by Jon Talton
Brooks asked, “Why?”
He looked bewildered.
“My point is, did you all have plans? Did one of them go there with you on a date? Did you pick them both up? What?”
Noah said they had met up at the bar. “We were drinking and having fun. First Holly and me, and then we saw Lauren and she joined us.”
“Drank too much?”
“Maybe”
“And you expect me to believe these two good-looking girls, both of ’em, left with you.”
“They did.”
“Must be nice,” Brooks said. He made some notes. Noah’s eyes beseeched her, but all Cheryl Beth could do was give a small, soothing smile she had perfected over the years. At the moment, she was doubtful of its comfort. She mouthed the words: “shut up.” He looked away.
“You’re kind of old to be hanging around campus bars, Noah,” Brooks said. “My information says you’re twenty-five. These girls were both twenty.”
“I was in the Army,” he said. “After my discharge, I went back to school.”
“An honorable discharge?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll check on that.” Brooks put down his pen and stared at the young man. Then his voice resumed its friendly tone. “What time did you leave the bar?”
“I don’t know. Maybe around midnight.”
“You’re sure of that.”
Cheryl Beth turned to Brooks. “He already told you he wasn’t sure.” She turned back to Noah. “You should shut up.”
“I’m innocent.” He said it, looking incredibly boy-like and vulnerable.
“Then how do you know it was after midnight?” Instantly she wished she hadn’t asked it.
“I got a call around midnight, let it go to voice mail. I saw the time then. We left awhile afterwards. The place was getting pretty crowded.”
“Who called you?” Brooks twirled his pen in his fingers.
Noah hesitated. “A friend.”
“Female friend?”
Noah nodded.
Brooks stood and paced toward the wall, his shoes squeaking on the waxed floor.
“You’re a popular guy,” Brooks said. “So you and the two girls walked to the Formal Gardens? Did you do drugs?”
“Noah,” Cheryl Beth said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We did some E.”
“Ecstasy,” Brooks said. “You always bring that when you’re out with women?”
“Lauren had it,” he said. “We took one each, watched the stars, and talked.”
Brooks sighed. Then: “Did you hook up?”
“Sure. That’s kind of the idea.”
“With both of them?”
Noah nodded.
“Man, you are a lucky guy,” Brooks said, circling around behind Noah. Cheryl Beth noted again how short he was, how he radiated short-man insecurities. It reminded her of certain doctors she had known.
Brooks said, “What made you kill them?”
“I didn’t!”
The deputy stepped closer and Noah slumped in his chair.
Brooks leaned in behind Noah’s left side.
“You own a knife?”
“Probably. Yes, I do. I have a couple from the service.” Noah leaned back and turned his head, but Brooks had switched sides. He spoke into Noah’s other ear, barely a whisper.
“What about handcuffs?”
“No, of course not.”
“Those girls had abrasions on their wrists. Somebody handcuffed them, Noah. I think that somebody is you.”
He shook his head, saying “No” over and over.
“We’re going to find the knife that killed those girls, Noah. We’re going to find the handcuffs. And when we do, we’re going to find your fingerprints on it. So why don’t you tell me what really happened.”
“I’m trying to tell you the truth. Somebody hit me from behind.”
“Somebody?”
He nodded and Brooks sat back down. Some anonymous sounds came from back in the jail, and Brooks leaned in, baring his teeth.
“You like to hurt women, right?”
“I never…!”
“You’re really sick to have done this, Noah. Carve up those girls that way.”
Noah shivered and sobbed.
Brooks’ tone shifted again. In a quieter voice, he asked, “Did the girls see this somebody? Did they warn you? Did they scream?”
“No. They were passed out. I was about to wake them up so we could go.”
“Passed out?” Brooks cocked an eyebrow and stroked his mustache. “I didn’t think ecstasy made you pass out. I thought it made you feel all full of peace and self-acceptance and shit like that.”
“We’d had a lot to drink.”
“But not too much for you to have sex with them.”
“We had sex.”
