Every Wicked Man

by Steven James

  Cable news shows aren’t so much reporters of the news as they are vendors of it. They package up and sell what they believe their viewers want to consume—even if it doesn’t contain any truth at all.

  DeYoung reached the senator.

  I could only hear the assistant director’s side of the conversation. “I know, Senator . . . He just needs to speak with you for a moment . . . Of course . . .” DeYoung glanced at me, but said to the senator, “Yes. I promise. He’ll be quick.”

  He handed me the phone.

  “Hello, Senator,” I said. “You’re holding a press conference?”

  “Yes. There was someone else there when my son died. We can’t keep it from the media any longer.”

  “Keeping that to ourselves right now is the best call.”

  “Where has that gotten you? Are you any closer to finding this person who was at the house when Jon died than you were on Friday?”

  “We’re looking for related cases that might contain—”

  “This is my son we’re talking about. My dead son. I’m not going to sit by and do nothing when I can get the public out there on our side, get them searching for whoever was there. I’m guessing that somebody knows something, and I’m going to offer a twenty-thousand-dollar reward as an incentive to help jog people’s memories. Finding that person is the only way to get answers regarding what happened to Jon.”

  “Senator, this is not the appropriate time to—”

  “Do you have any children, Agent Bowers?”

  “I have a stepdaughter.”

  “And what would you do if you thought she might be in danger? Or if, God forbid, she was dead and someone else might’ve been responsible.”

  “I would do anything for her.”

  “Then do not judge me.”

  “I’m not judging you, sir. We both want the same thing here. I’m just trying to find out the truth of what happened, and the timing of bringing the public in on this isn’t right yet.”

  “That’s your opinion. My opinion is that if your team was doing its job we would know the identity of this person by now.”

  Something was definitely off here. The senator wasn’t acting anything like he had the other night when he’d been so patient and helpful. It might have just been that the stress of what’d happened was getting to him, but I wondered if someone might have contacted him, maybe pressured or threatened him in some way.

  “Listen,” I said, “we’ll—”

  “I need to go,” he told me bluntly. “I have a press conference to give.”

  End call.

  “Well?” DeYoung asked me.

  “He’s not going to be dissuaded.”

  “This doesn’t seem like the man I know,” DeYoung said.

  “Or the man I met.”

  Collins called and assured me that Tessa was at Renaldo’s and was fine. “The manager said she’s just sitting there writing in a journal and having a piece of pie.”

  DeYoung was staring at the television where the senator appeared on the screen and walked up to the lectern.

  Alright.

  Here we go.

  23

  “Thank you all for being here today,” Senator Murray began. “And I’d like to also extend a special thanks to the many people I’ve heard from all over this great state and beyond who’ve shared their condolences with me for the loss of my son.”

  He paused for a moment and scanned the crowd. Although he had notes in front of him, it looked like he wasn’t reading from a prepared statement but was speaking off the cuff.

  “There is some important information that I need to share with you. The night Jon died, another person was present at the house. We don’t know who it was, but we are seeking information about that person’s identity. I’m personally offering a reward of twenty thousand dollars for information that leads to the positive identification of that individual. I need to emphasize that he is not a suspect, nor is he being accused of anything. He is simply someone who, as the last person to see my son alive, law enforcement would like to speak with. I’m asking you, the public, for help because I trust you and we all deserve answers about what really happened when my son died.”

  Why did he have to offer a twenty-thousand-dollar reward? Did he have any idea how many people were going to claim to have been there at the house? Or how much work it would be for our team to vet and follow up on them all?

  He gave a hotline number that I didn’t recognize, and I guessed he must have set it up without Bureau authorization.

  What in the world is going on here?

  After he finished, the reporters peppered him with questions: “Are the police and the FBI looking into this?” “Is there any reason to believe that the person is complicit somehow in Jon’s death?” “Why haven’t we heard about this before now?”

  While I listened to him offer his responses, I watched DeYoung rub his forehead in exasperation. The buttons on the phone in front of him were already starting to light up. I guessed that the director would be one of the people calling. Probably Public Affairs. Maybe the governor. What a mess.

  It was probably best to let DeYoung tackle those calls on his own, so I signaled to him that I was leaving. He wearily waved for me to go, and I slipped into the hallway. The rest of the team followed after me.

  The press would undoubtedly want an official statement from the Bureau, and I was just glad that providing one didn’t fall under my job description.

  Today DeYoung looked even more worn out than usual.

  I didn’t know too much about his past, just that he was single and had been with the Bureau for nearly twenty years. Came from Cincinnati. He moved up through the ranks on the fast track to AD. He didn’t keep family photos on his office wall or his desk, and we didn’t discuss our personal lives much. I didn’t even know if he’d ever been married or had any kids, but that wasn’t too unusual. Many of the people who work for the Bureau do all they can to separate home life and work life.

