Powers of Arrest (10 page)

Chapter Fourteen

The setting sun painted the clouds pink as Will sat in the parking lot of the Montgomery Boathouse. It wasn’t a real boathouse but a popular restaurant selling ribs and overlooking the Ohio River. Will had been to a dozen police retirement parties here over the years. Now, he was waiting for someone. A someone who had instructed him to sit in a parking spot as far as possible from the front entrance. Will only accepted this instruction because this someone was a partner in one of the city’s most powerful law firms. His cell number had shown up on Kristen Gruber’s recent calls in the hours before she was killed.

It had been another long day, and while Will waited, he stood, sandwiching himself between the car and car door. His legs were not cooperating with this long day of too much sitting interspersed with too much walking. He needed the relief of simply standing for a few moments, stopping the thumping in his left leg and easing the mammoth tightness of his right quads. He said out loud: “Ahhh.” But he was so tired that he couldn’t stand for long. He was tellingly leaning on the car roof and door.

He had spent the day with the Covington police. Although Kristen’s cell phone was still missing, techs had found her cellular phone bill on her computer, and the phone company had provided records. The detectives ran through phone numbers. Much of it was dull and tedious: calls to the dry cleaner, the producer of
LadyCops: Cincinnati
, her parents in Myrtle Beach, and her sister in Phoenix. Finally, Will called the number that led him to this meeting.

A hand tapped brusquely on the passenger window. The door opened and a man got in. He was wearing a navy pinstripe suit far more expensive than anything in Will’s closet and he folded long legs into the well of the car and closed the door. With his executive build and tan, he looked pretty much as Will had expected for a senior partner at Briscoe, Hayne, and Douglas. Along with Baker Hostetler, Taft Stettinius & Hollister, and Keating, Muething, and Klekamp, it was one of the city’s most prestigious law firms.

What stood out most was his fine head, with a fringe of close-cropped iron-gray hair and creeping forehead, with two dramatic slashes of eyebrows amid uniformly strong features. He had barely a wrinkle even though he seemed at least Will’s age or older. In fact, he looked younger than the son who had nearly run down Will at Music Hall that morning.

The patrician head swiveled around, looking to see that no one was watching them. He didn’t offer his hand and neither did Will.

“I’ll see your identification, please.”

Will handed over his badge case.

“I called your chief.” He closely examined Will’s identification. “And I assume he called you.”

“He did.”

“How does that make you feel, Detective Border?”

“It’s Borders, and I don’t follow you.”

“How does it make you feel? Does it make you feel small? It should. I’ve only been in this city a short time. I didn’t go to Moeller or Elder or any of that provincial crap I hear all the time. Who gives a shit where you people went to high school? If I hadn’t had to move here with my wife, I wouldn’t even have flown through your airport. I don’t care about Cincinnati. I don’t speak Cincinnati. So don’t expect me to be impressed by you or your badge.”

“Fair enough,” Will said. “But I warn you, people move to Cincinnati and dislike it, but after two years you couldn’t pry them out. They fall in love with the city.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. What did your chief tell you, Borders?”

“He said to do what I felt needed to be done, counselor. So let’s cut the bullshit. I have a murdered police officer. I suspect they take that seriously even where you come from. It so happens that your cell phone called Kristen Gruber at 2:21 p.m. Saturday, a few hours before she was killed. Those are the facts, unless you want to tell me your phone wasn’t under your control during that time, and then we can have a different conversation.”

He handed back the badge case and sat in silence for a good five minutes. Will was happy to let him stew.

“I called Ms. Gruber,” he said. “She berths her boat next to mine. I wanted to ask her a question about the marina management. They can get pretty sloppy.”

Will watched him lie smoothly, not even a blink to his eyes. He said nothing, letting the silence do its work.

He finally couldn’t stand it. “Are we done, Detective?”

“No, we’re not done. We have records of you calling Kristen Gruber more than a hundred times in the past three months. You must really have issues with the marina management.”

He sighed. “Off the record?”

“For now.”

“Look. Do you have any idea who my wife is?”

“Actually, I do. I was talking with her this morning, Mr. Buchanan.”

He sat up straight and stared ahead at the trees and, beyond them, Riverside Drive.

“It was about another matter,” Will said.

“And you say these phone records showed a call from me Saturday?”

“That’s right. Did you make it?”

