“Meaning,” Tony said, “that the killer isn’t the RB she was supposed to meet.”
DeLucca considered his theory. “I can see that. But how would the meet be set up? Wouldn’t she recognize the voice? There were no e-mails on her hard drive, though I have techs going through deleted messages now.”
“Any of the RBs on your list affiliated with the Cinderella Strangler investigation?”
“Yes,” DeLucca said, pulling out his notepad. “Rob Banker. He was the lead reporter covering the investigation for the Times and according to Detective Panetta, he seemed to have inside information.”
“A leak from NYPD,” Suzanne said.
DeLucca shot her a nasty glance, but she didn’t care. He had called her “Suzi.”
“Wherever the information came from, he had it,” DeLucca said. “The other three don’t appear to have any direct involvement with that case.”
“A fellow reporter-I can see Weber meeting him in a parking lot,” Tony said.
“He lives in Queens-not far from Citi Field. But why would he set her up?”
“I don’t think he did-I think the killer used his name.”
“Too many what-ifs,” DeLucca said. He pulled out his phone. “I’ll check him out myself, as soon as we’re done here.”
He sent a message, then pocketed his phone. “We can’t find Weber’s phone, but she uses a digital planner that she backed up on her computer. The last back-up was two nights before she was murdered, and there was no scheduled meeting.”
“What was her last appointment?” Tony asked.
“The morgue,” DeLucca said. “She made a notation to pick up files. We checked with the staff, and she’d filed an FOIA for the official autopsy reports of all Cinderella Strangler victims.”
“I talked to Panetta this morning,” DeLucca continued, “and she’s been hounding him. He keeps sending her to you, Suz, since it became an FBI case when your SWAT team took out the suspect. She’d pulled the initial police reports of each Cinderella Strangler victim from the responding precinct.”
Tony said, “I’m going to talk to the librarian and ask them to pull the archived manuscripts and catch up with you.”
Suzanne and Joe went up to the sixth floor and asked for directions at the information desk to Cleveland’s grad student office. They found Kip Todd sitting at a table with several books open in front of him. He was twenty-six, attractive, blond. By the way his legs were folded under the table, he was at least six feet tall and rail thin. He glanced up when they entered, surprise in his eyes.
“Mr. Todd? Detective DeLucca, NYPD, and Special Agent Madeaux, FBI. We have a few questions about your employer.”
He blinked rapidly, then sighed. “I’m still in shock.” He closed his books after marking his place. “Professor Cleveland said you’d probably want to talk to me.”
Suzanne sat across from Kip while Joe stood. “You spent a lot of time with her. Whatever you know may be helpful in finding out who killed her,” Suzanne said.
“I really liked Rosemary. She was tough, but I learned so much.”
“You were her assistant for the book she was currently researching?”
“The Cinderella Strangler-” His eyes widened. “You’re Suzanne Madeaux. Oh, wow. Rosemary really wanted to talk to you. She said without you her book wouldn’t happen.”
“Then it wouldn’t have happened.”
Kip looked at her quizzically.
Suzanne said, “It’s up to my boss’s boss, and they usually assign a media rep to work on these things.”
Joe said, “Did you know who she was supposed to meet at Citi Field last night?”
Kip shook his head. “I didn’t know anything about the meeting, but that’s not strange. She assigned me specific projects.”
“Like?”
“She had me pulling records. Do you realize that four different morgues handled the victims and the suspect, depending on where they were killed?”
“I’m aware,” Suzanne said.
“That’s a lot of groundwork. Then verifying all the information-Rosemary was a stickler for details. Everything had to be verified and reverified.”
“Where were you Tuesday?”
“Tuesday I went to the Jacobi Medical Center, in the Bronx. Yesterday, before I knew she was killed, I was taking pictures outside of the suspect’s art gallery.”
Joe asked, “What about Rob Banker?”
“The Times reporter? They were friends.”
“Was he consulting on this particular book?”
“She talked to him about it. I wasn’t part of those conversations.”
Suzanne asked, “Did you or Ms. Weber contact anyone involved in the Cinderella Strangler case who seemed agitated or angry about the prospect of their lives being dragged through the mud?”
“Rosemary handles these situations carefully. She’s very fair. Have you read her books?”
“No,” Suzanne said. And she didn’t want to, though she thought she might have to now. Lucy was reading them; maybe Suzanne could rely on her analysis.
Joe asked, “Did you go with Ms. Weber on the interviews?”
“She hasn’t even gotten that far. She sent preliminary communications to the key people in the case-like you,” he said to Suzanne, “and Detective Panetta, the reporters who documented the investigation. The guy Barnett.”
Barnett, who’d been a key suspect in the Cinderella Strangler case, would not want to be the subject of any true crime book, not when it would drag his younger brother through this mess again. Barnett had a temper as well. But Suzanne didn’t see him stabbing Rosemary Weber and stealing her ring and phone to make it look like a robbery. And why would she meet with him in the parking lot of a baseball stadium? Still, Suzanne would talk to him. If he thought that Weber was a threat to his younger brother, he might hire someone to kill her. It didn’t feel right to Suzanne, but she’d have to confirm it one way or the other.
