watched the video with Metcalf and, dutifully—in exchange for substantial assistance at sentencing time—he pointed out Mack. Though the filmmakers identified him only as Matt Doogie, Metcalf was thrilled to have a visual of his target.
“Now I could hear his voice and see his mannerisms,” he said.
*
Still, not even Shaw, who was from New York City and forged the initial connection to Mack through a cousin, knew Mack’s real name. He could, however, describe the general vicinity of the Harlem heroin mill where Mack “stepped on,” or cut, the pure tan powder, diluting it to extend their profits before re-rocking it into pucks.
Metcalf now had more than enough proof to arrest Mack based on witness testimony and scores of cellphone exchanges among Jones, Shaw, and Mack. But where exactly was the apartment, and who exactly was Mack? He felt as if he were being taunted by a ghost.
“Most agents would have written it off, but Metcalf was not gonna leave it alone,” Wolthuis said.
In a city of almost eight and a half million people, now all Metcalf had to do was find the ghost.
*
Mack had recently been released from prison; Metcalf knew that much. One witness remembered that when Jones first landed in Woodstock and struggled to buy bulk heroin, a friend had tipped him off to Mack: “When my cousin gets out [of prison], it’s game on; he’s got the connects.”
Mack was by now a pro, with lawyers on retainer and a network of assistants. Earlier, when he learned that Jones threatened to shoot a customer if he didn’t pay back his drug debt, Mack rebuked Jones, telling him, “Why would you do that? You’re running a business. If you want to harm someone, don’t do it yourself. We’ve got people for that.”
But Mack didn’t always make the best choices about which details to delegate and which jobs to personally execute. When Shaw paid Mack back for the heroin he’d fronted him, the payments were retrieved in cities across the country—in MoneyGram kiosks from New York to San Diego. Someone was picking up the money for Mack, and Metcalf figured it had to be someone he trusted, a relative or girlfriend, perhaps. (On federal probation, Mack wasn’t allowed to leave the state without checking in with his probation officer.)
Late one night, working out of the regional drug task force office in Front Royal, in the upstairs bedroom of an unmarked house, Metcalf reached out to the security department at MoneyGram, read out the transaction numbers from the text messages, and ultimately came away with a woman’s name and several seemingly random addresses in Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx.
He cross-referenced the addresses and found one that turned out to be legitimate. He was stunned when, the next morning, he ran that address through the city’s probation and parole database and found a single match: a Brooklyn probationer named Matthew Santiago. It had to be Mack.
The thirty-seven-year-old New York native had recently finished a two-year prison stint for his part in a $2 million marijuana-trafficking conspiracy. He’d gotten out of prison just a few weeks before Jones’s business in Woodstock picked up.
“What’s he look like?” Metcalf asked the probation officer.
“Black male, with a beard.”
Metcalf asked for a picture via email, and a few minutes later, there he was on his computer screen: an older version of Matt Doogie.
Metcalf now had everything he needed to arrest Mack: a name, a picture, and an address.
The night before, it had occurred to Bill Metcalf, when he was sorting through MoneyGram receipts, that he was no better than his father. The work had become its own kind of addiction. “We’re both chasing the same thing, on different sides of the law,” he said. “He enjoyed the streets and friends over family, and the pursuit of this lifestyle. And here I am, chasing those guys, and choosing that over my family.”
His wife wanted to try for a boy; it would be their fifth child after four girls. “It’s one more jelly sandwich, who cares?” she argued, begging him, again, to ask for a desk job.
After he cut the heart out of the monster, he promised, he’d ask for a transfer. For the first time, he meant it.
*
He found Mack outside his apartment building in Brooklyn, walking his dog.
“Who are you? Where you from?” Santiago wanted to know.
“I’m an ATF agent from Virginia, and that’s where you’re going,” Metcalf said.
Santiago told him that he’d never been to Virginia, which may have been true.