Kenneth Buchanan hesitated, ran a hand with long fingers across his face, and pinched the bridge of his nose. The dark eyebrows inched together.

“I had an affair with Kristen,” he said. “It started about a year ago. I’m willing to cooperate with the police, off the record, but my wife can’t know about this. I want your guarantee.”

Will looked at the man. He might have been old enough to be Kristen’s father, but he supposed that was one of the perks that came with money and power.

“I can’t make that guarantee, sir. All I can say is that I’ll do my best.”

“Well, I was golfing with friends on Saturday, then I went home, where my wife and I had a quiet dinner and spent the evening and night together. So this should cover the entire period you’re talking about, if what I read in the newspapers is true.”

Will watched for tells that he was lying, saw none.

“So why did you call Officer Gruber? What did you talk about?”

“I got her voice mail. That’s it.”

“It was a six-minute conversation. Want to try again, counselor?”

He made fists out of his hands and put them in his lap.

“I didn’t kill her. I didn’t even see her, haven’t seen her for a month. We broke things off.”

“Because you were afraid of being found out?”

He rearranged himself to face Will, leaning against the door, and trying to stretch out.

“Let’s say I was tired of competing with other men, all right? Kristen was not…faithful.”

“As a mistress.”

His mouth crooked down. “You’re in no position to judge me, and I can walk away.”

“But you won’t,” Will said. “I got enough sense of your wife to know you really want her kept out of this.”

“And you’re an asshole.”

“So I’ve been told.” Will smiled without humor. “How did you meet Officer Gruber?”

“She moored her boat next to ours, like I told you. My wife doesn’t really care for the water, so usually I was there alone. She flirted. A man can tell. At least, I can tell. Things went from there.”

“Tell me about things.”

“Things? I don’t get you.”

“Did you have sex at her place?”

He angrily pursed his lips and nodded. “Sure.”

“Five times? Twenty times?”

Kenneth Buchanan laughed. “Obviously you didn’t know Kristen. A hundred would probably be more like it.” His eyes glowed with the memory.

Will used the ensuing quiet to study the man. Was a murderer sitting next to him? He looked physically powerful enough to have inflicted the brutal knife strokes that tore apart Kristen’s vagina. His hands were large, their backs showing engorged veins. But not one knife knick was showing on a knuckle or finger.

For someone who had been Kristen’s lover, who had been intimate with her so many times, he was strangely calm, actually cold, about her death and the way it came about. It was very close to being “no affect,” as the cops and shrinks put it.

“Did she like rough sex?”

He turned his head slightly and his mouth created small dimples. “Yes.”

“Nice memory, huh?”

The dimples went away and he readjusted back into the seat, facing forward.

After a while, he spoke: “I’m not really into that kind of kink, understand. But she liked it.”

“Liked what?”

He cleared his throat. “She enjoyed being handcuffed and, well, taken. She got off on a rape fantasy. The rougher the better. This was what she wanted, understand? Sometimes she wanted to be blindfolded. Sometimes she wanted… Why the hell am I telling you all this?”

“So you don’t have to explain it to your wife,” Will said.

“She wanted me to call her a little slut who deserved it. A cunt. Those were her words, not mine. She wanted to be choked, but I wouldn’t do it.”

“Did you ever role-play with her using a knife?”

“God, no!” His reaction seemed genuine.

Will asked if he owned a knife.

“A knife? Like kitchen knives?”

“A combat knife. A pocket knife?”

“No, detective. I haven’t had a pocket knife since I was a Boy Scout.”

“She had other lovers, you say. Did this make you angry.”

“Sure,” he said without hesitation. “Wouldn’t you be angry?”

“Did you fight over it?”

“Some.” He ran a hand over hair that no longer existed. “But, hell, I was very attracted to her. We kept on until I broke it off. I didn’t want to run the risk of taking some S.T.D. home. Anyway, other men made things…complicated. I needed her discretion.”

“So it made you angry, her playing around.”

“Yes, it did,” he said, without irony.

“When you fought, did you call her a little slut who was deserved it and a cunt? Did you ever hit her?”

His face struggled to maintain its composure. “No. She was promiscuous. She liked sex. She was a television star with lots of opportunities.”

“Any idea who these other men were?”

He shook his head.

Will had a few more routine questions. When was the last time he had been intimate with her? In March. But they had talked since then; he had admitted as much. He said she had called him at his office several weeks ago, he couldn’t be precise, asking if he wanted to come by. He had declined.

