Stalked (25 page)

“Who did you speak with?” Suzanne asked.

“Agent Presidio. You brought him with you earlier. Don't you remember?”

“Yes, I just didn't know he returned. What time did Agent Presidio visit you?”

“Thursday, late afternoon. Nearly five. He was on his way to the airport, he said. Is something wrong?”

“He died of a heart attack Thursday night,” Suzanne said. “We never got his report.”

Bridget put her hand to her mouth. “Dear Lord. I'm sorry. He just had a couple questions, then asked to see the files in the attic again.”

“Did he take anything with him?”

“I don't think so. If he did, he didn't ask me.”

“May we?” Suzanne gestured toward the stairs.

Sean followed Suzanne up. “What time were you and Tony here?”

“We left around three in the afternoon, went back to headquarters with Weber's notes from the original McMahon investigation. They were in shorthand.”

“What time did he leave?”

“I don't know. I left him with the analyst and worked on reports. I didn't see him again.” Suzanne pulled out her phone. “I'll find out.”

Sean looked around the attic. Everything was well labeled. Suzanne walked over to a stack. “We only took the notepads that pertained to the missing files on the McMahon book. Tony had hoped an analyst could decipher Weber's shorthand and it would give us an idea of what was in the stolen files.”

“Why did he come back?” Sean walked slowly around. One of the boxes had a lid that was skewed. He looked at the label. It was from the year following the McMahon homicide, while Weber was still a reporter in Newark. “One of the notepads is missing,” he said. He opened the box and noticed that Weber had meticulous labels. The front of every pad was dated. She went through at least one notepad a week.

“It's the anniversary of Rachel McMahon's murder that's gone,” Sean said. “That's three months after Kreig's trial.”

“Why didn't he tell me?”

“Maybe he planned to. We need to find out if he called anyone after he left here. And I'll call Noah and find out if he had the missing notepad on him.”

They went back downstairs and Sean remembered that Tony had asked Bridget Weber more questions.

“Ms. Weber, when Agent Presidio returned, what did he ask you?”

“He wanted to know if she thought someone was following her. Specifically, he asked me if she was being stalked. And one more thing—how far back she kept her fan mail.”

“We took all her mail,” Suzanne said.

“Yes, and I told him that. He wanted to know about when she was a reporter, before she wrote the McMahon book. I didn't know, but I can't imagine that she'd keep anything that long.”

Suzanne and Sean thanked the sister for her time and walked out.

Sean said, “Did you have any indication that Weber was being stalked?”

Suzanne shook her head. “No police reports, no restraining orders, nothing in her e-mails or notes, but I have an analyst going through them in greater detail. But Tony said something earlier about her killer knowing everything about her. Her schedule, what she would do. He felt that her killer was confident she'd expose herself to him and not be scared.”

“Did he say anything else to you when he left?”

“Nothing. I left him with an analyst to go over the notes we found here. She just sent me a message that he left headquarters at four thirty, plenty of time to get back here by five.”

“I'm going to pull the newspaper archives from that missing week and see what Weber wrote. Tony thought it was important enough to take her steno pad.”

“He should have called me.” Suzanne was justifiably upset.

“He didn't know what he knew,” Sean mumbled. “It was a hunch. Suzanne, I need a favor.”

She rubbed her temples. “I'm not going to like this, am I?”

He grinned. “It'll be easy. Really. I need the accident report and autopsy for Dominic Theissen.”

“You think it wasn't an accident.”

“What I think and what I can prove are completely different, but yeah, I think it's highly suspicious.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Washington, D.C.

Lucy was surprised to find Noah waiting for her when she exited the gate at Reagan National. “I was going to take a taxi,” she said.

“I want to fill you in, and the best place is on the road.”

Lucy had first met Special Agent Noah Armstrong eight months ago during one of his investigations. Though she'd disliked him at the beginning—considering he had questioned her as a suspect in a murder investigation—they'd ended up becoming friends and he'd taken her under his wing during her ten weeks as an analyst in the D.C. regional office. Surviving a plane crash in May had solidified their friendship.

