Powers of Arrest (7 page)

Chapter Ten

“God damn you.”

Will glared at Dodds as the entire homicide unit erupted in applause and laughter.

“I didn’t even know who you were dialing at first.”

“You may call me J.C. the matchmaker,” Dodds said, a smug grin on his face. “You were too much of a chickenshit, so I had to do it for you.”

“Asshole. And stop that ‘Mister President’ shit. Now where do I take her?”

“Palm Court,” came one suggestion behind his back.

“Too formal,” Will said. “What will that make her think?”

“I dunno,” Dodds said. “Like you have class? How about the Precinct? Historic old police station, cop motif, all that.”

“Across the river,” Lieutenant Fassbinder said. “Nice view of the city.”

It felt good to be back in homicide again, in the fifth-floor offices leased from the county in the art deco tower at 800 Broadway that once housed the
Cincinnati Times-Star
newspaper. The old energy, the familiar faces, now everyone fueled with the adrenaline to catch whoever killed Kristen Gruber. Her name was written in red capital letters on the big white board that tracked the progress of the year’s homicide cases: unsolved. Immediately above it, also in red, was Jeremy Snowden, the cellist. That call early that morning seemed like a lifetime ago. In fact, the board had half a dozen names in red. All unsolved cases. The unit was already stretched.

Still, everyone was eager for a piece of this case. It was a murdered cop and, thanks to the television show, also a dead celebrity. Will went through the same briefing he had given the commanders before their press conference. Much was being held back, including that Gruber’s purse or wallet, cell phone, badge, and gun were not on the boat. Her keys were missing. The divers brought out sonar to search the river bottom for the firearm. Her clothes were aboard, neatly folded, but her panties were missing.

“Maybe a trophy taker,” Slamowitz theorized, picking his teeth as usual.

“Maybe she didn’t wear panties.” This from Kovach, who was one year from retirement and smiling for the first time Will could remember.

Fassbinder told LeAnn Skeen, the only woman in the unit, to be on the first morning flight to Myrtle Beach to interview the parents. Will knew he was reasoning, from experience, that a female detective would be better at coaxing information out of a grieving mother and father.

“Take your bikini,” Dodds said.

“I’d use one of yours, J.C., but your man-boobs are too big,” she said.

“Meet me at the Hustler store, baby.” He smiled lasciviously.

“Stop it, children,” Fassbinder said, “or I’m going to have a sexual harassment claim on my hands, probably filed by Dodds.”

“Always keeping the black man down,” Dodds said in mock severity.

For these minutes the unit had the snug feel of the old days. Amazingly, his old desk across from Dodds was empty, too, as if waiting for him. Dodds still had the homey needlepoint sign on the cluttered desktop that said, “Our Day Begins When Your Days End.” But everything had changed. Will had spent ten years in this office and now he felt like a stranger. He was off homicide and his real desk was over at headquarters. And even though he had received a round of applause when he walked in tonight, his first appearance there since getting out of the hospital, he knew they no longer really considered him one of them. He was the PIO, the guy on television, the one who walked with a cane. He sensed that at least some of his former colleagues wondered why the hell he was the lead on this case. He wondered the same thing. But he had cleared too many murders for this to be anything but an awareness leavened deep in the collective consciousness of a group used to working together.

With Covington detectives checking Gruber’s phone records, Fassbinder sent Kovach and Slamowitz to interview the other two officers featured on
LadyCops
. “Find out if they know whether she had a boyfriend,” Will said and regretted it. They knew that.

Schmidt was dispatched to the Seven Hills Marina, where Gruber moored the boat. Would her car be in the parking lot? Someone would need to look into cases she had worked. Will volunteered. But first, he set off for the home of a dead cop.

***

Kristen Gruber lived in a high-rise condo at the end of a long cul-de-sac that ran off McMillan Street. It was on a palisade overlooking the Ohio River at the edge of Walnut Hills, a short drive east from downtown. Walk a few blocks and you’d be in the heart of a ghetto. But this street was quiet, empty and framed by trees, the remnants of the thunderstorm still dripping off the leaves. The storms had moved east, leaving the air smelling of rain. Will sat in his unmarked car, driver’s window open to the damp night air, waiting for the Covington detective. Cheryl Beth Wilson was way too much on his mind. He had been so nervous he hadn’t even asked what she was doing now that the hospital had closed. Did she think he was rude? And what if something did develop between them? His body was different now. Could he perform as a man? He gently pushed her face out of his mind, flipped on a flashlight, and began reading Kristen’s personnel jacket.