“Your DNA’s going to be in those bodies, Noah. Why did you kill them?”
“I didn’t kill them!” His face was red and he was crying.
“Because somebody hit you.”
“That’s right. When I came to, I felt like hell. Holly and Lauren were gone. It was raining, but I passed out again. The next thing I know was when you guys… Wait. Holly and Lauren were gone because I wasn’t in the Formal Gardens when I woke up. I was off in some bushes. Like somebody dragged me over there.”
“That ‘somebody’ again,” Brooks said.
“Noah,” Cheryl Beth said, “When you three were together, were you alone in the gardens? Did you notice anyone else?”
He hung his head, shaking it slowly. “I don’t remember.”
His story seemed implausible. But Cheryl Beth also knew that many of the behaviors Noah exhibited, from the loss of focus, impaired attention, and even paranoia were after-effects of Ecstasy, otherwise known as MDMA.
She turned to Brooks: “Did you notice any marks on the grass as if he’d been dragged?”
Brooks glared at her.
“Has anyone examined the back of his head?” she asked.
“This is bullshit,” Brooks said,
“May I?” She stood. “I’m an R.N.”
The deputy seemed unsure.
“Go ahead,” Brooks said. “What the hell.”
She walked behind Noah and felt above his neck into his hair. There was no bleeding but a noticeable lump. “There is a hematoma there,” she said. “A big bruise. A blow from the back could have made it. He needs to be checked for a concussion.”
“That’s what I’m telling you.” Noah said.
“It could also have come from the arrest,” Brooks said. “Or maybe you fell. Killers are stupid that way.” He stood and walked to the door.
“I’ll see you in the lobby, Cheryl Beth. You,” he pointed at Noah. “You and I are going to have more talks.”
After the door shut, Cheryl Beth faced Noah. His face was wet with tears. He didn’t dare raise his hands to wipe them away.
“Why did you ask for me?”
“I don’t have anybody,” he said. “You seem kind.”
She watched him carefully. Was he manipulating her? She couldn’t be sure. He seemed sincere. “Who can I call for you? Parents? Brothers or sisters?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have anybody.”
She thought about bringing up Corbin, but didn’t. The place held too many ghosts and heartbreaks. That he was from there unsettled her further. She made herself look him in the eye. “I don’t know how to help you. I could ask around about lawyers.
“I don’t have any money. I’m over my head with student loans. You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t kill them.” After a long pause, he spoke again. “Do you believe me?”
“Yes.” Cheryl Beth felt the lie burning her throat.
Chapter Eight
The press conference began at five minutes after four at Cincinnati police headquarters on Ezzard Charles Drive. The city was under a tornado watch. When Will had reached the station two hours earlier to brief the brass, the air was thick with humidity and
enormous thunderheads were advancing over the Western Hills. Kristen Gruber’s parents had retired to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and the chief had called them personally, hoping to reach them before they heard about the murder from the media. Now the briefing room was bright with television lights whatever the sky outside had to say. All the local stations were there, plus a crew from Indianapolis and a freelance team. Half the room seemed to be sneezing and sniffling. Sinus Valley.
The chief stood at the center of the podium flanked by the lieutenant colonels that commanded different bureaus in the department. All wore black mourning bands on their badges. All were in full uniform, including the dark dress jacket. This was a good thing in Will’s mind, not only because the white uniform shirts of CPD overly reflected light and drove the television people crazy, but also because they made the cops look like ice-cream men. That, at least, had been Cindy’s joke. Will’s ex-wife had disapproved of his career choice with increasing intensity as their marriage went on.
White shirts and television lights. Will had learned about such arcana when he was sent to a special school for law-enforcement media officers. He had been drilled in how to handle the parry and thrust of difficult press conferences. Still, he felt ill at ease before the cameras, and today especially he was happy to stand off to the side of the brass, the only one in a suit. He gripped the edge of a chair with his right hand, subtly he hoped. His body was exhausted from the day and standing now was taking all his effort. Chest up, shoulders back, lats pulled down, diaphragm tight, all the things he had been taught. Still, his left leg was reliably thumping every eighteen seconds. You could set a stopwatch by it. He desperately wanted to hyper-extend the leg and let all the pent-up energy out, but he had learned the hard way that doing this would cause him to be in danger of falling down from the resulting spasm. So he put weight on it hoping the leg would calm itself.
