Every Wicked Man

by Steven James

  A fitting brew for a crime bookstore.

  And for a man in my profession.

  Also, the company name reminded me of Tessa, whom I’d started calling Raven at times, in part because of her love of Poe, in part because of her untamable spirit.

  I ordered a large coffee for here—java always tastes better in an actual mug than in a to-go cup—then added a hint of honey and cream and found a seat at one of the tables near the true crime section and began to think about what questions to ask Calvin.

  Mannie’s escape from the Field Office bothered me.

  On Saturday evening, Greer had offhandedly remarked that bad guys don’t take days off. It made me think of who did take time off on Sunday during Mannie’s escape, and who was on duty at the Field Office. While it was possible that Mannie was able, on his own, to discern how to get out, the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed to me that he might have had some inside help.

  Two things to analyze—the work rosters for who was on duty when he escaped, and the CCTV footage of him moving through the hallways. I wanted to see if he lingered anywhere, spoke to anyone.

  I put the request through.

  I wondered if phone records would allow us to identify if the previous suicide victims had all visited the same location, even if it wasn’t at the same time.

  As I was reflecting on that, movement at the door caught my attention, and Calvin swooshed in, his iconic London Fog trench coat curling around him almost like the cape of a superhero in a comic book. It only took him a moment to find me. He smiled and called, “Patrick, my boy!” his distinctive English accent already evident in just those three words.

  I rose to greet him. “Calvin, it’s good to see you.”

  His handshake was brisk and pronounced, just like everything he did.

  “Can I buy you lunch?” I asked.

  “That you can. How did the briefing go?”

  “Better than most. No chairs thrown this time.”

  He blinked. “And in the past?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” he said good-naturedly as if he appreciated the joke that wasn’t actually a joke.

  For his drink, Calvin chose Earl Grey tea, which didn’t surprise me, and after we’d both ordered a sandwich, we found our way through the stacks to the table where I’d been sitting and where my coffee mug awaited me. He shed his overcoat and folded it neatly and precisely over the back of the chair beside him.

  “Before we speak of anything related to the case,” he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “I must ask you, how is married life treating you?”

  “Very well, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to your wedding.”

  “It’s no problem. Really.”

  “So you’re happy?”

  “Yes. Truthfully, I can’t imagine ever being single again.”

  “Brilliant.” He rapped the table definitively. “And now. The case—and before you say a word, you know how this works. Discuss only what you feel comfortable addressing, and I will only offer you my take on things if you wish.”

  “I spoke with the assistant director. He gave me the go-ahead to ask you to consult on this if it sparks your interest.”

  “It already has.”

  “You know what case I’m talking about?”

  “The senator’s son.”

  I eyed him. “How did you know that?”

  “Timing of the crime and of your call. I’m hypothesizing that it’s not an isolated case.”

  “It’s not.”

  I told him we were looking for an individual who was apparently watching others die while their suicides were fed live over the Internet. “Some of the videos had thousands of views while it was happening,” I added.

  “It is our world. I hasten not to judge it for I am a part of it.”

  I had the sense that I should have known where that dictum came from, but maybe it was just something I’d heard him say before. “We also have Blake Neeson back on our radar screen,” I said, “and, well . . . in your investigations and consultations with law enforcement, have you ever heard of someone known as the Matchmaker?”

  “Have you been able to link the suicide victims?” he asked, which didn’t seem in any way to be an answer to my question.

  “No. Not apart from the fact that their deaths were broadcast online as they happened and that someone was present watching the deaths occur.”

  “The same person in each instance?”

  “I can’t be certain, but it appears so. Why? Do you think that’s the Matchmaker? Have you run into him before?”

  “Hmm . . .” He looked around curiously. “I wonder if they have Vidocq.”

  “Vidocq?”

  “Yes, and let us hope they have the condensed version—The Personal Memoirs of the First Great Detective. Edwin Gile Rich edited and translated a copy of Vidocq’s memoirs from the French back in 1935. A good thing too. The original was four volumes and more than three hundred fifty thousand words. At least Rich gave us a manageable size to work with.”

  Before I could even suggest that we talk with Rebekah, Calvin was already on his feet and on his way to inquiring of the young barista if they had a copy of Rich’s translation.

  “Not many people ask about Vidocq,” she said.

  “I would suspect not.”

  “Which might work out well for you.”

  She typed the name into her computer to search the inventory, and then her eyes lit up. “Follow me, sir. I think I might be able to help you out.”

  It took her less than a minute to locate the well-worn volume on a shelf near the small cluttered office beside the hallway that led to the rear exit.

  Calvin thanked her and purchased it before returning to the table. “We must frequent local bookstores to keep them in business,” he said diplomatically.

  “And we appreciate that,” Rebekah replied.

  Once the two of us were seated again, I asked Calvin to tell me about Vidocq.

