She always loved the water. Her father owned a boat when she was growing up, and she had bought the Rinker Fiesta 300 five years before.
Her parents said she had married when she was twenty-six and had divorced two years later. They had not approved, being pious Catholics. It had caused a rift between them that had taken some years to heal. The ex-husband was remarried and living in Los Angeles. He, like all the potential suspects, had no criminal record. He told a detective that it had been five years since he had even spoken to Kristen.
Cincinnati and Covington detectives went through the laborious task of sifting through Kristen’s cop life. Her record was better than clean, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t made enemies. Five years before, she had been the first officer on the scene in Sayler Park, where a couple was arrested for starving their baby daughter to death. The crime had shocked the city. Although the ten-week-old was barely alive when officers arrived, it weighed half what a normal infant its age should. At his sentencing, the father, a young white-trash hood, had threatened to rape and kill Kristen when he got out of prison. Such threats weren’t uncommon, but this one, so specific, would have to be checked out. At the same time, they were going through her emails for threats: so far, nothing was panning out.
The false-confession nuts were unchained by the crime. Most were well known to the police and regularly owned up to crimes they didn’t commit. That this was the murder of an attractive woman seen on national television only ramped up the lunatics. Their stories could be easily shot down by the information they couldn’t provide. But it all required detective time, and Will knew his colleagues resented it.
Kristen. She had lovers, many acquaintances, but no close friends, no real boyfriend, as far as he could tell. Work was her life, with sex and her boat to relieve the tension.
Kristen’s timeline also had unfortunate gaps. She had withdrawn a hundred dollars from an ATM downtown on Saturday. She made no calls that day. No one saw her leave the marina. So far, no one had seen her on the river that day or night.
Now he drove Cheryl Beth back home and they fell into silence. But it was a comfortable one. At the little house in Clifton, he pulled into the driveway, opened her car door, and walked her to the porch.
“Thank you for a nice evening.” He held out his hand.
“Oh, Will, come here.” She raised her head and they kissed. It lasted longer than five seconds and less than five minutes, then he held her close to him with one arm as he balanced on his cane, feeling every part of her against him.