Every Wicked Man

by Steven James

  “I don’t think I’ll be much more than an hour, but there is a possibility it could be longer. If you’d rather go home, you can take the subway or I’ll pay for a taxi. Otherwise you can stay here in the lobby.”

  “You’d pay for a taxi?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  She reflected on that, then said, “Naw. I’ll wait.”

  “Alright, come on. Let’s get you set.”

  * * *

  +++

  After navigating through security and situating Tessa on a bench in the lobby, I took the elevator to the fourth floor, where we processed and interviewed offenders.

  The joint task force tracking Blake consisted of half a dozen different alphabet soup law enforcement agencies including ICE, the DEA, and the NYPD, but we were lead on this, so the interview would take place here rather than at one of the NYPD precincts.

  DeYoung was waiting for me.

  “Does Greer know that Mannie agreed to talk?” I asked as he briskly led me down the hall toward the interview room where Mannie was being held.

  “I contacted him. He’s working from home today. But I’m sure if we need him to come in, he’ll make the trip.”

  “And Mannie said he’ll only speak to me?”

  “Yes. What are you going to say to him?”

  “Whatever I need to in order to convince him to give us Blake.”

  “Before you offer him any deals, run them by me so I can have our lawyers approve them.”

  “Right.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “No, I’m serious, Pat.”

  “I hear you.” But I also knew that I couldn’t let legal wrangling get in the way of us bringing in a guy on our Ten Most Wanted list.

  “I’ll have another agent join you in the interview room,” DeYoung offered, removing his hand.

  “No.” I shook my head. “Mannie said he only wants to speak with me, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then I go in alone so we don’t short-circuit getting the info we need. I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s standard operating procedure in a situation like this to have a secondary—”

  “This is not a standard suspect.”

  DeYoung sighed. “Alright.” He glanced at his watch. “He calls his lawyer in an hour. Let’s see what you can find out before then.”

  * * *

  +++

  I passed through the observation room where DeYoung and one of the Bureau’s lawyers would be watching from the other side of the two-way mirror.

  A computer tech I didn’t know was seated at a console managing the video feed, and as I walked past, I could see Mannie through the glass, waiting in the adjacent room, seated behind a formidable steel table, with each wrist separately manacled and chained to a metal loop on the top of it, all of which made sense to me. If he was strong enough to wrench a car door off a chassis, I imagined he was also strong enough to escape from a pair of standard handcuffs.

  Despite what you might hear, even with a restrained suspect, you don’t typically take a gun into an interview room. The chance that he could get free and acquire your weapon in an enclosed area such as that is deemed too great, but in this case, DeYoung said, “Don’t go in there unarmed.”

  “No, it’s alright.” I handed my .357 SIG P229 to him. “I’ll be okay.”

  “You sure?”

  “If Mannie wanted to harm me, he had his chance yesterday out on the road. If he wanted to get away, he could have fled then. He wants something else, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

  I located a legal pad and pen, and then the agent seated at the control panel pressed a button to unlock the interview room’s door. I passed through the hallway, entered the room where Mannie was, and then closed the door behind me. Its tight metallic click indicated to me that it had locked.

  I took a seat across the table from him. He looked at me, then at the video camera tucked up in the ceiling’s corner. Finally, he gazed at the two-way mirror.

  “They’re watching us,” he said, more as an observation than as a question.

  “Always.”

  “Alright, then. Let’s get started.”

  19

  Interviewing a suspect usually takes more patience and subtlety than I’m known for, so it’s not exactly my specialty. However, I did know three things.

  First, showing interest rather than making threats is the best way to get someone to talk.

  Second, the best questions are always follow-up questions. People lie themselves into corners all the time.

  And third, when someone is confronted, he’ll typically do whatever he needs to in the interest of self-preservation. Lying is a natural, primal reaction. Nearly everyone who’s guilty lies at first. Law enforcement officers know they do, judges know they do, lawyers know they do. The secret is finding ways to help the person understand that telling the truth, not the lie, is the true act of self-preservation.

  I set the notepad out of his reach on the table. “I was told you wanted to speak with me.”

  “I do.”

  “I don’t know your background, Mannie, but I’m guessing you’re familiar with how this works.”

  “Establish rapport. Find common ground. Build trust. Empathize with the subject. Leverage the relationship for information.”

  “Right from the manual. And I’m also guessing that neither one of us is interested in any games or in wasting time here today, so what do you say we skip that chapter?”

  Maybe it wasn’t the ideal angle, but I figured it was worth a shot.

  “I never was much for games.”

  “Why did you ask for me?”

  “I trust you. You’ll do what needs to be done.”

  “In what way? What does that mean?”

  “You’ll know. When the time is right.”

  “Why now? Why did you decide to talk today? The ninety-minute window?”

  “Timing always matters. Isn’t that your area of expertise?”

