Jon Talton - Powers of Arrest

Will was astonished that the first question was what would happen to the new season of Lady Cops: Cincinnati ?

After the chief called an end to questions, the reporters obediently filed out one door, the commanders another. Cincinnati was that kind of town. People still played by certain rules. Will finally sat in the blessed chair, careful as always to make sure he was really centered because he couldn’t feel every part of his butt. The light returned to its normal unhealthy fluorescent glow, the four walls containing nothing but silence. His right leg jumped up violently. He forced it down with his hands and shook it, like someone with nervous leg syndrome instead of a spinal cord that had been chewed up by tumors and surgical instruments. He dry-swallowed his five p.m. Baclofen pill, tried to generate some saliva, swallowed again. Within a minute, the right leg settled down.

He felt the hand on his shoulder.

“How you feeling, Will?”

“Good, chief. I’m okay.”

The chief pulled up another chair and sat, an alert posture with his back straight and his hips near the edge of the seat. Will was finally full-back in his chair, grateful for the furniture under him, the weight off his legs, and a stable surface beneath him.

“How are our friends in the Commonwealth treating you?”

“Good. How can you not love a department who has a lieutenant colonel named Spike Jones?” Receiving not even a hint of a smile, he hurried on. “They have six detectives on this, between Covington and the Kenton sheriff. But they understand we’re going to want a big role. The dive team’s been in the river all day. I’ve sent crime-scene over to work with them. We should know more about the boat by tomorrow.”

“Good, good.” He nodded, looking Will in the eye. “You’ll tell me what you need from us? Resources, manpower. I talked to the mayor and city manager, and overtime won’t be a problem.”

Will nodded. He kept his own doubts and fears to himself. He wasn’t in good enough shape to be the lead detective, certainly not on such an important case. But he didn’t dare say no, didn’t dare show weakness. The city was struggling with budget cuts and Will knew he was lucky to have a job. He intended to keep it.

“Gruber was a good cop,” the chief said.

“Yes, sir.”

Will hesitated. “We’re going to need to talk to her boyfriend, if she has one. Ex-husband. The usual. I can coordinate all that. I’ll get a timeline of her past few days, see how often she went out on the boat and with who. But I also want access to her emails, work and home, phone records. She was on national television. She might have had stalkers. The other officers on the show, you might want to give them an extra heads-up. This might be a one-off killing, but you never know.”

The chief nodded. “You follow it wherever it leads, but get this son of a bitch.”

“Yes, sir.” He said the words, but wondered if the commanders really wanted to know wherever the truth might lead. What if Gruber wasn’t a good cop? What if it was a typical sleazy domestic violence or romantic triangle gone wrong? His paranoia kicked in: Why was he sent alone to Covington this morning-why not a real homicide team? Maybe command wanted to keep things discreet; cop gossip traveled fast. Maybe he was being set up.

The chief leaned in an inch. “There’s one more thing. And I know you have a lot on your plate.”

Will waited.

“The D.B. this morning. The one in Over-the-Rhine.”

“The cellist.”

“Exactly. You still have season tickets to the symphony?”

“I do.” Will figured he was the only officer on the force who did.

“That’ll help. The symphony board is climbing down my throat on this one.” He sighed. “As if one headliner isn’t enough right now. Maybe you’d be willing to go over tomorrow, meet with the president, and make sure they know we’re doing all we can? These are some powerful people. You’ll know precisely the right touch in this kind of situation. It’s one skill your friend, Dodds doesn’t have. You know what I mean.”

Will knew.

Cheryl Beth was back in Cincinnati by five, curled up on her sofa at the little bungalow she owned in Clifton, which sat at the end of Sauer Avenue on a bluff. In the winter, you could look south out the kitchen window and see Over-the-Rhine and downtown. In spring and summer, it was as if those vistas had never existed. A tree canopy ran from her small backyard into Bellevue Hill Park and all she could see was green. She was on her second glass of wine and she had the band Over the Rhine on the sound system. The songs were as pensive and mournful as her mood. Her mind still back at the jail with Noah Smith. He looked impossibly frightened, alone, and innocent. But was he? Hank Brooks was convinced he was a killer.

It didn’t track for her. How could Noah alone have killed two fit young women?

Then her concern over him switched to guilt: her own. It wasn’t only about Noah. Holly Metzger and Lauren Benish were dead. Two bright young women who would have made fine nurses. Dead.

A too-familiar dread washed over her. The spike of ice grew in her abdomen. She saw the blue tarp again, could only imagine what lay behind it. When the murder happened at the old hospital, she had been followed and spied on by the killer, and this lovely old house, her sanctuary, had become a domicile of fear. She had pulled the curtains tight all those weeks, triple-checked the locks, especially after she had seen the footprints in her flowerbeds. Another policeman had saved her then, a man very different from Hank Brooks. She missed him.

Sitting still and stewing was not an option. She tended to fill any vacuum that appeared. It made her a good nurse. Sometimes it made her supervisors crazy. More than once an evaluation had used the words “bull in a China shop.”

She shut off the music and dug through her class files to find the information cards she asked each student to fill out at the beginning of the semester. They included emergency contacts. She sipped the glass of Chardonnay too fast, carefully studying Holly and Lauren’s cards, putting them on the side table, picking each up in turn. She walked to the kitchen, poured another glass, came back to stretch out on the sofa, and picked up the telephone.

Holly’s mother answered on the eighth ring. Cheryl Beth identified herself and told the woman how sorry she was. Nursing had taught her to be a master of the difficult conversation: the terminal diagnosis, the failed surgery, and the too-many things that went wrong in hospitals. When the doctors had said their lines and left, it was up to the nurses to stay with the patient and the family, pick up the pieces of mortality. Still, this was inexplicably difficult. She told the mother what a good student her daughter was, what a fine person, quick to help her classmates, and to make a joke. By the end, they were both crying.

Lauren’s parents lived in Kettering, a suburb of Dayton. When the phone was picked up, the voice on the other end sounded young and businesslike.

“My name is Cheryl Beth Wilson and I’m calling for Mr. or Mrs. Benish.”

“They’re not available and you news people are horrible for harassing us at a time like this.”

“No, I’m not with the news. I know this is a terrible moment for you all.” She heard her voice lapse into y’all. “I was one of Lauren’s nursing instructors at Miami, and I felt I should call. I wanted to let you know how sorry I am, and ask if there’s anything I can do. Anything.”

After a pause, the woman’s tone softened. “I’m sorry. The TV people have been calling nonstop. I won’t let mom and dad pick up. I’m scared to death they’ll just send a camera crew to our front lawn. Cheryl Beth, my name is April and I’m Lauren’s big sister.” She choked a moment. “Was.”