The Partnership

by Dustin Stevens

  “North High,” Reed said, accepting the file and placing it back on the floor beside him.

  “North High,” Grimes asked, a bit of surprise surfacing on his face, in his tone.

  “Yeah,” Reed said, nodding enough to let it be known he shared the sentiment. “So much for gentrification, huh?”

  For a moment Grimes was silent, considering the statement, before countering, “Or maybe that’s what drew these people in. Bethanee Ing seemed to think it was a new organization. Perhaps it was the, as you put it, gentrification, that caught their interest.”

  The notion was something Reed had not yet considered, his head rocking back a slight bit. Superimposing the idea onto what he already knew, he tried contorting it in various directions, seeing how it fit.

  Alaina Blair had mentioned that Ing felt certain that young Asian girls were being brought in to work the streets and to pose as escorts in gentlemen’s establishments.

  Areas like The Bottoms, or even the south end of Columbus as a whole, already had plenty of both. There would be no need for new blood to enter, the existing clientele already well established, the socioeconomics of the area imposing a clear ceiling on the industry.

  With the advent of new development came new opportunity for everybody. A fresh infusion of capital not only required restaurants and transportation, it would also require entertainment of other varieties.

  “New blood rushing in,” Reed said aloud, reasoning his way through the scenario, “a potential new clientele entirely.”

  “Right,” Grimes agreed.

  “And since this city is what, four percent Asian-“

  “If that.”

  “They had something new and different – exotic - to offer buyers.”

  Flicking his gaze up to Grimes, Reed again felt his pulse start to increase. Bethanee Ing had been on to something. How she had first discovered it, where she had gone while researching it, he had no idea, but she was undoubtedly getting far too close to something for somebody’s liking and was eliminated for it.

  Thinking back to the day before, to the images of her stretched out at the coroner’s office, a thought occurred to Reed. Remembering his own handwritten scribbles, he added, “That would also explain how she ended up in a grate down here. They dumped her somewhere in the northern part of the city...”

  “And the current carried her our way,” Grimes finished.

  Glancing down to Billie beside him, Reed shook his head. Just as he had suspected it might, once the initial hurdle of discovering who Bethanee Ing was had been cleared, information was spilling forth at an unbelievable rate.

  He just had to be sure not to let it overwhelm him, to keep things progressing logically as he moved forward.

  “You know if all this is true,” Grimes said, “we’re going to have to bring in a lot of people in the very near future.”

  “Right,” Reed said, the words task force again passing through his mind. “Sex Crimes downtown, INS, probably even the FBI.”

  “For sure even the FBI,” Grimes clarified.

  “The key phrase there being if all this is true,” Reed said. “Right now we’ve got a couple of photos and a shitload of conjecture.”

  Lowering his chin against his chest, the skin piling up around it, Grimes added, “And don’t forget, thanks to whoever contacted KCBS, a ticking clock.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The final statement of Grimes lingered in Reed’s mind as he left the office. With so much new and disparate information coming his way over the course of the day he had completely forgotten the last stop he’d made the night before and the task that he’d left behind.

  Just twenty minutes after leaving the captain’s office Reed again found himself in Hilliard, standing outside the bucolic house on the quiet neighborhood street. Scads of Christmas decorations filled the front yards of the various homes, spreading the full range from tasteful to tacky.

  Affixed to the front door before him was nothing more than a pine wreath with a red bow on it, plastic candles sitting in each of the windows.

  The first time Reed knocked went without acknowledgement of any kind, the second time returning the sound of movement from within, though still nobody came to the door.

  Not until the third try, curling his hand into a fist and pounding heavily, employing some of the agitation he felt at being left standing in the cold, did it burst open. On the other side of it stood a diminutive older woman with hair in tight silver curls around her head. Thick glasses hung from a string around her neck, resting against the front of an angora sweater.

  “Good evening, Ms. Chamberlain,” Reed said, forcing a frozen smile into place, “is Deek home?”

  Despite the fact that this very same conversation had played out no less than twenty times before, Reed was not surprised when she looked at him as if it was the first time she had ever encountered him and Billie on her front porch, a bit of skepticism obvious.

  “I’m sorry, who are you?” she replied, bypassing his question entirely.

  In the early years of their interaction Reed had assumed that Deek’s residing in her basement was to live in a state of perpetual arrested development, though over time he had relaxed that stance. With each new interaction at the front door it became a bit clearer that the woman before him was beginning to suffer the early effects of Alzheimer’s, dementia, or some other equally vile ailment.

  “My apologies,” Reed replied, pulling his badge from his pocket. “I am Detective Reed Mattox, your grandson is assisting me on a case.”

  Just as the explanation always managed to do, a smile immediately appeared on the woman’s face, any previous trepidation falling away. “Oh yes, yes, I remember now. That’s my Derrick, such a good boy, always willing to use his skills to lend a hand.”

  She stepped aside as she gushed, allowing Reed and Billie to enter, stepping into a home that was heated just a few degrees south of a sauna. “Just go on down, you know the way?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Reed replied, smiling and waving slightly as he turned and headed through the basement door, leaving her still smiling behind him.