  He apparently knew more about me than I thought. Maybe he’d read my book. Understanding Crime and Space hadn’t hit any bestseller lists, but it was out there, and he wouldn’t have been the first criminal to research a book like that in order to identify weaknesses in an investigator’s approach.

  “Mannie, what were you doing on Amber Road yesterday?”

  “Keeping an eye on the funeral.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to see who spoke with Senator Murray.”

  “And?”

  “I wasn’t able to confirm what I was hoping to.”

  “What do you know about Jon Murray’s death?”

  “I know that he didn’t want to kill himself.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I saw the video. He was crying when he tipped the chair backward.”

  I wasn’t sure how far to pursue this line of questioning, but I decided that it might help me land on what DeYoung had brought me in to discern: “the connection beneath the connection,” as he put it.

  “If he didn’t want to commit suicide, why did he do it?”

  “The tox screen came back positive, didn’t it? Selzucaine?”

  I wanted to find out if he knew who was present in the senator’s living room when Jon died, but I didn’t want to give away any information he might not already know.

  “What else?”

  “Do you know what percentage of cases actually go to trial, Agent Bowers?”

  “Less than ten. What do you know about the Selzucaine?”

  “Just three percent. The rest are pled out—ninety-seven percent. Don’t you find that astonishing?”

  It wasn’t at all how the system was intended to work. In one of the greatest failures of our judicial system, plea bargaining has become the norm rather
than the exception. It’s simply a way of saving money and resources by having fewer cases brought to trial, but it in no way serves the greater good or the cause of justice.

  No legislator wants to be seen as “soft on crime.” So with the increase in drug-related violent crimes during the seventies and eighties, a lot of mandatory minimum sentencing laws were put in place. As a result, some offenders, even today, faced decades in prison for minor or nonviolent drug offenses, and rather than go to trial and chance being found guilty, they pled out.

  “What is the role of our justice system?” Mannie asked me.

  Though I wanted to focus on Jon’s death and the drug connection, I figured as long as Mannie was talking I didn’t want to shut things down, so rather than change the subject, I said, “The official answer would be that punishment serves four roles: rehabilitation, retribution, and general and specific deterrence. If the plea deal can promote one of those, it’s usually offered.”

  “Innocent people will accept plea bargains. Why?”

  “Are you wanting to work out a plea bargain?”

  “Why do innocent people accept them, Agent Bowers?”

  “Fear,” I said. “People are afraid that if they take their chances with a trial they’ll end up serving more time.”

  “And do you know the percentage of people who plead out but are really innocent of the crime?”

  To plead guilty or not guilty has little to do with whether or not you committed the crime and more to do with how you want to be treated by the judicial system in regard to the crime. Someone who pleads guilty will almost always receive a lighter sentence than someone who pleads not guilty but is found to be guilty.

  “It should be zero,” I said, “but some studies put the number at eight to fifteen percent.”

  “It’s tragic when the innocent are so afraid of a miscarriage of justice that they admit to crimes they didn’t commit and then end up in prison. Sometimes for a decade or more.”

  Where is he going with all this?

  “You mentioned the Selzucaine,” I said. “Do you know where Jon obtained it from?”

  “Follow it back to the source.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He was quiet.

  “Why are you so faithful to Blake?” I asked him. “What does he have on you?”

  Mannie’s gaze shifted to the video camera and then back to me. “Do you have any idea what he has planned?”

  “Tell me.”

  He pointed at the legal pad and I handed it, along with the pen, to him.

  “Mannie, do you know who Jon was speaking to when he said, ‘This is for you’?”

  “His father.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Let’s just say the walls have ears.”

  He began to draw on the paper—a combination of dots, some within boxes, others with partial boxes drawn around them. It might have been a form of Morse code or Braille, but I didn’t recognize it. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.

  “This may take a few minutes,” he said softly.

  “Take your time.”

  20

  Tessa hated reading books on e-readers or on her phone—for some reason she just liked the feel of an actual book book in her hands.

  She usually kept one in the satchel she used as a purse just in case she got stuck somewhere and needed to read, but today she hadn’t bothered since they were just supposed to be going to church.

  Which only left her phone.

  Not gonna happen.

  A sign near the door to the elevators announced that anyone from the public needed to leave behind their PEDs. With advances in technology, personal electronic devices can be nearly anywhere and can record nearly anything.

  It listed restrictions on smart watches, smart shoes, phones, any recording devices, even portable USB thumb drives.

  Smart shoes?

  Whatever.

  Before her mom married Patrick, Tessa hadn’t had any idea that the FBI had their own police force. Now, she walked to the officer who was manning the metal detector in the lobby. “Is there, like, a cafeteria or something here where I can get something to eat?”

  “There’s another level of security you’ll have to pass through, but you’ll need to be escorted by a credentialed employee.” He pointed. “That visitor’s pass of yours will only get you so far.”

