice dropped into its normal roomy baritone.
“I kind of figured, since you’re a homicide detective.”
“Here in Over-the-Rhine, waiting on your white ass.”
“So? A homicide in Over-the-Rhine? I can record something later on the info line for the reporters, post it on the blog.”
“Not this time,” Dodds said. “A white man in a new Lexus with a blade sticking out of his chest. Two television news crews are already here, and we need our PIO on scene.”
Will muttered a profanity.
“Can’t be hard,” Dodds went on. “You’re living in the ghetto already.”
“All right, fifteen minutes.”
“Make it ten.” The line went dead.
Will took his seven a.m. Baclofen early, reached for his black steel cane, and stood. He knew the drill: Tight abdomen, stand with the interior muscles of his legs, and pull his shoulders back and down using his lats. It worked. The days when he could roll out of bed, shower, dress, and be at a crime scene in fifteen minutes were gone. But so were the days, after being discharged from the hospital, when dressing left him exhausted and in tears. Today he used the electric shaver, brushed his teeth, and combed his hair almost like a normal person. In the closet, he sat on a bench and dressed in a suit and tie with only moderate pain and discomfort. At least he could feel something below his waist. At least he was off the pain meds.
He had been dreaming before the phone woke him. He dreamed all the time now. The reason was easy to understand: his legs were twitching, keeping him from falling into a deep sleep. In this dream, he was interviewing for a job in Homicide again, or maybe it was for the first time. It wasn’t the real office, but a sleek, two-level workspace with Danish furniture and nobody he recognized. He was waiting to see Lieutenant Fassbinder. And waiting, and waiting, and then he had missed his interview. He always walked normally in his dreams and awoke filled with anxiety.
Now fully alert, he clipped his badge, holster, and extra cartridge magazines in his belt. In the holster was a Smith & Wesson M&P 40-caliber semiautomatic pistol. He was sweating from the effort by this time. The quads muscles in his right leg were already feeling the strain from the work. He stood again in front of the mirror and straightened his tie. Take away the cane and he almost looked normal: Six-feet-two inches, broad shoulders, and a full head of wavy hair. In better days, Cindy had nicknamed him “TDH” for tall, dark, and handsome. He certainly didn’t feel that way now. Working his way carefully down the stairs, he headed out. The upright Baldwin piano in the living room stood unused, silently judging him.
The dark blue unmarked Ford Crown Victoria with five antennas on the roof and emergency lights under the grille sat unmolested outside his townhouse on Liberty Hill. It was a stub of a street that marked the beginning of the rise of Prospect Hill, which was sometimes called Liberty Hill. Cincinnati could be confusing that way. The little street was a collection of nineteenth century homes, two and three stories, closely spaced and right up on the sidewalk, in various states of repair. Many, like Will’s, had been restored. Now he was glad that his was the only one that required only one step up to enter. A few doors up sat the three-story Pendleton House, with its light-blue mansard roof. It was a National Historic Landmark, having been owned by a senator who led reform of the federal civil service.
Being in only the municipal civil service and yet carrying a badge, Will had an informal deal with the neighborhood homeboys: they kept the car safe and he didn’t bother them. So far it had worked. Downtown glistened to the south. He made himself walk the way he would at the scene: an easy, if slow gait, the cane barely visible, the weakness in his left leg concealed. But he was conscious of every step. Every step was hard as hell. Don’t show it, he told himself for the thousandth time. Don’t show it.
The city of Cincinnati comprised fifty-two neighborhoods in a geography that began with the basin at the river landing and rose onto three-hundred-foot-high hills into which were tucked dozens of valleys, hillsides, and ravines. Each neighborhood had its own history, culture, and feel. But none was like Over-the-Rhine. With its narrow, snaky streets immediately north of downtown and dense rows of four- and five-story tenements and commercial buildings, it had once been the old German enclave. Its five square miles held America’s largest urban historic district, its jewel box of architectural styles mostly unscathed by massive teardowns or urban renewal. It also was the home to Music Hall, Washington Park, and the Findlay Market.