  The sound of video games found his ears as he closed the door behind him and stepped down, the bare wooden stairs creaking beneath his weight, Billie leading the way. With each step the noises of guns being fired grew a little more pronounced, Reed able to just barely hear Deek’s voice as it rose above the fray, barking out instructions.

  Reaching the basement floor, Reed could do nothing to keep down the small smile that formed on his lips, the scene very much in line with what he usually encountered when going to see Deek.

  Still in his boxers and a t-shirt, Deek was seated in the closest recliner. The bottom half of it was extended before him, stocking feet resting atop it. On the ground around him were a handful of empty Red Bull cans and granola bar wrappers.

  Pressing his hair down was a headset with a microphone extended toward his mouth, an enormous controller in his hands.

  “Alright, come with me now,” he yelled, the image on screen showing the front half of a rifle as he maneuvered through a desert community, a series of tents and vendors flashing by in order. Every few seconds an infidel would show himself from behind a billowing sheet that comprised the structures, Deek firing a quick burst, blood spatter erupting on the screen.

  Watching for just a moment, Reed turned his head away, having seen far too many actual gunshot wounds to bother witnessing something like this. While to someone like Deek the game was marketed as exhibiting lifelike attention to detail, for him all it managed to do was conjure up a lifetime of memories he neither wanted or needed.

  “Sorry I missed your calls earlier,” Reed said, raising his voice to almost a yell to be heard. “I was with a witness and turned my phone off.”

  For a moment there was no reply, Deek completing whatever he was doing before instructing the others online he needed to take five and pausing the game.

  In the wake of all the commotion, the si
lence in the basement seemed oddly pronounced, the only sound the metal interworking of the chair as Deek pushed the legs down and stood.

  “Hey man, didn’t hear you guys come down.”

  How he could not have heard his heavy footsteps, or Billie as she clattered down the stairs, Reed had no clue, but decided not to press it.

  He was, after all, there seeking help.

  “No worries,” Reed replied, “just got here. Your message said you found something?”

  “Yeah,” Deek said, sliding the headset from his ears and dropping it onto the chair. “Good news and bad news.”

  Leaving the controller and the set behind, he stepped around to his work station and drew up a legal pad, a series of notations made across it in black ink.

  “Which you want first?” he asked.

  “Bad,” Reed replied.

  “The IP address on the email came back from a public library in Clintonville,” Deek said, looking up and giving a small shrug, as if in apology. “And I already checked, they have public access internet and no cameras on-site.”

  Clintonville was a north-to-south neighborhood running right along the river, High Street serving as a thoroughfare. It would explain both the location Basel had mentioned and access to the river, though little else, the area home to more than a hundred thousand people.

  “Shit,” Reed muttered.

  “Yeah,” Deek agreed, nodding slightly. “Something about trying to help poor and homeless folks use computers for job hunting.”

  Not particularly wanting to get into the flaws in such a system, Reed pushed by the comment, asking, “The good news?”

  “Good news – the CPD is clean. The email address was generated from a basic website that can change the names to anything a person desires.”

  Confusion passed over Reed’s face as he stared at Deek, waiting for him to continue.

  “Think about it like junk emails,” Deek said. “You get something from somebody claiming you’ve won a million dollars or that beautiful Brazilian women want to meet you, click on it, and it’s nothing but spam.

  “Same basic idea. This person knew that once KCBS saw CPD in the byline, they wouldn’t think twice about opening it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The same sour expression that was on Reed’s face as he climbed from Deek’s basement was still in place as he pulled up to a stoplight in Hilliard, an unknown number flashing on the screen of his phone.

  “Reed Mattox,” he said, smashing the phone to his ear as he stared up at the light, waiting for it to turn.

  “Where are you right now?” a voice asked. It was male, vaguely familiar, but certainly not one that Reed recognized right off, the kind that could bypass a greeting of any sort.

  “Who is this?” Reed snapped back, his eyes narrowing as the light changed to green and he idled through the intersection.

  “Oh,” the voice replied. “This is Caleb Basel. We met earlier today.”

  At mention of his name the voice clicked into place for Reed, the previous annoyance passing by as he shook his head quickly from side to side.

  “Oh, yeah, right,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Depends, where are you?” Basel replied again.

  “Hilliard, why?”

  “Hilliard,” Basel repeated, his voice falling away for just a moment before coming back stronger. “There’s a diner not far from Davidson High School called Patty’s. You know the place?”

  “Vaguely,” Reed replied. “Why?”

  “Be there in half an hour. Bring cash.”

  Just like that the conversation ended, the line going dead. It took a moment for Reed to realize what had happened, staring down at the phone in his hand, before sliding it back onto the middle console.

  He hadn’t expected to hear from Basel, had previously thought it more likely the young man would bypass his warning and disappear. The fact he was calling so soon, and requesting a meeting, was curious to say the least, as were his choice of meeting locations and the directive to bring cash.

  Feeling the same squeeze of his insides that was fast becoming omnipresent, Reed couldn’t help but think Basel probably wasn’t coming alone.

