Powers of Arrest - [8]

“Quit fighting!”

“Quit resisting!”

The commands came quickly and atop each other. But the naked man dragged himself on the wet grass underneath the cop who had initially tackled him, regained his footing, and ran. The cop tried to grab his ankle but missed and fell face-first onto the grass, taking two other officers down with him.

She knew this man.

It was Noah Smith, one of her nursing students. Grass and mud now mingled with the caked blood on his naked body. Across the grassy distance, their eyes connected, his were full of terror.

“Cheryl Beth! What are you doing here? Help me!”

A female officer used a black baton to strike him in the side of the ribs, the knees. Pain centers. He moaned but ducked past her. She reached for him but lost her balance, spun around, and fell backwards, her equipment belt rattling loudly.

He ran directly toward Cheryl Beth.

Part of her was alarmed, but another was clinical, amused as the Keystone Kops scene unfolded before her. The campus police, city cops and deputies, a dozen now, caught up and surrounded him.

“No, no! Help me!” He dashed toward one cop, then another. They closed the ring, leaving him no escape. Cheryl Beth was now terrified they would shoot him.

“Tase him,” the sergeant said and it was done. The naked young man snapped backwards and arched his back as surely as if he had been defibrillated. Then he lay still on the spring grass, face up.

They turned him over, handcuffed him, and dragged him toward a squad car, opened the back door, and shoved him inside horizontally, hands on his shoulders, legs, and feet. The door shut loudly.

Shock wobbled through her own body. What was Noah doing here, naked and covered in blood? He was a good student, quiet, friendly. Wasn’t that what people always said about serial killers after they were exposed?

“What happened?”

A co-ed asked Cheryl Beth the question, and she realized a crowd had gathered.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

“Do you know this man?”

It was the sergeant. He was a deputy sheriff, not one of the campus police officers. He had red hair and a wide, muscular body.

“He’s one of my students.”

“Here?”

Cheryl Beth nodded, and the sergeant wrote down the information, including her name and phone number in a small notebook.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Last week. He’s doing his clinical work.”

She stared at the squad car that held Noah.

“Someone should at least check his pulse.”

“We’ll take care of all that. Now you need to leave.” The sergeant then raised his voice. “You all need to move on. This is a crime scene.”

Cheryl Beth walked back the way she had come, her legs feeling weak and stringy, her mind wondering what had happened. She would read about it in the newspaper, but that would never tell the whole story. She actually knew a cop. But it had been a long time since she had seen him.

Chapter Four

“Pee-eye-pee-eye-oh!”

“What do you want, Dodds?”

Will Borders swung his body out of the bed with difficulty. The clock said 6:45. He thought about reaching for his cane and standing, then thought better of it. He already had the cell phone in one hand and his legs were feeling both tight and uncertain. He sat and listened to his old partner sing off-key.

“It’s a homicide, buddy.” His voice dropped into its normal roomy baritone.

“I kind of figured, since you’re a homicide detective.”

“Here in Over-the-Rhine, waiting on your white ass.”

“So? A homicide in Over-the-Rhine? I can record something later on the info line for the reporters, post it on the blog.”

“Not this time,” Dodds said. “A white man in a new Lexus with a blade sticking out of his chest. Two television news crews are already here, and we need our PIO on scene.”

Will muttered a profanity.

“Can’t be hard,” Dodds went on. “You’re living in the ghetto already.”

“All right, fifteen minutes.”

“Make it ten.” The line went dead.

Will took his seven a.m. Baclofen early, reached for his black steel cane, and stood. He knew the drill: Tight abdomen, stand with the interior muscles of his legs, and pull his shoulders back and down using his lats. It worked. The days when he could roll out of bed, shower, dress, and be at a crime scene in fifteen minutes were gone. But so were the days, after being discharged from the hospital, when dressing left him exhausted and in tears. Today he used the electric shaver, brushed his teeth, and combed his hair almost like a normal person. In the closet, he sat on a bench and dressed in a suit and tie with only moderate pain and discomfort. At least he could feel something below his waist. At least he was off the pain meds.

He had been dreaming before the phone woke him. He dreamed all the time now. The reason was easy to understand: his legs were twitching, keeping him from falling into a deep sleep. In this dream, he was interviewing for a job in Homicide again, or maybe it was for the first time. It wasn’t the real office, but a sleek, two-level workspace with Danish furniture and nobody he recognized. He was waiting to see Lieutenant Fassbinder. And waiting, and waiting, and then he had missed his interview. He always walked normally in his dreams and awoke filled with anxiety.