Powers of Arrest

by Jon Talton

  “He saw things in the wars, you know,” Allison said. “He was deployed five times. He has nightmares. Sudden loud noises make him afraid. But he’s a good man. I don’t care what they think they know, there’s no way he could have done this.”

  Cheryl Beth remembered the way Noah had reacted when the police were trying to run him down in the grass. It was a classic post-traumatic stress disorder response. But how did Allison know any of this?

  “He was my boyfriend,” she said simply.

  Cheryl Beth stopped and looked at the ordinary, slightly chubby, pale brunette with out-of-style eyeglasses and a ponytail standing beside her. Noah and Allison? Lauren and Holly were young thoroughbreds. Allison was like a doorknob next to their polished jewels.

  “I’m sorry.” Cheryl Beth sighed heavily. “Have you told this to Detective Brooks?”

  “I was afraid,” she said. “And I was angry. That he would be with Lauren and Holly. They could have their pick of any guy, why take mine? I called him Saturday night and he never called me back. But, then, he was with them, wasn’t he? He did this to me, cheated. I was sick about it, and I was so mad at him. He betrayed me! I thought he could rot in jail and think about the damage he did. But then I calmed down. I knew he was innocent of murder…”

  “So maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought. Maybe he could also be a killer. There are PTSD incidents like that all the time. Soldiers come home and kill their families.”

  “No.” Allison spoke softly but with finality. Then she started sobbing and wrapped her arms around herself awkwardly until Cheryl Beth hugged her. She said, “I don’t believe he did it. I’ve seen how Noah reacted to things, loud noises, things like that, and he was never violent. He was scared.”

  “He was Special Forces?”

  “No, he was a combat medic. He was assigned to a Special Forces base once. But he was there to help people. He watched his friends get blown up by I.E.D.s. He saw a lot. Too much.”

  “Why didn’t he call you from the jail?”

  Another sob, and then: “Would you call your lover after getting caught like that?”

  “I guess not.”

  ***

  The men and women who built Cincinnati were under the sod of Spring Grove Cemetery. Like so much else in town, it was a National Historic Landmark. Amid the trees, flowers, ponds, and chapels were the monuments and mausoleums carved with names such as Kroger, Procter, Gamble, Chase, Lytle, Fleischmann, and Taft. This morning, beyond the oxidizing statue of a Civil War soldier with a bayonet attached to his rifle, there were also five CPD patrol cars. Will parked behind the last one and they walked up the sloping drive.

  Dodds, who had a solid sense of dignity, straightened his dress uniform and precisely placed his cap. He uncharacteristically slowed his pace to match Will’s.

  “Detectives.” A female sergeant met them. “Thanks for getting out here. There’s something you should see. Over here.”

  A body was sitting against a large marker overseen by a statue of a weeping angel. It was a male in his twenties, completely nude, with bloody wounds between his legs, his clothes neatly folded in the grass, and more gore around his mouth. The sudden knowledge about what was in his mouth made another observation secondary. A piece of paper was attached to his chest.

  “Fuck me…” Dodds whispered.

  The newly dead was leaned precisely against the monument, so it appeared as if the angel, its head down and wings drooped in grief, had discovered him that moment.

  His penis had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth.

  His hands were cuffed behind him.

  A sheet of white paper was attached to his chest by the large safety pin run through his right nipple. It was encased in a clear plastic sheet and looked like ordinary printer paper, with large typed letters in a single paragraph.

  Both Will and Dodds were slipping on latex gloves.

  Dodds bent forward and read aloud:

  “Detective Borders, meet Noah Smith. I had planned to kill him along with the women, but things didn’t work out. It spoiled what would have been a masterpiece. I couldn’t let the police give him credit for my art, now could I? Kristen was easier, but the result was beautiful. I cut them where they get their pleasure and I watched them die. Don’t think I’m bragging. I have a lot to learn. But you probably won’t hear from me again. Serial killers don’t know when to stop. My deathscapes are rare and executed with discipline, like all great art. I wish we could have spent time together, detective. On my terms, of course. I’ve seen how you struggle to walk, how your affliction keeps you up all night. But I know you would fight and it would be beautiful. I think about this temptation…”

  Dodds turned back and faced Will. “Looks like you’re still on the case.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Okay, Devil, advocate.”

