So she went as far as she could, to the biggest city she knew, studying nursing at the University of Cincinnati. Her mother made her be practical in that choice. She had really wanted to study philosophy or theater. And she took her only boyfriend in tow, a nice but unambitious young man who really didn’t want to leave town. They married too young. Now, past forty, she looked at a body whose changes she was only too aware of, and they were all changes for the worse. It didn’t matter how many compliments she got or how many men hit on her. The years went by and they took and took and took. What a silly, vain thought, when three of your students are dead. Well, she still had nice legs.
As the candles painted shadows on the walls, she wished Will would call. But he was working. She had turned on the news before coming upstairs, and he was on camera twice as the police spokesman: a two-hundred-pound python found in a trash can in Sedamsville, below Mount Echo Park, and a shooting in Corryville, not far from the hospitals on Pill Hill, a few rough blocks from the now-closed hospital where she had almost lost her life. The television reporter said a man shot at a police officer but missed. Will made a statement, the man was now in custody, and then the chief of police talked. So much craziness and violence were a part of his life, and yet he seemed so steady and gentle. Could it be an act? She had been taken in before. Still, she liked the way he opened doors for her, old school, the way he was interested in her, how he kissed, and how he was tall. She liked the way her head tucked under his.
She wished she had brought the wine bottle upstairs.
When the phone rang, she was glad she had it by the tub. She dried off a hand and answered. It was Will, asking if he was calling too late.
“I’m a night owl,” she said. “Too many years spent checking on patients around midnight when the pain got bad. I saw you on television. A two-hundred-pound snake?”
“He was the most pleasant creature I dealt with today. Anyway, lots of face time for Detective Will Borders. Now the question is whether the killer is watching.” He told her about the minimal press release they had put out regarding Noah. “This guy has delusions of grandeur. He addressed the note directly to me. So the hope is if he doesn’t get the publicity he’s seeking, he might come after me.” He sighed. “Or, he’ll stop and we’ll never find him, and in a few years he’ll start again somewhere else.”
“What kind of a person would do these things, Will?”
“There’s a type,” he said. “The scary thing is that sometimes they can fit right into society. They’re not out in the country living alone in a doublewide. Or, like a lot of white folks in this town think, a scary black man asking for change on the sidewalk.”
“Do you think you know who did it? Or shouldn’t I ask that?”
“I met a man who I think is very capable of it,” Will said. “He was one of Kristen’s lovers. But he’s very connected, and we’ll need major probable cause to take it further. I’m not even sure the other detectives would agree with me. This guy’s got an alibi, or he say he does. I’d love to poke a few holes in it and know where he was Saturday night.”
“I hope you’re being careful.”
“Door’s locked, and I’m upstairs with my Smith & Wesson and shotgun.”
“You’re getting me hot.” She smiled.
“And, I have detectives watching from a car out on the street. It could be worse. They wanted me to wear a wire 24/7, so they could even listen in on our conversation. Dodds would especially like that.”
“He’s such a character.” She looked at herself in the tub and thought, Ask me what I’m wearing…
“He is that.” Will paused. “I’m wondering if we should go to the symphony tomorrow night.”
“Are you kicking me to the curb, Borders?”
“No! I’m worried. I have skin in this game. You don’t. I already nearly got you killed when I was in the hospital. I’m afraid of putting you at risk, at even greater risk, because we can’t be sure the killer doesn’t already know about you.”
“As I recall, Detective, I nearly got you killed. The murderer was after me, and your buddies at CPD thought I was a murderer.”
“You know what I mean…”
“And I have skin in the game, too, as you put it. My students are dead.”
Another pause. “Fair enough. But I don’t have the best history this way.”
“Will, why does Dodds call you Mister President?”
He seemed grateful to laugh. “That bastard. Okay, if we’re going to bare our souls, it’s because my full name is William Howard Taft Borders. Named after Cincinnati’s only president, and a failed one at that. My mom was a local history buff. He calls me that it to get under my skin.”
Cheryl Beth smiled and finished the wine. “I like it. Look, Will, I know you feel guilty about what happened with Theresa Chambers. But that wasn’t your fault. It’s in the past and you can’t live your life in fear. Unless…” Her smile faded. “Unless you don’t like me, and if that’s the case, all you have to do is tell me, before I get skin in that game, too.”
“No, Cheryl Beth. I like you a lot. I have ever since I met you. No game.”
“You’re mighty forward.” She exaggerated her accent.
“I didn’t mean…”
“Relax, Will. I’m kidding you.”
“Right.” His voice relaxed.
“Maybe you don’t even like the symphony. You probably use that line to get girls because you know we usually have to drag men to concerts.”
“Yep, that’s me. Be ready tomorrow night and you’ll find out.” His cadence changed. “Tomorrow’s going to be hell day, I’m afraid. I don’t think I told you that my ex-wife has remarried and finally has her big house in Hyde Park. I went over there tonight to talk to my stepson. He’s in trouble. He was on the river Saturday night with some other kids and they found Kristen Gruber’s boat. He went aboard and saw her body. Lord, I wish he would have called the police then.”
“Oh, no.”
“I told him he’s got to go tomorrow and tell what he knows.” The phone line made a lonely buzz, then, “Even though he’s not my biological son and things the past few years have put more distance between us, I feel for him like he’s really my son.”
She managed, “I know you must.”
“Money’s not a problem in his life. Far from it. So different from when I was growing up. But somehow the money is making things worse for him. So I’m not so much worried about the blowback on me tomorrow, and there will be. I’m worried about him. He’s so isolated and…I don’t know. You try your best to raise a child, but you finally realize that you can’t live their life for them, that they aren’t you. They can’t be saved from all the mistakes you had to make. Inside, there’s this individual soul that’s going its own way, for better or worse. I’m rambling, sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “Try to be good to you. I worry about you.”
“I’ll try. When do I get to learn some of your secrets, Cheryl Beth Wilson?”
She forced herself to speak. “Maybe I don’t have any. Maybe I’m only a simple, small-town girl from Corbin, Kentucky.”
“I doubt that.”
“Then stick around. Sleep tight.”
“You, too.”
After he hung up, she sank into the water and smiled and sobbed.
Friday
Chapter Twenty-four
Will looked very debonair-yes, that was exactly the right word-sitting across from her. His charcoal pinstripe suit looked new, and his crisp white shirt was set off with a purple tie that had a subtle pattern. She was feeling the shortness of the black dress she was wearing, her legs encased in sheer black stockings, but he definitely noticed and complimented her twice about how good she looked. “Smashing,” was one tribute; rather like “debonair.”