Powers of Arrest

by Jon Talton

  “So is your leg injured, Borders?”

  “It’s way more complicated than that,” Will said. And she left it alone, motioning. “I’ll start in the bedroom.”

  He slipped on latex gloves and wandered around the living room, which had two walls of windows facing south and east. Traffic on Columbia Parkway shot by silently far below, and the view of the big bend in the Ohio River must have been spectacular in daylight. As it was, he could see the lights of Newport across the wide darkness of water. A large framed photo of the Riverfest fireworks dominated one wall. Another held a sizeable flat plasma television facing a cream sofa and chairs. There were no books. One shelf held a photo of her parents, another of her in uniform on graduation day from the academy. No boyfriends. He opened drawers and cabinets to a chest below the TV: carefully catalogued DVDs of LadyCops episodes, a few movies, a new DVD player. No knives or threatening letters.

  A smaller bedroom held a desk, chair, and computer. Two pens sat neatly spaced next to the PC. Six inches away, a cordless phone sat charging in its dock. Beside the desk, a shelf contained half a dozen black boxes, the kind you bought at a home organization store. He sat down and began opening them. The first held office supplies. The next two were filled with letters, all neatly filed with tabs indicating months. He slid one out at random and began to read. It was addressed to her, care of CPD headquarters. A thirteen-year-old girl from San Diego watched Kristen on every episode of LadyCops and wanted to become a police officer “like you.” At the top, a neat hand had written in red, “replied 2/23.” Will was amazed a teenager would write a real letter, but then Kristen’s email address wasn’t easily available. He slid it back in its place and opened another. The Cleveland NAACP was complaining that the show only had African-American suspects.

  “Fan mail.” He looked over his shoulder at Henderson standing in the doorway.

  “Jeez, Borders, how many?”

  “Hundreds. At least.”

  “Do you know how many man hours that is? My captain will go berserk.”

  “We haven’t even started on her email,” Will said.

  “You guys can do that. You have more resources.”

  “Yeah, yeah. My lieutenant would disagree with you.”

  “This is more fun.” She dangled a pair of black panties. “Officer Gruber favored black lace.” Will followed her into the master bedroom and sat heavily in an upholstered chair facing a king-sized bed. Henderson held up more contents from Kristen’s underwear drawer.

  She saw Will’s expression. “That’s called a merry widow, or a corset,” she said, replacing the garment. “She’s also got garters and stockings. Black and white, depending on the mood, I guess. In the closet, she’s got three little black dresses. Must be nice to have had the body to carry that off.”

  “Any firearm?”

  Henderson shook her head. “Not a damn one. No badge or ID. No cell phone. She’s got birth control pills in the bathroom. No other prescriptions. Nothing else out of the ordinary.”

  Will pushed himself up and walked over to the bed that faced the wide window. On a side table, another telephone handset sat in the main charger, but it showed no messages. That seemed strange, but he made note of it in his mind.

  A tall, modern wardrobe sat against an interior wall. Inside were uniforms, neatly hung on stainless steel hangers. All had been taken out of their dry-cleaning bags. Suddenly his left leg, which he had hyperextended back at the knee, shot forward, kicking the heavy piece of furniture.

  “Sorry,” he said, regaining his footing. “It does that.”

  Henderson bent down. “Good move. Check this out.”

  Will had accidentally unhinged a hidden drawer beneath the wardrobe. Henderson pulled it out. The contents were arrayed with the same obsessive neatness as elsewhere in the condo, but they were two pairs of handcuffs, a blindfold, a ball gag, leather shackles, some other restraints he’d never seen before, and a couple of very large black dildos.

  “No offense to a fallen sister officer,” Henderson said, “but our girl seems to have liked it rough.”

  An uneasy feeling flooded Will’s body, something he had been dreading ever since he had been assigned to the case. The Ivory Soap girl was not who she seemed.

  He sighed. “We’ll bag it all, I guess.”

  “That’ll make me popular in the evidence room tonight.” She pulled out clear plastic evidence envelopes and a set of latex gloves.

  Metal on metal.

  An alert shot silently through Will’s head.

  Someone was trying the front door.

  They both walked quietly in that direction. The floors were solid and didn’t creak. But with the lights on, there was a chance whoever was outside might see their shadows under the door. The sound continued. Will heard Henderson unsnap her holster.

  Someone was inserting a key in the door.

  “How do you want to play it?” Henderson whispered.

  “Let him come in.”

  Henderson took up a position in the kitchen to the right of the front door. She now had her semi-automatic out, held down at her side. Will unholstered his own weapon and retreated into the hallway. He switched his cane to his left hand, held the gun in his right, but the adrenaline coursing through his system made him feel steady on his feet. He turned off the light in the hall, so he would have the advantage of darkness. There was nothing to be done about the lights already on in the living room.

  Maybe Kristen had a roommate. The concierge hadn’t said anything about that. Still, they would have to be careful when the door opened. They would anyway. The key in the door was most likely the one missing from Kristen’s boat, and the hand holding it belonged to her killer.

  The key was all the way in, but once again the lock resisted. Click-click, click-click. He didn’t know the trick the concierge had used to open the door. Click-click, click-click.