She was thirty-four years old, five-feet-seven, one-hundred-thirty pounds, single. She had joined the force ten years ago after graduating from the University of Cincinnati. After four years on patrol, she had joined Central Vice, then became PIO. The jacket held a slick folder used to promote
LadyCops
. Inside that was a color eight-and-half-by-eleven photo of Kristen, wearing a black T-shirt, black flack vest emblazoned with “POLICE,” and a smile with perfect teeth and seamless confidence. The other two officers on the show were uniforms, one white with brown hair, the other black and average-looking. Neither had the fine looks of Kristen.

Gruber’s record looked almost too clean: No excessive force complaints, no shootings, not even an accidental firearm discharge. She had plenty of commendations. Will flipped through the supervisor reviews: “proactive,” “highly effective,” “diffused dangerous situation,” “dedicated,” “tough,” “unrelenting.” Will knew some of these sergeants and lieutenants, and a few were still back in the Stone Age about female officers. They would be much more likely to grade her hard. Yet she uniformly won them over. That and the all-American-girl face: an Ivory Soap complexion for Ivory’s hometown. He remembered her from the academy: even then she seemed like a comer.

He was not. His body was giving out on him after working the longest straight shift since he had gotten out of the hospital. He usually took a break in the middle of the day and laid down. Not today, and even the gift of adrenaline was starting to run out. His back was catching fire with pain. His right leg felt wrapped around itself with muscle spasms. He had been off pain meds for months now. Nothing to do about that except take Advil back at home. He popped his two Neurontin on time, washing them down with bottled water, and wished he could go upstairs by himself. But jurisdictional niceties must be observed.

“Can’t quit,” he mumbled, waiting for the pills to kick in and lessen the spasms.

He saw the headlights behind him and a dark Ford Crown Vic slowed. He waved and started the car, pulling up to the building’s main entrance. The Covington detective met him at the door. Her name was Diane Henderson, and she was also a thirty-something strawberry blonde, but she was shorter and lacked the youthful dazzle and fit build of Kristen. Henderson was still in the black jeans and white top she had worn when he had first met her and the other Covington cops that morning.

“You have a search warrant?” she said.

Will nodded. With a murdered police officer, the Hamilton County judges had been lined up to sign.

They approached the concierge, a middle-aged black man in a blazer and tie, who exuded a studied dignity. He examined Will’s badge and identification a long time. Will’s shield still lacked the black band of mourning. He’d have to fix that later. Then he read the search warrant. They asked if he had a master key.

“I’ll let you in,” he said. “Terrible thing, what happened to that girl.”

“Yes, sir,” Will said, and asked if the concierge worked there regularly. He did, every night except Monday and Tuesday. All visitors had to check in at his desk. Unfortunately, a log of names wasn’t kept. The concierge called the tenant and then the visitor was allowed to go up.

“Did Ms. Gruber have a boyfriend?” Will asked.

“Hmmmmm. Couldn’t really say, detective.”

“Which means?” Henderson said.

He stared at his shoes. “Which means, ma’am, that she kept male company, but I don’t know which were her boyfriends. I’m not paid to pay attention to things like that. She was a good tenant.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Will said. “So you’re saying she had more than one boyfriend?”

“She was a normal young woman,” the concierge said.

Will asked, “Did she have a lot of men or a few men? Regulars?”

“She was young and attractive. She was burnin’ rubber, if you know what I mean. And I don’t mean anything more than that. She was a good tenant, like I said. I can remember some men who came a few times. Some once or twice.”

They started toward the elevators, Henderson and the concierge sprinting ahead of him, or so it seemed. Will walked as fast as he could and they slowed down. “So they stayed the night? These men?”

“Some did.”

“Five in one year?” Will asked.

