Powers of Arrest (Will Borders: Cincinnati Casebook 2)

Of course he was, Will thought. Zack had control of the boat and could have chosen to stay. But there was a problem of corroboration, and it wouldn’t help John.

“Ask Heather,” he said. “She’ll tell you.”

“I did. Heather backed up Zack’s version.”

Will watched his stepson’s face in the mirror as they drove back in silence. It held a rage that stole all his youth.

Afterward, Will stopped at a United Dairy Farmers store, bought Advil and a bottle of water, and swallowed four of the dark red pills at once.

Chapter Twenty-three

When all the lights had been turned off downstairs, Cheryl Beth walked through the darkness with a glass of Chardonnay. Upstairs, she ran a warm tub of water, lit some candles, turned off the lights, and undressed. The wine and the yellow-orange flickering light relaxed her as she stretched out in the tub. She dunked her head, pushed back her wet hair, and took stock.

She didn’t want to hate Hank Brooks for being obsessed with Noah when the real killer was still out there, or for releasing Noah to his fate. Brooks didn’t call her until late in the day. Then he didn’t sound the least bit contrite. Instead, he said how he had doubted that Noah was the murderer, even in the hours after he had been arrested in the Formal Gardens. It was all about Brooks covering his ass. She barely got through the conversation without saying many unladylike things.

She couldn’t imagine the horror Noah had felt there in the old grav

eyard. Was there something she could have done for him, when he found her in the bookstore? She couldn’t think what is would have been, but she felt guilty nonetheless. Three of her students now dead. She took a deep drink of wine and felt warm water trickle down her back.

She thought of Will and looked at her body illuminated in the candlelight. She no longer had the bloom of seventeen, when she had been a reluctant cheerleader in Corbin, a national merit scholar finalist, too. She had scholarship offers from very good universities, but her mother said they didn’t have the money to make up the difference. Nobody was on her side, the side of a young woman who dreamed of a world outside Corbin, who had the bus schedules out of town memorized.

So she went as far as she could, to the biggest city she knew, studying nursing at the University of Cincinnati. Her mother made her be practical in that choice. She had really wanted to study philosophy or theater. And she took her only boyfriend in tow, a nice but unambitious young man who really didn’t want to leave town. They married too young. Now, past forty, she looked at a body whose changes she was only too aware of, and they were all changes for the worse. It didn’t matter how many compliments she got or how many men hit on her. The years went by and they took and took and took. What a silly, vain thought, when three of your students are dead. Well, she still had nice legs.

As the candles painted shadows on the walls, she wished Will would call. But he was working. She had turned on the news before coming upstairs, and he was on camera twice as the police spokesman: a two-hundred-pound python found in a trash can in Sedamsville, below Mount Echo Park, and a shooting in Corryville, not far from the hospitals on Pill Hill, a few rough blocks from the now-closed hospital where she had almost lost her life. The television reporter said a man shot at a police officer but missed. Will made a statement, the man was now in custody, and then the chief of police talked. So much craziness and violence were a part of his life, and yet he seemed so steady and gentle. Could it be an act? She had been taken in before. Still, she liked the way he opened doors for her, old school, the way he was interested in her, how he kissed, and how he was tall. She liked the way her head tucked under his.

She wished she had brought the wine bottle upstairs.

When the phone rang, she was glad she had it by the tub. She dried off a hand and answered. It was Will, asking if he was calling too late.

“I’m a night owl,” she said. “Too many years spent checking on patients around midnight when the pain got bad. I saw you on television. A two-hundred-pound snake?”

“He was the most pleasant creature I dealt with today. Anyway, lots of face time for Detective Will Borders. Now the question is whether the killer is watching.” He told her about the minimal press release they had put out regarding Noah. “This guy has delusions of grandeur. He addressed the note directly to me. So the hope is if he doesn’t get the publicity he’s seeking, he might come after me.” He sighed. “Or, he’ll stop and we’ll never find him, and in a few years he’ll start again somewhere else.”

“What kind of a person would do these things, Will?”

“There’s a type,” he said. “The scary thing is that sometimes they can fit right into society. They’re not out in the country living alone in a doublewide. Or, like a lot of white folks in this town think, a scary black man asking for change on the sidewalk.”

“Do you think you know who did it? Or shouldn’t I ask that?”

“I met a man who I think is very capable of it,” Will said. “He was one of Kristen’s lovers. But he’s very connected, and we’ll need major probable cause to take it further. I’m not even sure the other detectives would agree with me. This guy’s got an alibi, or he say he does. I’d love to poke a few holes in it and know where he was Saturday night.”

“I hope you’re being careful.”

“Door’s locked, and I’m upstairs with my Smith & Wesson and shotgun.”

“You’re getting me hot.” She smiled.

“And, I have detectives watching from a car out on the street. It could be worse. They wanted me to wear a wire 24/7, so they could even listen in on our conversation. Dodds would especially like that.”

“He’s such a character.” She looked at herself in the tub and thought, Ask me what I’m wearing…

“He is that.” Will paused. “I’m wondering if we should go to the symphony tomorrow night.”

“Are you kicking me to the curb, Borders?”

“No! I’m worried. I have skin in this game. You don’t. I already nearly got you killed when I was in the hospital. I’m afraid of putting you at risk, at even greater risk, because we can’t be sure the killer doesn’t already know about you.”

“As I recall, Detective, I nearly got you killed. The murderer was after me, and your buddies at CPD thought I was a murderer.”