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“He said he was with his wife Saturday night. He wasn’t. She told a thousand people last night that she was at the symphony last Saturday night, listening to Jeremy Snowden play for the last time, and then she went to a party with the musicians. So either he was with her, and he lied to me about going to the symphony, and why the hell would he do that? Or he lied because he wasn’t with her. He was on the river. Let’s bring him in.”
Fassbinder shook his head. “You call that probable cause? You’re crazy, Borders. We can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Dodds said. “Because he’s white? Because he’s rich and lives in Indian Hill? If we had the same P.C. against some black kid in Avondale, he’d be in jail.”
“Don’t.” Fassbinder aimed a finger. His face was nearly crimson.
“Just sayin’. You didn’t complain when I brought in the guy who did the cello player. Right color, I guess…” Dodds knew how to push everybody’s buttons. It was one of his useful characteristics, as long as you weren’t on the receiving end.
Will persisted. “Let’s put a tail on Buchanan. See where he goes. Let’s interview people at the marina about him. Maybe somebody saw him leave on Saturday evening in his own boat.”
“No.” Fassbinder’s eyes were bloodshot with anger. “I mean it, Borders. You’re hanging by a thread here. I’ll take your pension. I’ll make sure you end up on Social Security disability eating dog food. Do not go off the reservation. The only reason I don’t bring you up right now is the chance our guy might try to kill you.”
***
Dodds caught up with Will and Cheryl Beth at the elevators.
“Fassbinder was way out of line,” he said, “bringing up your father like that. The whole unit thinks so.”
“Thanks,” Will said, feeling raw and tired from the meeting.
“I’ll have your back,” Dodds said. “You ask for it, I’ll do it. I think I can speak for everybody.”
“Then you be the one who tails me today. Keep the others away for a few hours.”
Dodds didn’t ask why. He merely nodded.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Cheryl Beth arrived well before the service was scheduled to begin. She hadn’t been to Dayton in years. It was still a pretty city, laid out in a valley where the Great Miami River makes a wide bend. But she was stunned by the sense of collapse: the shuttered factories, empty buildings, and dead downtown. Even NCR’s headquarters was gone. It was the story of the Midwest now.
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…”
