Jon Talton - Powers of Arrest

“So was one of them used in the attack?”

“No.” He stared at his feet like a little boy caught doing something wrong.

Her phone buzzed and she checked it: A text from one of her students: a patient was complaining about his pain meds.

“I’ve got to go, Hank.”

He held her shoulder in a firm grip. “Goddamnit, Cheryl Beth, I’m going to have to kick this guy loose by Thursday morning if I can’t get some evidence. Maybe sooner.”

“What?”

“You heard me. There’s not evidence enough to hold him. I’m going to get my ass handed to me by a public defender, no less.

“I saw the police catch him right there.”

“Yeah, I wish the real world worked like one of those TV shows, but that’s not enough. He claims he was attacked, too. He was a decorated soldier. You very helpfully found that goose egg on the back of his head. We don’t have a weapon. We don’t have a motive. The D.A. won’t file on him. So they’ll probably release him for now. And while we’re trying to make a case, this bad dude is going to be out on the street, maybe coming to a place near you.”

“Maybe he didn’t do it.”

“You know he did!” He whispered it harshly, slapping a fist in the other palm. “Do you know how those girls died? He raped them with a knife. That’s right. He cut them to pieces down there and let them bleed to death.”

Cheryl Beth visibly winced. “But these were two strong young women. I don’t understand. Could there have been more than one attacker?”

“Lauren was also stabbed in the back. My guess is she tried to get away while he was attacking Holly. It’s not unheard of for two women to be raped by one man armed with a knife. They’re both scared. They want to live through it. When Lauren realized what was really happening, she tried to make a break, he ran her down, and stabbed her.”

Now it was her turn to look at the floor. She was hardly a novice to gore, but this…

“You need to know this, too,” Brooks said. “These girls were arranged after he killed them. Like…like some kind of sick artwork. He wanted us to see what he had done. He wanted to make sure, I don’t know, that we understood he was in total control. That they were his toys, his conquest. I’ll tell you something else. I had a talk this morning with a Cincinnati detective. That policewoman who was murdered on the Licking River? The one who’s on TV? She was raped with a knife, too, and handcuffed. Sometime early Sunday morning.” He stared at her with a red face. “I need your help.”

She ran schedules and logistics through her head. “All right, we can set you up, uh, maybe at the café on A, and I’ll bring each one down separately. But you’re going to have to be patient. They’ve got work to do, it’s close to the end of semester, it’s the start of the shift, everybody’s busy.”

“God, you don’t make it easy, woman. Fine. Show me the way.”

“I’ll tell you the way. I’ve got to go down the hall right now.” She gave him directions to the café.

She added: “Did Lauren’s sister call you?”

“What?”

“Her sister, April. I talked to her last night and she said Lauren thought she was being stalked. She described a bald man, older, nothing like Noah.”

“Are you working my case, Cheryl Beth?”

“No, Hank. I told her to call you. Now go down there to the café and I’ll bring you a student when I can break her free, and I’ll give you April’s number. In the meantime, unless you’re an R.N., I’ve got work to do here, and you’re in the way.”

Will parked beside the imposing Victorian edifice on Elm Street that was Music Hall and limped into the offices of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Music Hall itself looked like a great red-brick cathedral to music with a grand pitched roof and circular window, guarded on either side by sharp-topped towers. It had been built in 1878 on top of a pauper’s graveyard, where the dead had been buried without coffins. The stories went that during construction, onlookers would play around with the disinterred bones before workers could toss them into barrels set aside for that purpose. When a new elevator shaft was built in 1988, more remains were found. Ghost stories were as much a part of the building as great music. The offices, reached by a side entrance, were far plainer. Instead of the staid elegance of the concert hall, they formed a clutter of cubicles and little rooms added over many decades, half renovated, half modern, slightly shabby.

Even so, Will knew that of all the city’s arts organizations, the Cincinnati Symphony was the kingdom and the power and the glory. It was fiercely protective of itself. This would be a difficult meeting.

He showed his badge and was greeted by a wren of a dark-haired woman from the marketing department, looking fine in a navy blue suit with a skirt slightly above the knees. She led him back to the president’s office.

“Forgive me if this is too personal,” she said. “But I hope you’re not in pain.”

The damned cane again.

“Not much,” Will said.

“My husband had an accident on his motorcycle,” she said. “Since then, he’s been in terrible pain, and nobody can really help him. He’s afraid of getting addicted to Oxycontin or something like that. But…”

“If you like, I know someone who might be able to give you a referral. My friend, Cheryl Beth Wilson…”

They were almost there when a tall man threw open the door and nearly slammed it. Will was paying more attention to the wren and the daydream of Cheryl Beth, but the movement ahead caught his attention. The man bent over, tied a shoe, and then fiddled with the back pocket of his baggy jeans, producing a ball cap, which he slapped on. Then he stalked toward them, looking down, and shaking his head. His long-legged stride covered the ten feet that separated them in seconds. Will stopped walking and stood.

“Excuse us,” the wren said.

The man looked up and halted abruptly. He had a face young but rutted with creases, and set off with a wide mouth, and strong jaw. At the moment, it held an indignant expression. He stared Will in the eye. Will was past dancing with anyone who was in his path. He couldn’t move that fast any longer, so he continued to stand there. The man glared harder, then sidestepped, and brusquely walked on. Under his breath: “Get the fuck out of the way.”

Will thought about making something of it, but stopped himself. He wondered if his stepson would act any better in the circumstances. Hell, he remembered his old, impatient self when facing someone with a disability. He wouldn’t have cursed, but he might well have wondered why this person was in his way. He was no better than anybody. In any event, he was on a peace mission from the chief.

“Sorry,” the wren said. “That’s the president’s son. He can be a bit abrupt.”

“Those aren’t the words I’d use.”

She smiled uncomfortably and led him into more spacious digs.

In two more minutes he was sitting in a deep comfortable chair facing the desk of Kathryn S. Buchanan, president of the CSO. He hoped he could get back out of that chair without too much trouble. His legs had awoken him after an hour’s sleep and he was still sitting on the balcony. He had gotten, maybe, four hours of sleep last night, his new normal.

Buchanan was somewhere north of fifty but looked at least ten years younger, with features as delicate and poised as her son’s were large and emphatic. Will guessed her suit and shoes cost as much as a month of his salary. Cindy dressed that way now. He pushed his ex-wife away and tried to sit at attention, properly representing the department. After his back could take it no longer, he sank back into the cushions, and admired the large portraits of famous CSO conductors on her wall: Leopold Stokowski, Thomas Schippers, and Paavo Jervi.