  It was one of their procedures when they were partners and Will happily took the cue.

  “He’s a copycat claiming credit for all the other murders.”

  “Nope,” Dodds said. “He said he ‘cut them where they get their pleasure.’ The genital mutilation is information we held back and they also held back in Butler County.”

  “Maybe the killer is law enforcement.”

  “That can’t be ruled out.”

  “These are still separate murders. The same subject who did the two nursing students killed Noah Smith. But Gruber is separate, another murderer. This killer is claiming credit for her.”

  Dodds thought about it. “You’ve got the same problem with him knowing that Kristen was mutilated. Lucky guess? Maybe. The scenes weren’t exactly the same. The two female nursing students’ clothes weren’t neatly folded, like with Smith and Gruber. Their purses and wallets were still there. Their panties were gone. Unlike Gruber, he took the handcuffs off the bodies.”

  Will leaned against another gravestone. It was as tall as he was and green with moss. He tried to choreograph it. “So the killer is watching the three of them get it on…”

  “How come I didn’t have a college life like that?” Dodds complained.

  “I hear you, but stick with me. They’re screwing and making out. It’s arousing the killer, enraging him. One of the girls said she thought someone was watching. At some point, when they’re mellow from the Ecstasy, he comes behind Noah and hits him with something, knocks him out. He threatens the girls with the knife.”

  “Why don’t they try to outrun him?”

  “Maybe they’re worried about Noah. Maybe he’s got a gun, too. But they submit. They’re scared. They want to live. Happens all the time in rape cases. ‘I’m only going to rape you. So if you want to live, go along with me.’ Or, ‘go along or I’ll kill your friend.’ So they do, until it becomes clear he’s a killer and the one girl makes a break for it, he runs her down and stabs her. It’s also pretty isolated up there where these killings took place. So that would add to their terror. Anyway, either the girl trying to escape or even something else, like car headlights or somebody walking nearby, threw off his timetable for arranging things.”

  “Why did he take the handcuffs?”

  Will thought about it and had no good answer. “We’ll have to ask him.”

  “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little criminal minds.” Dodds shrugged. “So keep going. Argue me out of the logical conclusion.”

  “It’s more than one person, a gang, claiming to be a single serial killer.”

  “Could be,” Dodds said. “That would explain how a trained police officer was overpowered and how the three students were successfully attacked up at Miami. It would make it more likely that one would turn on the other.” He sighed. “But my golden gut says it’s one guy. Strong as hell, too. Try again.”

  “Smith killed himself,” Will said. “He killed Kristen. Oxford already liked him for the murder of the nursing students. He was driven crazy by remorse, so decides to off himself.”

  “Cold-blooded, man,” Dodds said, admiringly. “But when you thin
k about it: you’ve cut your own dick off, so what do you have to live for? Case closed. But you’d have to be one disciplined dude to pull it off. I couldn’t cut my own dick off if I’d killed everybody above the rank of sergeant, and don’t think I haven’t thought more than once about doing it.”

  “The problem is no knife,” Will said. “And no confessing suicide note.” He limped over to the clothes: blue jeans and a cotton short-sleeve shirt, and examined them. “His wallet and keys and underwear are gone. Trophies. I think the guy who wrote the note is the real deal.” He returned to his trusty headstone and again rested against it. “I think he’s the one who stuck the key in the door at Kristen’s condo the other night. Fuck, we were that close!”

  The sunlight gleamed off Dodds’ immaculately shaved dark-brown head. He indicated blood spatter with a gloved finger. One long strand of dark red reached under the angel’s wing. “It happened here. The vic wasn’t killed elsewhere.”

  Will took it in and agreed. Birdsong and wind through the trees were the only sounds. They had caught a break: All the media were covering Kristen’s funeral.

