The Scorekeeper

by Dustin Stevens

  Even more heat seemed to flush his cheeks than usual, red blotches covering both.

  “Sorry about that,” Reed said, bisecting the desks and heading straight for the younger officer. Fishing into his pocket, he extracted the piece of paper with Paul Bingham’s handwriting on it and extended it before him. “Can you run this address for me?”

  His eyes still wide from the unexpected entrance, Gilchrist looked from the paper to Reed and back before reaching out and accepting it.

  “Sure thing, Reed. What do you need?”

  Already turning back, Reed said, “Owner, history, anything you can find in the next five minutes.”

  “You got it.”

  Turning on a heel, Reed headed straight toward the frosted doors standing open. With Billie in lockstep beside him, he entered to find the captain staring at his computer, Greene standing behind him.

  The former had his focus locked on the monitor while the latter was turned to face Reed.

  “Everything okay?” Greene asked.

  “Yeah,” Reed said. “Sorry about the door. Just a little amped up right now.”

  Offering a soft grunt in response, Greene turned back toward the screen, images passing from bottom to top across it. Moving extra fast, there was no way for Reed to ascertain what they were, or even what program they had originated in.

  “Down.”

  Beside him, Billie lowered herself to the floor as Reed took a knee beside her. Reaching into his pocket, he took out the plastic package of treats he’d just retrieved from the middle console of his car. Plunging his middle and index finger down into the bag, he pulled out a pair of imitation sausages and extended them her way.

  Without looking over, he could feel Billie’s tongue lightly caress his skin as she accepted them, taking them from his grasp without so much as grazing him with her teeth.

  Not the healthiest of food items, or even what he knew she preferred, but it was sustenance, and at the moment that was the most important. Considering the intensity of the night and how much more still promised to be forthcoming, it would be much needed.

  Even if Reed himself wasn’t abiding by the same premise.

  “Did McMichaels call you?” Reed asked, his focus still on the screen as he handed over another treat.

  “Jacobs did,” Grimes replied, his voice even lower than usual as he stared at the screen. Peering down the end of his nose, the light of the monitor reflected from his face, making him look quite pale. “The message didn’t pull up anything. Actually, I’m surprised, there haven’t been many cases of spray paint markings like these in the history of the department.”

  Finishing the article he was scrolling through, Grimes pushed back to the top of the page. Turning to look at Reed, he added, “We did get several hits on shrines, but nothing really like what was described.”

  “Most of it looks more like pagan rituals or something,” Greene said. “Animal sacrifices, religious overtones, that sort of thing.”

  Nodding slightly, Reed considered the information. What Greene was saying would make sense, and probably be his initial thought if pressed on it.

  People that set up a shrine were usually doing it to worship something. This one – the images, coupled with the phrasing of the words – seemed more like mocking.

  “Okay,” Reed said, his focus still shifted to the side. Shoving his fingers into the pouch one last time, he pulled out the final treat and gave it to Billie, the dog swallowing it quickly before settling herself back down onto her haunches.

  In the wake of her snack, silence and the smell of processed meat filled the air.

  “Were you able to find anything on Della’s mother?” Reed asked.

  Shaking his head slightly, Grimes said, “No. As a matter of fact, we haven’t been able to find much at all on Della Snow. No next of kin, no real credit history, almost nothing before six years ago.”

  Lines formed on either side of Reed’s face as he contemplated the information. “Really? Nothing?”

  “Still digging,” Grimes said, “but there’s not a ton there.”

  Again, Reed went back to processing, trying to impose the information onto what he already knew. “Criminal?”

  “Possible, but doubtful,” Grimes said. “Pretty damn difficult to hide from something like that.”

  “Right,” Reed agreed.

  “Damnedest thing,” Grimes said, “It was like she just showed up one day and decided to enroll at Oregon State University.”

  This time, Reed again fell silent. He thought of everything the captain was saying, from the young woman’s lack of a past to the fact that she somehow made it from Oregon to Ohio.

  Coupled it with the message lettered across her mirror at home.

  “What are you thinking?” Grimes asked.

  Forcing himself out of his trance, Reed looked up. Blinking rapidly to clear his vision, he looked to each of the men, both seeming to wear the same strain he felt.

  “It’s all here. This guy is trying to tell us something, I can sense it, I just can’t quite put it together yet.”

  “What do you think he’s trying to tell us?” Greene asked.

  Holding off on responding just yet, Reed slid his phone from his pocket. Pulling his image gallery up on screen, he looked at the message scrawled on the mirror in Della Snow’s apartment, followed by the garage in Grove City, and finally the house he’d just left.

  All three done in red, all using block letters.

  Twice Reed scrolled through them, considering the words used, the way they were scrawled across their respective surfaces. Bit by bit things started to connect in his mind, clear gossamer strands piecing them together.

  What the whole picture looked like, he didn’t yet know.

  But it was starting to shift that way.

  Snapping his attention up to the both of them, he said, “Officer, I’m going to need everything you have on the owner of the Grove City house.”

  “Okay,” Greene said.

