She said, “Stop screaming, Jill.” The young woman stopped. “Are you hurt?”
She said she wasn’t.
“We’re losing him,” she said. “If I had a surgical team here right this second…”
“Detective…”
Will looked at Mike’s face. It was turning alabaster and the premature wrinkles were fading. He struggled to breathe, the sound coming from his throat like the grinding gears of an old truck. Will had shot him close to the heart, into one lung, and probably near the aorta.
“What, Mike?”
He whispered. Will bent closer.
“Kristen…”
“What about her?”
“She…” He gasped, his speech slurred. “She was all ready…”
“All ready?”
“No…” And he repeated the word so softly that Will could barely hear it.
All ready for what?”
Will heard one last quick intake of air, and then the man’s eyes went black.
Chapter Thirty-seven
A month later, Will was back in the Homicide offices, and not as a visitor. Along with a medal of valor, he had gotten his old job back. Along with the medal, the chief had given him a dispensation for his physical condition in honor of solving the murder of Kristen Gruber. Fassbinder had retired suddenly and Skeen was taking the lieutenant’s exam. For now, she was the acting Homicide Commander. He sat across from Dodds, who was idly tossing a football in the air. The names of Gruber and Smith had been shifted to black on the white board. But plenty of other names were still written in unsolved red.
A folding knife had been found in Mike Buchanan’s backpack, along with duct tape, a gallon of gasoline, and matches. The knife had been sterilized, so it contained no blood or DNA evidence from the victims. After a search warrant had been executed on the house in Indian Hill, they found four pairs of women’s underwear, one pair of men’s underwear, and Gruber’s badge, keys, and wallet in a hidey-hole of the garage. The DNA matched the young woman in Georgia, Holly Metzger, Lauren Benish, and Noah Smith. There was more: photos of Lauren taken on the bike trail.
Kenneth Buchanan had been arrested and was being tried as an accomplice to rape and murder. They were working with detectives from Georgia to find out whether Buchanan had known about the Athens killing and had concealed Mike’s role in that, too. Buchanan’s former colleagues who went to Elder and Moeller quickly deserted him. Kathryn Buchanan resigned from the symphony.
Will passed his MRI with no new tumors. He had gained another year of bonus time. But, then, the one thing he had learned on this job was that we were all living on bonus time, only most people didn’t realize it.
The LadyCops producers moved their location to Florida.
“Pretty kinky about Kristen, huh?” Dodds tossed the ball hard at Will, who caught it. “Handcuffs, ball gags, sex toys. And such a wholesome face. No disrespect to a fallen comrade.”
“You have a dirty mind.” Will spun the football at his chest.
“Only thing that keeps me going.”
“I’m not a Cincinnati moralist,” Will said.
“Apparently not.” He fired a shot that hurt to catch.
“So are you going to Jimmy Buffett at Riverbend this weekend?”
“No,” Will said. “Cheryl Beth and I will probably take in a movie at the Esquire. And Grammers has reopened in Over-the-Rhine, so we’ll have dinner there. She’s going back to the hospital, you know.”
“Good. Give me back that ball.”
Will tossed it. “You’re the only black parrothead in Cincinnati.”
“That’s an unforgivable racial stereotype.” Dodds faked a pass, kept the ball. “There are at least four of us. You can’t really be a Cincinnatian unless you love Jimmy Buffett.”
“Why is that? We’re about as far from the tropics as you can get.”
The ball came his way, another expert pass. “Partner,” Dodds said, “That’s one of life’s mysteries.”
Skeen intercepted the next pass. She stood between their desks. “Don’t rest on your laurels, gentlemen.” She tapped the casebooks and files that rose several inches high. “They may not be exciting, but they need to be cleared.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dodds said. “Send my poor bones back out into the fields…”
She bopped him on the head with the football.
“I like it when homicide’s boring,” Will said. “Anyway, he’s on call tonight and I’m out of here until Monday.”
Summer had settled its hot towel over the city, so Will took off his suit coat on the elevator ride down. When the doors opened, he noticed the woman talking to the guard. She saw him and immediately walked toward him.
She was tall, blond, and attractive, with a face you’d never forget. But it was one of those out-of-place moments, as if you saw the president serving slop at a chili parlor. It only lasted few seconds. Before he had never seen her so close. He had only seen her onstage, dressed in black, with the mournful cello between her legs.
“Detective Borders,” she said. “My name is Stephanie Foust.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve admired your music for years. I’m so sorry about Jeremy’s death.”
When she heard the name, her composure melted, second-by-second, and she seemed to age in sudden bursts. Her eyes flooded with tears.
“I can’t…” She started to hyperventilate. He told her to slow down her breathing.
“When he told me he was going to marry that little bitch, I couldn’t believe it.”
“Ms. Foust…”
“We had been together for so many years! That he would do that. Marry that girl! She didn’t understand his gifts. She barely listened to real music. She saw him as a ticket to wear Prada. I tried to talk him out of it. We argued over and over.”
“Ms. Foust…”
“Then when I saw that man had been arrested, I couldn’t let him go to jail.” She pulled on his sleeve. “I didn’t mean to…”
“I know,” he said. “Now I want you to stop talking. You have the right to remain silent.”
“I know that!” For a second, the imperiousness of matchless talent handed out by God surfaced, then she started crying. He Mirandized her.
“Take the elevator upstairs,” he said. “Ask for Detective Dodds.”
He watched the elevator doors make her disappear and then walked out to the street, his cane steady, his right quads arguing with his brain. He thought about Cheryl Beth, a short drive and a bottle of wine away, and allowed himself a smile.
John ran down Observatory Avenue past the fine houses. The lights were on and the drapes open. The people inside seemed so happy in the cheerful light and the company of others. Even in a T-shirt and shorts, he was dripping sweat and sucking in the humid air in search of oxygen. Maybe if he lost weight running, he might be welcome in one of those rooms someday, and not because of his mom’s money and connections.
He thought about his stepdad. Will seemed happier than he had ever seen him. It was the girlfriend, of course. John had told him a week ago that he had decided to stay in Ohio and enroll in Miami, like Will. His grades from prep school were certainly good enough. Will was supportive. He seemed cooler when John said he wanted to be a Cincinnati police officer, like Will. But John knew if he got in shape and got a degree, the service of his grandfather and, yes, his father, would help him onto the force.
Will was the closest thing he had to a real father. He would come around.
John never got back his knife. He bought a new one and it seemed to weigh ten pounds as he jogged through the muggy night. He always had it with him. You couldn’t be too careful.
Paying My Debts
I’m grateful once again to Ellie Strang, R.N., who was generous with her time and indulgent of my questions about Cheryl Beth’s professional world. In my professional world, the best luck was getting to work with Barbara Peters, the finest editor a writer could imagine. The crew at the Poisoned Pen Press, especially Robert Rosenwald, Jessica Tribble, Annette Rogers and Nan Beams, continue to impress me by their commitment to excellence. I made use of some rightly beloved Cincinnati institutions in this book. It is, of course, a work of fiction. I also fiddled a bit with the city’s recent timeline. Blame me for any errors, deliberate changes, or inconsistencies. Winston Churchill said Cincinnati was America’s most beautiful inland city. It’s still true, so visit if you haven’t. Bring your heart and soul. It’s certainly a gift to a writer.