Jenkins went to the Shaker Heights police to file a missing-person report on his wife that same evening. The police said they had to wait to investigate until Mrs. Jenkins had been out of contact for a minimum of twenty-four hours.
Finally, Jenkins remembered his wife had an active OnStar membership for her Cadillac. Diane’s vehicle was located outside a low-income housing project fifteen miles from home, a place his wife had no reason to be. When Jenkins drove to North Royalton, Ohio, he found the car had been stripped.
Then Jenkins received a call from someone using a voice-distorting device. The caller demanded five million dollars in a cryptocurrency called Ethereum in exchange for the safe return of his wife. Jenkins had forty-eight hours to pay it.
Despite being warned not to by the kidnapper, Jenkins called the FBI. He’d managed to record the ransom conversation. A transcript of the recording had made its way to Mahoney’s desk, which was why we were knocking on the Jenkins’s front door.
A Cleveland-based FBI agent named Andrea Rowe let us in.
We found Melvin Jenkins, a wiry marathon runner in his late forties, looking emotionally exhausted. Mentally, however, the man was sharp, alert, and direct.
His wife had last been seen eating lunch in downtown Shaker Heights with a friend who was having a hard time after her husband’s recent death in a car crash. They’d parted with plans to meet again the following week.
“She said Diane was going to the library, where she serves on the board, and then to pick up the girls,” Jenkins said. “She never made it to the library.”
“Do we know what time her phone was turned off?” I asked.
Special Agent Rowe said, “Two thirty-two p.m., approximately forty minutes after she left the restaurant.”
“Where did it go dead?” Mahoney asked.
“Near the Brecksville Reservation,” Jenkins said. “It’s a forested hiking area not far from where her car was found.”
“She go there a lot?” Mahoney asked.
“A lot? No. I mean, she’d been there,” Jenkins said. “We’ve all been there.”
“But she hadn’t mentioned plans to go there?”
“No.”
“Could we hear the ransom demand?”
Jenkins nodded and fished his phone out of his pocket. He thumbed the screen, and an androgynous, digitally altered voice came on.
“I am the only one keeping your wife alive, Melvin,” the voice said.
“Who are you?” Jenkins demanded.
There was a pause before the voice said, “If it helps, you can call me M.”
Chapter 23
You can call me M.
That was the line that had eventually led to Mahoney and me getting on a plane to Ohio. It was the same line that rang in my head long after we heard Diane Jenkins’s crying at the end of the recording and begging her husband to pay the ransom.
“Five million in Ethereum?” Mahoney said.
“I had to look it up,” Jenkins said. “One of those cryptocurrencies. You have to go through a whole legal process that takes like a month before you can even transfer money into an exchange to buy Ethereum.”
Special Agent Rowe said, “He’s right, sir. There’s no quick way to get the approval for that much in crypto in the time Mr. Jenkins has to gather his resources.”
I said, “Unless we get someone high up in the Treasury Department to approve it.”
Mahoney said, “We don’t usually encourage people to pay ransoms, but I can ask — if that’s what you want to do, Mr. Jenkins. I mean, if you have that kind of money.”
“Not liquid,” Jenkins said. He hesitated, then added, “But I might be able to get it from a line of credit my company has. I could use it as a loan and then repay it.”
“I’ll give someone a call. Do we know which crypto exchange you’re going to use?”
“Kraken?” Jenkins said.
Ned nodded and left, and Jenkins looked at me and said, “Can I get you some coffee, Dr. Cross? I was about to make some.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said. “I’ve been sitting too much.”
I followed him down a narrow hallway hung with pictures of Jenkins, his kids, and his wife, a handsome brunette with a big, genuine smile. I hesitated in front of a picture of Diane Jenkins alone on a cliff above tropical water somewhere.
She looked radiant, and I could not help thinking, Why is M asking for a ransom for her? He’s never done anything like this before. Why does he need the money?
“She’s beautiful in that photograph,” Melvin Jenkins said. “And never happier. That’s Fiji. It was her dream to go there.”
“Did you take the picture?”
He nodded.
“You can feel her love as she looks out at you,” I said.
Jenkins’s chin quivered. He nodded again and turned away, sniffling.
We went into a kitchen with low ceilings, dark beams, and a cozy atmosphere. He seemed to find solace there and made us a pot of coffee.
My phone made a weird dinging noise. I pulled it out and saw a message on the screen: Hi, Dad!
Then it vanished. I frowned and stuck the phone back in my pocket.
“Are you married, Dr. Cross?” Jenkins said, pouring coffee into a cup for me.
“I am, sir.”
“Kids?”
“Three,” I said. “Where are your daughters?”
“At my sister’s house. I didn’t want them to be here if news of the kidnapping leaks. There’ll be a media circus, and I don’t want them exposed to that kind of thing in any way, shape, or form.”
“I don’t blame you. I’ve been there, and they try to eat you alive to get ratings.”
“Oh, I know,” Jenkins said. “Diane used to be an on-air reporter, but she got disgusted with it all and quit.”
“She sounds like one tough lady.”
“You have no idea,” he said with a smile that quickly weakened. “Has this M done other things? I mean, does he come up in your databases, a kidnapper named M?”
“He does,” I said.
“Okay,” Jenkins said, brightening. “So he does let them go?”
I didn’t want Jenkins to lose hope. To get through the next few days, he was going to have to be stronger than he’d ever been, and I worried about weakening his spirit in any way.
But in the end, I told him the truth. I’ve found that lying to people, even with good intentions, comes back to haunt you one way or another. Besides, a man like Jenkins would want to know who and what he was up against.
After I finished, he stared down at the wooden floor and then up at the beams.
“This was Diane’s idea,” he said, gesturing around. “She designed it to look like her grandma’s farm kitchen, which was where she was happiest as a child.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“I think so,” he choked out. “My girls... I... I don’t know what to tell them.”
Jenkins broke down and hung his head.
“Mr. Jenkins, you have to stay positive,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “There’s always a possibility that M will change his pattern.”
Jenkins stiffened. “You’re what this is all about, aren’t you, Dr. Cross? I mean, M leaves these notes for you. He knew you’d find your way to this case.”
“I think that’s fair to say, Mr. Jenkins.”
“So my Diane’s a pawn in some twisted game you’re playing with this guy?”
“It’s not a game I entered willingly. It’s a game I was sucked into.”
“For twelve years?” he said. “Who does that? Why you?”
“I don’t know.”
My phone made that odd dinging noise again.
I did not move a muscle.
“Is he going to kill my wife in order to punish you?” Jenkins asked.