  “How’d he overpower a well-built young man?” Will asked.

  Dodds stood, the three medals of valor on his dress uniform jangling. “I would have carried a gun. Ordered him to disrobe, get on the ground, and handcuff himself. Maybe I’d make him think I only wanted to scare him or suck his dick, whatever. Then get out my blade and take care of business.”

  “Okay, so you’re the vic. Why wouldn’t you run if you knew you were going to die anyway? Why would you handcuff yourself and take away your last chance to escape or fight?”

  “Nobody knows how they’re going to react on the business end of a gun,” Dodds said. “Anyway, look.” He leaned back and yelled for the sergeant. “Did you folks make this?”

  “No, detective.” She was huffy about it.

  The grass was pulled up a few feet from the body, with fresh dirt exposed. Next to it were indentations on the grass.

  “Maybe he did try to fight.”

  “Quiet part of a quiet cemetery,” Will said, halfway to himself. “A fight or calls for help wouldn’t be heard. Killer could have gagged him at first. Actually, you can probably get a lot of noise from the trains at Queensgate Yard, especially in the middle of the night. Maybe you can build on the respectful relationship you’ve started with the sergeant and get some unis canvassing the houses across on Winton Road, see if anybody heard anything. We should talk to the groundskeepers, see what kind of security they have here. Looks like a place where anybody can jump the wall and be easily hidden.”

  “Smell that?” Will said.

  “Bleach.” Dodds pointed to the gore of Smith’s groin. “He poured it down there.”

  “Exactly like with Gruber,” Will said. “When I first heard about that I thought the killer might have thought he would mess up the DNA analysis, that he had left semen inside her. But this tells me…”

  Dodds completed his thought: “He did it to torture them. Let it burn in the wounds as they died.”

  They looked over the scene silently for several minutes.

  “This guy’s got balls,” Dodds said. “The killer, I mean, not the vic. He does this guy in public, in one of the most prominent landmarks in the city. If his note is accurate, he set out to kill three healthy young people in one shot. Thinks he’s the god of murder.”

  “Those are the ones I like to take down,” Will said. “I’d love to know where the lawyer was over the past twelve hours.”

  “You think this Kenneth Buchanan is really the one?”

  “I don’t know,” Will said. “He had a connection to Kristen. A motive, too, if he was jealous of her other lovers. A crime of passion, however twisted. But maybe the asshole is really a psychopath? So he kills the girls up at Oxford for the fun of it and then has this guy for dessert.”

  Will drifted into thinking again about John, about his stepson’s visit earlier in the week, and about the shoeprint found on Kristen’s boat.

  Dodds said, “You don’t like his ass because he reminds you of Cindy’s new husband. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to send a lawyer to the express lane at death row. But we’re going to need more before command will let us lean on him.”

  “We can still ViCAP his ass,” Will said, referring to the FBI’s colossal Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database. “He came here with his wife from Atlanta. It will be interesting to see if they have some unsolved homicides with this kind of mutilation.”

  Five days, four victims. Will said, “Now we know they were all tied together, but we still don’t know how or why he chose them. Kristen’s a cop on national television. The two vics at Miami were nobodies. Same with this guy. Not only did they have different hair colors and body types, they were different genders. Did you know Cheryl Beth was one of the instructors of those dead students? And Smith asked her to come out and talk to him at the Butler County jail?”

  “No shit?” Dodds’ back was to him, as he closely examined the body. “So how was your date?”

  “It was nice.”

  “How many positions? What does she look like naked? Tell an old married man everything so I can live vicariously.”

  Will felt his face flush. “We had dinner and beers and talked. It was nice.”

  Dodds simply shook his head.

  A uni brought up a middle-aged man who had found the body an hour before. He was a gardener. They went through the usual: Did you touch anything? Was anyone else nearby when you found the body? Was anything amiss elsewhere on the grounds? They got nowhere.

  “If I found some guy with his penis stuck in his mouth, I’d run like hell and call the cops, too,” Will said.