“Sounds about right.” He stared at Will. “Detective, I don’t get paid to keep track of tenants’ personal lives. In fact, I get paid to do the opposite, as long as they follow the rules.”

They stepped in the elevator and started to the fifteenth floor.

Henderson spoke. “What about women?”

“She had women visitors, if that’s what you mean.”

“Any stay the night.”

He paused. “I noticed one. Not my business to know more. Kids today are different.”

The elevator doors slid open with the sound of a whoosh and an electronic bell, and they stepped out into a carpeted hallway.

“We may be back in the next few days to show you photos,” Will said.

“I’ll try to help, but to be honest all you people look alike to me.”

Nobody laughed.

“So her visitors were all white?”

“That would be so.”

He led them to a door and used the master key. It didn’t open easily. He had to jiggle it and pull the door up slightly before it opened.

“It automatically locks, so please close up when you’re done.” The concierge disappeared quickly.

“‘All you people look alike to me.’” Henderson let out a low laugh.

The condo was spacious, with hardwood floors and new contemporary furniture.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a neat-freak who was a vic,” she said, and it was true. They turned on lights, and the place looked immaculate. Everything was in its place. The kitchen seemed unused. The refrigerator held three bottles of Chardonnay and half-a-dozen individual containers of plain yogurt. The cabinets had a few dishes, pots, and pans, but this was not a woman who cooked.

“So is your leg injured, Borders?”

“It’s way more complicated than that,” Will said. And she left it alone, motioning. “I’ll start in the bedroom.”

He slipped on latex gloves and wandered around the living room, which had two walls of windows facing south and east. Traffic on Columbia Parkway shot by silently far below, and the view of the big bend in the Ohio River must have been spectacular in daylight. As it was, he could see the lights of Newport across the wide darkness of water. A large framed photo of the Riverfest fireworks dominated one wall. Another held a sizeable flat plasma television facing a cream sofa and chairs. There were no books. One shelf held a photo of her parents, another of her in uniform on graduation day from the academy. No boyfriends. He opened drawers and cabinets to a chest below the TV: carefully catalogued DVDs of
LadyCops
episodes, a few movies, a new DVD player. No knives or threatening letters.

A smaller bedroom held a desk, chair, and computer. Two pens sat neatly spaced next to the PC. Six inches away, a cordless phone sat charging in its dock. Beside the desk, a shelf contained half a dozen black boxes, the kind you bought at a home organization store. He sat down and began opening them. The first held office supplies. The next two were filled with letters, all neatly filed with tabs indicating months. He slid one out at random and began to read. It was addressed to her, care of CPD headquarters. A thirteen-year-old girl from San Diego watched Kristen on every episode of
LadyCops
and wanted to become a police officer “like you.” At the top, a neat hand had written in red, “replied 2/23.” Will was amazed a teenager would write a real letter, but then Kristen’s email address wasn’t easily available. He slid it back in its place and opened another. The Cleveland NAACP was complaining that the show only had African-American suspects.

“Fan mail.” He looked over his shoulder at Henderson standing in the doorway.

“Jeez, Borders, how many?”

“Hundreds. At least.”

“Do you know how many man hours that is? My captain will go berserk.”

“We haven’t even started on her email,” Will said.

“You guys can do that. You have more resources.”

“Yeah, yeah. My lieutenant would disagree with you.”

“This is more fun.” She dangled a pair of black panties. “Officer Gruber favored black lace.” Will followed her into the master bedroom and sat heavily in an upholstered chair facing a king-sized bed. Henderson held up more contents from Kristen’s underwear drawer.

She saw Will’s expression. “That’s called a merry widow, or a corset,” she said, replacing the garment. “She’s also got garters and stockings. Black and white, depending on the mood, I guess. In the closet, she’s got three little black dresses. Must be nice to have had the body to carry that off.”

“Any firearm?”

Henderson shook her head. “Not a damn one. No badge or ID. No cell phone. She’s got birth control pills in the bathroom. No other prescriptions. Nothing else out of the ordinary.”

Will pushed himself up and walked over to the bed that faced the wide window. On a side table, another telephone handset sat in the main charger, but it showed no messages. That seemed strange, but he made note of it in his mind.