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Will gave a final “yes, sir” and put the phone down, a defeated look on his face.
“The Dayton Daily News had a story this morning saying the suspect in the Miami killings had committed suicide in Cincinnati last week. The chief wants to know how they put that together. How the hell do I know? We never released Noah’s name. The newspaper didn’t even call me for a comment. Hank Brooks was helpful, giving a ‘no comment,’ which makes a good reporter think something’s being hidden. Goddamn it to hell…”
She put a hand on his arm. He slumped into the seat.
“Now I have to explain this disaster with John. And Fassbinder told the chief that I was the one who said we shouldn’t go public with the connection between Gruber and your students. Damn him. If you don’t mind, would you pull the knife out of my back?”
She smiled. He didn’t.
“They’re going to give a media briefing this afternoon and bring in the Oxford murders and their connection to Gruber. I’m not to be there. The chief wants me to take a leave.”
He suddenly slammed his fist on the steering wheel.
“I’m useless! I’m done! All they see is this fucking cane and they judge me. They keep it to themselves in their nice Cincinnati way, but they judge me and stab me in the back. I’ve cleared more homicide cases than anyone in the unit except for Dodds, but does that mean anything? No. I didn’t even want this case, but the chief assigned me. Now I’m a liabi
lity. I’m a cripple who can’t cut it anymore…”
“Stop that!” The words were out of her mouth before she realized it, and all the tension and anger that she had held inside blew out like a high-pressure oil well. “You are not useless, or done, or a liability! The only one who sees that cane is you. The only one who doesn’t see a tall, handsome, impressive man is you. Do you know how lucky you are, Will Borders? Do you remember all those people in neuro-rehab, the quads who couldn’t move the arms and legs? I see people every day who are sick and dying. You’re alive and strong! You got a second chance that so many people never get!”
She was fighting tears now. She tended to cry when she got mad. But her anger quickly dissipated.
In the silence, he took her hand and held it to his face. She could feel his tears, too. His kissed her palm, whispered, “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
The car’s layout, with radios and a computer between the seats, made it difficult, but she scrunched over and gave him a long hug. She didn’t care who was watching.
“No displays of affection in an official police vehicle!”
It was Dodds, standing by Will’s door.
“Check this out.” He handed an official-looking piece of paper to Will. The upper part showed a mug shot of a hard face staring at the camera and above it no hair.
“Charles Wayne Whitaker,” Will said. “Registered sex offender. Convicted of raping a woman in Columbus ten years ago.”
“Yep,” Dodds said. “It gets better. Remember Kristen’s fan mail? We took it back from Covington. They didn’t have the manpower. So I had police recruits go through two-hundred letters yesterday. Mister Whitaker wrote to Kristen, telling her all the things he’s like to do to her.”
“No shit? Does Henderson know?”
“I’m going to tell her. Why do all your white psychos have Wayne as a middle name?”
“Yours have De-Wayne,” Will shot back, but she could see his body relax.
Dodds put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “We’re going to get him. All this is going to work out.”
“Chief wants me to take a leave.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
“Yes, sir, Chief Dodds.”
They rode back through Covington’s old streets in silence. From the bridge, she could see the river filled with pleasure craft, as if Kristen Gruber’s murder had never happened.
“Turn here,” she said quietly once they reached the other side.
She gave a couple more directions and he knew where she wanted to go. In five minutes, they slipped out of downtown, around Mount Adams, and into Eden Park. It was the grandest of Cincinnati’s hilltop parks, with its abundance of trees, grass, gardens, and a view into the distant blue-green hills that instantly relaxed her. The flowers were in full bloom, in more colors than she could count or name. He illegally parked where they could look across the shallow reflecting pond of Mirror Lake at the gazebo. Its jet-stream fountain shot six stories in the air. For a long time, they sat and took in the views, the sweet spring air, and the people walking and sitting in a happy normality, where babies didn’t die, men weren’t struck down in their prime, and killers didn’t roam the darkness.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I should call the university and get them to send my students home. I should have done this before, but first I thought…” Noah Smith’s face hovered before her and she stopped herself. “First I didn’t know if Noah was the killer. Then, I thought my students wouldn’t be in danger because the killer was after you, after us. There’s no excuse. They’ve worked so hard for this clinical time and it’s almost the end of the semester. They want to get this over with. That’s the way I felt when I was a student nurse. But they can make it up in the summer. They’re all potential targets of this Charles Whitaker.”
“I think you’re right,” he said.
