Jon Talton - Powers of Arrest

He tossed them in the back seat and climbed back in.

“More ammo against Buchanan,” Dodds said, holding out a wig of long, dark-brown hair. “The cure for baldness. Got any large evidence bags?”

Will shook his head.

Cheryl Beth heard a long zipper.

“What have we here,” Dodds said. “Two pairs of handcuffs, his and hers. Two ball gags. Gloves and footies to put over his shoes. He’s very methodical. A folding combat knife that I bet will match the wounds on the four vics. And a bottle of lye.” He carefully placed the items and the wig back in the bag and re-zipped it.

“There won’t be any prints,” Will said.

“You never know,” Dodds said. “I will say you owe Clarence Junior your good word to the D.A. He saved your lives.”

Will was quiet for a long time. The rain was now coming down hard enough that it sounded like small pellets hitting the roof.

Finally, he spoke quietly, all the exuberance of the tour drained from his voice. “We’re not going to get another chance. This was it and we blew it. He won’t be careless enough to come back again.”

“Unless,” Dodds said, “he really has a thing for you.”

Will stared into the wet windshield. Cheryl Beth took his hand and squeezed it. He returned the pressure, but she could tell his mind was elsewhere.

Cheryl Beth could feel Will’s left leg start to twitch. It was only forty-five minutes after they had gone to bed. He was still asleep despite the movement. The spasticity must have kept him in a state of REM sleep much of the time. She hoped he had nice dreams, at least. With that thought, she gently snuggled against him, pushed aside all that had happened that night, and fell into a deep slumber.

“Oh, hell!”

His words woke her. He was sitting by the bed, shaking his right leg, his face illuminated by the screen of the computer perched on the arm of the chair. She rolled over and checked the clock: five fifteen.

“Are you okay, babe?”

“I’m sorry I woke you.” His voice sounded miles beyond weary.

“Is it your legs?”

“I wish. I had to sit up to calm down my left leg, so I thought I’d go through the photos from Kristen Gruber’s computer, and I found…”

She waited but he didn’t finish the sentence.

She climbed out of bed naked, surprised how comfortable she was with him. Coming behind the chair, she wrapped her arms around him and leaned forward. He rested his head against hers.

“What?” She asked. Then she saw the photo on the screen.

“Oh, Will…”

“There are more.”

“What are you going to do?”

He sighed. “I’m not going to do what Kenneth Buchanan does. I’m through with that. At six, I’m going to call Dodds and the lead detective in Covington.”

The interrogation room at Covington was nicer than Will was used to: clean, new, with unmarred furniture, pristine fluorescent lights in the ceiling, and walls that might have graced a modern conference room. The seats hadn’t yet been beaten down by thousands of felonious butts sitting in them. Will sat in the adjacent room, looking through the one-way glass. With him were Dodds, Cheryl Beth, and an assistant prosecutor from the Kenton County Attorney’s Office. He got Cheryl Beth in on the pretext that she was a witness under protection, which was true.

Only one person was sitting in the interrogation room: John.

Already it was a busy day. A fifty-six-year-old man had been decapitated and dismembered in his apartment and the Covington cops held three suspects in custody. It had been a struggle to get a free room.

Will watched John sit uncomfortably. He was still handcuffed. His expressions moved through anxiety, anger, and dreaminess. This was the sweet boy with the fine singing voice, now an adult under arrest. Will shook his head.

The interrogation room door opened and Diane Henderson stepped inside. She was dressed in jeans and a peach-striped shirt, carrying a tan portfolio. She pulled up a chair across from John and sat. They could only see her back. Will imagined that Cindy was frantically trying to get a good criminal lawyer. They didn’t have much time.

Henderson started a tape recorder, gave the date, location of the interview, suspect’s name, and her name and badge number. She Mirandized John again as he stared down. He mumbled that he understood his rights. Then she slowly laid out sheets of paper like playing cards. Soon they covered the table.

“Do you recognize the photographs, John?” Her voice was calm and almost motherly. It was obvious from his face that he was surprised by the images.

He managed, “Do you know who my dad is?”

Will wanted to melt into the floor.

“I do,” she said. “How about answering my question.”

“I know what they are. Can you take off these handcuffs? They’re really uncomfortable.”

She ignored his request. “So tell me what they are?”

“They’re me and Kristen.”

“Kristen Gruber.”

He nodded.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” He stared angrily at her in a face that looked alien to Will.

“Who took them?”

“She did.”

“When?”

He hesitated, then told her: last fall.

“So you knew her?”

“We were friends.”

“Some of these show you naked in her bed,” Henderson said. “Looks like you were more than friends. Why didn’t you tell me this the last time we talked?”

He stared down. She prompted him with his name.

“I was scared,” he said. “She and I had a fling.”

“Last fall?”

“Yeah, last fall.”

Will felt acid boring a hole in his stomach.

“So you picked her up? What? She was a good deal older than you, and a celebrity to boot. Why would she want a kid like you?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m about her age,” Henderson said, her tone changing from sympathetic to mocking. “I can’t imagine a bigger turn-off than some baby barely out of his acne stage…”

“She picked me up, okay!” He wiggled in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position without success.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“That’s because you’re not Kristen, lady.”

“You can call me Detective Henderson, or detective, or officer.”

“Whatever,” he said. All his sobbing from the night at Hyde Park Square was gone. In its place sat a fuming defiance.

“So why’d she pick you up? You look pretty ordinary to me. Are you some hot lover on the prowl for cougars?”

“As if.” He gave a mordant laugh. “She wanted to deflower me. It excited her.”

Will resisted the involuntary urge to shake his head. He listened to the intonations of John’s voice; could it have been the one he heard behind him the previous night? Then there was John’s pale, short hair: someone might mistake him for bald, especially if she didn’t get a good look. He forced his jaw to unclench.

Henderson sat still for a few beats. “It must have been exciting for you.”

“I wanted somebody my own age. But the girls my age don’t like me. Kristen did. She thought I was mature. She said I had good judgment, that I acted very mature.”

“You’re not showing it so far,” Henderson said. “She’s dead. We have your admission that you were on her boat the night she was murdered and the evidence to back it up. Now we know you were her lover. It’s not looking good. I’d say when you were on the Licking River with your friends and saw her boat. It put you in a rage. While they were passed out, you unlashed the Zodiac, went back, and murdered her.”

“I didn’t kill her!” His face contorted.