“And why were you calling her Saturday?” Will asked.

“I missed her,” he said. “She was a very passionate woman. And remember, we’re talking off the record. I’m nothing more than a cooperating citizen, trying to be helpful to the police. You haven’t even read me my rights.”

Will paused. “I’ll only do that if you’re a suspect.”

“Then I’ll ruin your life, detective.” He said it calmly, at the end of a pointed finger, his face set, but the tendons in his neck visible with tension. “I’ll sue your department for harassment. I’ll have your badge. I’ll get a settlement that will drive this city into bankruptcy. I’ll fuck you over, Borders.” He opened the door and stood.

“Oh, Mr. Buchanan…”

He stuck his head back in, the same look of barely suppressed rage on his face.

“What?”

“Seems like you have an anger-management issue, sir. That makes you seem less like a cooperating citizen and more like a suspect. And even if I can’t place you on that boat Sunday morning, I’ll check your alibi. Very indiscreetly, if you get me. Then I have a lot of ways to let your partners know about your little hidden life. And what you think about Elder and Moeller. They won’t like any of it, especially that last part. So be careful I don’t fuck you over. How does that make you feel, counselor?”

Will stuffed down his own anger as the door slammed hard and Kenneth Buchanan stalked over to a new Mercedes Benz. It was amazing, watching this man walk fast with no effort, no thought to it at all.

He started the car and his phone rang. It was Diane Henderson.

“How’s the lawyer?”

“Pissed and full of threats.” Will gave her the rundown.

“Do you like him for this?”

“I don’t dislike him,” Will said. “He claims he’s got an alibi, but my gut says he’s hiding something.”

“Trust your gut. They were lovers. They broke up. She was seeing other men. Jealousy is a great motive.”

“He’s got powerful connections. He called the chief.”

“And what did the chief tell you?”

“Handle with care.”

“I have some news,” she said. “Crime scene found some hairs that didn’t belong to Gruber. And they have a partial shoeprint.”

After she hung up, he realized he was an hour late taking his Baclofen. He dry swallowed the white pill. Only the realization that he had missed the dose caused the right quads to get angry. He hadn’t felt any discomfort during his confrontation with Kenneth Buchanan.

Such a strange thing, this mind-body connection.

Wednesday

Chapter Fifteen

She left home and flew down Ravine Street, her favorite in the city. It inclined down the hill toward downtown at a steep angle, offering splendid views. Then she drove out Madison to the Joseph-Beth Bookstore in Rookwood Pavilion. It was this or spend the afternoon in her closet agonizing over what to wear tonight when she went out with Will Borders. A short skirt wouldn’t do, but neither would pants. Men liked her legs. But she didn’t want to come off wrong on a first date. It was a date, right? Cheryl Beth hadn’t been on a real date in a very long time. Maybe on the way home she would get a pedicure.

She was turning the corner of the poetry section when she almost ran straight on into Noah Smith.

“I’m sorry I gave you a start,” he said.

It was true. Her heart rate was still over one-fifty when she asked him what he was doing there.

“I was released this morning. Brooks sure didn’t like it.”

Noah looked gaunt and pale, but still handsome in khakis and a blue long-sleeved shirt. His big smile that must have attracted the girls was gone. “The truth is, I followed you.”

Pulse back up. “You what? You know where I live? How do you know where I live?”

“You can find things on the Internet.”

She took another step back. “Now you’re really creeping me out.”

“You don’t…” He stepped closer and this time she held her ground. “You can’t think I had anything to do with Lauren and Holly getting killed.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“I want to come back to class,” he whispered.

She told him all the ways that would be a bad idea, impossible even. She couldn’t imagine having him as student right now, and the university had suspended him pending the investigation.

She looked around. The store was crowded even on a Wednesday afternoon. She was safe. Except for the fact that he knew where she lived.

“I need to graduate. I need to get a job.”

“I can’t fix that, Noah. You can’t take the NCLEX until you’re cleared of this, anyway.” The national licensing examinations.

“Cheryl Beth, I need something to do. To keep my mind off this. Brooks is going to do everything he can to put me in prison for something I did not do.” His eyes were suddenly older, exhausted.

“What happened out there that night, Noah?”