  “How far?”

  “Here.”

  “Vending machines? Anything?”

  “Sorry.”

  Wonderful.

  She pointed at the building’s front doors. “And if I go outside, I’m guessing you’ll check me again on the way back in?”

  “Why? What are you planning to bring in?” Any warmth that might have been present at first had drained out of his voice. “Exactly?”

  “Nothing, I mean, I just want a sandwich. I just—forget it. Never mind.”

  Tessa debated whether or not to leave. Who knew how long Patrick was gonna be—and what was she supposed to do in the meantime? Just sit around here doing nothing?

  She could at least grab some lunch and then, if she had any trouble getting back into the building, she could just text him to come down to help her get past security again.

  Even though she knew that her mom wasn’t using her phone this weekend, Tessa checked her messages, just in case, to see if she’d sent any updates.

  Nope.

  Nothing.

  She headed outside to find some food so she wouldn’t starve to death by the time Patrick finally decided to return.

  * * *

  +++

  Mannie set down the pen and slid the notepad to me.

  “That’ll get you started,” he said.

  I looked it over.

  “And the key to decoding it?”

  “Remember death.”

  “Death? How does that—?”

  “Now, I recommend that you get out of the way.”

  “Why?”

  “Trust me, Agent Bowers. Move back.”

  In an attempt to keep everything out of his hands, I quickly retrieved the pen. “Don’t try anything, Mannie.”

  He rose to his feet, clutched the chains, and leaned backward.

  At first I thought he was trying to pull free from the chains, but then I realized he wasn’t trying to pull the chains free from the table—he was trying to pull the table free from the floor.

  He heaved mightily until, all at once, a screeching groan cut through the room as the bolts gave way and the table tore loose.

  Grasping the chains, he swung it toward the two-way mirror.

  The glass, as thick as it was, managed to withstand the force of impact, but a web of cracks appeared.

  “Put it down!” I shouted. “There’s no way you’re getting out of here.”

  Mannie ignored me and swung the table again. This time, when the legs of the table struck the glass, the mirror gave way and burst apart, raining shattered glass shards into the observation room.

  Then, Mannie tugged his hands to the side, parallel to the top of the table, and, seemingly with no effort at all, snapped the manacles free from the chains.

  With impressive grace, he vaulted through the opening and into the adjoining room. The agent who’d been seated at the control panel drew his Glock, but Mannie responded by simply yanking and twisting the man’s forearm and relieving him of his weapon.

  I heard the crack of bones and the agent cried out in pain and clutched his arm.

  I followed Mannie through the empty pane and positioned myself between him and the door to the hallway. “You’re not leaving here, Mannie.”

  I’d left my gun with DeYoung, but he wasn’t taking any aggressive action with it.

  “Drop that gun, Mannie,” I said.

  “That�
��s not going to happen.” Mannie pointed with the barrel. “Back up and no one gets hurt, no one dies. But if you try to stop me, it’s gonna get messy.”

  “You don’t want to do this.”

  “It’s already done.”

  The agent whose arm hung limp and useless clenched his teeth in pain. The spiral fracture in his forearm had left his broken radius protruding cruelly through the skin.

  Instead of aiming the agent’s gun at me, Mannie targeted the man with the broken arm. “Maybe you don’t care if you die, Agent Bowers,” he said to me. “But do you care if he does? Get out of my way, or I squeeze the trigger.”

  I stood my ground. “You’re never going to make it out of this building.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about. Phones and weapons on the floor in front of me. Now.”

  When I was slow in complying, he slid his finger to the trigger. “Do it.”

  “Please,” the agent begged. “Don’t let him kill me.”

  I set down my phone and nudged it toward Mannie. DeYoung gave up the weapons, and he and the lawyer kicked their phones to him as well. I kept my automatic knife in my pocket.

  “Collect the phones,” Mannie said to the man he had the gun pointed at. “I want yours too.”

  With his foot, Mannie slid the guns out of reach beneath the console, then stuffed the phones into his pants pockets, tore the landline phone off the wall, backed up to the hallway door, and opened it.

  Holding the gun steady in his right hand, he swung his left wrist mightily down, smashing the manacle that still encircled it against the doorknob with enough force to rip the knob from the door. Then he ducked into the hall and closed the door behind him, sealing us inside.

  I rushed forward. I’m pretty good with locks, but since there was no doorknob left, when I stuck my knife blade in to try to jimmy the latch, it didn’t help. I would’ve tried kicking it open, but the hinges were on our side of the door. However, the hinges for the door in the interview room were on the outside, so I could get out through there.

  The lawyer was on his hands and knees reaching for the guns. He came up with my SIG, which he handed to me. Hastily, I returned to the interview room, positioned myself in front of the door, and kicked, planting my heel firmly beside the doorknob. The door was reinforced and it took three kicks before it flew open.