  While I was on my way back to the lobby, I finally heard from Tessa.

  “What’s with all the messages you keep leaving me?” she complained.

  “Why didn’t you reply earlier?”

  “What—am I supposed to walk around staring at my phone’s screen every second? What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  “I’ve been looking for you. I was worried about you.”

  “I’m fine. I’m at this coffee shop down the street. Renaldo’s. I can be back in, like, two minutes.”

  I debated giving away that I already knew she was there but decided against it.

  “I thought I told you to wait in the lobby?”

  “You said I could stay there. But I don’t recall it as an official order.”

  “Listen, Tessa. I’m not trying to order you around. I just want to make sure you’re safe. I went to find you in the lobby and you weren’t there.”

  Her voice stiffened. “You’ve still got a lot of work to do on this whole stepdad thing. You can’t freak out every time I’m not exactly where you want me to be.”

  I was about to counter that she had a lot of work to do herself in the role of being a stepdaughter, but I managed to hold back and said instead, “I’ll meet you where you are.” It wouldn’t have been protocol to tell her that a prisoner had escaped. “Have you eaten lunch?”

  “Got distracted by dessert.”

  And in that way she took after her mother—opting to eat dessert first.

  “Okay, listen. There’s a Thai place just another block or so from you down the street from that one bookstore. They have a ton of vegetarian items on the menu. I’ll catch up with you at Renaldo’s. We can walk down from there. Give me a few minutes to wrap things up here.”

  She hung up, which I took as her way of agreeing to the plan.

  24

  Julianne r
ang the doorbell and waited for the woman to open the door.

  She’d spent most of the day looking into the disappearance of Miranda Walsh, a graduate student who’d attended one of Timothy’s book signings and then went missing later that night. No one had seen or heard from her in six months.

  There weren’t any security cameras at the bookstore or videos of the signing, but Julianne had called in a favor with a former Detroit cop whom she’d worked with before he moved to New York City when his wife got a new job. He was with the force up here now, and he’d passed along some details about the case.

  “So, we’re square?” he’d said.

  “We’re square.”

  The favor was Julianne not telling his wife about the affair they’d had two years ago.

  A middle-aged woman with frothy, gray-tainted hair answered the door.

  “Hello. Mrs. Walsh?”

  “Yes?” She studied Julianne somewhat suspiciously. “Can I help you?”

  Julianne still had her Detroit Police Department badge and now held it up just long enough to allow Mrs. Walsh to see that it was a legitimate police ID. “I’m Detective Springman. I’m wondering if I could ask you a few questions about your daughter, Miranda.”

  “My daughter?”

  “I know she’s missing. We’re following up on some—”

  “Do you know where she is?” The woman gasped. “Did you find her?”

  “I’m afraid not, ma’am. We’re just verifying some facts. May I come in?”

  “Um. Yes. Of course.”

  Inside the house, Mrs. Walsh offered her “coffee or tea or anything,” but Julianne declined. She knew there was no Mr. Walsh—he’d passed away a year ago. Heart attack. “I understand that Miranda was studying at NYU but that she still had some of her belongings here?”

  “Yes. In her room. I haven’t moved anything. It’s just the way she left it. I mean, except for the boxes of things from her dorm room. I haven’t even opened them up yet. It’s just too . . . well . . .”

  “I understand. It can be difficult. May I have a look?”

  “Yes.”

  Mrs. Walsh directed Julianne to the stairs and led her up, somewhat slowly, as she favored a creaking right knee. A variety of angel paintings hung on the walls.

  “Can you tell me about Miranda’s interest in that author in particular?” Julianne asked.

  “Author?”

  “The one whose book signing she attended on the night she disappeared. Timothy Sabian.”

  “Oh, I don’t know anything much about that. She mentioned that she was going to it: the Mystorium. It’s a bookstore that specializes in crime books.”

  “Yes,” Julianne said.

  “That’s about all I know.”

  “Had she ever met him before?”

  “I really couldn’t say. Is he a suspect?”

  “No. Not at this time.”

  Mrs. Walsh paused at the second room on the left and eased the door open but did not step inside. “It’s all in there. The boxes are in the corner. That’s all of her things from the dorm.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you need anything else?”

  “No. I shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”

  After Mrs. Walsh left, Julianne started with the dresser drawers.

  It felt a bit invasive to be looking through a dead girl’s dresser—if Miranda really was dead, which certainly appeared to be the most likely scenario.

  The young woman’s body had never been found, but there was no reason to believe that she would have run away. Neither her phone nor credit cards had been used since she disappeared.

  The girl was close to Julianne’s size and she was tempted by a certain blouse, but in the end she left it behind, expecting it might be difficult to secrete it past the girl’s mother. However, Julianne did help herself to a pair of frilly panties and a pearl necklace that Miranda would no longer be needing and tucked them into her pocket.