“How's Hans? He's going to be okay, right?”

Noah put his hand on her shoulder. “Lucy, it's serious. He's been unconscious since Security found him early this morning.”

Lucy nodded, but her chin trembled. She swallowed and asked, “What happened?”

“We don't know exactly. Can we walk and talk?”

She nodded.

He squeezed her arm and then walked briskly toward short-term parking.

“Hans was working in Tony's office late last night. He made arrangements to stay in one of the bungalows Quantico has for VIPs and temporary instructors. He signed out of the building just after midnight and crossed a construction area on his way to the house. A scaffold fell on him.”

“It really was an accident?”

“We're supposed to believe it was an accident, and that's what everyone will be told today. A scaffolding did collapse, but two things point to attempted murder. First, the structure of the scaffolding had been compromised. The lab is testing the metal, but it appears that an acid ate away at the base and all it would have taken was a light push to make the whole thing come down.”

“And that's not a construction mistake?”

“It could have been, but the project manager has been working with Forensics all morning to account for the weakness, and he swears it wasn't his team. We don't know what the chemical is yet, but there are a lot of common products that could be mixed to eat through the metal. The second piece of evidence is that the security camera outside of the armory caught a shadow. No face, but there was definitely a person moving away from where Hans was attacked at approximately the same time. Where he was attacked is outside the camera's range.”

They arrived at Noah's sedan and he opened the passenger door for Lucy, then closed it and walked around to the driver's side and started the car. Lucy blinked back tears and looked out the window as Noah drove out of airport parking.

“I'm sorry, Lucy. Hans is a good friend to both of us.”

Lucy wished she hadn't gotten so angry with Hans yesterday. He'd been such a loyal friend and mentor—his betrayal in pulling strings to get her in the Academy was done out of his belief in her. He did it for the right reasons; she should have forgiven him yesterday.

“Lucy?”

“I'm okay,” she said quickly.

“I know this is hard on you.”

“He has to wake up, Noah.”

Noah glanced at her and Lucy thought he was going to say something, concern clouding his eyes. Then he didn't and looked at the road. A minute later he said, “Hans talked to Assistant Director Stockton yesterday about looking into the death of Tony Presidio. The lab came in yesterday and collected potential evidence, including Agent Presidio's bottle of Scotch.”

“It had been on his desk when I found him. His BAC was elevated.”

“There are some discrepancies in the autopsy and his body is being sent to our lab to be reautopsied, and an extensive toxicology panel has been ordered. There are some drug interactions that may have caused an elevated BAC. They're also specifically checking for legal and illegal drugs that may cause cardiac arrest.”

“You think Tony was murdered.” Lucy shifted in her seat and stared at Noah. “I told Hans on Friday that it seemed suspicious that Tony died and all the McMahon files were gone.”

“Hans contacted the lab after he talked to you, then called Rick Stockton and opened a classified investigation into Tony's death. You, me, and Chief O'Neal are the only three people at Quantico who know about this investigation. And Kate—Hans told her last night, but she's not taking an active investigatory role. Everyone else will be told that Tony died of natural causes, case closed, and that Hans had an accident when he cut through a poorly marked construction site.”

“Someone we know did this?”

“If Tony was killed at Quantico and not poisoned earlier, and since Hans was attacked on campus, the person responsible is either staff or someone from your class. Chief O'Neal is investigating the staff.” He glanced at her. “You and I are investigating Class Twelve-Fourteen.”

“My class? There are three new-agent classes here.”

“Class Twelve-Thirteen spent the weekend with DEA trainees on joint border and jurisdictional situations, and Class Twelve-Twelve was on survival weekend.”

“Survival weekend is still within Quantico boundaries.”

