After a moment, he said, “What’s the name?”

“Duane Sheldrick. Get me everything you can on him and the profiles he’s using.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

Before he hung up, he gave me his cell number so I could follow up with him directly.

Because of the two o’clock cutoff that Reese had brought up, I was anxious to see some progress on this thing, and sitting around the Field Office was just not going to cut it.

I needed to get moving.

I needed to act.

“Ride with me,” I said to Ralph. “We’ll drive up to the Transit Corp shipping warehouse, and then on the way back down we can see how Calvin’s doing.” I knew how much Ralph hated driving in the city, so I offered to take the wheel. “We’ll work en route. At least this way we can accomplish something without just sitting here on our hands.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself. At least not without swearing.”

“Especially with the ‘sitting on our hands’ part.”

“Right.”

“Let’s go.”

72

1:02 P.M.
1 hour left

Outside, the rain had turned to snow.

The meteorologists were calling for two to five inches of accumulation by the end of the day.

Having grown up in Wisconsin, I was used to driving in weather like this. However, in New York City when the first snow of the year comes, drivers are overly cautious, slowing down and clogging up the roads, making even more of a mess of traffic than usual.

And today, this heavy, wet snow would make the roads slushy and travel tricky—especially if the temperature continued to drop and the roads froze over.

As I drove, we got word that Reese had tried the phone number again but no one had answered. Also, no one was at Duane Sheldrick’s apartment. We put out a BOLO for him. So far, Thurman had discovered that two of the suicide victims did indeed make sizable donations within a few days of their deaths. He was studying the files and would get us more details as soon as he could.

I was still waiting to hear from Angela about the private flights to Miami and Seattle.

“Ralph,” I said. “Take a closer look at Blake’s known associates, front companies, and past email accounts.”

“Searching for what? Exactly?”

“Sheldrick’s name. We need to establish if he’s the Matchmaker or the Selzucaine dealer.”

“Or both.”

“Yes. Or both.”

++++

“Reese has been trying to call me,” Ibrahim told Blake.

“Have you picked up?”

“No, sir. Of course not.”

Blake considered Ibrahim’s words. He couldn’t think of any legitimate reason for Reese to call Ibrahim at this time.

“Did you contact him first?”

“No. I swear.”