Powers of Arrest

by Jon Talton

  “Here we are again,” Dodds said. “The three musketeers.”

  “Let’s hope it’s a little easier this time,” Cheryl Beth said. “Last time, we were trapped in the basement of the hospital, nobody knew where we were, the killer had knocked you out, he was beating the crap out of me, and Will, who was stuck in a wheelchair, had to save us.”

  “Details, details,” Dodds said.

  Cheryl Beth prided herself on a professional steely calm, hard won in the five years she had spent working in the emergency department. But that was a controlled environment compared with this, even when a gang member would try to barge in and finish off the guy he shot an hour before. She hated to admit it: she was over her head. She stuffed her shaking hands into her lap. Her emotions roiled in a wild bundle of fear and adrenaline, some anger was down in there, too. The son of a bitch had nearly killed Will and he got away, almost as if he were a ghost. The city seemed bathed in an invisible evil.

  Will stopped at Central Parkway and Vine, where he pointed to the grand mural on the building on the southwest corner. It looked like a statue standing inside a temple.

  “Cincinnatus,” he said. “The entire face of the building is blank, and everything you see is a trompe l’oeil painting. ‘Trick of the eye.’ Done by Richard Haas to mark Kroger’s centennial.”

  “I like the statue of him down at Sawyer’s Point better,” Dodds said. “Looks like a real bad-ass. He saved Rome, refused to be dictator for life, and went back to his plow. If it hadn’t been for Cincinnatus, we’d be called Losantiville.”

  “Well, technically, we were named after the Society of the Cincinnati, the Revolutionary War veterans,” Will said.

  “Okay, know it all,” Dodds said. “What was that building called?”

  Will shrugged.

  “The Brotherhood Building,” Dodds said. “Which is appropriate as the gateway to Over-the-Rhine, where all the brothers are hoods.”

  Cheryl Beth felt her face smile. That was a start, at least, to feeling human again.

  Will turned north onto Vine and began an impromptu tour of Over-the-Rhine. A turn of the wheel, and they entered a different world. He pointed out this building in the Italianate style, that one in federal, a hidden garden behind another, and the commercial buildings with their cast-iron fronts. Renaissance revival, Romanesque, Queen Anne. Some had been restored, most had not. She thought the neighborhood was stunning, despite its problems. It held an intimacy and living history that appealed to her. Its streets were meant to be walked to be really appreciated, but the slow drive with Will’s narration was the next best thing. He wore his knowledge lightly and it was coated in the sweetness of his joy of the place.

  A man who liked something other than sports and cars: that was a find.

  She also realized he was doing this to calm down, and it was helping to calm her, too.

  He jigged over to Walnut and lingered in front of the Germania Building with its statue, a woman in a robe, holding a shield. She stood on a setback in the second story of the ornate building.

  “This was the German Mutual Insurance Company,” he said. “In World War I, the anti-German feeling was so hysterical, the company became Hamilton Mutual and they draped the statue. They renamed a bunch of the streets, too. English Street used to be German Street. Bremen Street became Republic…”

  “You see what it’s like to ride with Mister President,” Dodds said.

  “Cheryl Beth, do you know what J.C.’s nickname was when he played football at UC?”

  “Now don’t start that!” Dodds grumbled.

  “It was ‘Sweet Dreams’ Dodds.”

  “Sweet Dreams.” Cheryl Beth suppressed a laugh. “I assume that’s because you hit the other guys so hard it sent them to nap time, along with a potential concussion.”

  “Damn straight.” Dodds adjusted his posture. “See, she gets it.”

  “Then why are you aggravated when I bring it up?”

  Dodds faked a punch at the back of Will’s head. “Man, Borders knows every building, every cobblestone here. He’s a frustrated architect.”

  “Maybe an architectural historian,” Will said. “I hate most modern architecture. Except for the Contemporary Arts Center and the P&G headquarters.”

  “Which looks like Dolly Parton’s…” Dodds stopped himself.

  “Oh, please,” Cheryl Beth said. “Everybody calls them the Dolly Parton Towers. Nurses can match cops any day in inappropriate language. We’re as weird as you guys.”

  Dodds chuckled.

  “If we’re going to have to do this,” he said, “Why don’t you drive over to the Samuel Adams Brewery. While you regale Cheryl Beth with Over-the-Rhine’s beer history, I’ll break in and get us a six pack.”

  “This is the heart and soul of the city,” Will said.

  “It’s the heart and soul of scumbaggery,” Dodds said.

  “Jeez, Dodds, some guy killed five people in a little town in southeast Indiana last month. Crime happens anywhere. The city has to warehouse so many of the poor and uneducated because they’re zoned out of suburbia…”

  “Complex socio-economic-cultural drivers behind this.” Dodds face dropped into mock seriousness. Then his teeth gave an 880-key smile. “My travel tour would be to point out every building where we had a dead body. I could put up about a hundred red targets as a tourist attraction. See that intersection? Three homicides in one week a couple of years ago. That building: stinker on the fourth floor, middle of July…”

  Cheryl Beth laughed, glad for the release. “If you do that, I’ll tell you really nasty E.R. stories…”

  Will drove on slowly. The streets were deserted, a steady rain now coming down. Not even a wino was sleeping inside a doorway.