“I keep trying to remember.” He carefully touched the back of his head. “They said I had a mild concussion, but I keep having headaches. It still burns where they used the Taser on me, and I don’t feel right. It’s hard to keep it all in my head.”

“You screamed something like ‘hostiles! I have wounded!’ What were you thinking?”

He leaned his hands against a shelve and stared at the floor. “I don’t remember. Sometimes, after my deployments, I have flashbacks…”

He seemed sincere. But she pressed on: “Did you have a knife with you that night?”

“No!”

“But you were in the Army, right? You’re good with a knife.”

“That doesn’t mean I would kill those girls. I was crazy about them.”

“Nothing but an an innocent boy from Corbin, Kentucky,” she said.

“You don’t believe me.” He roughly ran his hands down his face. “If you don’t believe me, I’m sunk.”

“Do you know I’m from Corbin, Noah? Is that something you found on the Internet, too?”

“You are? Good lord.”

“It’s a small town. Tell me somebody I might know.”

“I’m a lot younger than you,” he said. “No offense. You’re very attractive.” He shook his head. “Shit, I can’t say the right thing here.”

“Corbin.” She heard the sternness in her voice.

He stared beyond her. She was about to walk away when he spoke again.

“When I was three years old, my father killed my mother, okay?”

She stopped and watched him again. He seemed to age before her eyes.

“My earliest memories are their fights. Both of them screaming as loud as they could. Him slapping her. He finally used a shotgun. I saw it happen. The whole thing. I saw her brains and blood against the wallpaper of the kitchen. I didn’t know that’s what they were, I remember the colors and textures and her head was…” He stopped speaking and the muscles in his neck tensed.

He was breathing heavily, holding his hands tightly at his side. “Then he killed himself. I remember everything. Forget anything you’ve heard about little kids not remembering trauma.” He fought tears as he gave the date, his parents’ names and where they lived, a couple miles out of town. “You can look it up. After that, I was sent to live with my uncle and aunt in Lexington. When I was eighteen, I joined the Army.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. The year he gave was long after she had left Corbin. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, Hank Brooks thinks I have my daddy’s homicidal bloodline. That’s the way he put it.”

When he had composed himself, he said, “On Monday, I keep remembering waking up in the grass, then seeing Lauren and Holly. They were maybe twenty feet away, but I could already see the blood. I got to my feet and went to them. I checked their pulses but they were both dead. Cold. Oh, god…”

“What about before?”

He stared at the carpet. “We were pretty drunk and feeling mellow. We were making out. They were making out with each other. Everybody was laughing. We stripped and had sex in the grass. Afterward, we all got dressed again and sat around talking…”

“But they were found nude.”

“I know. But that’s not the way they were when I was hit.”

“And you didn’t see anyone. You didn’t hear anything at all?”

He shook his head. She remembered all that Hank Brooks had told her and she didn’t know what to believe.

“I’ve got to go, Noah. And please, don’t contact me again. I can’t help you.”

“Fine,” he said. “I’ve always been on my own. Now it’s me, nobody’s got my back. Only Hank Brooks is following me.”

“You’re being followed, or you’re being paranoid?”

“I’m being followed.”

She angrily tapped her hand on the side of her forehead. “Great, Noah. So Detective Brooks is watching us right now. Smart.” She wheeled and walked out.

She was almost to the front doors when she felt a pull on her sleeve. He was right there again. Now she was on the edge of afraid. Half a dozen people were at the registers, checking out. Nothing could happen right here, could it? Her short, shallow breathing wasn’t so sure. She reached into her purse and took hold of her keys, placing one between her fingers and making a fist around it. If he came any closer, she would call for help. If he did more, she would use the key on his face.

“Noah…”

“Wait. I do remember.”

“Take your hand off me.” She said it loud enough that an older man slowed as he passed and stared at Noah.

His hand dropped but he spoke urgently. “What you said. You brought it back to my mind. When we were making out by the Formal Gardens, it was really dark. But Holly thought somebody was watching us. I remember it now! She said it out loud. She even made a show of standing up and taking off her blouse and bra, like a strip tease.”

Cheryl Beth was dubious. “Somebody was watching? Did you notice anything?”

“No.”

“You were trained in the Army and you didn’t notice anything?”

He shrugged. “I kind of had other things on my mind, if you know what I mean.”

“So Holly says somebody’s there and you go ahead and have sex together, not thinking a thing about it?”

“We thought it was hot if someone was watching us.”