The Dead Reckoner Volume One: Absolution and Desolation Read online

determined to show her how devoted he was, and how happy that she'd suggested it to him. She understood that the reason why his belt was in his locker was that he brought it with him to school during the week and hung it next to his jacket.

  Before reaching the building, Ruth's phone buzzed again. She slowed to walk and pulled it out, seeing that once again it was the Sorter. That thing was nothing if not persistent. She touched the icon. The program brought up a map with two points marked. The first was her, standing in this parking lot. The second represented a person inside the red brick building they were about to enter. A note attached to the second point said:

  NORMAN SHAW. POTENTIAL PSYCHOTIC RISK. DANGER FACTOR: HIGH

  She closed the application, saying, “Damn Sorter.”

  Jason asked what she meant. Ruth considered him for a moment. In some ways Jason was precocious. He was good with mechanical and electronic things. He could memorize lists of numbers and entire books verbatim. What Jason struggled with were social circles, subtle vocal intonations, and being asked to come to dinner when he was busy arranging every item in the house in a line. He was no good at that.

  “The Sorter is a computer.” said Ruth. “It's designed to tell you things about yourself that you can't know on your own.”

  “Do you use it to catch criminals?”

  Yet another one of Jason's endearing qualities was his large vocabulary, which he used with precision. This was not a kid who would say “bad guys”.

  “Not yet. Maybe not ever. It's just an experiment.”

  After all, thought Ruth, it hadn't said anything about Yancy.

  They arrived at the gymnasium doors. Once inside, the first thing that struck Ruth was the heat. It was May and the weather outside was warm but not hot. Inside, the place was steaming. The two faced a row of folding tables hung with banners for various sponsor companies. Beyond the tables were people gathered in groups and practicing a variety of sports. Hanging from the rafters, among the various championship banners won by the school, was a sign reading “Brighton Special Olympics.” Ruth brought her son to one of the folding tables, where a woman about her mother's age was waiting to register them.

  The woman said, “Good morning Detective Holland.”

  To some people, you were always a cop. The woman meant to use Ruth's title as a sign of respect. Ruth understood, but that didn't stop her from wincing a little. In here she wished to be the mother of an athlete, or at least the mother of a child warming up to athletic competition after eleven years of a more or less sedentary life. But it seemed that once some people knew what she did for a living, she could never be anything else.

  Ruth said, “Isn't it hot in here?”

  Before she could get an answer, her phone rang. It was Lieutenant Keller, her boss. She asked Jason to register with the kindly woman and walked off to the quietest spot in the gym that she could find. The bonus was that she was standing under a large open window. The slight breeze was much more pleasant than the sauna she'd walked away from.

  Keller said, “Did you just get a notification from the Sorter?”

  “Yes sir, I did. I didn't think much of it. Are we acting on this information?”

  “You can't exactly make an arrest based on that, but did you notice it said the danger level on this guy was high?”

  “I did. Yes sir, I did, but I still don't understand the protocol.”

  Keller said, “There isn't one yet, but I want you to check it out. Do you know him?”

  “Sort of. Norman Shaw. He's one of the organizers of this Special Olympics chapter.”

  “And have you ever noticed any suspicious behavior?”

  “No sir.” said Ruth.

  “Anything suspicious about his past?”

  “I only know one thing about his past.” She sighed. “I know what you're going to think. His kid died maybe five or six years ago. But I just don't think that makes him deranged, do you know what I mean? It was a long time ago and since then he's put his whole life into the Special Olympics. People around here say he's a saint. Yeah, his kid died, but don't you think that if he were going to cut loose it would've happened by now? If anything, he's found a healthy way to cope.”

  “Detective Holland.” There was that title again. “Like I said, I'm not asking you to arrest him. Look at it this way. We're just trying out the Sorter, just taking it for a spin. How can we know how effective it might be if we don't follow up on some of the leads? So take a look and see what jumps out at you.”

