Jon Talton - Powers of Arrest

“Your chief tells me you have season tickets to the symphony,” she was saying. “That’s highly unusual for a police officer, if you’ll forgive me seeming to stereotype. But, hey, I’m extremely grateful. And you enjoy the symphony apparently, not only the Pops.”

“You can thank my mother. She started bringing me as a kid. She thought I was a piano prodigy. I wasn’t, and my dad was having none of that anyway. He was a cop and I was no prodigy. But I came away with a love of classical…”

“Men are a difficult demographic, even ones without a blue-collar background, no offense,” she interrupted, already unimpressed with him. “Their wives drag them along.” She had been here only two years, having come from Atlanta. He wasn’t sure she fully understood what classical music meant to Cincinnati, but she had absorbed the subtle Indian Hill snobbishness well. He had no doubt that she had also learned the aggressive defensiveness of all who loved the symphony.

She shrugged and leaned toward him. “Now, to this tragedy. Jeremy Snowden was one of our rising stars, as you probably know. He was pure Cincinnati. Born here. Studied at CCM with Stephanie Foust…” Will also knew Foust was the principal cellist for the orchestra, even knew she held the Linda and David Goodman Endowed Chair, because he read the programs. “…who studied at Julliard. As for Jeremy, the whole world was before him. I could list the prestigious competitions he had won, the orchestras trying to steal him away…oh!” She shook her head and seemed on the verge of tears before quickly composing herself.

“I’m counting on you to understand this, Detective Borders. You know the deep history of this orchestra and what it means to the community. The May Festival is coming right up. And these aren’t easy times for even an orchestra of our caliber.” She held her palms up as if everything should be perfectly obvious.

“How may I help, Ms. Buchanan?”

“That man Dodds. He’s very unpleasant.”

“You’re telling me. He was my partner for eight years.”

Her perfect small mouth didn’t register even a millimeter of amusement. It was as if he had let out a loud, long fart at the Queen City Club.

“He wants to talk to members of the orchestra,” she said. “That’s unacceptable. These are world-class musicians. Their time is simply beyond price. And we’re a family grieving over this tragedy.”

“Detective Dodds is the finest homicide investigator in the state, maybe even the nation,” Will said as calmly as he could. “It’s normal to speak with coworkers. We need to know if Mr. Snowden had enemies…”

“Enemies!” Her calm demeanor vanished and Will saw a bit of that raw anger from her son’s face. “It’s perfectly obvious what this is! Some…some…ghetto youth from the ghetto murdered him. They deal drugs right out in the open, you know, right out in Washington Park. We warn our musicians about this neighborhood. My god, I’m sometimes afraid here in the middle of the day.”

“We can’t be sure of who did it, I’m sorry to say. He wasn’t robbed. His cello was still in the car. The murderer could be anyone. It could be a crime of passion…”

“That’s absurd. He had become engaged to be married only a month ago!”

“It would be the first place I’d look for a suspect. Discreetly, of course.” His brain told him not to say it, but now he was getting pissed. “The cello is a sensuous instrument, played between the legs.” Her eyes shot open and she flushed. Will continued: “It could also be blackmail, or a case of mistaken identity, wrong-place-wrong-time, a kidnapping gone wrong.”

“This is unbelievable.” She shook her head but not a strand of expensively maintained hair moved.

“We’ll still have to talk to the musicians, ma’am.” Will used his best respectful-but-firm voice. Inside he was disgusted with the sense of privilege and haughtiness. It’s never about the victim. It’s always about the reputation of their companies and organizations and rich Cincinnati tribes. He could never get used to it.

“So you’re not going to help.” Her voice was flat and seething.

“I am, ma’am. And you need to do your part, as well.”

“I have friends on city council,” she said, her voice no longer heated but now almost languid. “I have friends beyond that. This is not the end of the matter, Mr. Borders. Now, I have an important meeting.”

He used every trick he had learned in months of physical therapy to stand in one fluid motion. Somehow he did it. “We’ll handle this investigation with tact and confidentiality. But our detectives will talk to your people.”

For several seconds she stared as if her brain had stopped processing. Then her eyes found him again. “Very well. But I expect you to put a stop to the media’s incessant calling.”

He laughed. He couldn’t help it. The phone call to the chief about him was coming anyway. “The First Amendment is beyond my control, Ms. Buchanan. Don’t get up. I’ll find my way out.”

The wren in the short skirt was gone, so he wandered through the hallways for a moment. He had actually heard Jeremy Snowden play several times with the whole orchestra, once as a soloist on Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 1. Snowden was indeed very gifted and now the gift was dead, murdered. But he, not Kathryn S. Buchanan or the CSO, was the vic.

A custodian recognized him from the television and offered to give him a tour backstage, even take him into the attics “where the ghosts hang out.” Will regretfully turned him down.

He was back in the car when his phone rang: Dodds.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Music Hall trying to do damage control because of your winning personality.”

“Ah, fuck ‘em. I got an arrest.”

“Do tell.”

“Black male, twenty-five, tried to rob a motorist with a knife this morning two blocks from where the cello player was killed. Motorist maces him and drives away, dragging the suspect two blocks until he falls off, thanks to the intervention of a mail box.” Dodds was laughing the entire time. “So he’s in custody. And the sweetest little thing of all? We’ve got his fingerprint on the door of the cello player’s Lexus. Case clearance, my brother. So you, PIO, need to put out the news.”

“You get to do that, Dodds. The chief has given me leave while I work Gruber.”

“So I heard.” His voice changed. “I hate talking to the media.”

“Welcome to my world.”

“I can do it, though. Give a handsome African-American face to the department.”

“I’ll tweet it,” Will volunteered.

“Fuck you. Let me give you some friendly intel, partner. Not all the brass was happy when the chief let you come back, and they’re sure as hell not happy now that you’re the lead on Gruber. They don’t know why you didn’t take disability and go away.”

Will had suspected as much, but his stomach churned anyway.

“Fair enough,” he said. “And if I were you, I’d show around some photos of that expensive letter opener. In case your suspect isn’t really a…ghetto youth.”

Dodds was cursing him when the connection ended.

The setting sun painted the clouds pink as Will sat in the parking lot of the Montgomery Boathouse. It wasn’t a real boathouse but a popular restaurant selling ribs and overlooking the Ohio River. Will had been to a dozen police retirement parties here over the years. Now, he was waiting for someone. A someone who had instructed him to sit in a parking spot as far as possible from the front entrance. Will only accepted this instruction because this someone was a partner in one of the city’s most powerful law firms. His cell number had shown up on Kristen Gruber’s recent calls in the hours before she was killed.