“How did the meeting go with Barnett?” she asked.
“She talked to him on the phone; that’s all I know. She didn’t give me any notes to transcribe.”
“Notes?”
“She records everything; I transcribe them. But she hasn’t done any interviews yet. The only things I’ve transcribed were her notes to herself.”
“Does she use a tape recorder? Her phone?”
“A small tape recorder. She has several.”
No tape recorder had been found on Weber’s body.
Suzanne asked, “Did Ms. Weber ask you to research a consultant on the case, Lucy Kincaid?”
Kip shook his head and Suzanne was relieved; then Kip said, “She mentioned her, but didn’t ask me to do anything. Why?”
“Kincaid’s involvement wasn’t part of the public file.”
Kip said, “Rosemary knew everyone. And I mean everyone. She knew things she probably shouldn’t know. You should read her books-you’ll know what I mean.”
Joe said, “I’ll need all your notes and files.”
“Why?”
“Part of the investigation.” Joe slid over his card. “To my attention, please.”
Suzanne asked, “Did Rosemary receive any threatening letters or e-mails?”
“Not that I know of. But she had a P.O. box and she handled her own mail. There was this one guy, though, up at Rikers, who kept sending her letters. Every week. He wanted her to write a book about his crimes and prove he was innocent. She laughed over them and threw them away. Said she got hundreds of letters from prisoners claiming they were framed, but this guy was the most persistent.”
“Do you remember his name?”
Kip shook his head. “Sorry.”
“If you remember anything else that may be important to the case, please let us know.” Suzanne gave Kip her card to go with Joe’s. “No matter how small.”
Leaving, Joe said, “What do you think?”
“I think I need to talk to Barnett and you need to check out her P.O. box and this guy fro
m Rikers.”
“Motive?”
“I don’t see Barnett killing her, but he’s very protective of his brother, and leave no stone unturned, right?”
“If this prisoner wrote her every week, someone at the prison knows who he is. What about the assistant?”
Suzanne raised an eyebrow. “Motive?”
“Maybe she was going to fire him, or she pissed him off. His professor said he had no complaints about his job with Weber, but you never know. I’ll run him, but he seems to be what he is. In the meantime, I’m going to head over to the morgue. Want to come?”
“No. I’ll talk to Barnett and let you know what I learn.”
“Dinner?”
“No.”
“I’ll see you at seven. Same place.”
“I said no, Joe-and this time I mean it.”
I hope.
“Where’s your FBI buddy?”
Suzanne had almost forgotten about Tony Presidio. She glanced at her watch, then looked at the map of the library. “Manuscript archives.” She and Joe found the reference desk and asked about Tony.
The clerk looked nervous. “He’s with the head librarian in the storage basement.”
“Please take us down there,” Suzanne said, and showed her badge.
It was a maze to finally locate Tony. He was talking in a low, angry voice to a middle-aged female librarian.
“You have protocols, but you’re saying they weren’t followed?”
The librarian said, “I don’t know what happened, sir. I’ve called the director. I’m sure they were misfiled.”
“But according to your records, they’ve never been viewed since Ms. Weber donated her archives to the library.”
Suzanne approached. “What happened?”
Tony gestured to two boxes on the floor next to him. “They can’t find one of Weber’s boxes, but according to their computer, no one has looked at it since it was donated three years ago.”
“Which box?”
“The Rachel McMahon murder.”
“Security cameras?”
“We have live cameras that are monitored by campus security, but don’t keep internal backup tapes,” the librarian said.
“And we don’t know when it went missing. Anytime in the last three years,” Tony said.
He seemed unusually angry about the misplaced file box, but Suzanne didn’t know him well enough to know if that was par for the course. She gave the librarian her card and said, “If it turns up, call me immediately.”
“I’m assigning two of my best archivists to search for it,” she said, eager to please.
“Thank you.”
Suzanne walked out with Joe and Tony.
“It’s about that case,” Tony said.
“We don’t know that,” Joe said. “Why would the killer wait so many years to go after her?”
“I don’t know, but she made a lot of enemies after she wrote that book, particularly in law enforcement.”
“Are you saying a cop killed her?”
“No. But she highlighted the flaws in the investigation, which all stemmed from erroneous information that the victim’s family provided. By the time we sorted through the truth and lies, Rachel was dead. In fact, she was dead before anyone knew she was missing.”
“Maybe the research assistant knows where it is,” Suzanne said.
Joe glanced at his watch. “I have to talk to the M.E. Call me if you find anything.” He left, and Suzanne turned to Tony.
“Do you have any other information about why you think it’s connected to McMahon?”
He shook his head. “It’s odd that all three manuscript files were submitted three years ago, shortly after her third book came out, and only that one is missing.”
Suzanne led the way back to the sixth floor. Kip Todd was still sitting where she’d left him, but he wasn’t working. He was staring at the wall in front of him.
He seemed startled to see her again so soon.
“More questions?”
Suzanne introduced Tony. “We just came from Manuscript Archives. One of Ms. Weber’s boxes is missing.”
“Missing?” Kip’s brows pulled together in confusion. “How?”