“I have someone verifying that all class members were accounted for—it's possible, though unlikely, that someone could have slipped away. Everyone is paired up and between the survival grounds and campus is an active Marine training zone. Off-limits, well marked, and extremely dangerous to traverse. In addition, someone had to be following Hans to know when he left the building, or waiting in the construction area knowing that was the path he would take to his temporary housing.”

Noah paused to merge onto the highway, then continued, “I have a list of everyone who was signed in, but as you know, there are ways to get on campus without signing in, or signing in later than you arrive. I pulled all records from the main gate. Those will be harder to fudge because they're maintained by the Marine base. But we need to consider everyone a suspect.” He glanced at her. “Are you okay with this?”

She nodded, but she didn't feel okay.

“Lucy, talk to me. Once we get on campus we're not going to be having this conversation.”

“Essentially, you're telling me that someone I know and trust killed Tony and attempted to kill Hans.”

“It's not going to be easy, but I need you at the top of your game.”

“I know.” She took a deep breath. “I'll be okay.” Would she? Could she look at her friends in the same way, knowing that one of them was a killer? One of them had manipulated her? Lucy always felt she was a good judge of character—and one reason she had so few friends was because she had a hard time trusting people. But here she had felt a bond instantly with her fellow new agents, a kinship because they were all in the same place—physically, professionally. And she liked them.

Noah said, “Fill me in on everything you know, and we'll go from there. Start with Dominic Theissen. Hans told Stockton last night that he wanted to look at his accident.”

The comfort in reciting facts calmed Lucy and turned her mind from Hans to the job.

“Theissen got in the middle of a fight at a subway station in Queens and was pushed onto the tracks. The police ruled that it was involuntary manslaughter. Sean and Agent Suzanne Madeaux in the New York office are pulling the files on it.”

“And Theissen was the media officer during the McMahon investigation.”

“Correct. And he was friends with Rosemary Weber. Bob Stokes was a Newark cop when Rachel McMahon went missing, and Weber's main contact for her book, in addition to Theissen.”

“While you were flying, Sean said Stokes came to talk to Weber after Theissen's funeral. He died of a heart attack the next day.”

“Sean doesn't think it's a coincidence and neither do I. But to poison someone means that the victim trusted the killer, or the killer knew the victim's routine well enough to slip poison into their food or drink.”

Lucy continued, “We also don't know whether Rosemary Weber's murder was linked—it's the odd crime. Theissen was ruled an accident, Stokes and Tony natural causes, why was Weber stabbed to death in an obvious homicide? In addition, poison is a predominantly female method of killing, while stabbing is male. There are exceptions, but few. Under any other circumstances I'd think they were unconnected, but the four individuals are linked by only one event.”

“The Rachel McMahon homicide.”

Lucy nodded. “It's why Sean is looking for Peter McMahon. Before Tony died, he said he wanted to find him. He led me to believe it was simply to make sure that he was doing okay in light of everything that has happened in his life. But now I wonder if he suspected something after Weber was killed.”

“That McMahon grew into a killer.”

Lucy didn't say anything. “It's suspicious that he's fallen off the grid.”

“The FBI is looking for him, too.”

Lucy glanced at Noah. “My money's on Sean.”

“Mine, too. But don't tell him I said that.”

Lucy smiled. She was relieved that Sean and Noah seemed to have developed a truce.

“The timing would make sense as well. When Rachel was killed, Peter McMahon was nine. Old enough to understand, but too young to feel he had any power over events. Everything was done for him, he was lied to; he was coddled, he was protected, but he was also old enough to know what was going on with his parents, and old enough to know what happened to Rachel. His grandmother took him away and shielded him from the worst, but when he was fourteen two pivotal events happened—at the worst psychological time. Weber's book came out, and his grandmother died. He was sent to live with his mother, but ran away a year later. When he returned, he went to live with his father, but that didn't last and he became an emancipated minor at sixteen. Went to college at SU, but Sean could find no record of him graduating. In fact, the last six years there is no record of Peter McMahon or Peter Gray—the two names he used.”