  “Eugène François Vidocq. Born in 1775. Worked as a pioneering detective in Paris. After spending a good deal of his early life as a bit of a ruffian who was repeatedly in and out of prison, he offered to work for the police as a spy—what we might today call an undercover officer. Eventually, he became a detective in Paris. Overall, Vidocq spent more than twenty-five years working with the police. Some criminologists claim that he was the father of many modern investigative techniques and also the father of the detective novel itself.”

  “You’d think I would’ve heard more about him.”

  “He’s not as well-known here in the States as he is in Europe,” Calvin said offhandedly. He paged to the end of the foreword and tapped the book. “As Rich points out, the memoirs of Vidocq inspired Les Misérables and Balzac’s Vautrin character, as well as Charles Dickens when he wrote Great Expectations. Even the classic detective stories of Doyle and Poe owe credit to Vidocq. Though no one would ever accuse Vidocq of being too modest—and that has caused him to be disregarded in some circles—he was certainly clever, a master of disguise, and, as a former convict himself, he could think like the criminals he was tracking.”

  Calvin’s passion for his work came through loud and clear.

  “You know a lot about him,” I said.

  An earnest nod. “It was while I was reading him that I came up with the Investigative Triumvirate.”

  “Don’t trust your gut,” I recounted from memory, “trust the evidence. Don’t trust your instinct—trust the context. Don’t trust your experience—trust the facts.”

  He smiled. “Either you’re a good student or I’m a good teacher.”

  “Let’s go with you being a good teacher.”

  Calvin rubbed his thumb fondly along the book’s spine. “Vidocq w
as quite a raconteur. For instance . . .” He flipped through the pages, muttering to himself. “Let’s see if I can find an example . . .” Then he paused. “Ah. Yes. Here. Page thirty-one: ‘I spare details, but it is sufficient to say that I was arrested dressed in women’s clothes as I was fleeing from the wrath of a jealous husband.’ Now that’s a great line.”

  “That is a great line.”

  “Yes, and regarding his investigative approach, he blazed new trails in working undercover, which is what got me thinking of him in the first place when you were telling me about the case.”

  “About the Matchmaker?”

  “Yes.”

  Calvin still hadn’t told me if he’d heard of the Matchmaker before, but I trusted that this discussion of Vidocq’s techniques was not a rabbit trail.

  “How, specifically, was Vidocq a pioneer in undercover work?” I asked.

  “In ways that today might seem self-evident but weren’t typically practiced by law enforcement in those days: Change your name; go where the criminals are; disguise yourself, your posture, your voice, your appearance.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Yes. And it’s best to go in alone. The more people you try to take into a den of thieves, the more things may go wrong. And when that happens, it puts everyone in more danger and jeopardizes the investigation.”

  Although we typically strive for overwhelming force when we confront suspects, undercover work was different.

  “That makes sense too,” I said.

  “Regarding the forensic aspects of a case, Vidocq analyzed pieces of clothing and bits of paper for trace evidence and studied sole impressions in mud to deduce who committed a crime. He even noted that those who serve time and return to their life of crime do so ‘with all the advantages of prison experience.’”

  “All too often, prison serves as an advanced class in how to get away with murder.”

  “Precisely. Also, he noted that the guilty tend to fall into one of two extremes—they become either quiet or overly talkative. Or, as he put it, they exhibit ‘a dreary silence or an unendurable volubility.’”

  “I need to read Vidocq.”

  He passed the book to me. “And that is why I purchased it for you.”

  “Really, Calvin, you don’t need to do that. I can pay you for—”

  He emphatically waved off my offer. “His memoir is undoubtedly a mixture of fact and myth, and it’s somewhat difficult to discern at what points he’s recounting history and at what points he’s embellishing it in his favor. Nevertheless, it is worth a read.”

  Rebekah delivered our sandwiches to our table, and once she’d left for the register again, I said, “Calvin, back to the Matchmaker. What do you know about him?”

  “I can only tell you that you’ll need to be on your toes, my boy. The person you’re looking for is extremely dangerous. I’ve only heard rumors, but if they’re true, the Matchmaker operates out of the Bronx and coordinates what might be described as a suicide club.”

  “Where did you hear these rumors, Calvin? I need to find him. He’s one of the cogs in this investigation, and I think if we locate him, we might be able to track down Blake.”

  Calvin looked at me intensely, then said, “Let me do some digging this afternoon. I’ll see what I can find out for you. But you have to promise me, Patrick, that you will be sagacious as you move forward. From what I understand, this person has, in the past, convinced a blogger who located him to take his own life that very night. And that blogger was a good man.”

  “You knew him?”

  He was slow in replying. “We met shortly before his death.” Calvin checked the time and then stood brusquely. “I must go. I will be in touch with you soon. You have my word.”

  He took his food to go and whisked out the door.

  Calvin’s behavior left me scratching my head. Clearly, he knew more than he was saying, and I couldn’t guess why he hadn’t been more forthcoming about the Matchmaker, unless he was worried that what’d happened to that blogger might also happen to me.