  Then, silence. Henderson looked back at him.

  “Go.” He mouthed it silently. She walked five feet to the door and looked through the fisheye.

  She shook her head. By that time he was standing there, too.

  “Open it.” He had his gun up now, aimed toward the door.

  The sound was unmistakable: the key was sliding back out. It took a good ten seconds of pulling to get the warped door to unlatch. By the time she opened it, the threshold was empty. They moved quickly into an empty hall.

  “This is bullshit,” she said. “I’ll take the fire stairs. You take the elevator to the lobby.”

  Will strode as fast as he dared, his right quads screaming their silent protest. In less than two minutes he was back in the quiet lobby. He holstered the gun and approached the concierge.

  “Somebody come through here in the past ten minutes?”

  The man shook his head. “Only you and the woman.”

  A sound indicated a door opening and Diane Henderson trotted up. Will told her what he knew.

  “What about visitors tonight, earlier,” she said. “Maybe he hid in the fire stairs or on a different floor.”

  “Only residents tonight, ma’am.”

  Will knew they were both wondering if the killer was a resident.

  He said, “Do you have a garage?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s indicated on the elevator. P-1 and P-2. It’s secured by a door to the street. Residents have a card key that opens it.”

  “So our guy could have Kristen’s card key,” Henderson said.

  Will tried again. “Is the garage entrance on camera?”

  “It is,” the concierge said. “But that camera’s been down for two months. The homeowners’ board hasn’t kicked loose the money to get it fixed.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Will noticed the car parked in front of his townhouse when he turned onto Liberty Hill. Otherwise the street was deserted. He parked, heaved himself out, and came up behind the other vehicle. One male occupant. For a second, he thought about unsnapping the trigger guard on his holster before recognition let
his heart rate go down.

  He tapped on the car window and the driver jumped.

  “John?”

  The door opened and his stepson got out.

  “Hey, Will.”

  “Sorry if I startled you.”

  “I wasn’t startled.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, sure…”

  “Well, come on in.”

  The young man followed him as he unlocked the door and turned on some lights. They made small talk about the townhouse, which Will had bought from a Procter & Gamble employee who had completely redone it: 1870 on the outside, bright and new on the inside. All the furniture was familiar to John because it had been at home before Will moved out and Cindy decided she wanted to redecorate, and then remarry. John wore jeans and a black T-shirt with an elaborate drawing involving skulls. He seemed nervous and tired. His eyes were red.

  “Have you been crying?”

  “No,” John said, a little too emphatically. “These allergies drive me nuts.” He asked if Will was practicing his piano and Will had to admit he wasn’t.

  “Beer?”

  “For me, too?” John seemed surprised. “Sure, Will.”

  “There’s Christian Moerlein in the ’fridge. Open a couple of bottles and let’s go upstairs.” It still made Will feel strange that John called him by his first name. He had married Cindy when John was a baby and he was the only father the boy had known growing up. But once he was in high school, Will was no longer “daddy” but Will. He wondered what John called his real father in Boston.

  They tramped up the stairs, through the bedroom, turning on lights as they went, and Will led him out on the small deck.

  “Wow,” John said.

  It was a “wow” view. This side of Liberty Hill was high enough that they could see over the rooftops of the townhouses across the street and into downtown. Directly in front was a vacant lot, enhancing the vista. The air had turned cool and the skyscrapers floated in the liquid black sky above the trees. The city brooded around them on its hills and inside its ravines beneath the green abundance of the changing season. The Queen City of the West, but the West had moved on. It was still a beauty. The night was quiet except for the steady distant rumble of Interstate 71.

  Will set his cane against the railing and eased into one of the two chairs. The weight of the day was full on him now and he had been looking forward to the chance to actually sleep tonight. It would be a rarity. At the moment, he didn’t know if he could even get up again.

  “How do you handle it down here?”

  Will sipped his beer. “I like it.”

  “The riots were right over there. And all the blacks…”

  “Oh, John, there’s all sorts of people in this neighborhood. You weren’t raised that way, and as I recall you didn’t like it out in the suburbs.” He took a deeper pull of the Christian Moerlein. “So are you going back to Portland after the summer?”

  John said he didn’t know if he would return. He had liked the city but thought college was boring. Will might not have been his real father but he couldn’t stop worrying about this baby who had become a man in the quick-time that was the dark gift of getting older. He had been such a sweet little boy. Then adolescence, and they had lost him. He was aimless and angry, an indifferent student except for music and art classes. This, even though Will and Cindy had skimped to put him in a good high school before Cindy started to make real money at the bank. Will blamed himself. Cindy was gone more and more with work. Some of her positions required travel, and then there were her serial affairs. Will should have done more, but he, too, worked long hours on homicide. John had often been left to raise himself.

  “There are good schools here, too,” Will said.

  “I hate Cincinnati.”

  “Miami’s right up the road. Live on campus. You’d never know Cincinnati existed.”

  “Still pimping for your alma mater. You went there with all those preppy snots and became a cop. How the hell did that happen, man?”

