She diligently checked her rearview mirror, but was sure she wasn’t being followed. She felt Will’s absence and thought about the previous night. She had held her love for a long time and now she could see herself falling for this man. He was smart and gentle. She was not a girl now, and yet she felt emotions that made her feel seventeen. All her life, she had wanted to be kissed in Fountain Square underneath the statue with its falling waters. Will Borders was the man who had done that for her. It was thrilling and frightening. She had never let a man this close, this fast. Yet it felt right.
Through the thin partition at the homicide bureau, she had heard the raised voice directed at Will. She didn’t want to hate his lieutenant but it was hard. His father had been killed when Will was only twenty-two, a rookie patrolman. It was one of their bonds: she had lost her father when she was ten. She had felt like an orphan girl after that day. She was now older than her father was when he died.
Woodland Cemetery was a lovely garden of graves southeast of downtown Dayton. Everything was blooming and budding. She parked behind the long procession of cars and made her way across the grass to a group of three dozen people. Her students all came, and for a long time they stood in a tight circle, hugging and talking.
Then she introduced herself to Lauren Benish’s parents. They were only a little older than her, but had the shattered, numb look of the grieving. She had seen it so many times in the hospital. It contained a special dark quality when it was a parent facing the death of a child. To outlive your child: she knew it so well and struggled not to let her own tears turn into sobs.
April Benish looked nothing like her sister. She was short, trim, and blond. Her work as an R.N. at Miami Valley Hospital had inspired Lauren to go into the nursing program. She and Cheryl Beth had a long, deliberately light conversation while everyone waited for the minister. Lauren’s casket sat in a silver frame, a spray of lilies on the top, the hole in the ground in which it would descend kept well concealed.
Then April struggled through a eulogy, even mentioning Cheryl Beth as Lauren’s favorite instructor. It embarrassed and moved her. Lauren’s brother played a guitar and sang Amazing Grace in a scratchy tenor voice. She closed her eyes and listened to the minister. She was very conscious of the revolver in her purse as the reverend started his talk.
“Friends, we have gathered here to praise God and to witness to our faith as we celebrate the life of Lauren Benish. We are here together in grief, recognizing our human loss. But beyond these tears, we celebrate Lauren’s life. We pray that God grants us grace, that in pain we may find comfort, in sadness hope, in death resurrection…”
Cheryl Beth tried to pay attention. Lauren’s death was so senseless, the act so evil. The man who did it was still out there, and maybe even here. She looked around the cemetery with fresh, suspicious eyes. Will was aware she was coming up here to the memorial service, but she knew he didn’t want her to play amateur sleuth. Still, her gaze patrolled the crowd.
She joined in by rote: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” hearing an echo with the other voices among her.
Someone had sought out Lauren, Holly, and Noah. Was it even someone in her classes? Could it have been one of the janitors who cleaned the classrooms in Hamilton? Patients: what creepy or odd people had Lauren cared for as a student nurse? She would have to go back through the records. No one immediately came to mind.
None of this would explain the murder of Kristen Gruber. She was a cop. But a monster that saw murder as an art chose each of the victims. She looked for a bald man, found none, looked for a serial killer out of a movie, a creepy unshaven fat man or a sleek sinister-looking figure. All she saw were people fighting unbearable sorrow. She thought about Will and took comfort.
“…Keep true in us the love with which we hold one another…”
It had been years since Cheryl Beth had been to church. She considered herself a believer, and certainly spiritual. But something about leaving a small town where church attendance was mandatory, whatever was in your heart, had driven her away from organized religion. Or maybe she was lazy. She would have to think about that.
“…In all our ways we trust you. O Lord, all that you have given us is yours. You gave Lauren to us and she enriched all our lives. Now we give Lauren back to you…”
And suddenly it was over and people were walking away in twos and threes, the car engines starting amid the silence in a cruel benediction that life would go on. When Cheryl Beth felt the brush against her sleeve, she jumped.
“I’m sorry!”
The young woman beside her had short brown hair parted in the middle, a pleasant heartland face, and permanently sleepy eyes. She apologized again and introduced herself as Melissa.
“April said I should talk to you.”
“What about?”
She hesitated. “Lauren. I was with her that night at Brick Street.”
“The bar in Oxford?”
The woman nodded. “Lauren and I were best friends since high school. We both went to Miami. But I saw less of her after she started spending more time in Hamilton for the nursing classes. So we decided to catch up that day. We went riding, and then we changed and came into Oxford to have a few drinks.”
“When was this?”
“It was two weeks before…” She looked away at the casket, where only Lauren’s parents now stood wordlessly.
“Two Saturdays before she was killed?” Cheryl Beth asked.
“Exactly.”
Melissa said the bar was crowded and they were standing, drinking beers, when a man approached Lauren and started a conversation.
“He was very funny. He obviously knew how to talk to girls.”
“What did he look like?”
“I didn’t get a great look at him. At first, I was pretty much ignoring him. Then I got separated from Lauren and was talking with some friends at a table. He had a great body. It wasn’t that warm outside, but he wore tight jeans and a T-shirt. He was very well built. He had no hair. He was bald or shaved his head, and didn’t have a beard or anything.”
“Middle-aged?” Cheryl Beth said. “April told me that Lauren said it was a middle-aged man.”
“Lauren couldn’t tell age. This guy might have been a little older, but not like my father, you know? He was obviously more interested in Lauren than me. I was used to that. She was always the pretty one.” She stifled a sob. “She told me he said he was an artist and wanted her to model for him.”
The skin on the back of Cheryl Beth’s neck tingled. It was enough to make her look around to confirm that they were alone.
“And Lauren said no…”
“That was when he got mean. By that time I was watching them. He called her names, really nasty stuff. I swear to God he went from Mister Charisma to Mister Creep in a heartbeat. She wasn’t mean to him. But she had a boyfriend and wasn’t interested in whatever this guy wanted. The bartender told him to leave and I went back over to Lauren to make sure she was all right.”
“Was he a student, Melissa?”
“I’d never seen him before around campus, but there are fourteen thousand students. Something about him didn’t fit in…” She dug in her purse and produced a cigarette. “Do you mind?”
“No.” In the presence of so much else that could kill a person, Cheryl Beth wasn’t going to give a healthy living lecture. Melissa lit up and took a long, deep drag.
“This reminds me,” she said. “Sense memory. I’m a theater major. Lauren and I ducked outside a few minutes later to have a smoke. And he was there, maybe half a block away, watching us. He was under a streetlight. His look was really unnerving. We got a couple of guys to walk us to our cars that night.”