by Jon Talton
“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.
Chapter Twenty-seven
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.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
The bad thing about stakeouts in Indian Hill was that the wealthy enclave was built for privacy, with winding streets, cul-de-sacs and plenty of trees. The good thing about Kenneth Buchanan’s manse was its proximity to Indian Hill Middle School. Nobody could come or go from the dead-end street without passing the school. Will pulled into the parking lot and shut down the car, preparing himself for the dullest part of the job. In any event, he wasn’t going to sit and wait for the killer. He was going after him. Only Dodds knew he was here. Now, if only Buchanan was home, and if only nothing major happened that required the PIO. So far, the radio was quiet.
It was difficult to think of much beyond Cheryl Beth. He was worried about her going to Dayton for the dead girl’s funeral. Mostly, he kept reprising their night together. He had gotten and maintained an erection, no small accomplishment. That he had even kissed, much less made love with this woman seemed like an impossible fantasy. Yet it was real, and he had slept last night without dreaming. Now, he missed her intensely.
The dark Mercedes hurried past, going south, Buchanan’s distinctive head clearly visible.
“That didn’t take long.” He started the Crown Vic and sped out of the parking lot.
Buchanan turned onto Shawnee Run Road and Will gave him a quarter-mile distance as they passed more expensive real estate and made the green light at Miami Road. A car from St. Gertrude’s Church pulled between them. That was good, especially when the driver matched Buchanan’s speed. The three vehicles continued west to Camargo Road. Buchanan barely stopped and turned south again. Will did the same. Camargo cut through hills and thick trees. Traffic was light and Will gave him plenty of distance. A right on Madison and they were headed toward the city. Big cotton-ball clouds were floating in the sky.
“7140, check in.”
If it would have been anyone’s voice but Dodds’, his gut would have tightened.
“7140, all secure.”
Two clicks of the mic responded. Anybody listening thought Will was still at home.
By this time, they were crossing Red Bank Expressway and almost to the point where Madison juked southwest. Buchanan could have taken Red Bank north to hit the interstate. He didn’t. He was definitely headed into the city. Traffic was getting thicker and Will worked to close the gap, letting two cars stay between him and the Mercedes, but sticking close enough that he wouldn’t get caught at a light. As it was, they moved at a unit, making and stopping at the same intersections. As they passed through Oakley, Will thought of ice cream with Cheryl Beth. That hadn’t even been a week ago.
They stayed on Madison past the Rookwood shopping center, which was packed, past the edge of Hyde Park and the Cincinnati Country Club and the old mansions of Annwood Park and Scarborough Woods. The street changed as they approached the imposing St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church and touched East Walnut Hills. The traffic became thicker still, and Will had to gun it to make the light at Woodburn. Madison became Dr. Martin Luther King Drive and Buchanan turned south again on Gilbert, for the long dip into downtown past old factories that had been turned into offices. Buchanan was driving into his own downtown office on a Saturday. Oh, how Will wished he were going to the marina to get on his boat.
But he did neither. He crossed over Interstate 71, got on Reading Road, and then turned again on Liberty Street. The steeples, spires and towers of the old city spread out ahead. It was as if he were driving to Will’s house. Will was about to alert Dodds when Buchanan sped past the familiar turnoff and kept going. They were in the heart of the city now. People were on the sidewalks. It occurred to Will that all this time he had been following Buchanan, he had never checked to see if someone was following him. The rearview mirror looked benign, but would he really know?
They drove straight through Over-the-Rhine doing fifty, making every light. Buchanan slowed at Linn Street and turned left, barely missing a pedestrian. Will was right behind him. It couldn’t be helped if he was going to make the light. Now he backed off and gave the Mercedes plenty of room. Only an unmarked police car in the West End, where the old housing projects once stood—nothing suspicious, Mr. Buchanan, drive on. Enjoy the majestic half rotunda of Union Terminal off to your right. They were not far from the Laurel Homes, now demolished, where Will’s father had been gunned down on a domestic abuse call. It was a reality never far from his mind.
After several blocks more, Linn lifted up over the massive gash of Interstate 75. Buchanan turned west again on Eighth Street and they plunged into the warehouse district and under the railroad tracks. The main police channels remained on routine business.
Now Will was growing curious. Despite what many east-siders thought, there were some lovely neighborhoods west of I-75, the Sauerkraut Curtain—although old-timers applied that term to Vine Street—but Buchanan was not driving into one. When the sunlight found them again on the other side of the railroad underpass, they were in Low
er Price Hill. He could keep going and follow Glenway’s rightward arch around the tree-covered bluff ahead of them and keep going uphill. But he was slowing down.
They weren’t on a hill. The real Price Hill was directly ahead, and it, too, had once been connected with an incline railway, but Will couldn’t say exactly where. Lower Price Hill was in the basin above a broad swoop of the Ohio River, and although the city had designated it a historic district that couldn’t make up for the blight and crime. He had been on a shooting call here a week ago Wednesday, on Neave Street. Many of the rowhouses held the classic Italianate features found in Over-the-Rhine, but few people were trying to gentrify the properties. Vacant lots and junk cars proliferated. It was slowly falling apart.
If Kenneth Buchanan “spoke Cincinnati,” he would know that he was among the briars, the local term for poor Appalachian whites. This had long been a closed, clannish part of town. Once the briars had migrated down the river, then on the railroads, finding decent jobs in the factories around the rail yards of Mill Creek. It was their way out of the coalmines. Now most of those manufacturing jobs were gone. The factories were being gutted, their scrap sold to China. Some of the junkyards were in this neighborhood. Poverty was high. The place was also growing more African-American, and that made for racially charged confrontations. Like most of the older, poorer parts of the city, it was losing population.
And here was Kenneth Buchanan, white-shoe downtown lawyer.
He turned down two-lane State Avenue, going twenty-five. Will waited for the red light and sat, watching him slow. Then a truck passed, obscuring the view, and when it was gone so was Buchanan’s Mercedes.
Will turned left and cruised slowly down the street. Some large old multi-story brick apartments were on the left, and a few forlorn rowhouses stood on the right.
“Hello,” he said to himself.
Buchanan had parked in an empty lot next to a two-story brick rowhouse that had lost both its siblings. The front windows were boarded up with old wood and the paintless door looked barely on its hinges. Buchanan’s car was empty. Will picked up speed, went to the next intersection, turned around, and found a place behind a rusty pickup truck. He called Dodds.