  “He told me he had ‘Kristen’s’ gun,” Will said. “Not the woman I murdered, or the lady cop, or even Kristen Gruber. But ‘Kristen.’ He said it familiarly. He called me ‘Detective Borders,’ like the letter-writer and the voice on the phone. Then he called you ‘Cherry Beth.’ Has anyone called you that?”

  “Not since I was teased in fifth grade. It sounds like a soft drink.”

  He went on, “You know what else he said to me? He has the gun to the back of my head, he’s making threats, demanding that I give up my weapon, and he says, ‘How does that make you feel, detective?’ Those are the exact words Kenneth Buchanan used the first time I met him and he wanted me to know he’d already leaned on the chief.”

  Dodds took it in and said nothing. Cheryl Beth was interested in the dynamic between the two of them, imagined how effective they had been as partners, but she also checked again to see that her door was locked.

  “What else did he say about me?” she asked.

  Will hesitated. “It wasn’t good. I would never let anything bad happen to you.”

  “I know that.” At that moment, she felt strangely unafraid for herself. She was more concerned for Will. “Did he mention your father?”

  “No. No, he didn’t.”

  “So he doesn’t know you that well,” she said. “Otherwise, he would have used that to get at you.”

  “Good point,” Dodds said. “That might mean he’s not law enforcement. I still don’t know why he chose Borders. So how do we get probable cause that will let us really go after Buchanan?”

  They passed a marked unit. Two officers were standing on the sidewalk, talking to three young black men. All were soaking wet.

  “I’m not sure,” Will said.

  “So let’s find something. Screw Fassbinder.”

  “I mean, I’m not sure a man Buchanan’s age could have absorbed that punishment from Junior and still outrun him and gotten away. Also, nothing from ViCAP about homicides in the Atlanta area that match the M.O. here.”

  Cheryl Beth asked about ViCAP, and Will told her of the FBI database. Buchanan came to Cincinnati from Atlanta when his wife took the job with the symphony.

  “Our guy has killed before,” Will said. “He knows the right moves. He’
s disciplined. But Buchanan was in Atlanta for thirteen years and nothing. He only decides to start killing now because he’s in Cincinnati? I don’t know…”

  “So you’re doubting yourself now?” Dodds sounded annoyed.

  Will shook his head. “I’m missing something…”

  “Don’t go soft on me, Borders. It’s becoming a bad habit. You don’t believe I caught the cello player’s killer, either.”

  “No,” Will said. “I don’t. Your golden gut is lying to you.”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “Calm down, boys,” Cheryl Beth said. A dark shape caught her eye: some kind of bundle or bag. “What’s that?”

  They were at Fourteenth and Sycamore, back near the diner. Will swung the spotlight toward some bushes at the edge of the Cutter Playground. He pulled across the street and put the car in park. Dodds got out, snapping on gloves.

  The intersection was completely empty. A pair of headlights lingered several blocks south, and then turned.

  He came back toting a black gym bag and something else.

  It was a wig.

  He tossed them in the back seat and climbed back in.

  “More ammo against Buchanan,” Dodds said, holding out a wig of long, dark-brown hair. “The cure for baldness. Got any large evidence bags?”

  Will shook his head.

  Cheryl Beth heard a long zipper.

  “What have we here,” Dodds said. “Two pairs of handcuffs, his and hers. Two ball gags. Gloves and footies to put over his shoes. He’s very methodical. A folding combat knife that I bet will match the wounds on the four vics. And a bottle of lye.” He carefully placed the items and the wig back in the bag and re-zipped it.

  “There won’t be any prints,” Will said.

  “You never know,” Dodds said. “I will say you owe Clarence Junior your good word to the D.A. He saved your lives.”

  Will was quiet for a long time. The rain was now coming down hard enough that it sounded like small pellets hitting the roof.

  Finally, he spoke quietly, all the exuberance of the tour drained from his voice. “We’re not going to get another chance. This was it and we blew it. He won’t be careless enough to come back again.”

  “Unless,” Dodds said, “he really has a thing for you.”

  Will stared into the wet windshield. Cheryl Beth took his hand and squeezed it. He returned the pressure, but she could tell his mind was elsewhere.

  Sunday

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Cheryl Beth could feel Will’s left leg start to twitch. It was only forty-five minutes after they had gone to bed. He was still asleep despite the movement. The spasticity must have kept him in a state of REM sleep much of the time. She hoped he had nice dreams, at least. With that thought, she gently snuggled against him, pushed aside all that had happened that night, and fell into a deep slumber.

  “Oh, hell!”

  His words woke her. He was sitting by the bed, shaking his right leg, his face illuminated by the screen of the computer perched on the arm of the chair. She rolled over and checked the clock: five fifteen.

  “Are you okay, babe?”

  “I’m sorry I woke you.” His voice sounded miles beyond weary.

  “Is it your legs?”

  “I wish. I had to sit up to calm down my left leg, so I thought I’d go through the photos from Kristen Gruber’s computer, and I found…”

  She waited but he didn’t finish the sentence.

