He let her get the bike and ride off, then lit up his unmarked cruiser, turned east on Eighth, and accelerated to sixty, the big twin-turbocharged Interceptor engine sounding like a fighter jet closing in on its target.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Melissa spent three hours with Dodds and a police artist. More overtime for Fassbinder to bitch about. She kept protesting that she hadn’t gotten a great look at the suspect, that the bar had been too dim, but a sketch was produced. At five p.m., Will called all the television and radio stations, as well as the city desk at the Enquirer: a press conference would be held in an hour regarding the Gruber murder. That would be enough to draw a crowd. It was agreed that Will would conduct the briefing, the chief overruling Fassbinder’s objections. Will was the one the killer knew, the one he had threatened.
Once again, the room at police headquarters was flooded with television lights. Will wore a dark suit and French blue shirt with a blue-and-burgundy rep tie. He was flanked by the brass and tried not to tilt or hold on too tightly to the podium.
“Thank you for coming,” he began. Cheryl Beth sat in the front row and gave him a secret smile. “Tonight we want to tell you about a new development in the investigation of the murder of Officer Kristen Gruber. What’s being passed around is a sketch of a person of interest in the case. You can also see it on the screen to my right. He’s a white male, twenty-five to thirty years of age, at least six-feet-three inches tall, muscular build, and bald.”
The room rustled with paper and whispers. He waited for it to die down. “Based on our investigation, witness interviews, and a profile of the murderer, I can tell you a few things. He’s a loner and has an anger-management problem that would be noticeable to his friends and family. He might have threatened them. This person might have been seen around the Seven Hills Marina last weekend. He might also have been on the Loveland Bicycle Trail.” He slowed down the next part: “This suspect is impotent and was probably sexually abused as a child.” Maybe those words would smoke him out. He heard a still camera clicking. “It is entirely possible that the person of interest shown in this sketch is our murderer. He is extremely dangerous. If you see this man, you should call nine-one-one immediately. We won’t be taking any questions tonight. Thank you for coming.”
It was eight before they had dinner at Joe’s Diner on Sycamore. The old standby with its chrome walls and a neon sign had been revived from the riots. It was only a few blocks from home. The night was gentled by light rain, and the streets shone. Inside, they got a table without a wait and talked about the day over burgers, fries, and onion rings. “I’ll eat onion rings if you will,” she said, and it was decided. He praised her again for finding the witness and convincing her to come down immediately. She asked about his shadowing of Kenneth Buchanan, and he told the story.
“Do you still think Buchanan did it?”
Will took in a deep breath, took stock. “I don’t know. Sometimes in this job you have to avoid the hammer and nail thing…” She smiled widely, a beautiful thing. “When you’re the hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
“I feel for that girl,” Cheryl Beth said. “But ten thousand dollars is a lot of money.”
“Not in Buchanan’s world. And, he wants her to go away. I wonder how many other times he’s had to bail out his son’s stupid mistakes.”
He talked about John and the parallels.
“You love him,” she said. The words made him uncomfortable in that context. He couldn’t say exactly why. It was something to do with the many separations and alienations of recent years: Cindy drawing apart, then a complete rupture, John’s sullen and difficult adolescence, and then the reappearance of his biological father.
“I think my old man would have let me spend a night in jail to get my mind right,” he said. Comfortable in her presence, he talked about his dad. He wasn’t cruel or abusive, a typical father of his era. He didn’t want to be your buddy and you damned sure weren’t his equal. “We didn’t have a bunch of stuff. We didn’t go shopping for recreation. I don’t know. I see kids like John, or this Buchanan son, or the one who was piloting the boat on Saturday night. They’re ruined by money.”
“I never got that chance,” she said.
“I hear you.”
He went on. “My dad really disapproved of me becoming a police officer. He wanted me to be a lawyer. ‘Something respectable,’ he’d say. I never understood why he devalued himself that way.” He felt safe enough with her to go on. “I was working the night he was shot. I was on patrol, District Five, up around Winton Hills. He was a patrol sergeant in District One. Could have been a captain, a fine detective. But he couldn’t stand the politics, he disliked the detectives, and he liked the street. So, that night was busy in his district. He was the first on the scene. A couple was mixing it up in the projects, dad went in and separated them, and the man came back with a gun in his hand and shot him. Once right in the heart.” He had to slow down. “And that was that.”
She reached across and took his hand, holding it tight.
The food arrived and Will let her take the first onion ring; she preferred the small ones. “A perfect match,” he said. “I like the big ones.”
He lowered his voice. “If Buchanan’s not our guy, I don’t even know where to begin. Her two other boyfriends have solid alibis. They’ve found another guy she had an affair with a year ago. He moved to Denver last August, swears it was an amiable separation, he hadn’t heard from her since. He has an alibi, too.” He bit into the ring and soon the whole thing was gone. “Except for your witness, nothing’s going our way. If he doesn’t make a move against me, we’re screwed.” He sighed. “And here I am putting you at risk, too”
“We’ve been through that,” she said. “I hope you don’t have that many girlfriends going.” She put a straw in her mouth and sipped Diet Coke.
“Only one, but she’s really hot.”
“So tell me how you tailed this guy, got an emergency call, and didn’t get caught.”
He laughed loudly and any weight of the day or the past flew off.
They were still laughing as they left an hour later. The rain had stopped so they did not get soaked as Will did his slow-walk with the cane to the car, which was parked in a lot across Grear Alley. One big building, once the School for Creative and Performing Arts, filled the view to the north. Sirens were yowling off to the west. He opened the door for Cheryl Beth and closed it. Then he walked around the car, making an inventory of their surroundings, touching the raindrops on the trunk and fenders. His right hand was hurting from holding the cane. A couple was fighting fifty feet away. A man yelled, “You think because you’re beautiful and men want to fuck you…”
As he started to open the door, he felt something hard and cold right behind his left ear.
“Hello Detective Borders.” The voice was low, barely audible. “Your friends aren’t tailing you tonight.” A small laugh. “I guess they went for donuts. You’ve been searching for Kristen’s gun. I thought I’d bring it to you.” The barrel tapped hard against his skull. The fighting couple got in their car and drove away. They were alone in the lot now.
“Now don’t think about doing anything cute,” the voice said. “You’re going to do exactly what I say.”
If Will were not crippled, he would teach this man cute. If Will didn’t yearn for a future with Cheryl Beth, and couldn’t take chances with her so near, he would give this a lesson. When somebody was holding a gun that close, it was possible to quickly step inside the reach of his arm, inside his firing radius, and disarm him. It was easier when done from the front, but he could do it. He once could have done it.