  Ruth agreed and hung up. Sure, she'd take a look, but she couldn't help feeling that the Sorter, for all its supposed magical properties, was wrong this time. It was supposed to diagnose mental ailments with such precision that it could warn the police the moment someone was planning to hurt themselves or others. Yet she had not only seen Yancy today, she'd passed by him any number of times without the sphinx speaking a word of it. And now she was supposed to believe the thing when it told her that man who had devoted his life to helping these kids was a risk? Ruth was in no hurry to follow up on that lead. She went back to Jason, who had completed registration.

  She turned to the table and said, “So is the furnace on?”

  The older woman shrugged. “It's an old building. Someone probably turned it up this morning when it was cooler out. Even if you turn it down again, it takes an hour or two to feel it.”

  Ruth nodded and walked toward the center of the gym. The woman's answer was reasonable, but it didn't help Ruth's sense of unease. There was a problem with being a cop. You notice everything and worry that everything means something. Nothing out of the ordinary can ever seem innocuous the way it can to civilians. Often this comes from experience and the general desire to keep breathing. As a homicide cop who'd once worked in an anti-gang unit, she got used to watching for tells. Was a guy packing a sidearm? Was he itching to use it? Then there are other bad feelings that are the residue of a few particular memories. There's that one odd feature of that one horrific crime and it leaves a mark. In this case, Ruth was feeling the latter.

  Two years ago she'd stumbled on the murder of a friend. Her luck had never been very good. Ruth had been training this new kid on the force, Luke. The other rookies called him “Coolie”. They said it was because he kept a cool temper in hot matches. The boy was unflappable and had a talent for talking down someone looking to start trouble. Those people weren't always civilians. Luke didn't like discord among the ranks. Having no power, his charm walked him through. For that, Ruth thought his handle was even more appropriate. Coolie often flashed his irreverent wit, but behind it was a growing realization of how crooked the system could be. Ruth, daughter of a cop, had always toed the line. Coolie, on the other hand, had once suffered three days unpaid leave for insubordination. Ruth felt like a coward because she knew he'd been right and she did nothing to stand up for him. He never returned from leave.

  On the fourth day, Luke failed to report for duty. Ruth had gone to look for him. It had been a typical New England spring. The earlier part of the week had been cold, near freezing at night, but on that day it had inched past seventy. Ruth got no answer at the door and looked through the window. She saw the kitchen, a mess with unwashed dishes, and the door to the living room. The TV was playing and a foot stuck out from the edge of the door frame. Detective Holland retrieved the spare key from its hiding place and entered the premises with her gun drawn.

  The first thing she noticed was the heat. It was stifling. She knew Coolie's thermostat was broken and didn't always turn the furnace off when it was supposed to. He must have turned it up a few days earlier when it had been cold and now it was running full blast. Ruth guessed what that meant before she entered the living room. She found Coolie's body laying next to his service pistol. He hadn't been shot. Rather, someone had used the weapon to bash his face in, and then his sternum. Duct tape bound his legs. His arms were folded beneath him, his palms re
sting under the small of his back. His own cuffs held them there.

  The killer had placed a flower on the gun. A tulip.

  Ruth snapped out of it and lead Jason to his group. She exchanged pleasantries with the judo coach and explained that she needed to use the ladies room. She asked Jason to change into his uniform and come right back here. Jason agreed and asked his mom to get his belt from his locker.

  Once Ruth exited the gym, the rest of the school looked as it should on a Saturday. The halls were darkened and empty. Her sneakers made a loud squishing noise on the mopped floor. The building was quite old and the heat came from radiators hissing from underneath their protective casings. She new the utility controls were in the main office and hoped the room was unlocked. On her way there, Ruth passed through the lobby, a square room lined with trophy cases. Between two cases there was a small door and from there she smelled fuel oil, a lot of it. It was like the smell she remembered from when she was a kid and they came to fill the oil tank at her parents' home. Their tank leaked and her father put empty cream cheese tubs underneath to catch it. Maybe there was something wrong with the oil burner here at the school.

  The main office was just past the lobby. The door was ajar and cast a triangle of light on the floor. Ruth heard the sound of