He had left town three years ago. She hadn’t hated him-they had too much fun. She did miss his company, miss the hope, stopped listening to any sad songs. She missed him at odd moments, seeing a street they had walked down, a park where they had picnicked. He had introduced her to jazz and wine-we are so much the product of our old lovers. She missed the feel of his breathing on her shoulder as they slept together, and the way he always made love to her in the morning, before he left. Where Andy had lain atop her and humped, he would raise himself on his forearms and look at her with an angelic smile, and he had taught her so many positions. Damn, she hated thinking about it, and yet many days it was a warm, immediate memory. It did not last. Later, she realized how she had been rebound-vulnerable to Gary Nagle. It was her fault. Damn it. She kept all this to herself. Will probably thought she was a floozy already. Her family certainly did. Her mother couldn’t believe she would divorce Andy, but then she couldn’t believe Cheryl Beth didn’t want to live in that little town forever and just have kids.
“…Absolutely not the press.” It was as if they had been researching her life. But why? That was too paranoid.
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t have an explanation for the letter, either,” Will said. “None of the other victims received letters. We do know that Christine had received threatening phone calls. Did you know that?”
“No.” She didn’t make an effort to drive. They sat stationary in the warm car.
“I’ve done some asking around,” Will said. “Berkowitz used to be on the force, and I convinced him to help me a little. The hospital was very sensitive about the murder. They wanted the publicity shut down, which I can understand. What’s unusual is that they weren’t leaning on the cops to get results, to close this case. They just wanted it to go away. Dodds is working alone; his partner’s on maternity leave. That was fine with them. Now that’s odd. In my experience, the big boss would have been on the phone to the chief demanding that fifty detectives be assigned to the case.”
“They just wanted it to go away,” Cheryl Beth said.
“Berkowitz said something about accreditation?”
“Yes,” she said. “The Joint Commission. They accredit the hospital. We just went through that.”
“Berkowitz said something was wrong. Some major problems, and accreditation might be withheld. Did you know about this?”
“We’ve been waiting for word.”
“They can’t just conceal it?”
“It’s public information,” Cheryl Beth said. “But I guess if nobody asks… I can’t believe they would try to conceal such a thing. You typically have time to lay out a plan to correct the problems. Hospitals can get partial or provisional accreditation. But Cincinnati Memorial? My God, we used to be the gold standard.”
“Maybe the bosses are trying to figure out a way to put a spin on the positive and bury the rest. I guess big money was at stake. Doctor training funds, Medicare, Medicaid. Some big federal grant for a computer upgrade.”
“The digital medicine project. Christine had stopped her practice to work on it.”
“I learned something else about that. She had been reassigned to that basement office a month before. She had been working in the administrative offices. Berkowitz said she was moved. Why? In the police world, it would mean you really pissed off somebody powerful.”
“That’s exactly what Mason told me. She had been moved. He didn’t know why.” Cheryl Beth shook her head, processing all the new information. Then, “It still doesn’t explain the threatening letter. Maybe Dodds found Mason’s fingerprints on it. Are you really so sure your bad cop did this?”
Will was silent as she started the car.
Finally, “If I can’t make the case to you, I sure as hell can’t do it with Dodds. What would it take to convince you?”
“You’re the detective. What other tricks do you have up your sleeve?”
He thought about this for a long moment. “Are you willing to try a long shot?”
Chapter Twenty-seven
They drove east out of downtown on Columbia Parkway, quickly passing the promontory of Mount Adams and the modern condo where a chief executive of Procter and Gamble was said to keep his mistress. On the left were the tree-lined hills with condo towers sprouting out at intervals, and on the right the broad Ohio River curved and dipped. One lonely barge was being pushed upriver by a tug. Will told Cheryl Beth about the time years ago when the river had frozen solid and he had walked across to Kentucky. But she quickly moved back to the case.
“Wouldn’t the Mount Adams killer have kept the ring fingers as trophies?” she asked.
“Nobody knows about the ring fingers, so don’t blurt that out accidentally with Dodds or he’ll have a stroke.”
“I’ll be a good girl, and if he has a CVA, I’ll help treat him. Seriously, though.”
“That would be the profile,” Will admitted, “and we never found them among Factor’s things. We never even found the kind of tool that would do it.”
“Surgeons have those instruments.” She spoke more softly, staring straight ahead at the road. “Even a pair of heavy-duty bandage shears would do-they need to be able to cut off leather boots, whatever, in an emergency.”
She was still sure the killer was Gary Nagle. Will was trying to work out how to deal with Darlene Corley. Her statement had given Bud Chambers his alibi. The night of Theresa’s murder, Chambers had been on duty, except for a four-hour period that would have perfectly coincided with Theresa’s time of death. Once Will and Dodds had established this fact-after days of stonewalling by other officers on Chambers’ shift and even his watch commander-Darlene had emerged. She was Chambers’ girlfriend and he had been with her, at her place down by the river.
“How do you know she didn’t do it?”
Will laughed. “You’d make a good detective. How’d you get so cynical?”
“Old boyfriends.”
“You deserve a lot better than that.” He was instantly embarrassed he had said it, and continued quickly. “Now that you mention it, she’d be tall enough and strong enough. There’s the little matter of rape. Craig Factor was arrested and the semen matched.”
“But only one of the cases.”
Right. They never really had a chance to sweat her. Neither detective believed her story covering for Bud Chambers. But it didn’t seem to matter once Factor was in custody. Now Will would give it one more try. “Turn here.”
They could have gone north, up Delta into Mount Lookout and Hyde Park, where even the sidewalks seemed to radiate graceful prosperity. But they turned toward the river, past a restaurant called The Precinct, which was once a police station. Another quick turn and they continued on old Highway 52, in the ancient neighborhoods that clung to the riverbank below Alms Park. They usually got the worst of it when the Ohio had its way, defying the most elaborate flood control attempts. You could see the water marks on some of the old houses. Will directed Cheryl Beth to turn again, and he immediately saw the three white police cruisers.
“Hell.” He pointed to the porch of a tattered duplex. Half a strand of Christmas lights dangled off the rain gutters. Darlene Corley was sitting on the steps, her hands behind her, obviously handcuffed. One officer led a tall, rough-hewn man down the walk toward a cruiser. With stubble on his face and his dark hair poking out as if it had been shellacked, he looked as if he hadn’t bathed for a week. He was handcuffed and cursing, walking down a weedy path and through an opening in a rusty, waist-high cyclone fence. The officer opened a back door and stuffed him inside, holding his hand above his filthy head to keep him from banging it on the top of the door sill. Will had done it thousands of times. He rolled down the window and beckoned the cop over.