Stalked

CHAPTER THIRTY


New York City


Sean was antsy sitting around Detective DeLucca’s Queens precinct waiting for Suzanne to work out logistics between the Bureau and NYPD. This was why Sean could never be a cop. Paperwork, jurisdictional arguments, rules. Mostly, rules.

He’d already pulled every article Rosemary Weber had written the week that Tony was interested in, and nothing popped. Sean then pulled the articles for the two weeks before and after. Again, other than an article about the anniversary of Rachel McMahon’s murder, there was nothing that seemed suspicious.

He e-mailed the articles to Lucy and told her what he and Suzanne had discovered. She might see something he hadn’t.

He called Patrick and asked, “Anything on Theissen’s losing battle with the subway train?”

“I’m on my way to Rikers with one of Joe DeLucca’s cop buddies to talk to the kid who pled on the involuntary manslaughter charge. From our read of the case, a disagreement between rival street gangs ended with fists flying. Theissen stepped in and tried to mediate, got pushed back as the train was approaching. Busy time of day, lots of trains. The conductor used the emergency brake when he saw the fight on the platform, but it was too late.”

“And someone pled?”

“One year, in exchange for naming names. Official report is that there were three different gangs all using the same station. One kid made an off-color comment about another kid’s girl, the boyfriend pushed him, a third party stepped in, and then mayhem. The kid in Rikers, nineteen-year-old Gregory Bascomb, was pushed into Theissen, then hit Theissen because he thought he was being attacked from both sides. Theissen then tripped over another gangbanger and fell on the tracks.”

“No trial?”

“Nada. Plea deal was good enough for both parties, and they have several arrested for other charges.”

“Why are you talking to this Bascomb?”

“If we’re going off the theory that Theissen’s death wasn’t an accident, I want Bascomb to ID everyone on the platform who was involved in the brawl.”

“You’re thinking one of them might have planned this? That’s a lot of assumptions.”

“Maybe it was a crime of opportunity. You said Presidio wondered if Weber had been stalked. What if Theissen was being followed? The killer saw the gangbangers, understood the dynamics of how to manipulate the group.”

“As a distraction. Possible.” Sean wasn’t sold on it because there were too many variables that couldn’t be controlled. Sean didn’t like leaving important things to chance. “I’m stuck in Queens waiting for Suzanne and DeLucca to figure out what to do with the guy who pawned Weber’s ring.”

“I’ll let you know if I learn anything at Rikers.”

Sean hung up and still Suzanne wasn’t out of the interrogation room.

He flipped through the neat stack of files on DeLucca’s desk. Nothing pertaining to this case. He stared at the computer. Why had Weber canceled her meeting with the reporter? Who was she meeting that night, and why hadn’t she put it in her planner? Why meet at Citi Field?

According to the sister, Weber had been close friends with Theissen, who had worked at Citi Field in security up until his death.

Maybe Weber hadn’t set up a meeting because of the Cinderella Strangler case—maybe it had something to do with Theissen’s accident.

Or maybe that’s what the killer wanted her to think.

Suzanne came down the hall. “So Rogan, we’re letting Bartz go on a misdemeanor charge of selling stolen goods. NYPD will handle him. His alibi checks out the night Weber was killed.”

“The killer gave him the ring?” Sean said.

“Most likely. But we don’t have much to go on, Bartz is an idiot, the sketch artist is pulling her hair out, and security cams in the area aren’t giving us anything except the guy’s ass. He knew where the cameras were. Just like he knew where the cameras were in Citi Field and avoided them.”

“I’ve been having a hard time figuring out why a reporter with a long career and the gut instincts to match would meet anyone at Citi Field, even someone she trusted,” Sean said. “If it was someone she knew, why meet there, in the middle of a baseball stadium? If it was someone she didn’t know, why would she agree to it?”

“That’s been bugging me all along.”

“Her buddy Theissen worked there before he died. What if she was meeting another employee? Or thought she was? “It would have to be legit; at least she thought it was legit. So there should be a record of the arrangement somewhere. An e-mail. A phone call.”

“We have her cell phone records.”

“When did she cancel her meeting with her reporter friend?”

Suzanne flipped through her notes. “I don’t have a specific time,” she said. “They were supposed to meet at a bar at nine thirty, but she called to cancel late that afternoon.”

“Likely she set up the Citi Field meeting right before that.”

“I’ll have my analyst pull all the calls to and from Weber an hour before she cancelled on Banker. This just might be it, Rogan.”

*

But the phone numbers didn’t lead anywhere, and Sean was even more frustrated than earlier.

Rosemary Weber had called Banker at 4:45 Tuesday afternoon to cancel their meeting. She’d neither made nor received any phone calls on her cell phone or home phone in the hour before she canceled with Banker. Earlier in the day she’d made calls to the morgues in Brooklyn and Queens, to her assistant three times, and to the Starbucks where one of the Cinderella Strangler victims worked.