  She climbed out of bed naked, surprised how comfortable she was with him. Coming behind the chair, she wrapped her arms around him and leaned forward. He rested his head against hers.

  “What?” She asked. Then she saw the photo on the screen.

  “Oh, Will…”

  “There are more.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He sighed. “I’m not going to do what Kenneth Buchanan does. I’m through with that. At six, I’m going to call Dodds and the lead detective in Covington.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The interrogation room at Covington was nicer than Will was used to: clean, new, with unmarred furniture, pristine fluorescent lights in the ceiling, and walls that might have graced a modern conference room. The seats hadn’t yet been beaten down by thousands of felonious butts sitting in them. Will sat in the adjacent room, looking through the one-way glass. With him were Dodds, Cheryl Beth, and an assistant prosecutor from the Kenton County Attorney’s Office. He got Cheryl Beth in on the pretext that she was a witness under protection, which was true.

  Only one person was sitting in the interrogation room: John.

  Already it was a busy day. A fifty-six-year-old man had been decapitated and dismembered in his apartment and the Covington cops held three suspects in custody. It had been a struggle to get a free room.

  Will watched John sit uncomfortably. He was still handcuffed. His expressions moved through anxiety, anger, and dreaminess. This was the sweet boy with the fine singing voice, now an adult under arrest. Will shook his head.

  The interrogation room door opened and Diane Henderson stepped inside. She was dressed in jeans and a peach-striped shirt, carrying a tan portfolio. She pulled up a chair across from John and sat. They could only see her back. Will imagined that Cindy was frantically trying to get a good criminal lawyer. They didn’t have much time.

  Henderson started a tape recorder, gave the date, location of the interview, suspect’s name, and her name and badge number. She Mirandized John again as he stared down. He mumbled that he understood his rights. Then she slowly laid out sheets of paper like playing cards. Soon they covered the table.

  “Do you recognize the photographs, John?” Her voice was calm and almost motherly. It was obvious from his face that he was surprised by the images.

  He managed, “Do you know who my dad is?”

  Will wanted to melt into the floor.

  “I do,” she said. “How about answering my question.”

  “I know what they are. Can you take off these handcuffs? They’re really uncomfortable.”

  She ignored his request. “So tell me what they are?”

  “They’re me and Kristen.”

  “Kristen Gruber.”

  He nodded.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes.” He stared angrily at her in a face that looked alien to Will.

  “Who took them?”

  “She did.”

  “When?”

  He hesitated, then told her: last fall.

  “So you knew her?”

  “We were friends.”

  “Some of these show you naked in her bed,” Henderson said. “Looks like you were more than friends. Why didn’t you tell me this the last time we talked?”

  He stared down. She prompted him with his name.

  “I was scared,” he said. “She and I had a fling.”

  “Last fall?”

  “Yeah, last fall.”

  Will felt acid boring a hole in his stomach.

  “So you picked her up? What? She was a good deal older than you, and a celebrity to boot. Why would she want a kid like you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I’m about her age,” Henderson said, her tone changing from sympathetic to mocking. “I can’t imagine a bigger turn-off than some baby barely out of his acne stage…”

  “She picked me up, okay!” He wiggled in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position without success.

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “That’s because you’re not Kristen, lady.”

  “You can call me Detective Henderson, or detective, or officer.”

  “Whatever,” he said. All his sobbing from the night at Hyde Park Square was gone. In its place sat a fuming defiance.

  “So why’d she pick you up? You look pretty ordinary to me. Are you some hot lover on the prowl for cougars?”

  “As if.” He gave a mordant laugh. “She wanted to deflower me. It excited her.”

  Will resisted the in
voluntary urge to shake his head. He listened to the intonations of John’s voice; could it have been the one he heard behind him the previous night? Then there was John’s pale, short hair: someone might mistake him for bald, especially if she didn’t get a good look. He forced his jaw to unclench.

  Henderson sat still for a few beats. “It must have been exciting for you.”

  “I wanted somebody my own age. But the girls my age don’t like me. Kristen did. She thought I was mature. She said I had good judgment, that I acted very mature.”

  “You’re not showing it so far,” Henderson said. “She’s dead. We have your admission that you were on her boat the night she was murdered and the evidence to back it up. Now we know you were her lover. It’s not looking good. I’d say when you were on the Licking River with your friends and saw her boat. It put you in a rage. While they were passed out, you unlashed the Zodiac, went back, and murdered her.”

  “I didn’t kill her!” His face contorted.

  “You’re slick,” she said. “You got off the Zodiac, forced her back into the cabin, handcuffed her, and then you got out your knife…”

  “No!” he screamed.

  “Then you went back to your friends, and you were with them when they went back downriver and saw her boat. You could claim you found her for the first time. You could have called the police, but you didn’t.”

  “I already told you, I wanted to!”

  “That’s not what your friend, Zack Miller, said.”

  “He’s not my friend,” John said.

  That was true enough, Will thought. He also knew that Henderson had interviewed the three girls on the boat individually and they all admitted that John had wanted to call the police after he found Gruber’s body. But Henderson kept that to herself, kept the pressure on John.