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.
“Guess where I am?”
“Hope it’s more interesting than my life, sitting outside a cop’s house.”
“Lower Price Hill. Buchanan drove over here. He parked and went inside a house.”
“No shit?” Dodds thought about it. “Maybe he’s a secret meth head.”
“Maybe.” Will watched a young man with mussed light-brown hair, hard-muscled in a wife-beater shirt, walk past giving him the eye. He ignored him. “It’s about the last place I’d expect him. You see anything around my place?”
“Nope,” Dodds said. “I’m encouraging my hemorrhoids.”
Will made a note of the address and waited. It took nearly half an hour before Buchanan stepped down on the crumbling sidewalk and walked purposefully to his car. He was wearing a light-blue shirt, tan slacks, and expensive tasseled shoes. His face was set in a hard look, and he didn’t even turn his head in Will’s direction. Then the expensive car’s backup lights flared and it was on the street. Will decided to stay.
***
It was another half hour before Will saw movement at the door. First a bicycle tire, then the whole bike being pushed by a woman. She wore blue jeans and a Bengals T-shirt, but what you first noticed was her hair, vivid red and flowing down over her shoulders. She swung a leg over the bicycle seat and pedaled north. Will let her go for a moment, then started the car and followed slowly. Her hair caught the sun and wind, making a lovely orange sail.
“7140, 7140.”
He muttered a profanity and picked up the mic.
The dispatcher came back: “Meet the officers, signal nine, Queensgate Playfield. We have a sixteen at large. Respond Code three.”
“7140 responding.”
It was a shooting with a suspect at large. He gripped the steering wheel tighter but stayed on the girl.
She stopped at Meisner’s market and went inside, bike and all. Will parked in front.
No more than two minutes later, she came back out, stuffing a red-and-white carton of Marlboroughs in her purse. She started to swing over the bike, when he tapped the horn. She looked him over and ignored him. He hit the emergency lights and she paid attention.
He flashed his badge when she came to the driver’s side. “Climb in.”
“What about my bike?”
“Lean it against the front of the car where we can watch it.” For all he knew, it was one of the few things she owned in the world. As she did so, he tossed his cane in the back seat.
Once she was in the car, he could see her more clearly. She was younger than he had first assumed, and her fiery hair framed a lovely face, the home to startlingly blue eyes. Her features were uniformly delicate and her skin was as flawless as Kristen Gruber’s. Put her in different circumstances on the east side and she would have worlds offered to her.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“I didn’t say you did,” Will said. Time was running against him, even if the call location was close. If Fassbinder knew what he was really doing, all his dreams of revenge could be quickly visited on Will’s head. He kept the agitation out of his voice. “You had a visitor a few minutes ago, well-dressed man, middle-aged.”
“So?”
“So, are you a pro?”
“No! I don’t turn tricks, don’t do drugs.” She pointed out the window at a passing man. “Why don’t you people do something about the niggers overrunning our neighborhood, instead of hassling me?”