Every Wicked Man

by Steven James

  Vapor.

  Our lives appear for a little while and then, like mist, they vanish away.

  No matter how hard we attempt to cling to life, we cannot. Time passes over us, and we’re left behind, trying desperately to grab hold of something solid in its fleeting, amorphous shadow.

  Sand in an hourglass, flying away—just like that image on James Leeson’s gravestone. Or those words, “Remember death.” Yes, this week, how could I forget it?

  How do you let it register that a woman you spoke with earlier in the day is now dead and will never speak, never dream, never breathe again?

  It’s tempting to pretend that she’ll somehow appear alive again, that death isn’t really the end, but unless the afterlife exists, nothing awaits us beyond death’s door, and there’s really no lasting solace or anything solid to put your hope in.

  Back in the sixties, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross outlined five stages of grief in her book On Death and Dying: Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.

  Because of the nature of my job, I tend to move past the denial stage pretty quickly. I just see too much death—so much more than most people—that I’ve learned to acknowledge its universal inevitability.

  And so, tonight, I found myself leaping over denial and landing headfirst into anger.

  Territory I was pretty familiar with.

  Sometimes it seemed like I spent way too much of my life stuck in that stage rather than moving on, rather than finding closure, healing.

  That last stage of true acceptance might be a worthy goal, but right now, I wanted the anger to remain fresh and tender in my heart. It was part of what served to keep me going in an investigation like this.

  Over the years, I’ve found that anger is necessary, but it must reach an equilibrium: You need just enough but never too much. If you don’t let it in, you become hollow; but if you let it take over, you become its slave.

  When you see evil like what this case was exhibiting, you either become numb to it, or you have to find a way to put your rage on a leash. Then you need to be careful not to let it gnaw through whatever coping mechanism you’re using to restrain it.

  At last, at nearly midnight, the hospital staff assured me that Calvin was stable and that I could head home. “There’s nothing you can do for him right now. Let him sleep,” the doctor told me, “and get some rest yourself.”

  At home, I found Christie waiting up for me.

  “You know how I’m not supposed to discuss anything related to my cases with you?” I said. “Well, tomorrow you’ll hear about this on the news: We lost an agent. A DEA agent. We believe she was forced to kill herself. Her suicide was filmed and aired online.”

  Christie covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Pat.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t know that there is anything to say.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m okay. But pray for her family, will you? And for Calvin. And pray that I find the people I need to before anyone else gets hurt.”

  Gets killed, I thought, but let myself stick with the less telling phrase.

  Dr. Williams’s sermon came to mind, and the Scripture verse he’d read to us about the Spirit making intercession “with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

  I could certainly identify with that right now. The soul-stifling language of pain—one that God must know all too well if he knows us at all.

  “Listen,” I said, “at the restaurant, I had the sense that there was something you were trying to tell me. We were talking about love and truth—if it’s right to protect someone with a lie. We were going to pick up the conversation later, when we saw each other again.”

  * * *

  +++

  Christie took Pat’s hand.

  “None of that matters right now,” she told him. “It’s nothing. Not the turtles. Not the polar bear. They’re just stories from my life, just stories to help you understand me better.”

  “What is it you need me to understand?”

  She was quiet.

  “You can trust me,” he said, “Whatever it is, Christie, let me in.”

  “We don’t need to talk about me tonight. I want to pray for your friend. And for the family of the woman who died.”

  * * *

  +++

  Sometimes there is no elaborate plan, no criminal mastermind who’s always one step ahead of the authorities, who’s playing a twisted game of Catch Me If You Can with the cops.

  Sometimes there’s just senseless pain and death, just tears and inexplicable evil. You want it to make sense, but it doesn’t. You want morality to come out ahead, but instead you find only the merciless swipe of the Reaper’s scythe and blood spraying in its wake.

  And another corpse lying on the ground.

  That was all I could think of, despite how hard I tried to join Christie in her earnest and heartfelt prayers.

  STAGE V

  Acceptance

  Called off the house. Inside the parking garage.

  “Help my lack of love.” The man behind the curtain.

  61

  Tuesday, November 6

  7:02 A.M.

  7 hours left

  It was November-cold for the first time this week.

  An empty water bottle skittered across the street, rolling and spinning at the whim of the wind.

  For now, freezing rain spattered sporadically onto my city, but it was predicted to turn to snow by early afternoon.

  The rain dotted the car windows and the pavement like drops of chilled saliva falling from the mouth of a great, looming beast.

  I’d intended to walk alone to clear my head, but Christie had insisted on coming along, and now she held my hand as we made our way in silence down the street.

  I carried our umbrella in my other hand.