He badly wanted to sit down.
The chief had served his whole career in the department. Like most officers, Will’s opinion of him was complicated. What was not in question was that he was very much a Cincinnati product: coming from old German stock west of the “Sauerkraut Curtain,” a graduate of Elder High School, and a cop who came up through the ranks. He stuck to his roots by bowling in a league at Heid’s Lanes. His trim figure looked good in a uniform, his sandy hair combed precisely into a style out of the early 1960s, his face still youthful for fifty-eight. Now he faced the cameras and gave a stoic account.
“Officer Kristen Gruber was found dead on a boat tied up on the Licking River this morning. We’re working with our colleagues at the Covington Police Department and the Kenton County Sheriff and treating this as a homicide. I can tell you she died of multiple stab wounds. I’m not going to go into details…”
Will knew the details. He stared into the lights and recalled the photos he had seen in Covington. Kristen had been handcuffed, hands behind her, and placed on a bench in the cabin of the boat. The assailant had used a knife to rape her. The genital mutilation was the worst Will had ever seen. At some point in the attack, the femoral artery in her right leg had been slashed and she had been left to bleed out. It appeared that bleach had been poured around her genital area, perhaps to corrupt DNA testing. Her face was untouched. Had she screamed out there? Would anyone have heard it? The blood volume was so high that it was still pooled when the first cops came aboard.
“…We intend to expend every resource in the department to find the vicious killer of a Cincinnati Police officer…,” the chief went on.
The boat was tied up on a deserted tract of the Covington riverbank. A kayaker had found it early this morning. The time of death was sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning; the medical examiner would narrow it further. The kayaker had been home with his wife during that time. Tracing ownership of the boat was easy: it belonged to Kristen. Other than the blood, the crime scene appeared surprisingly tidy. No bloody footprints or fingerprints were immediately found. Crime-scene techs from both CPD and Covington were still there when Will drove back downtown. The adjacent riverbank showed no recent tracks. Whoever killed her had probably come from the river.
Will heard a thunderclap from outside as the chief kept talking.
“…We will spare nothing to capture the killer or killers. We definitely want them badly…”
No knife was found on the boat. Divers had spent the day searching the river bottom, although Will was not optimistic. The lead diver told him what he’d heard before when evidence was being sought in the Ohio River: You can’t even see your hand in front of you down in that water. A search a mile above and below the crime scene along the riverbank hadn’t turned up anything but garbage, especially beer bottles.
The chief continued: “…I’ll take some questions now, but I’ll warn you that we won’t discuss details or anything that might jeopardize the case. I’ll close with an appeal to anyone who might have been on the Licking River on Saturday night or Sunday morning and might have seen anything suspicious, or seen this boat, to call us at this number on the screen behind me.” He read out the phone number, too.
Will was astonished that the first question was what would happen to the new season of Lady Cops: Cincinnati?
After the chief called an end to questions, the reporters obediently filed out one door, the commanders another. Cincinnati was that kind of town. People still played by certain rules. Will finally sat in the blessed chair, careful as always to make sure he was really centered because he couldn’t feel every part of his butt. The light returned to its normal unhealthy fluorescent glow, the four walls containing nothing but silence. His right leg jumped up violently. He forced it down with his hands and shook it, like someone with nervous leg syndrome instead of a spinal cord that had been chewed up by tumors and surgical instruments. He dry-swallowed his five p.m. Baclofen pill, tried to generate some saliva, swallowed again. Within a minute, the right leg settled down.
He felt the hand on his shoulder.
“How you feeling, Will?”
“Good, chief. I’m okay.”
