Will wanted the time: around three that afternoon. He started making notes.
“It didn’t look like anybody was aboard,” Zack Miller said. “It was tied up. I didn’t think anything about it. Then it was still there when we came back.”
“What time?”
“I have no idea. Way after midnight. We slowed down, thought maybe we could pull a prank. I ran the spotlight over the boat. We called over and nobody called back. So we pulled alongside, and I was going to check it out, make sure everybody was okay. But John went over. I guess he was trying to impress the girls. When he comes back, he said there was a dead woman in the cabin.”
Will suddenly had a headache. “John got onto that boat?”
“Yes, sir, he did.”
“How long was he there?”
Zack shrugged. “A few minutes. Then he came back and told us.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I wanted to, but John said not to do it. He made us get out of there and I let everybody off at the Serpentine Wall.”
Will wrote slowly, trying to maintain his composure. Even if John hadn’t killed Kristen Gruber, witnesses now placed him on the boat, and the hair and shoe-print were probably his, too. That must have been why John refused to let the others call the police. He would be in deep shit and there was nothing that Will could do to protect him. He had done too much already. But at least John had an alibi for the time when Gruber was murdered.
He faced Heather, wishing he were interrogating them separately. “Is that how it happened?”
She nodded. “Yes.” She immediately looked down and to the left.
Will didn’t trust the story. Zack didn’t seem like the kind of boater or human being that would check the welfare of anybody who couldn’t do him a favor. But he also knew he had to fight against his bias to believe John was innocent.
“So let me get this straight. You go upriver, see the boat, and there’s no activity on it. You party a few miles upstream. Then when you come back, you stop. Why?”
“There was blood on the portholes. It hadn’t been there the first time.”
Will asked him how he knew.
“I know boats. It was a Rinker Fiesta, in pretty good shape. The first time I was surprised that somebody would tie it up and leave it. But there were other boats and canoes on the river. When we came back toward downtown, it was the only boat left. This time I saw the blood, and it wasn’t there before, when we were going upriver.” The more he talked, the greater the confidence in his voice.
“So while you guys are partying, did you notice anything odd on the river?”
The smirk returned. “I was kind of occupied, but no.”
“Only five young people on your boat?”
He lifted one shoulder. “Yep. Unless somebody used the Zodiac while I was busy or sacked out.”
A muscle spasm kicked Will in his side, forcing him to fight to keep his expression neutral.
“What Zodiac?”
Chapter Twenty-two
Will handled a call as PIO and talked on camera. The idea was to have him out there in public as much as possible, to try to lure the killer. After dark, he drove back to Hyde Park, his car in the fast flow of traffic gliding along above the river on Columbia Parkway, his mind forced into a trench of unthinking, if only for now. He didn’t look south, where the big river met its lethal tributary. He didn’t look up the bluff to the north, where Kristen Gruber’s condo perched.
In fifteen minutes, he was on the big-trees street in front of the sprawling Tudor, its blond bricks preening in the ornamental lighting. Every room inside was lit. It would have been a good account for Cincinnati Gas & Electric, if the company still existed, and hadn’t been lost in the endless takeovers that had shaken the city in recent years. Dodds was following him, but it would have to be. Will could make excuses later. He was still running an errand for his ex, more than she knew.
The phone inside rang six times before a man’s voice answered. Will watched him standing in the dining room, with a proprietary hand on his ex-wife’s shoulder.
“Brad, it’s your predecessor, Will Borders. Would you please put Cindy on the phone?”
“Will.” He hesitated. “We sat down to supper a moment ago and Cynthia has had a long day. Maybe I could ask her to call you later.”