Stalked

CHAPTER FORTY


Noah had been on the phone for the last ten minutes while driving to the Whitehall subway station in lower Manhattan, talking with NYPD and the FBI to determine what went on at the 95th Street subway stop. Police were already on the scene and Alexis Sanchez was gone. Suzanne and Detective DeLucca were getting a copy of the security tapes and Lucy hoped they provided some answers. She had a lot of questions.

Sean didn’t say who’d been shot, but Lucy knew it was Sean. If it was Peter, Sean would have told her to call an ambulance.

As soon as they arrived, Noah flashed his badge at the cashier and he and Lucy were let through the kiosk. They ran down the stairs while Lucy dialed Sean. “We’re here,” she said.

“I have Peter under the sign on the west side of the station.”

“West side,” Lucy said to Noah.

“I see him.”

Sean was sitting bare-chested on a bench, his bloody leg out in front of him. He had a hand on Peter, who looked like he wanted to bolt.

“It’s not serious,” Sean said by way of greeting. “Just grazed.”

By the amount of blood, it wasn’t just a graze.

“Lucy, escort Mr. McMahon to the car; I’ll assist Rogan.”

“I can walk,” Sean said, standing. He hobbled toward the elevator.

“Manning,” Peter said. “I legally changed my name to Gray Manning. But I guess you can call me Peter.”

“We have a lot to discuss,” Noah said. “But I don’t like this exposure.”

“I have a safe hotel,” Sean said.

“We’re going to the Bureau,” Noah countered. He glanced at Peter, assessing, then looked at Lucy.

Lucy knew what Noah wanted. What kind of state of mind was Peter in?

“Peter,” she said softly, “we need to talk about what’s been happening. You may have information that’s vital to finding Kip Todd and Alexis Sanchez. Are you up for it? We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t crucial.”

“Okay,” he said, still in a daze.

She nodded at Noah, and Noah said, “Just for a debrief. Then you can secure him, Rogan.” He looked at Sean’s leg. “I can get a protective detail.”

“I’m fine.”

“Hardly,” Lucy muttered.

“I heard that.”

Noah drove and Lucy sat in the back with Sean. She turned on the lights and took off the shirt he had wrapped around his leg. “This isn’t a graze,” she said.

“Do we need a hospital?” Noah asked.

“Yes,” Lucy said at the same time Sean said, “No.”

Sean said, “I’m not going to the hospital. The bleeding has stopped. It was a twenty-two. The hole isn’t much bigger than a bee sting, and that’s what it feels like.”

“You need stitches.”

“Maybe one stitch. You can handle that, princess.”

She glared at him. He smiled.

“Bureau,” Sean said. Lucy decided to let it go. There’d been a lot of blood, but Sean was right—the damage was minimal.

She cleaned and taped the entry and exit wounds, then bandaged the leg. “You should still get checked out.”

“Time enough when we catch the Todds,” Sean said.

“Were you followed?” Noah asked.

“No. Sanchez was following Peter. Where were you coming from?” Sean asked Peter.

“I had a staff meeting this afternoon; stopped at a place I often eat dinner. I didn’t want to go home after talking to Charlie.”

“They could have followed him from school,” Sean said.

“How did they know where I teach? How’d they know my name?”

“I don’t think they did, not at first,” Lucy said. “I haven’t seen the evidence from Kip Todd’s apartment, but going on what Suzanne said, he spotted you in the city back in March. He knew you were here.”

“It’s a big city,” Noah said. “Peter was a needle.”

“Not really. Alexis, when she was Cami, knew Peter was studying early childhood education. It was reasonable to think that Peter had become a teacher. If they troll the Internet for staff, they might get a hit, but seeing Peter in the city narrowed them to this region.”

Sean said, “Never underestimate someone determined to find you. It’s extremely difficult to go completely off the grid, even with a name change and new Social Security number.”

Noah added, “They may have hired someone to do it.”

“She could have had anything on me,” Peter said. “We were together for over year.”

Sean said, “Peter, you said you thought you were being watched. When did it start?”

“It’s been on and off. I always felt safe at home, but after I read about Rosemary Weber’s murder I had a feeling my life was going to be turned upside down. Anytime there’s another article in the paper, I wait for reporters to track me down. After I changed my name and moved to Brooklyn, I thought it would end.”

“How did Sanchez get to New York so fast?” Sean asked.

Noah said, “She left Quantico at three in the afternoon and told the gate she was going to a drugstore. She never returned. Her car was found at Dulles long-term parking, and she boarded a four thirty-two flight to JFK, no luggage.”