  For us, since we’d met beneath it, this old umbrella had become a symbol of our love for each other. Today, I wished it would somehow offer us protection from death and grief and provide at least a momentary place of respite and solace, but all it did was dome the raindrops aside, leaving me feeling just as hollowed out by Sasha’s death as I had been.

  Something was up with Christie. I wasn’t sure what, but there was definitely something she wasn’t telling me and, although I didn’t want to press the issue, I couldn’t help but be concerned.

  So that was on my mind.

  As was the case.

  As was Sasha.

  I kept replaying what’d happened in the Matchmaker’s lair, kept wondering if there was anything more I could have done to help Calvin or her, but I kept coming up empty.

  From earth to earth. The words caught hold of me when I thought of Sasha. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

  Last year, while consulting on a case in which a victim was buried alive, I’d had to research that saying. I’d expected the phrase to come from somewhere in the Bible but found that there aren’t any Scripture verses that mention “ashes to ashes.”

  In Genesis 3, there’s a reference to mankind returning to the dust that we were taken from. The “earth to earth, ashes to ashes” part came from the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1662.

  It’s one of those things that you hear and assume must be from Scripture somewhere, but it’s just not there—like the saying that “God helps those who help themselves.” That one’s not biblical either. In fact, some people would say it’s antithetical to Scripture’s main teaching about salvation through faith—that heaven is a gift given despite our efforts, not because of them.

  Assumptions: sometimes they don’t just fail to lead us to the truth, sometimes they lure us in the opposite direction altogether.

  In life.

  In religion.

  In investigations.

  And once an assumpt
ion gets rooted in your thinking, it becomes like a tenacious vine that is not easily removed.

  The breeze was picking up, bowing the few tree branches that still held their leaves as it passed.

  Apart from the noseless man, we had the Matchmaker and his crew in custody. However, though we’d stopped them for the time being, I wasn’t naive enough to think that the live feeds of suicides were over.

  Our society has turned a corner, and there will be no going back. I hated to even think about it, but based on the statistics, somewhere in our country this week, some troubled, lonely person would be positioning her camera and turning it on before placing a razor blade against her wrist or emptying a bottle of pills into her hand.

  Another live-streamed suicide—a phrase that was heartbreakingly tragic in its irony.

  Once a week.

  Every week.

  And the number continues to grow every year.

  As Calvin had said to me yesterday, “It is our world. I hasten not to judge it for I am a part of it.”

  And so am I.

  So are we all.

  The rain became more steady and, in the escalating wind, it began to slant down at us in thin angles, slashing more than falling, the drops masquerading as wicked little liquid knives. A roll of unseasonable thunder sounded like laughter—not the light laughter of children, but the chortling of a man as he watches you, slit-eyed and hungry for what the night might bring.

  “What are you thinking?” Christie asked me, her voice soft and nearly overwhelmed by the sound of the rain battering against the umbrella.

  “That I’m fighting a losing battle.”

  After a few more steps, she said, “Inside of you or outside of you?”

  “You do know me pretty well, don’t you?”

  Rather than pursue that, she changed the subject, which was fine by me. “It means a lot to Tessa that you’re teaching her to drive.”

  “Of course.”

  “I want you to look at her as if she were your own daughter—I mean, as much as you can. After all, I don’t know if we’ll ever have kids of our own.”

  That came out of nowhere.

  “We don’t need to decide anything like that now, Christie. We’ve only been married a few months.”

  “I know. I’m just saying.”

  “Okay.”

  Kids. Wow. Yes, the subject had come up before, but I’d always deflected it, saying I was open to the idea but only when the time was right. The thought of bringing a child into this world was still a daunting one to me.

  She went on. “I guess what I’m saying is, if anything ever happened to me, you’d be there for her?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

  “I know. But if it did.”

  “I’d be here for her. Yes. Always.”

  She was silent.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes.” She gave me a quick kiss, a silent confirmation of her confidence in me. “Are you heading to the Field Office this morning?”

  “I’m going to swing by the hospital first, see how Calvin is doing.”

  “Let me know if he needs anything. I’d like to help if there’s anything I can do.”

  Christie had never met Calvin and, although I would have liked to introduce them to each other, this might not be the best set of circumstances for that to happen.

  “Thanks. I’ll see.”

  All of my thoughts over the course of this last week concerning pain and God and the burdens we carry cycloned around inside me. My wife seemed so strong in her faith, so true to her beliefs. Finally, I said, “Christie, what does Christianity mean to you?”

  “You mean when it’s really lived out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It means treating everyone you meet as if they were worth dying for.”

  “Because Jesus taught that?”

  “Yes. And because they are.”

  * * *

  +++

  Julianne’s body was starting to stink, so last night Timothy had slept on the couch in his living room instead of the spare bedroom upstairs.

  But now, when he awoke, it wasn’t her body that he smelled.

