A girl’s voice answered the intercom after a long wait. “Cincinnati Police” was enough to get him buzzed in. Oh, for a day without a long stair climb. He made it. She was waiting on the second floor, with the door cracked and the chain on. He showed her his badge, now draped in black, and identification.
“You’re John’s dad.”
“May I come in?”
The chain slid off and he stepped inside a high-ceilinged living room. It held a few pieces of expensive new furniture and art posters on the wall. He didn’t take time to read the details of galleries and dates, although one prominently featured the avant-garde Contemporary Arts Center downtown.
“I’m only living here through the summer. Until I go to college. But I didn’t want to be stuck out at the parents’ house, if you know what I mean, nothing wrong with parents, mine are cool, but I love this area…”
The chirping young woman was tall, with reddish-brown hair falling in tendrils over her shoulders, high cheekbones, and shapely legs shown to advantage in shorts. He could see why John was attracted to her. Still, she was mussed and out of breath.
“Let’s sit down,” he interrupted. She sat quickly and nervously. He turned down the radio and set it on the cushion beside him.
“We need to talk, Heather.”
“About what, Will?” A smile to light up a city. The sense of entitlement he had expected from her parents’ bankbook.
“Let’s get off on the right foot,” Will said. “I’ll call you Heather. You call me Detective Borders.”
“Okay.” A pout descended over her lovely face.
“I know you and John were on the river Saturday night and early Sunday morning…”
The pout was turning to unconcealed alarm when a closed door fifteen feet down a hallway was thrown open and a man angrily strode toward them. He was only wearing boxer shorts.
“What’s going on, Heather? This dude bothering you?”
Will made no effort to react. If the guy got in his face, the steel shaft of the cane would make an excellent impression on his nose. As he came into the light, Will saw how young he was. He was John’s age, maybe a year or two younger, and his stride was all confidence. He was lean and fit in an untested way, with stubble on his pretty-boy face, stubble on his head, and no hair on his chest. Beyond his belligerent posture, he wore a sleepy expression. When the fly of his boxers came open as he walked, Will could see the piercing. Lord, he didn’t understand this. But that was a reflection deep inside. His face was all cop.
“Who the fuck are you, kid?”
“I don’t have to…”
“Actually you do, asshole,” Will said, flashing his badge. The young man was momentarily deflated. Long enough for Heather to say, “This is my friend, Zack.”
“Go put on some clothes, friend Zack.”
The young man stared defiantly, then padded back to the bedroom, cursing under his breath.
“What’s Zack’s full name?”
She meekly complied. “Zachary Paul Miller.”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
She shrugged. “We hook up. Friends with benefits, you know. Or maybe you don’t…” She glanced at the cane, and for a nanosecond he wanted to beat her to death with it. The urge passed quickly.
“So is John an F.W.B.?”
Heather smirked. “Oh, my god, no.”
“But you went to meet him on Saturday, for a date?”
“Not a date.” She fluffed out her hair and smoothed it down. “He’s sweet. But…”
Zachary Paul Miller stomped back and sat next to Heather. His jeans were so low on his hips that Will didn’t know how they didn’t fall to the floor.
“Stop talking.” He looked like he was going to slap her. To Wilclass="underline" “We don’t have to tell you anything, Borders. I’ve got the family lawyer on speed dial.” He dangled his iPhone. “Kenneth Buchanan. Ever hear of him, cop?” He laughed, a surprisingly high-pitched sound.
Will lifted himself up and walked two paces. He shifted the cane to his left hand. Then he delivered a hard jab to the young man’s abdomen, where it would hurt the most and leave no trace.
He was a tough-guy, at least in his own mind, but he let out a sound between a belch and a pig squeal. Tears came to his eyes as he struggled to breathe.
“Oh, I’m so sorry I fell against you, sir,” Will said. “It’s this whole cane thing. I get unstable. Damned cripples, and we get all the best parking places.”
Will returned and sat down again. “Now listen to me. You may be the king stud of Summit Country Day School, but if I make one call you’re going to be nothing but another jailhouse chicken who’ll get sodomized all night by very muscular men below your social class. They’d love to get hold of your virgin ass and your Prince Albert piercing. Only one night in lockup, you know, before the lawyers can sort things out. Jeez, I’ve seen it happen so many times to the East Side kids.” Will shook his head in mock sympathy. Zack’s eyes widened with terror.
Will continued. “I’ve already talked to Mr. Buchanan.” Technically true. “I’m hoping we can settle this without trouble: the kind that would keep you from your Ivy League future. This is a homicide investigation.” He paused and watched the color return to Zack’s face and quickly flee again. “I know you want to cooperate, Mr. Miller.”
For perhaps the first time in his life, the kid hadn’t gotten what he wanted. He shut up and nodded, his eyes down, his mouth open, and struggling to refill his lungs.
“So why don’t you tell me what happened on the river last weekend.”
Zack started talking, gradually regaining his voice.
“I was out in my dad’s boat. We picked up some ladies. Your kid tagged along. We went up the Licking to party. No big deal.”
Will watched him. When the silence was starting to make him uncomfortable, Will said, “You want to try again?”
The young man jutted out his chin, then dropped his head. “We saw the boat, okay? Where the lady cop was killed.”
“When did you see it?”
“First when we went up-river.”
Will wanted the time: around three that afternoon. He started making notes.
“It didn’t look like anybody was aboard,” Zack Miller said. “It was tied up. I didn’t think anything about it. Then it was still there when we came back.”
“What time?”
“I have no idea. Way after midnight. We slowed down, thought maybe we could pull a prank. I ran the spotlight over the boat. We called over and nobody called back. So we pulled alongside, and I was going to check it out, make sure everybody was okay. But John went over. I guess he was trying to impress the girls. When he comes back, he said there was a dead woman in the cabin.”
Will suddenly had a headache. “John got onto that boat?”
“Yes, sir, he did.”
“How long was he there?”
Zack shrugged. “A few minutes. Then he came back and told us.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“I wanted to, but John said not to do it. He made us get out of there and I let everybody off at the Serpentine Wall.”
Will wrote slowly, trying to maintain his composure. Even if John hadn’t killed Kristen Gruber, witnesses now placed him on the boat, and the hair and shoe-print were probably his, too. That must have been why John refused to let the others call the police. He would be in deep shit and there was nothing that Will could do to protect him. He had done too much already. But at least John had an alibi for the time when Gruber was murdered.
He faced Heather, wishing he were interrogating them separately. “Is that how it happened?”
She nodded. “Yes.” She immediately looked down and to the left.
Will didn’t trust the story. Zack didn’t seem like the kind of boater or human being that would check the welfare of anybody who couldn’t do him a favor. But he also knew he had to fight against his bias to believe John was innocent.