It was half time capsule to the nineteenth century and half slum. Most cops had no sentimental attachment to it. Yet Will liked the place.
A hundred years before, Over-the-Rhine held nearly fifty thousand people. Now, despite the rough-at-the-edges splendor of its buildings, the neighborhood was home to little more than ten percent of that population, and almost all were poor, uneducated, and black. The gentrification of the nineties had paused with the riots, but the place was so magnetic that yet another attempt at a Renaissance was under way on Main Street and elsewhere. The old Stenger’s Café, where he bought coffee for years, was being reborn as a wine shop. There was talk of connecting O.T.R. to downtown with a streetcar, but change came slowly to Cincinnati. Parts of it were amazing in their beauty, others scary even to the cops.
He turned onto Race Street and briefly flashed the vehicle’s emergency lights so a uniform would let him pass. The street was blocked and half a dozen marked and unmarked units were parked in front of a dingy little market that still had a faded Hudepohl beer sign hanging from a rusty overhead rod. It was one of the few places to shop here. Kroger kept threatening to close its small, run-down store over on Vine. It’s not as if this were a place with the demographics or incomes to attract retailers. It attracted plenty of yellow crime-scene tape, which was now being wrapped.
The buildings stood between the street and the low-hanging sun, shrouding the landscape in the half-dark of the hour before real morning. Dodds was standing on the curb with his hands on his hips. He was hard to miss: big as a door, shaved head, with a complexion like strong coffee, and always dressed to the nines. A hundred feet down the block were two television news vans.
Will stepped up on the curb, made his left leg crook up to catch the sidewalk, cheating by using his left hand to push off a car fender, and walked toward him, conscious of every bump and disfigurement of the sidewalk that might trip him.
“What have you got?”
“Thirty-one-year-old male, name Jeremy Snowden, address in Mount Lookout, sitting peacefully behind the wheel of his automobile enjoying this historic neighborhood.”
He followed Dodds, moving as fast as he could but still trailing behind. A silver four-door Lexus was parked directly in front of the little store. Race was a one-way street running toward downtown and the river, so the car was parked on the east side of the street with the driver’s door by the curb. A lithesome young man with dirty blond hair to his shoulders sat exactly as Dodds said. His eyes were open as if he were surprised by the commotion. His shirt was light blue sporting a Ralph Lauren Polo logo over the breast and a silver-handled knife was protruding from his chest at a ninety-degree angle. Will took it all in as the experienced homicide investigator he had once been, before the tumor and the hospital.
“Was the door open?” he asked.
“Closed but unlocked. Anonymous 911 call at 5:52 a.m. No witnesses, of course.”
Will looked around at the blank black faces watching them from windows and gritty doorways.
“How do you know his name?”
“Wallet.”
“So not a robbery?”
“Probably a robbery,” Dodds said. “The vic was making a purchase from Nubian pharmaceutical salesmen late last night and something went wrong, then they were scared off by something else and didn’t get the wallet.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re not on homicide anymore, Mister PIO.” Dodds gently stuck a cigar-sized finger in his chest at exactly the place where Jeremy Snowden had met his fate.
Will knew this too well. He was the public information officer. The PIO. His job was to walk over to the reporters and give them a statement that told them the basics of the crime, but not too much. Not the victim’s name, for next-of-kin would have to be notified. Not specific information about the crime, especially details the detectives wanted to hold back. Nothing that a clever defense lawyer could later use to undermine the case once they had a suspect. He’d be on the newscast with “Detective Will Borders” under his image as he relayed as little as possible.
At that moment, he saw a young woman ambling up the other side of the street. She saw him.
“Hello, Detective Will.”
“Can’t talk now, Tori,” he called. “You’ll have to go back and wait.”
Tori was Victoria Missett, a reporter for WCPO.
“Get that girl outta here,” Dodds commanded and a uniformed officer walked toward her, even though she was already retreating.
“Not that I wouldn’t do her,” he said. “Young enough. I’d teach her how to fuck. Speaking of which, have you called that nurse? Cheryl.”
“Cheryl Beth. And no.”