  Hanging a left, Reed worked a series of one-way streets until he was aimed north, winding his way through the neighborhoods of Hilliard without going near the freeway. As he drove he called his folks to tell them he needed to take one more meeting on the night but wasn’t sure how long it would go, something unexpected having arisen. After sitting through a lengthy diatribe from his mother telling him to be careful, he recommended a good local pizza place and promised to call if things were going to be really late before signing off.

  Fifteen minutes later he pulled up to a squat, square structure with glass windows lining three of four sides, harsh yellow light spilling out into the parking lot. A thin band of red ran along the bottom of each window, words proclaiming their various offerings cut out from the swaths of color.

  Never before had Reed eaten at Patty’s, though judging by the exterior and the advertisements on the windows, he guessed it to be a basic burger joint, the kind of place that popped up near high schools or small college campuses, serving as a hangout for the local kids.

  Turning into the parking lot, he eased to a stop next to the same dented Corolla that was parked outside of Ing’s that afternoon. A quick scan showed it to be sitting empty, Basel and a young girl already inside, both staring out the window at him.

  At a glance the previous feeling in his stomach was confirmed, the girl from the photos sitting across from Basel, the same youthful awkwardness on full display.

  The smell of grease and French fries was thick in the air as Reed stepped from the car, the aroma pulling Billie from the backseat and onto the pavement beside him. Pausing just long enough to affix her short lead, Reed led her inside and went straight for the booth, Patty’s being the kind of place that allowed patrons to seat themselves.

  Comprised mainly of one large room, a ring of booths lined the outside, the tabletops and bench seats all cut from the same white plastic. Interspersed between them was a handful of tables with individual white plastic chairs around them, total capacity for the place being no more than fifty.

  Of that the place was less than a quarter full, the evening crowd rather thin now that school was on break. A few patrons glanced his way as they entered, their attention lingering on Billie just a bit longer, before dismissing them both and returning to their meals.

  “Down,” Reed said, Billie dropping to her haunches atop the tile floor as Reed grabbed a chair from the closest table and pulled it up to the end of the booth.

  Not wanting to scare the girl or make her feel boxed in, and not particularly wanting to share space with Basel, he leaned back in his seat, both of them visible without having to turn his head from side to side.

  “Thanks for coming,” Basel said, leaning forward with his arms folded before him.

  “Thanks for calling,” Reed replied, another pang of agitation surfacing at Basel’s choice of opening but choosing to push past it.

  Everything about the encounter was wrong. He had instructed Basel to stay in town - not to go grab the girl and call him for a clandestine meeting.

  “Detective Mattox, this is Tek-Yen Dang,” Basel said, motioning across the table.

  Seated opposite him was a girl that looked even younger in person than she had in the pictures, her unlined face and porcelain skin putting her closer to fourteen than Reed’s previous assumption of sixteen or seventeen.

  Coal black hair hung straight down from a center part, her bangs cut at her brow line, the rest stopping even with her chin. Despite being dressed in a shiny silver coat with fur lining the top and sleeves, it was apparent that she was rail thin, her total mass coming in at less than a hundred pounds.

  At the mention of her name she turned and offered something resembling a smile to Reed, the expression on her face pained.

  “Hi, Tek-Yen,” Reed said, ignoring B
asel as he extended a hand toward her. “My name is Reed, I am a friend.”

  He’d almost added of Bethanee’s to the end of the statement before pulling up short, not knowing if she was aware of Ing’s death or even if that was the name Bethanee had gone by in her presence.

  Instead he opted to omit any mention of her whatsoever, choosing only to focus on the girl before him.

  “Get you something, Detective?” a voice asked, drawing Reed attention’s away from Tek-Yen to see a fifty-something woman in jeans and a t-shirt approaching, a notepad in her hand. A wad of chewing gum was jammed between her teeth, the muscles in her neck flexing as she came closer.

  How she knew he was a detective Reed wasn’t certain, guessing it to be Billie’s presence and the fact that she wasn’t pressing him about pets.

  “Um,” Reed said, leaning back a bit. He wasn’t hungry in the slightest, but judging by the soda glasses already on the table between Basel and Tek-Yen, it appeared they had intentions of eating.

  And he knew Billie was always up for something.

  “Yeah,” Reed said. “Can I get a double with fries, a sweet tea, and two plain patties for my partner?”

  Without breaking stride the woman wheeled on the ball of her foot back toward the kitchen. “You got it.”

  “Thanks,” Reed said to the back of her before returning his attention to Basel. “How long do we have?”

  “Depends,” he replied. “How much money did you bring?”

  For a moment Reed said nothing, staring at him, trying to put together what the comment was meant to imply, before things clicked into place.

  “You picked her up.”

  Flicking his gaze over to the girl, Basel said, “I did. Nobody there had seen me before. I was very careful on surveillance. Seemed like the easiest way to get you two together."

  Under no circumstances would Reed have ever suggested such an approach, beginning with the fact that it was illegal and ending with the fact that whoever was charged with watching the girls could now have Basel’s face and license plate as well.