  “I have Gilchrist pulling the records on the place I just came from,” Reed said. “If I’m not back by the time he’s done, start a side-by-side on them. Any connections at all you can find.”

  “Done,” Greene replied.

  Pushing himself from his seat, Reed deposited the empty plastic pouch into the trash and slapped at his leg, drawing Billie to her feet.

  “Where are you headed?” Grimes asked.

  Already turning for the door, Reed replied, “Upstairs. I have some things I need to bounce off the doctor right quick.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Dr. Mehdi was standing facing the whiteboard as Reed ducked his head into the conference suite on the third floor. Having shed her sweater since their last meeting, she stood in a white tank top, her arms folded as she studied the board.

  Covering most of it was a series of notations, various lines and arrows intersecting and pointing to other bits of writing. Giving it nothing more than a glance, Reed shook his head, knowing better than to even try to decipher it.

  Raising the back of his hand, he tapped a knuckle lightly against the door frame, a tinny sound ringing out. Rotating at the waist, Mehdi kept her arms folded across her torso as she turned to look at him.

  “Detective.”

  “Doctor,” Reed replied, “sorry, but I had a few things I was hoping to bounce off you.”

  Regarding him for a moment, the doctor glanced back to her markings on the board. Letting out a short burst of air through her nose, she waved him in. “Of course. Please, join me.”

  Turning to face him, she lowered herself back into her chair and added, “Sorry, I was little zoned out there.”

  Flicking his gaze to the board, Reed opted against his previous post. Instead of standing behind the chair, he slid sideways into it, staring directly across at the doctor.

  “Anything new? Were you able to talk to her again?” Reed asked.

  “I was,” Mehdi replied, “but I’m afraid it probably wasn’t what you were l
ooking for.”

  His brow coming together slightly, Reed said, “What do you mean?”

  “Just that, I wasn’t pressing her too hard on things,” Mehdi said. “I didn’t get much information because I wasn’t looking for it.”

  Nodding, Reed accepted the response. When he’d left, he wasn’t necessarily hinting for her to dig at Della, though he could see how that impression would have been received. Everything from his stance behind the chair to the urgency in his tone would have sounded like he was pressing.

  That’s part of the reason he had asked Mehdi to come and serve as a buffer between them to begin with.

  “How’s she doing?” Reed asked.

  Her eyebrows rising just slightly, Mehdi said, “Better, but not well. Which is to say, I’m not as concerned about us losing her completely as I was when we first started.”

  “But it’s not like you guys were actually having a conversation,” Reed finished.

  “No,” Mehdi said. Pressing her lips into a line, she shook her head, her long hair brushing against the tops of her shoulders.

  Turning her attention to the board, she motioned with her chin, adding, “That’s part of what all this is. Trying to take what little she is saying and decipher it.”

  Following her lead, Reed shifted his focus to the board, a veritable swarm of competing colors spewed across it. At the center was the word Mama, several blue circles around it. Spiraling out in various directions were a series of arrows, all pointing someplace else.

  From there, further connections and disseminations appeared, filling most of the white space.

  “Mama,” Reed muttered, his lips just barely parting as the word slid out.

  “Yeah,” Mehdi agreed, her tone to match. “That’s what everything keeps coming back to.”

  Letting the thought simmer in his mind, Reed felt his head begin to rock up and down just slightly. Keeping his head turned, his eyes glazed as he stared at the board, homing in on the single word in the middle of the board.

  “That’s actually part of what I wanted to come ask your opinion on,” Reed said. Blinking twice, he cleared his vision, turning back to the woman across from him. “All the various places our perpetrator keeps sending us, all the hidden clues and everything. They have to be connected. There’s no way this guy just picked this girl and those houses.

  “No matter how disparate, it’s all part of a larger scheme. Would you agree?”

  Remaining motionless for a moment, Mehdi sat staring at him for a moment, seemingly rolling the statement around in her head. “I would.”

  “And one would think Della is that thing, right? The string that pulls them all taut?”

  Saying nothing this time, Mehdi reached out a hand, rotating it in a circular motion for him to continue.

  “Most of the night, there’s been so much stuff coming at us, we’ve barely been able to keep up,” Reed said. “Della’s apartment. A house on one end of town. Another out in the sticks. One thing at a time, this guy’s been keeping us busy, we’ve been looking everywhere but at Della.”

  Casting her gaze to the board, Mehdi nodded her head just slightly. “Mama,” she repeated.

  “Right,” Reed said. “She kept apologizing over and over, kept saying how sorry she was, but here’s the thing. When we dig into her history, there’s barely any mention at all of a Della Snow. And nothing about her mother.”

  Jerking her attention back his way, it was clear the information came as a surprise. Her eyes bulging slightly, the doctor stared at him, her breathing increased just slightly.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Reed said. Reaching a hand out, he splayed his fingers wide, the tips bouncing on the tabletop between them. “Now normally, when somebody seems to just appear from thin air the way she has, it tends to mean they’re hiding from something or someone.”

  Drawing his hand back, Reed slid his phone free. Already up on the screen from his meeting downstairs were the images from the various scenes, the first from Della’s apartment top in order.