  It was coffee.

  And then he heard the rattle of dishes.

  Someone was in his kitchen.

  No, you’re hearing things. You’re alone. No one else is here. No one else could be here.

  Timothy still had Julianne’s Beretta, and now he silently retrieved it and gripped it firmly as he started toward the kitchen.

  “Hello?”

  He’d never shot a gun before, but it couldn’t be that difficult to use. Just point and squeeze the trigger.

  Aim for the biggest target. Aim for the torso.

  “Who’s there?”

  No reply.

  The lady from last night? From the bookstore? Miranda’s mom? Was that possible?

  That woman really did think he had killed her daughter.

  So did Julianne. She thought you killed Miranda too.

  None of this made sense.

  Maybe you did.

  Timothy came to the far end of the living room and steeled himself.

  Then stepped around the corner into the kitchen.

  A man stood before him, early to mid fifties. He didn’t appear at all fazed that Timothy was pointing a gun at him.

  “Hello.” He held a cup of coffee and now blew softly across the top of it. “My name is Blake Neeson. I thought it was time we had a little chat.”

  62

  A scalp-prickling terror gripped Timothy.

  After Julianne had given him the papers at the pier, he’d brought them home and found a reference to Blake Neeson in them. He wasn’t certain, but from what it implied, Neeson was the one who’d dug up the information for her. An online search had told him that Neeson was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.

  “What are you doing here?” Timothy managed to say to him.

  “You sent me a photo.”

  “A photo? What photo?”

  “Of Julianne. And a message that you wanted to talk. I’m here. Let’s talk. I want to know why you killed her.”

  “It wasn’t me. I didn’t send you anything.”

  Neeson took a sip of his coffee. “Do you want a cup? I made enough for both us.”

  “No. You need to leave.”

  “Timothy, do you know anything about coffee burns? Steaming coffee can cause second-degree—even third-degree—burns if enough of it is poured onto just the right spot. Especially if it happens slowly enough. It’ll veritably melt the skin away.”

  “Please. I don’t know how to help you.”

  “They never found your father, did they, Timothy?”

  And then a thought. And with it, a chill. “You? Are you my dad?”

  “No.” Neeson laughed slightly. “No. I’m not.”

  Timothy wasn’t sure if he should believe this man or not.

  He’d been just a boy when his father disappeared, and the actual memories of him were difficult to separate from the fantasies he’d overlaid on them since his childhood—fabled dreams of a dad who was there for him, who loved him, who didn’t hurt anyone. Not ever.

  Though the voices that wouldn’t let him alone told Timothy that he’d killed his dad, drowned him, he didn’t believe them. His father might still be living out there somewhere.

  “Do you know who he is?” he asked Neeson. “Do you know where my dad is?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Listen to me.” Timothy lowered the gun slightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about with messages and photos. I didn’t send you anything. Now, you better leave, or I’m going to call the police.”

  “Well, then.” Neeson held out his cell. “Go ahead. Call them. Tell them about
Julianne.”

  Timothy didn’t move.

  “I didn’t think so.” He pocketed the phone. “Where is she, Timothy? What did you do with her body?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t play games with me. I’m not in the mood, and I don’t have time to waste. Where is Julianne Springman’s body?”

  Take him to the basement. The grave is already dug. Shoot him and put him in there. Then cover him up. Bury him. You can—

  “No!” Timothy shouted. “I won’t do it.”

  Neeson studied him, then said, “You really do hear them, don’t you?”

  “Hear who?”

  “The voices. The ones you told Dr. Percival about.”

  Oh. So that’s where he got the information.

  Could Percival be your dad? Could he be the killer?

  “What did he tell you?” Timothy said.

  Neeson didn’t answer him, just said, “Julianne is the one who gave you my email address, isn’t she? Before you killed her.”

  “I just want you to leave.”

  “Show me Julianne, and I will.”

  Enough.

  End this. Do it.

  “She’s upstairs.” He pointed. “It’s this way.”

  * * *

  +++

  Tessa rolled out of bed, yawning, and found a text from her mom:

  Walking with Pat. We should be back before you leave for school. Luv you.—M

  She yawned again, then rubbed at her eyes.

  Serious eye scabs today.

  Last night, she’d heard Patrick and her mom talking in the other room after they thought she was asleep. She couldn’t hear everything, but something had happened at work with Patrick. Someone had died. She wasn’t sure if it was the same person that her mom had told her Patrick was riding to the hospital with or not.

  Tessa had figured that she would wait and see if they brought it up with her this morning.

  There was a lot weighing on her.

  What was that woman at the bookstore even talking about when she said Timothy had killed her daughter? Why would anyone say something like that—unless there was some kind of proof? Unless there was some sort of evidence?