  “Shit, it’s beautiful here,” Dodds said, snapping off his gloves, rolling them inside each other, and sticking them in his pocket. It was an understatement. A person could spend days wandering the lanes, taking in all the architecture driven by grief and vanity, reading the history carved in stone, and loving the nature. “All these important dead white people, and I’m-a walkin’ on ‘em.” He laughed, but not loud enough to attract attention.

  “I keep going back to the note,” Will said. “He addressed it to me. How did he know I was investigating this case? That information isn’t out there.”

  “Again,” Dodds said, “could be a cop and maybe somebody we know. Who else knew you were investigating Gruber?”

  “Buchanan,” Will said. “Otherwise, I don’t know. I was on the other side of the levee when they brought Gruber’s body up. There was a little group watching, looked like locals.”

  “So how do you want to play it?”

  Will cocked his head.

  “I thought I was the PIO again.”

  “Quit feeling sorry for yourself. I need your brain here, partner. This guy’s obviously into himself.”

  It was an understatement. He wanted all of Cincinnati to know that a dangerous murderer was loose, somebody who had made fools of the cops, and had gotten away with it.

  “We could report minimal information,” Will said. “Unidentified body found in Spring Grove Cemetery. Cheryl Beth said Smith didn’t have any relatives. So no relatives are going to be interviewed on television. We can order the gardener to shut up. This killer wants to be famous. He wants everybody peeing in their pants wondering where his next ‘art show’ will be. Notice how he types and prints out this note, then puts it in a plastic cover, in case it rains. He wants attention. We could take it even further and say we don’t know whether it’s a suicide or a homicide, or even the cause of death. That’d mind-fuck this master criminal back.”

  “I like it,” Dodds said. “The only problem is, he might be tempted to send the note to the newspaper. Hell, he might be tempted to try another killing.”

  “So?” Will said. “He addressed the note to me. Who do you think his next victim would be?”

  Dodds studied him and raised his eyebrows. “I hope to god you sleep with Cheryl Beth before he c
uts your dick off.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cheryl Beth was finishing up the post-shift conferences with her students when she saw Will walking down the hall. He looked handsome, but he was holding one shoulder too high, and his face looked exhausted. She complimented him on how he looked in his suit.

  “Can we go somewhere?”

  “Yes.” She steered him into a family waiting room that was remarkably empty and they sat down.

  “What happened?” She took his hands. They were well-shaped and warm, but had fresh abrasions.

  “I fell last night.” He smiled. “You swept me off my feet.”

  “Are you hurting?”

  He shook his head. “Cheryl Beth, Noah Smith is dead.”

  Somewhere deep inside she had somehow been expecting this news. Still, it felt as if the end of a baseball bat had been driven into her stomach. “Oh, no. Suicide?”

  “No. He was killed like the others.”

  “What?”

  As he gave her the details, she was first slightly nauseous, then frightened. She was good at controlling herself, but she knew this showed all over her face. She could hear her mother’s voice: “You’re an open book, Cheryl Beth.”

  “And he left you a note?”

  “It was addressed specifically to me,” he said. “Otherwise, they were going to take me off the case. Goddamned cripple.” His face was a mask of disgust.

  “Stop that. You’re not a cripple. You only walk with a cane. It adds character. I think you’re very attractive.”

  He let himself smile. “That’s funny, because I think you are, too.” After a pause: “I used to be good at flirting, but I’m way out of practice.”

  She patted his arm. “You’re doing well, detective. I don’t understand how this could happen. I saw Noah in the bookstore yesterday. He actually tracked me down. Kind of surprised me, but he seemed desperate for someone to believe him. He thought Hank Brooks was following him.”

  “Oh, hell,” Will said. “Give me a minute.” He pulled out his cell phone and had a brief conversation—with Brooks, it was soon evident. After he hung up, he said, “I hate these multi-jurisdictional cases. I forgot to tell him about Smith’s body being found. Now he claims he never really thought Noah did it. And he denied following him.”