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 schooclass="underline" 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.”
Will slid the knife into his pocket. He hated knives. The Mount Adams Slasher had used a knife, including on Theresa. He started the car and backed out. As he cruised slowly around the park to return the way they came, he asked, “John, why didn’t you call the police when you found her body?”
“I wanted to. Zack wouldn’t let me. He drove out of there as fast as he could, telling me he didn’t want to get caught with drunk underage girls and E on his dad’s expensive boat.”
“Zack said you’re the one who wouldn’t let him call.”
“You talked to Zack? He’s lying!”
Of course he was, Will thought. Zack had control of the boat and could have chosen to stay. But there was a problem of corroboration, and it wouldn’t help John.
“Ask Heather,” he said. “She’ll tell you.”
“I did. Heather backed up Zack’s version.”
Will watched his stepson’s face in the mirror as they drove back in silence. It held a rage that stole all his youth.
Afterward, Will stopped at a United Dairy Farmers store, bought Advil and a bottle of water, and swallowed four of the dark red pills at once.
Chapter Twenty-three
When all the lights had been turned off downstairs, Cheryl Beth walked through the darkness with a glass of Chardonnay. Upstairs, she ran a warm tub of water, lit some candles, turned off the lights, and undressed. The wine and the yellow-orange flickering light relaxed her as she stretched out in the tub. She dunked her head, pushed back her wet hair, and took stock.
She didn’t want to hate Hank Brooks for being obsessed with Noah when the real killer was still out there, or for releasing Noah to his fate. Brooks didn’t call her until late in the day. Then he didn’t sound the least bit contrite. Instead, he said how he had doubted that Noah was the murderer, even in the hours after he had been arrested in the Formal Gardens. It was all about Brooks covering his ass. She barely got through the conversation without saying many unladylike things.
She couldn’t imagine the horror Noah had felt there in the old graveyard. Was there something she could have done for him, when he found her in the bookstore? She couldn’t think what is would have been, but she felt guilty nonetheless. Three of her students now dead. She took a deep drink of wine and felt warm water trickle down her back.
She thought of Will and looked at her body illuminated in the candlelight. She no longer had the bloom of seventeen, when she had been a reluctant cheerleader in Corbin, a national merit scholar finalist, too. She had scholarship offers from very good universities, but her mother said they didn’t have the money to make up the difference. Nobody was on her side, the side of a young woman who dreamed of a world outside Corbin, who had the bus schedules out of town memorized.