  Placing the phone down between them, he nudged the phone a few inches toward Mehdi. “This was found written on the mirror in Della’s apartment.”

  Her gaze locked on him, she slowly lowered it to the phone. Leaning forward at the waist, she looked at the image without extending a hand to draw it closer.

  “The sins of another,” she whispered.

  Extending a finger, Reed flipped to the next in order.

  “Web of lies,” Mehdi read off.

  Holding his hand back just a few inches, Reed went in again, bringing up the third image in order.

  “Now this is a shrine.”

  Leaving the phone where it lay, Reed retreated back into his seat. Lowering his hand to his side, he found the thick hair behind Billie’s ears, running his fingers back through it.

  “I have a theory,” Reed said. “It was kind of there after the first one, but it wasn’t until the third one that things came together.”

  Her focus still on the phone, her body pitched forward and resting on her forearms, Mehdi said, “Go ahead.”

  “I think Della was in hiding. And I think whoever it was finally caught up with her.”

  Pausing for a moment, Reed studied the doctor, hoping for some sort of response to his theory thus far.

  There was none.

  “And I think it has something to do with her mother. Maybe she was the one that sinned. Maybe she tried to shield Della from whoever this guy is. I don’t know.”

  His theory out there, Reed fell silent. He continued working at the hair on Billie’s ears, waiting as the doctor thought through things.

  For more than a full minute, she chewed on them in silence, until eventually her gaze came up to meet him full.

  “If you look at the messages in all three instances, there’s a lot to be gleaned. The fact that he writes in all capital letters shows aggression, anger. This is a guy that is used to being in control.

  “At the same time, if you look at the letters T and I throughout, the crossbars are evenly positioned on every one. There is a great deal of calmness here.

  “Even the choice of words, using common phrases and clichés, shows a level of reserve.”

  Reed held Mehdi’s gaze for several moments, making sure she was finished, before flicking his attention back to the phone. Staring at the image of the shrine upside down, he rolled what she had just said through his mind, fitting it against his working theory.

  “Anger, aggression,” he whispered. “Calmness, reserve.”

  One bit at a time, he tried to fit into place everything he’d seen, all of the varying information that was being lobbed their way.

  Whoever this was wanted to make a statement. Every place they’d ended up, every clue they’d found, had been placed there on purpose.

  This was someone that thought they were righting a wrong. They were bringing to light something that they felt was an injustice, making him go through the paces, pulling it out piece by piece, forced to examine each one in order.

  “Someone that was wronged by the system?” Reed asked. “Had been accused by Della Snow’s mother and now they’re getting revenge? Or had been wronged themselves by her?”

  To that, Mehdi had no answers. Leaning back, she again folded her arms over her torso, alternating glances between the phone and Reed.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I can try and ask her when we get on the phone again, but it’s going to be a few minutes yet.”

  Removing his hand from Billie’s neck, Reed reached out for the phone, clasping it between his thumb and forefinger. Dragging it back a few inches, he checked the clock at the top, seeing it was just past two-thirty in the morning.

  More than four and a half hours since Della had first called him.

  Meaning that as much as he wanted to wait and be present for that conversation, he had other places he needed to be.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Both officers were in Grimes’
s office as Reed and Billie entered. Standing on either end of it, they framed the captain as he sat behind his desk, all staring toward the door, as if waiting for Reed to arrive.

  “What?” Reed asked, checking each of their faces for any sign of what had transpired.

  Not one gave away a single thing.

  “We got a call from Earl,” Grimes said. “He made it out to the house beyond town you just came from.”

  A few minutes earlier, a message had come in on Reed’s phone. At the time, he’d had the pictures up on his screen and hadn’t wanted to interrupt his conversation with the doctor to check it.

  In the aftermath, he’d simply forgotten to go back to it.

  The thought of it kicked up in the back of his head as he took a step further into the room. “Let me guess, another fingerprint?”

  “So far,” Grimes said. “They kind of knew what to look for this time, so they started on the message itself. They went through and pulled it, are now doing a deeper dive on the place.”

  The thinking made sense. Three scenes in one night, all with the same MO, it bore to reason that it would play out just as the others had.

  “Paul Klauss?” Reed asked.

  “Paul Klauss,” Grimes confirmed.

  Pursing his lips slightly, Reed nodded again. Whatever message their target was trying to send, he was now trending toward overkill. A single print from an incarcerated man would have been enough to get their attention.

  Three was attaching fireworks to it and letting them off inside an enclosed space.

  “Same pattern?” Reed asked.

  The familiar deep crease appeared between Grimes’s brows as he looked at Reed, trying to decipher the question. “Same pattern?”

  “Yeah,” Reed said, holding out his own hand, extending his thumb upward toward the ceiling. “Outer portion of the thumb, part of the top loop? Same as the other two?”

  The crease disappeared as Grimes brows pulled apart, rising up his forehead. Using his foot, he twisted his chair toward the monitor. Maneuvering the mouse with his right hand, he decreased the size of the window up on his screen, dragging it to the side.