“Why not? You’re a free man. Divorced. God, wish I were free of my ball-and-chain. Twenty-two years of ball-and-chain.”
Will badly wanted to change the subject. He said, “I’ll tell Karla that and let her kick your black ass up and down the street.”
“Cheryl Beth’s a cutie. I’d do her.
“You want to do everyone.”
“Why don’t you call her?”
“Because I’m a cripple.”
“You have a serious confidence problem, partner. Nobody’s going to notice that cane. I bet you could use it as a kick-ass police baton.”
Will didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned in the open car door, shifting his body to rely even more on the cane. “Went right into his heart, right between the intercostal spaces.” The shirt showed little more than a trickle of blood. He had bled out inside his body. If the assailant had twisted and pulled out the blade, it would have released a torrent. Will went on, “That’s either major luck, or a lot more care than a random robber would take.”
“So here’s the statement you’re going to give the media. Quit doing my job.”
Will stood and faced Dodds. “That’s not a knife,” he said. “That’s a letter opener. Looks expensive. Maybe sterling silver. I think it’s Tiffany.”
Dodds almost pushed him aside to peer inside the car again. “God damn,” he said.
“Obviously a drug dealer of letters.”
“Whatever. He stole it. Makes a nice weapon, as you can see.”
“What’s that in the back seat.”
“You don’t give up.” Dodds shot him an annoyed glance, then bent into the car again. “Guitar case. So what? He looks like a hippie.
“There haven’t been any hippies for thirty years, Dodds.”
“This is Cincinnati, Borders.”
“Whatever. It’s not a guitar case. Too big. Cello.”
Dodds faced him. “Now how the hell… Oh, yeah, you were a music-fucking-minor in college, weren’t you? That was helpful in the career choice you made.”
“It helps me now.” Will wanted to sit down. His legs were aching and tired. All the muscles he was using to make the walking and standing look normal were stabbing at him. He pushed this aside. “It doesn’t take college to know a cello case.”
“You.” Dodds pointed to a uniform. “What’s your name?”
The young man gave it.
“Tim, I want you to go to the other side. Use these.” He handed the uni some latex gloves. “Open that back passenger door and pull out that case. And do it carefully.”
“Yes, sir,” the young cop squeaked. It was probably his first homicide.
When the cello case was out, Dodds had the uni place it on the trunk of the Lexus.
“You know what they call the color of this car? ‘Starfire Pearl.’ I want one.”
“Not on an honest cop’s salary,” Will said.
“There’s always overtime.” Dodds carefully undid the latches. The case was fiberglass, purple, and well worn. What was inside wasn’t.
“So Mister Music, it’s a cello. You’re right. Now, go get those fucking reporters out of here.”
Will stared at the instrument and didn’t speak for several seconds. “That’s a
Domenico Montagnana.”
“So? Sounds like a baseball player from the Dominican Republic.”
“It’s one of the finest cellos in existence,” Will said, a tingle running across his chest. “Yo-Yo Ma plays one. I think he calls it Petunia.”
He stared at the fine wood, the intricate workmanship on the scroll at the top, the neck, and fingerboard. Dodds exhaled heavily. He knew what Will was going to say next.
“Maybe it was dumb luck this didn’t get stolen, like with his wallet. But this is no freshman at CCM.” The College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.
Dodds stared at the ground.
“Music Hall is two blocks away,” Will added.
Dodds waved a finger in his face. “Now don’t try to make this some hoity-toity symphony thing, Mister President. You know as well as I do that most homicides are simple.”
Will smiled mischievously and walked back to his car.
Yes, most were simple. That’s why cops didn’t read murder mysteries or watch police television dramas: they made the business sound too interesting. In real life, the homicide beat was tedious, repetitive, and unexciting. Most victims knew their killers. Drugs were a big motive: A deal gone wrong, a mule stealing from a dealer, a small-time dealer ripping off a bigger supplier. Domestic violence was another common denominator. Husbands killed wives and their new boyfriends, and often finished the job with a bullet in their own mouths. Sometimes wives and girlfriends killed their men.