The chief pulled up another chair and sat, an alert posture with his back straight and his hips near the edge of the seat. Will was finally full-back in his chair, grateful for the furniture under him, the weight off his legs, and a stable surface beneath him.
“How are our friends in the Commonwealth treating you?”
“Good. How can you not love a department who has a lieutenant colonel named Spike Jones?” Receiving not even a hint of a smile, he hurried on. “They have six detectives on this, between Covington and the Kenton sheriff. But they understand we’re going to want a big role. The dive team’s been in the river all day. I’ve sent crime-scene over to work with them. We should know more about the boat by tomorrow.”
“Good, good.” He nodded, looking Will in the eye. “You’ll tell me what you need from us? Resources, manpower. I talked to the mayor and city manager, and overtime won’t be a problem.”
Will nodded. He kept his own doubts and fears to himself. He wasn’t in good enough shape to be the lead detective, certainly not on such an important case. But he didn’t dare say no, didn’t dare show weakness. The city was struggling with budget cuts and Will knew he was lucky to have a job. He intended to keep it.
“Gruber was a good cop,” the chief said.
“Yes, sir.”
Will hesitated. “We’re going to need to talk to her boyfriend, if she has one. Ex-husband. The usual. I can coordinate all that. I’ll get a timeline of her past few days, see how often she went out on the boat and with who. But I also want access to her emails, work and home, phone records. She was on national television. She might have had stalkers. The other officers on the show, you might want to give them an extra heads-up. This might be a one-off killing, but you never know.”
The chief nodded. “You follow it wherever it leads, but get this son of a bitch.”
“Yes, sir.” He said the words, but wondered if the commanders really wan
ted to know wherever the truth might lead. What if Gruber wasn’t a good cop? What if it was a typical sleazy domestic violence or romantic triangle gone wrong? His paranoia kicked in: Why was he sent alone to Covington this morning—why not a real homicide team? Maybe command wanted to keep things discreet; cop gossip traveled fast. Maybe he was being set up.
The chief leaned in an inch. “There’s one more thing. And I know you have a lot on your plate.”
Will waited.
“The D.B. this morning. The one in Over-the-Rhine.”
“The cellist.”
“Exactly. You still have season tickets to the symphony?”
“I do.” Will figured he was the only officer on the force who did.
“That’ll help. The symphony board is climbing down my throat on this one.” He sighed. “As if one headliner isn’t enough right now. Maybe you’d be willing to go over tomorrow, meet with the president, and make sure they know we’re doing all we can? These are some powerful people. You’ll know precisely the right touch in this kind of situation. It’s one skill your friend, Dodds doesn’t have. You know what I mean.”
Will knew.
Chapter Nine
Cheryl Beth was back in Cincinnati by five, curled up on her sofa at the little bungalow she owned in Clifton, which sat at the end of Sauer Avenue on a bluff. In the winter, you could look south out the kitchen window and see Over-the-Rhine and downtown. In spring and summer, it was as if those vistas had never existed. A tree canopy ran from her small backyard into Bellevue Hill Park and all she could see was green. She was on her second glass of wine and she had the band Over the Rhine on the sound system. The songs were as pensive and mournful as her mood. Her mind still back at the jail with Noah Smith. He looked impossibly frightened, alone, and innocent. But was he? Hank Brooks was convinced he was a killer.
It didn’t track for her. How could Noah alone have killed two fit young women?
Then her concern over him switched to guilt: her own. It wasn’t only about Noah. Holly Metzger and Lauren Benish were dead. Two bright young women who would have made fine nurses. Dead.
A too-familiar dread washed over her. The spike of ice grew in her abdomen. She saw the blue tarp again, could only imagine what lay behind it. When the murder happened at the old hospital, she had been followed and spied on by the killer, and this lovely old house, her sanctuary, had become a domicile of fear. She had pulled the curtains tight all those weeks, triple-checked the locks, especially after she had seen the footprints in her flowerbeds. Another policeman had saved her then, a man very different from Hank Brooks. She missed him.