“Do you know what tipped her off?” Sean asked.

Lucy had worried she’d said or done something, but she couldn’t think what. “No. She was gone before I pulled her personnel records and discovered the connection with New Jersey.”

“If I had to bet,” Sean said, “it came from that lowlife street thief who pawned the ring.”

“How so?”

“NYPD released him; what if he went back to Todd and told him about the interview? Maybe Todd got antsy and called his sister.”

“We’re pulling her cell phone records and all Todd’s records, but so far we’ve found nothing,” Noah said.

“They could have burner phones,” Sean said.

Noah turned into the federal building parking lot and showed his ID. “We’re running down leads. The brother hasn’t returned to his apartment or his office at the library. NYPD has staked out both places, and we have a patrol covering Weber’s sister.”

“They’ve had this plan in the works for years,” Lucy said. “He has another place.”

“How can you know that?” Peter asked.

“Alexis befriended you six years ago. They could have killed you then, if they wanted you dead. They had something else planned, but wanted to keep you in sight.”

“Let’s brief everyone together,” Noah said. He parked and they got out. Sean had to surrender his gun at the security desk.

They went up to the Violent Crimes squad and Suzanne greeted them at the elevator. “So you’re the famous Noah Armstrong,” she said, shaking his hand. “Good to finally meet you.”

“Suzanne, likewise,” Noah said. “This is Peter McMahon. He had his name legally changed to Gray Manning and has been a teacher in East Brooklyn for the past three years.”

“Dangerous schools,” Suzanne said.

“I teach third grade,” he said quietly.

“Shelley.” Suzanne motioned to an analyst. “Would you please escort Mr. Manning to an interview room? Get him whatever he would like; keep him company. You’re not under arrest, Peter. But we need to talk.”

He glanced at Sean as if for permission.

“Go ahead, Peter. I’m not leaving without you.”

Shelley walked off with Peter. Lucy, Noah, and Sean followed Suzanne to an interview room. She introduced Noah to Detective DeLucca, who was reviewing digital security tapes.

Noah asked, “Is that the footage from the subway?”

“Yep,” Joe said. “We also checked out all survelliance cameras in the area and I’ve pieced it together.”

He pressed a button. “McMahon—”

“Manning,” Sean said.

“Manning, McMahon, whatever he’s going by—”

“Let’s call him Peter,” Suzanne said. “For simplicity.”

“Peter,” Joe said, “was on the subway and got off at Fourth and Eighty-sixth at seven oh five pm.”

“We were meeting at eight on Third and Ninety-third,” Sean said. “Why wouldn’t he take the subway down to Ninety-fifth? It’s the closest.”

“Because I caught him on a traffic cam going into a mom-and-pop restaurant at Third and Eighty-seventh. He stayed for thirty-nine minutes and left. No cameras until the subway.”

Sean said, “I spotted him just before eight. I planned on waiting until he slipped into the bar we were meeting at, but I spotted Sanchez trailing him.”

“Sanchez,” Joe said. “I caught her, too, coming out of the subway behind Peter. He didn’t see her. I don’t know why she didn’t confront him at the restaurant. She passed it and must have been waiting until he left.”

“Maybe she hadn’t found out where he lived yet, but they knew where he taught.” Suzanne pressed a few keys. “Two weeks ago, this popped up on the school’s Web site.”

Lucy leaned over. It was a photo of Peter with his class. Suzanne said, “This was last year’s third-grade class. They were recognized at the beginning of this year for achieving the greatest increase in test scores from beginning of school to end of school. The mayor presented the award.”

The caption read: “Gray Manning says all children are capable of learning if given the right support and motivation.”

“The article ran in the Times,” Suzanne said. “We know Todd had been trying to find Peter, and with this article he now knew Peter’s new name and where he worked.”

“And that prompted him to put his plan in motion,” Lucy said.

“And exactly what was his plan?” Joe said. “It looks like he’s taking out everyone he’s crossed paths with.”

Lucy shook her head. “He’s methodical. Extremely organized. And he’s been planning this for a long time.”

“I’m going to have to agree with that,” Suzanne said. “Joe, consider what Cleveland said.”

Joe nodded. “Professor Cleveland, Todd’s faculty advisor, said that Todd wasn’t Weber’s first choice. Her first two choices backed out at the last minute, no explanation. We’re trying to track them down now. By the time she went back to the applicant pool, several had found assignments. The post went to Todd.”

“Did Cleveland know about his sister?” Noah asked.