She didn’t answer. “Did you check out any of them?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Did anyone ask you for the files? Or tell you they were looking at them?”
Again, Kip shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can help look for them; I’m familiar with manuscript archives.”
“The librarian is handling it.”
“Which box is missing?” Kip asked.
“The first-Rachel McMahon.”
Tony said to Suzanne, “I still have my notes. I’ll go through them when I get back and contact the other investigators if we need more information.”
Suzanne thanked Kip again, and they walked out. “Are you coming back to headquarters with me?”
“I’d like to speak with Rob Banker.”
“Right after I verify that Wade Barnett had nothing to do with this.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FBI Academy
Glock in hand, Lucy Kincaid aimed and fired all fifteen rounds into the target. When her magazine was empty, she ejected it, popped in the second magazine, and fired fifteen more rounds.
She quickly hid her smile. If this were her official qualification test, she’d have passed with flying colors. She didn’t even need to see the sheets to know that she’d scored the requisite minimum 85 of 100 points. She may have topped 95.
She glanced at Reva as the petite blonde put her own gun down, grinning. She gave Lucy a thumbs-up.
Lucy glanced in the other direction to where Alexis Sanchez was still shooting at her target. She hesitated before each shot and Lucy cringed when she realized that most of the rounds hadn’t even hit the black portion of the target. Alex was book smart, focused, and brilliant with numbers-unfortunately, she had no firearm skills. They’d already lost two recruits opening week who failed the physical test; no one wanted to see anyone else leave.
“Cease fire. Guns down on the table. Step back from your station and await your score.”
There was no privacy here at the gun range. All thirty-four recruits in New-Agent Class 12–14 would know who passed, who failed, and what score they got.
Carter and Eddie were standing at the two stations to the right of Lucy, between her and Reva. They had a friendly competition about who would score higher, but Lucy suspected they both had perfect scores. The eleven recruits who had military experience had an upper hand at the gun range.
Special Agent Joel Kosako went down the row to announce their scores. Lucy had heard from her sister-in-law Kate that over 70 was acceptable at this stage, because they would be practicing rigorously before the actual qualification round.
“Jackson, seventy-five. Caruthers, thirty-three.”
Ouch.
“Penrose, seventy-two.”
Lucy looked at Reva and smiled, but Reva frowned. She’d expected a higher score.
“Acosta, ninety-eight. Nix, ninety-eight.”
“Tied?” Carter exclaimed. “Rematch!”
The instructor frowned at him and moved to Lucy. “Kincaid, ninety-three.”
“You sure you weren’t a soldier?” Carter asked her.
“My brother was Army,” she said. “He trained me. He’s going to expect me to get a perfect score before I leave.” But Lucy was very happy with her score. It was her personal best on this range.
“Not that there’s pressure in perfect,” Eddie teased.
“Fields, sixty-eight. Dorfman, forty-one. Sanchez, twelve.”
Carter whispered, “I’m surprised she hit the target at all.”
Lucy winced. “We need to help her,” she said quietly. “She’ll never pass at this rate.”
There was one perfect score for the first round, a former Marine. Lucy was the top female scorer, beating out Margo. Lucy was surprised, since Margo had been in the Army for three
years. Had this been the real qualification round, only thirteen new agents would have passed. They had two weeks to get the others up to speed.
Kosako, a former drill sergeant, called everyone to gather in a circle.
“This is one of the worst group of shooters I’ve had in years,” Kosako said. “Only a third of you would have passed if this was the real test. We’ll be spending extra time on the range for the next two weeks, all of you. Now, we’re doing it again. Reset the targets.”
As Lucy jogged toward the far end of the range, a familiar shiver ran down her spine. Someone was watching her.
She shook it off-Kosako was watching all of them. She’d done well in the drill; she shouldn’t worry.
She reset her target and turned to jog back to her station. She was tense as she scanned the crowd, trying to figure out who had eyes on her.
She spotted Class Supervisor SSA Paula Kean standing with Agent Laughlin right behind Lucy’s station. They hadn’t been there during the first round.
Laughlin caught her eye, then said something to Kean, who nodded, and glanced at Lucy.
She swallowed and turned her back on them. Put on her ear and eye protection, checked her weapon, reloaded. Focus on the routine. Focus on what she knew.
When Kosako cleared them to shoot, Lucy’s muscles froze. She couldn’t shoot if she was this rigid. Her first shot missed the target completely, hitting the dirt hill behind. She mentally ran through her inner procedures to calm herself, but she was now behind everyone else, and that made her more tense. Her neck ached the more she tried to force calm.
What did Laughlin want from her? What was going on between him and Kate? It was obvious Kate didn’t like him, but she had refused to explain exactly what was going on. Had he threatened Lucy and Kate was trying to protect her? That would only make it worse. Kate should know that.
Yet all this speculation was only making Lucy more worried. She couldn’t focus and was the last to finish. She knew she’d done poorly.
Carter leaned over and asked, “What happened?” He looked at her hands. “You’re shaking.”
She didn’t want to talk about it. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Laughlin watching her, neither smiling nor frowning. Just staring.
“I choked,” she said.
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