Suzanne was just as frustrated as Sean as they stared at the information. She picked up the phone without a word and called one of the numbers.

While he was waiting, Patrick called. “Thank God you’re done; I want to go home,” Sean said.

“Not so fast. I just spoke to Bascomb and we watched the security feed again. Several times in fact. He IDed every guy involved in the brawl except one.”

Sean leaned forward. “Do we have a good image?”

“Unfortunately, no. The quality was piss-poor as it was and Bascomb IDed people because he knew them well or by what they were wearing. But I called my former brother-in-law, the D.A. in San Diego, and he called the D.A. in New York, and I’m on my way to pick up the original digital copy of the security feed. I have to return it before we leave New York, but—”

“If we have the original I can enhance it,” Sean finished for him.

“We’ll be in Queens in forty-five minutes; hold tight.”

Sean hung up at the same time Suzanne got off her call. “We may have a lead on the guy who started the fight that knocked Theissen off the subway platform,” he told her.

“And Weber wasn’t only working on the Cinderella Strangler case. There was no reason for her to call Queens. I thought that was odd, because none of the victims were killed in Queens. She had called for a copy of Theissen’s autopsy report.” She pushed aside papers until she found the file. “We need to look at it again.”

Sean said, “Maybe she knew something we don’t.”

“I’m getting a headache,” Suzanne mumbled.

“No, seriously—if she pulled Theissen’s report, she may have thought there was something more to his death than an accident. If she knew something personal, or maybe it was the timing, or something we wouldn’t think to look at.”

“We can’t read her mind. We just need to do it all again. Talk to her assistant again. The professor. Rob Banker.” Suzanne started taking notes.

Sean understood why Suzanne was getting a headache. If they were dealing with different crimes, different cases, different suspects, until they knew what was connected and how, they’d be building scenarios that would get them nowhere.

But he had one idea that might help.

He called Lucy.

“How are you?” he asked.

“We couldn’t stop to see Hans,” she said. “Not that it would have helped. He’s still unconscious.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“I’m hiding in my room because I don’t want to face anyone yet. No one knows the truth. Everyone thinks it’s an accident, and I have to hold up that myth.”

“I’m planning on flying back tonight, though it might be late. I have a theory I need to run by you. What if Weber was an anomaly? What if her murder was because she was digging into Dominic Theissen’s accident?”

“Okay, I can see that, but where do Tony and Hans fit in?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“If connected, there’s two people involved.”

“I thought the same thing. But what if Weber was just a quasi-innocent bystander? We just found out that she was looking into Theissen’s accident. Patrick interviewed one of the gangbangers who pled to involuntary manslaughter and he can’t identify everyone involved in the brawl.”

“You’re thinking someone started it.”

“And if that’s the case, he was targeted. Is there any way to find out if Hans, Tony, Theissen, and Stokes worked any other cases together?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to ask Noah if there’s a way to search the data with agent parameters.”

“And more complex, I’d like a matrix of cases where any three of the four were involved, and any two of the four.”

“What might be simpler is to look at Weber’s articles and see what cases she wrote about, then compare that with the agent lists. If there is any—you’re talking about four cops who can’t talk anymore.”

“But that’s presupposing that she is a specific target, and I’m thinking she is a target because of something she learned. She was killed the same day she pulled all Theissen’s files. I think that’s the connection.”

“I’ll find out and call you tonight.”

“Thanks. And I’ll talk to Suzanne about it as well. Be careful, Lucy.”

“You, too.”

Sean hung up and frowned.

“What’s going on?” Suzanne asked.

“Lucy is worried about Hans,” he said. Then he ran his theory by Suzanne. “Can you think of a way to run it?”

“No, but our analysts might. Except I still have them working on the notes Tony and I found in Rosemary’s attic.”

“Maybe that’s exactly where we should start—find out what stories she wrote that quoted Theissen, then dig up those cases and find out who else was involved.”

“We’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“But we have one more thing coming our way—a suspect.”

“Rewind. Why do we have a suspect?”

“The unidentified guy in the subway tape. Patrick will be here in”—he looked at his watch—“twenty-five minutes. With the original security disk. And maybe we can round up that Bartz guy again. Because we know that Rosemary was writing a book about the Cinderella Strangler, but she was also looking into her friend Theissen’s death. She could have been killed for either reason.”

“Or something completely different,” Suzanne said.

*

“Watch the guy in the gray jacket and dark baseball cap,” Patrick told Sean, Suzanne and DeLucca thirty minutes later.

Patrick had come through with the original digital security disk from Theissen’s accident. “He’s already there when Theissen comes down the stairs. There he is,” Patrick said, pointing to a clean-cut man wearing slacks, a dark polo shirt, and baseball cap. He could be twenty or forty, the quality was poor and the images in black-and-white. The perspective was distorted because of the wide-angle camera.