  From her inquiries, it didn’t seem like Timothy had ever been on the suspect list, hadn’t even been questioned. The officers had focused on an ex-boyfriend of Miranda’s—arrested him, even—but then had to cut him loose because of lack of evidence.

  The case hadn’t gone anywhere.

  Julianne turned her attention to the bookshelf but saw no books by Timothy.

  However, when she opened the first box of items from Miranda’s dorm, she found copies of all six of his novels that had been released prior to her disappearance. All hardback. All first editions.

  She paged through them.

  Dog-eared pages, underlining. Highlighting. This girl was really into his writing.

  And all six books were signed but, interestingly enough, not with the same pen. Timothy had personalized them and written different inscriptions. So, it certainly looked like she’d run into him numerous times rather than bringing all of her books to that one final signing.

  Interesting.

  Julianne made a note to look at Timothy’s website to see where else he’d lectured or held book signings over the last eighteen months.

  It would probably have been asking too much to find a day planner or diary, and Julianne found neither. If Miranda had kept them, they would have been collected by the police and put into evidence, which, despite her NYPD contact, she did not have access to.

  The final boxes contained an assortment of clothes and books but nothing of note.

  Julianne carried the edition of Cold Clay, the volume that Timothy had been signing on the night Miranda disappeared, with her downstairs.

  “Do you mind if I hold on to this?” she asked Mrs. Walsh. “I’d like to look into a few things. I can get it back to you later if you’d like.”

  “No, no. Please. Feel free to keep it if it’ll help you in any way.”

  “It might.” Julianne pointed to the two ceramic angels that Mrs. Walsh had on an end table near the sofa. “Don’t give up hope, Mrs. Walsh. Don’t ever give up hope. If you’re a religious person, keep praying. You never know what’ll turn up, and at the station, we can use all the help we can get.”

  “I believe in angels, Detective. And I don’t believe my Miranda is one of them yet.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, neither do I.”

  The woman began to tear up, and Julianne took her in her arms to comfort her. “It’ll be alright, ma’am. You just need to have faith that things will work out the way they’re supposed to.”

  25

  “Why do serial killers always listen to classical music?” Tessa asked as we were finishing our lunch. “I mean, the slimeball ones don’t—it’s grunge or something. But the ones who’re supposed to really creep us out are always into Mozart, and they sort of stand there entranced with their eyes closed, directing the music with their finger.”

  “I think that’s just in the movies.”

  “So, what do serial killers in real life listen to?”

  “It varies.” I left our bill along with some cash and a tip on the table, and we rose to leave. “Just like with everyone, I suppose. It’s really hard to make generalizations about serial killers.”

  “Except that they kill people. I mean, I’m not trying to be insensitive or anything, but, well, they are murderers.”

  “Yes.” Outside, we passed into what was becoming a crisp autumn afternoon. “That is true.”

  “And fire-starting, torturing animals, and bedwetting—what is it about those three things and serial killers, anyway?”

  “No one really knows. And by the way, how did you know about the Macdonald triad?”

  She shrugged. “Dunno. Do you think I’m a psychopath, Patrick?”

  “Do you close your eyes and direct Mozart with your finger?”

  “No.”

  “Grunge?”

  “Death m
etal, maybe. But I sorta direct it with my head instead of my finger.”

  “Then no. I think you’re safe. I don’t think you’re a psychopath.”

  “I don’t think you’re one either.”

  “Well, then.”

  “I mean, for what it’s worth.”

  “Thanks.”

  I doubted other stepdads had conversations like this with their teenage daughters, but then again, you never know.

  As long as things seemed to be in a good place between us, in the service of honesty I decided to be up front about tracing her location through her phone.

  “Hey, listen, I knew you were at Renaldo’s before you told me you were there.”

  “What do you mean? How could you have known that?”

  “I actually had someone in our Cyber unit track your phone.”

  She stopped walking. “What?”

  “I was worried. We had a . . . well, a situation at the federal building, and I—”

  “You tracked my phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that even legal?”

  “It’s not exactly protocol, but you’re a minor. It’s completely—”

  “And you did it why?”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “But why?”

  “Because you’re my stepdaughter.”

  “And?”

  “I care about what happens to you.”

  She said nothing.

  And I would never let anything bad happen to you or your mother, I thought. Never.

  “Don’t do that again. Don’t do that ever again.”

  “Tessa, I can’t promise you anything like that. If I’m ever afraid for your safety, I’ll do whatever I have to in order to make sure you’re alright.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be pissed off at you right now or feel thankful.”

  At this point, everything that I needed to take care of could be done online. I didn’t necessarily need to be at my desk at the Field Office. Also, since Mannie had apparently threatened one agent’s family, I didn’t like the idea of leaving Tessa alone tonight, not with him free again.