  Will laughed and John did, too, stretching out his legs and relaxing a bit. Will thought about offering some fatherly advice about college and careers. He wanted to ask about his friends and find out what his plans were, but he thought better of it. He was grateful for the company, and had been the designated bad guy in John’s life for so long that he didn’t want to spoil the moment.

  “I’ve partied up there,” John said. “But the kids are so stuck up.”

  Will knew that could be true at one of Ohio’s “Public Ivies.” Time to change the subject.

  “Those are nice shoes.”

  “You think so?” John said. “I bought ’em in Portland. They’re called Drainmakers.” He pointed to the lime green soles.

  “How are you?” John asked.

  “I’m okay. It’s been a long day.”

  “But the cancer’s gone, right?”

  Will wearied of explaining the betrayal his body had carried out a few months after he turned forty-one. The doctors had discovered a tumor inside his spinal cord. It was a very rare condition. Luckily it had not been cancerous. They called it “malignant by location”: it would have left him paralyzed. Fortunately, they seem to have gotten it all. He ran through it for John patiently. There was no reason to expect Cindy would have told John the details.

  “So it won’t come back, right?”

  “Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee of that. Every day’s a gift.”

  “You’ve turned into one mellow dude, Will. Letting me have a beer, not even ragging my ass about the pot.”

  He was trying to get a rise, but Will remembered being that age, when small things loomed so huge, when a young man’s pride was everything.

  “Come on, John,” he said gently. “That was a long time ago. Your mother and I were concerned for your well-being, doing the whole parent thing. You’ll be there someday.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess you heard about Kristen Gruber.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You remember meeting her?” Will had taken John to the party thrown by the show’s producers to mark the completion of filming for the first season of LadyCops: Cincinnati. It was the last time Will had attempted to draw John out of his shyness. Kristen had worn one of those little black dresses that night.

  “I remember.”

  “I’m the lead detective on the case.”

  “Back in homicide? Good for you,” John said.

  They fell into silence and Will’s mind was back on the case. Henderson had taken her evidence back to Kentucky and Will had stopped by a Skyline Chili to grab a late dinner and update the online police blotter. The Enquirer’s Web site had a long story about Kristen, but also another one about a double-homicide on the Miami University campus. A suspect was in custody and a knife had been used in the attack. He made a mental note to call the police in Oxford in the morning.

  “It’s really bad,” John said in a low voice. “Her being killed.”

  “Yes.” Will never talked about the ugly details of his work with his family.

  “So you like doing the whole TV thing? ‘Police spokesman.’ You’re a celebrity.”

  “Not really. It’s the job they let me do. It’s not like I can chase the bad guys any more. So I’m grateful for it.” Will shook his right leg and wondered why John was there. He hadn’t seen him in months. Coming by to check on him was a mature thing. That was good. Will set aside his suspicious cop thoughts, looked into the lights of the Kroger Building, and let his mind swim across memories of Cheryl Beth.

  “So are you seeing anybody?” he asked.

  John started to speak but only shook his head. Then: “I’ve tried to do scamming, but the girls don’t really go for me. They, like, want to be friends. Not friends with benefits, you know? Like ‘friends’ means get lost. Don’t want to dance with no pants. They save that for the dangerous ones, the alpha dudes. Then they complain because they turn out to be pricks.”

  “I’ve been ther
e,” Will said, wondering what “scamming” meant. “At your age. It’ll change.”

  “I don’t know.” John chugged the beer and put his feet up on the railing. Metal clattered onto the floor. It was a folding knife.

  John scrambled to retrieve it and slipped it back in his pants pocket.

  “Why are you carrying a knife?”

  “Because.”

  Will waited.

  “Things are dangerous in this city,” John said.

  “Make sure it’s not used on you. And make sure you tell a police officer you have it if he ever starts to search you.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, with sarcastic emphasis.

  “Relax, John. I’m not your enemy.”

  John sat upright and fiddled with his pants. “Check this out, Will. Now that you’re cool and all…”

  John unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis. Even in the ambient light, Will could see something like a small carabiner attached to its head. No, it was more like a crescent or curved barbell.

  “What is that?”

  “They call it a Prince Albert piercing,” John said. “This is what the chicks dig.”

  “That looks like it hurts. Can you pee?” Will stopped looking.

  “Not a problem,” John said.

  “You can put it away now,” Will said, and John did. Will wished he had something stronger than the beer. He started to ask if his mother knew he had done that with the money she gave him, but stopped himself.

  They drank in silence until John spoke again.

  “How did you handle seeing all those dead bodies over the years?”

  “You get used to it,” Will said. “Or you get another job. You try to think about doing your job, finding the bad guy.”

  “I gotta go.” John stood up. “I’ll put the bottle downstairs. Want another one?”

  “No, I’ll fall asleep. Can’t drink like I once could.”

  In a minute, he watched John walk to his car and drive away.

  As the quiet returned to the street, Will wondered why John had visited him, had chosen tonight, and had waited for him outside. Why had he put a piece of metal through his penis and felt the need to show it? Will was a man whose training and experience had made him a skeptic, even with his own family, perhaps especially with his own family. But John was no longer a boy and had long ago slipped the influence of his parents. Maybe John merely wanted to see how his stepfather was holding up.