The suspect was watching Theissen as he came down the stairs. A group of seven teenage boys walked behind him, a bit rowdy. This was the main station near Citi Field. According to the report, Theissen used the subway every day to commute to and from work, even though he left at different times. This was the end of his day.

“I watched the earlier footage,” Patrick said, “and Mr. Ball Cap was there for twelve minutes, coming in on one train and just standing. But during that time, several trains, local and express, went through the station. He didn’t get on any of them.”

As they watched, a group of four—two girls, two boys—got off one train and crossed the platform. The two groups eyed each other. It was crowded, the end of rush hour. Ball Cap moved between the two groups and said something to one of them, then bumped him. The kid responded by pushing him, but as Sean watched he realized that though Ball Cap had been pushed, the reaction was aimed at the kid on the other side of him.

What had Ball Cap said? Had he passed the blame for the verbal assault off on another person?

Theissen turned and kept his eye on the groups, and Ball Cap moved around the outside. There were two distinct situations—one was the pending brawl and the people drawn into it; everyone else moved to the perimeter, not wanting to get in the middle. Theissen stayed on the periphery, watching as a cop might to determine if the situation was getting out of control.

Ball Cap pushed Bascomb, the guy in prison for involuntary manslaughter, directly into Theissen. Theissen stumbled back. On the surface, Ball Cap appeared to be trying to get away from the fray.

“Did you see that?” Patrick said.

Everyone had missed it, so Patrick went back.

“Watch his foot,” Patrick said.

As the scene replayed, Sean kept his eyes on Ball Cap’s feet. After he pushed Bascomb into Theissen, Ball Cap moved to get away and in the process tripped Theissen as Theissen staggered back and tried to catch himself. The retired agent stumbled and Ball Cap used the crowd as a shield to slip away as Theissen fell onto the tracks.

“He kicked him,” DeLucca said. “When Theissen stumbled, Ball Cap tripped him, then kicked him using the crowd’s movement to hide his attack.”

“Exactly. The fight was a diversion he caused. At first glance, he looks like he was defending himself, but when you see the whole thing and focus on his individual actions, it’s deliberate,” Patrick said. “Now here’s the interesting thing—I talked to the transit cops and they said there was another incident very similar two days before. They don’t keep the tapes this long unless there’s an open investigation, but one of the officers said he remembered it because when he was called to the brawl he thought, Not again. Theissen was at the first brawl as well, and gave a witness report. What if Ball Cap attempted it once and failed, or he instigated the scuffle and figured out how to use the reactions to his advantage?”

“We can’t use this to ID the guy. He looks like half the white guys in New York,” Suzanne said.

“He’s very aware of the camera location,” Sean said.

“So we reopen the Theissen accident as a homicide,” DeLucca said. “I’ll talk to my chief.”

“I’ll talk to my boss as well,” Suzanne said. “If he was attacked because of his status as a retired federal agent, or because of a case he worked, we have jurisdiction. He’s one of ours.”

“Joint investigation,” DeLucca said. “This is the New York subway; we have a vested interest in security improvements.”

“Bartz gave us shit for the sketch artist, but he might recognize the guy again,” Suzanne said. “Sean, can you get me a clean image of Mr. Ball Cap that we can show to our street thief?”

“We already let him go,” DeLucca said. “He has to report to court on the misdemeanor charges next week, but I’ll ask Kramer where he hangs.”

Sean sat down at the computer and worked up a digitally enhanced image, but he could do nothing better than a shadowed profile. But the profile was sharp enough that someone who knew the guy well might recognize him.

Suzanne stared at the photo. “Hmm. A little better.”

Sean asked, “Do you know him?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But—there’s a little tickle in my memory.”

DeLucca said, “He could have popped up at Weber’s crime scene. I’ll have our photographer send us the photos of the crowd.”

“That’s probably it. It’s recent. Damn, I wish we had a better shot.”

Patrick said, “I made a copy and will go through it frame by frame to see if I can get another image of him. It’ll take some time, but I’m all yours.”

“We still don’t know if Tony stopped anywhere else between when he left you and when he boarded the plane,” Sean said.

“Would he have had time?” Suzanne asked. “He boarded his plane at six forty p.m. Do you know when he went through security?”

Sean had already pulled the flight information. “He printed his boarding pass from a kiosk at six oh four p.m. He was cutting it close, but he didn’t check any bags.”

“And Bridget Weber said he left her town house after five. In traffic, it’s at least forty-five minutes to LaGuardia from the Upper East Side, and that’s the peak of rush hour.”

DeLucca said, “He would only have had time to stop if it was on the way and he kept the taxi waiting. It’s a bitch to get a cab during rush hour.”

Sean considered that maybe the only stop Tony made was at the Webers’. “I have a call in to Noah to ask if Tony had the notebook on him. Maybe no one has unpacked his overnight bag yet.” He glanced at Patrick. “Then we’ll head back to D.C. I have a lead on Peter McMahon aka Gray I need to follow up on in person.”