  I downed my coffee and finished my sandwich, and then, taking the copy of Vidocq with me, I returned to the Field Office to fill in the team on what I’d learned from my conversation with Calvin, which admittedly, wasn’t much.

  I decided it might be prudent to look for recent suicides of bloggers, especially those who might’ve been posting stories on suicides, or on the Matchmaker himself.

  45

  Phoenix, Arizona

  9:38 A.M. local time

  The blast of air conditioning felt good on Jake Reese’s face as he entered through the front door of Plixon Pharmaceuticals’ office complex.

  Not even ten o’clock yet, but the Phoenix day was already gearing up to be one for the record books.

  Plixon’s parking lot had been full, forcing Jake to park on the street, which caused him to be even later getting into the building. And, of course, that meant he would need to feed the stupid meter within the next couple of hours or chance getting another ticket.

  Just another thing to keep track of.

  And right now, there were too many of those.

  By the time he made it inside, he felt a ring of sweat soaking his collar just from hustling across the lot.

  To put it mildly, it’d already been a hectic morning.

  He still had some tests to run by noon or else Chapman would be all over his butt. He’d been planning to head in to the lab earlier but had overslept, and Heather had only decided to wake him up fifteen minutes before she left, so as he’d rushed to get Toby ready for day care, he’d been thinking the whole time about the situation with Ibrahim and also how mad he was at Heather—well, at himself for not getting up, but also at Heather for not waking him up earlier, when she could have.

  Okay, yeah, he knew it wasn’t fair to blame her, but his natural inclination to do so was just another example of how out of sync they’d been with each other lately.

  But even their marriage problems weren’t the primary thing on his mind. It was getting out of what he’d agreed to do for the Arab. Lately, everything had been spinning out of control. He felt like he’d made a deal with the devil—sold his soul, so to speak. He was in way over his head, and he was clueless about how to swim to the surface and shake himself free from the things he had done—and had agreed to do.

  So then, on top of everything else, on the way here to the office he’d hit rush-hour traffic, and there’d been an accident on the freeway, which slowed things down even more. He nearly rear-ended a car that slammed on its brakes right in front of him and—

  “Mornin’, Jake.” Gracie, the receptionist, gave him a friendly nod as he neared her desk.

  “Morning.”

  Jake took a deep breath. Yeah, the air conditioning did feel good.

  “You alright?” she asked.

  “Sure. Yes.” He must have looked as frazzled-distracted-stressed as he felt. “Just a lot popping.”

  “The tests?”

  “Yeah.”

  And things at home.

  And things with Ibrahim and—

  “Chapman’s in.” She made a face that was more of a grimace than anything else to show her impression of their boss’s mood for the day.

  “Gotcha.”

  Jake started down the hall, but she said, “Call came in for you. Someone named Ibrahim. He left a voicemail.”

  “Thanks.”

  He should know better than to call you here! You were very clear about that!

  Even more agitated now, Jake passed through the hall to his office to drop off his computer bag before heading to the lab. He dialed the window shades closed to keep the sunlight that was roasting the city from slanting in and glaring off his computer screen.

  When he saw the phone on his desk, he decided he wasn’t going to call Ibrahim. No, he was done with al
l that. Giving them the chemicals that they wanted wasn’t going to serve anyone’s best interests. And the money they’d paid him up until now—well, he would pay it back. He would find a way. He was out. For the sake of his family, he was done.

  Jake muted his cell, went to the lab, and spent the next hour and a half diving into his work, lost in thought, or at least trying to lose himself in thought.

  As he was finishing up, two FBI agents showed up and grilled him about Ibrahim and Blake, but he denied any knowledge of what the agents were asking about. He told them he would be glad to help if he could, but that he was sorry he knew nothing about those men. “Never heard of them.”

  “What about Fayed Raabi’ah Bashir?”

  “Isn’t he that terrorist?”

  “What do you know about that?”

  “Nothing. Just what’s in the news. They say he’s in the country. Is that true?”

  “What have you heard, specifically, in the news?”

  The female agent asked all the questions while the other agent, a guy who looked to be a tired forty, silently took notes in his journal. They’d introduced themselves when they first arrived, but Jake had been too nervous to catch either agent’s name.

  “Sir?” she said. “What have you heard?”

  “I just . . . That he was responsible for that attack in Detroit last summer and other bombings somewhere in the Middle East. That’s it.”

  “Mr. Reese, did you fly to New York City last weekend to attend the funeral of Jon Murray?”

  “I know the senator. I served on an advisory committee during some congressional hearings.”

  “And that was enough to justify a flight up there to attend the young man’s funeral?”

  “I wanted to show my support for the senator. Listen, I haven’t done anything. I don’t know anything. If I hear of any terrorist activity, I’ll call you, okay? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some very important work that’s waiting for me.”