Jon Talton - Powers of Arrest

“She was…dead in there,” he finally managed. “There was blood everywhere. He’d cut her up between her legs and spread them wide open. And…she was staring at me with those dead eyes…”

“Dead in where?”

“The boat. I went over to check. She was dead…”

“Was anyone else aboard?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Try to remember!” Will knew he shouldn’t have shouted, but his ass was on the line now, too. “You said, ‘he’d cut her…’ Who cut her?”

“I don’t know. It was only a figure of expression.” John sniffled loudly. Neither of them had a Kleenex. Will usually kept a pack in the car for moments like this with the family or friends of a victim. “Nobody was on deck. I ran the flashlight into the cabin and I couldn’t see anything at first. Then I saw her, and got out. I was really scared.”

“How did you know she was dead?”

He hesitated, as if he hadn’t even considered it. “There was so much blood,” he said. “It was all over the walls, a big pool of it on the floor, and she was so white.”

“You didn’t check her pulse?”

“I was afraid to step into the blood.”

Will didn’t understand the contradiction: how John could go aboard to see if anything was wrong, but then see a bloody woman and not check to see if she were still alive. He’d been in Boy Scouts awhile and knew some first aid. This was the kind of thing that a skilled interrogator could start to break down, take apart, and drive a truck through. Will realized that he was desensitized to seeing the dead and being up to his elbows in blood. But John’s story still didn’t fit, unless you believed he first really did want to impress Heather Bridges and then, after he was aboard, became frightened and fled. It was all what a jury would believe-Will was that far down the line in his reasoning.

“What else can you remember about the boat? Anything on deck or in the cabin that seemed odd to you?”

“It smelled funny in the cabin,” John said. “I couldn’t place it at first, but now I think it smelled like bleach.”

Will stared at the steering wheel, losing his last grain of hope that John’s presence on that boat was all a big misunderstanding. He had been there. “Did you know who the woman was?”

“Yes.” His voice was quiet. “Kristen.”

Will rolled down a window and the sweet Cincinnati spring breeze unseemly intruded.

“Why were you even on the river that night?” Will demanded.

“I was on a boat with some friends from school.”

He ran John through the same line of questions as he used on his supposed friends from school: What time did they leave the Serpentine Wall, who was aboard, when did they see Kristen’s boat, how far up the Licking River they went, how long they were partying, and when they saw the boat on the return trip. It all jibed. In fact, John had a more precise time for the second encounter with the death boat: a few minutes before four a.m.

“What were you doing upriver for so long?” Will asked.

“We had some drinks. Then Zack handed out E. Ecstasy.”

“I know what E means. What else?”

John rolled down his window and stuck an elbow out. “People started hooking up. I was with Heather.”

“Really?” Will didn’t say it in a scandalized parent’s voice, the way Cindy would, but with a sharp snap of skepticism. John looked at him with hate.

“I guess Zack fucked all three girls,” John said darkly. “Maybe the girls played with each other, too. I don’t know. I passed out.”

Will made him answer it again. He sounded credible.

“I watched Zack and Heather bumping nasties, if you really want to know the truth,” John said. “I didn’t want to see any of it, but they woke me up.”

“Why would you get on the boat with these kids, John?”

“I didn’t want to! Heather and I were going to have a picnic at Sawyer Point. Only us. I asked her out. Thought she liked me. Then that douche nozzle pulls up in his fancy boat and she wanted to go. She invited me. Zack would have been happy to leave me at the wall.”

Will took it in and said nothing.

“Are you carrying your knife?”

The boy stiffened in his seat and nodded.

“Let me see it, please.”

John reluctantly reached in his pants pocket and handed it to Will, who switched on the dome light and unfolded the knife, which locked in place. It was heavy and all black, with a web-textured steel handle and spear point. “Blackhawk!” was emblazoned on the surface of the blade. It was very sharp. Although the blade looked a legal length, the whole unfolded knife appeared almost eight inches long. He examined it for dried blood; found none. John could have cleaned it. The Gruber autopsy showed such brutal knife wounds that it was difficult to determine the shape or edge characteristics of the blade, but it probably wasn’t serrated. This blade wasn’t serrated.

Will asked John if he had bought the knife. He said he had ordered it online for eighty dollars.

“And tell me again why you would carry a knife?”

“So I’d feel safe.”

“Ever been in a knife fight?”

“No,” John said softly.

“Ever use this knife for anything?”

He shook his head.

The motion made Will’s own headache worse. He should have popped some Advils. It was probably only stress. Or a brain tumor.

“John, let me give you a scenario. While your friends were partying and high, or sleeping, or whatever, you unlashed the Zodiac from Zack Miller’s boat and went downriver. You climbed on Kristen’s boat. You threatened her with the knife and made her handcuff herself. Then you stabbed her over and over again…”

“No…No…” He was sobbing again.

“Then you got back to Zack’s boat, tied up, and you have an alibi for when you all discover her later.”

“It’s not true!” he shouted, the streetlights shining on his tears. Some mannerly East Siders walked by a little faster, but didn’t look at them.

Will let out a long breath. “I don’t want it to be true, John. But the police found a shoe-print on the boat, and some hairs. The odds are they’ll be yours.”

John was completely silent.

“Where were you on Sunday night?”

“What is it with you?” John exploded. “I have to account for every second like a ten-year-old?”

Will wanted to say, then stop acting like a ten-year-old. But, calmly, “Two nursing students were killed up at Oxford, John. They were killed with a knife, like Kristen Gruber was.”

A gasp came from the shadow in the other seat. It relieved Will.

“You don’t think…? It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything!”

“But you told me you partied up there. Did you see some pretty nursing students? Maybe they gave you the brush-off in a bar and you decided to get even.”

“I was home with mom. You can ask her. We rented a movie.”

Will finally let out a breath.

“You have to go to the police. I’m going to give you the name and number of a detective in Covington. I want you to call her in the morning. All you have to do is tell her what happened. Tell her the truth. You were scared. But you want to come forward and do the right thing. Now, did anyone see you with this knife that night?”

“No.”

“Think, John. Did they?”

He almost cringed in the seat. “No! Nobody saw it.”

“Then I’m going to borrow it. I’ve borrowed it for a month, okay? So you haven’t had it.”

“I thought you said tell the truth.”

“Yeah,” Will said, both temples throbbing. “Leave the knife out of it. If you’re telling me the truth, then the knife has no part of your story, right?”

He nodded. “Are you going to tell mom?”

“You can do that. You’re an adult now.”