“No. He said Todd was a competent but not outstanding student and never talked about his family.”

Lucy said, “I need to see the scrapbooks you found.”

Joe handed her two evidence bags, each with a scrapbook. She opened them up. The first was essentially a tribute to Camille Todd and media time line of her kidnapping, the investigation, and her subsequent murder. The second, ten times thicker and far less tidy, was a montage of clippings about everyone who had been on the Rachel McMahon investigation.

Except not everyone. Lucy began to take notes. Fast. Everything came together quickly in her head, pulling together what Sean had learned from Charlie Mead and what Suzanne had found in Kip Todd’s apartment.

“Lucy?” Sean asked.

She glanced up. Everyone was looking at her. How long had she been focused on the scrapbooks?

She smiled sheepishly and said, “I don’t have all the answers, and won’t until I talk to Kip or Alexis, but I know why they targeted Peter.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “You got me. I can see that they were targeting him, but how can you tell motive?”

“Fifteen years ago, Kip Todd identified with Peter. If you look at the notations in the first scrapbook, he considers himself almost a brother to Peter. They both lost their beloved older sister. They both suffered. There was no hatred of Peter or the McMahons initially. In fact, I suspect that for a while the Todd family believed that whoever killed Rachel had killed Camille, only Camille’s body hadn’t been found.

“A year later, Camille’s body is found. It’s old news, not generating a lot of press. But the one-year anniversary of Rachel McMahon’s murder is suddenly big news. A weeklong series of articles, rehashing the swingers’ lifestyle, the investigation, the trial—where was the justice for Camille? It’s like no one cared what happened to her.”

“How old were Kip and Alexis?” Suzanne asked.

“Eleven and seventeen when she disappeared. There are some holes in the articles. For example, we don’t really know the circumstances of her kidnapping other than that she went to a public restroom at a public park and didn’t come back. Was she with her family? Her brother? Her sister? Guilt is a powerful and deadly motivator.”

DeLucca said, “I read the police reports. Cops interviewed every sex offender in a twenty-mile radius, everyone at the park that day.”

“And I have the FBI file. It’s even thinner,” Suzanne said. “No suspects. No substantive profile.”

“Who wrote it? Tony or Hans? They were both profiling back then, and both worked on the Rachel McMahon case.”

Suzanne looked. “Hans Vigo. But not until after her body was found. He wrote that the suspect was a pedophile who lived alone in a remote area. Manual labor, farming, or heavy machinery by trade. Worked alone, kept to himself, nondescript. Wouldn’t arouse suspicion. He likely had a dog and used the animal to lure his victims into a place where they could easily be taken. He would be of small stature but deceptively strong.”

Noah added, “He kept Camille until she started her menstrual cycle, then killed her.”

“There was a note added to the file two years ago,” Suzanne said.

“From Hans?”

“No, it’s an administrative note. Five years ago in Pennsylvania, a forty-nine-year-old man was shot and killed by police after the failed abduction of a ten-year-old girl. The note said that profilers deemed the suspect had a sixty-five percent chance of being Camille Todd’s killer. He’d been living in the neighboring town up until a year after Camille’s body had been found.”

“How many victims were attributed to him?”

“Confirmed two—bodies found on his property. Looking through unsolved cases, the BSU determined that five others were definitely his handiwork. Those families were notified. But there were seven victims who were likely but unconfirmed. Their families were not notified.”

Lucy said, “So the Todds never had closure. The parents divorced before Camille was abducted. Then Camille goes missing and they have no idea what happened to her. They had hope when Rachel went missing that the police would find her because they had to be connected—same age, same general area—but Rachel’s case turned into a media blitz, and when her case was solved everyone forgot about Camille.”

Joe took issue with that. “No one forgot. I’m a cop; I’ve never forgotten a missing kid. I look at their pictures every damn day.”

Lucy said, “I’m trying to get into how the Todds felt. How Kip and Alexis turned their confusion and grief into a conspiracy to murder.”

“What you’re saying,” Sean interjected, “is that they felt Camille was forgotten because Rachel’s case got all the attention.”

Lucy nodded, then continued, “Look at this second scrapbook. It wasn’t until after the autopsy that the record keeping became messy. When Kip originally started, he felt a kinship to Peter, until he found out that Camille had been alive the whole time. While Rachel was already dead, all the police and FBI were focused on finding her, not Camille. It doesn’t matter that there was more evidence and more witnesses to Rachel McMahon’s murder; they’re looking at the investigation from the outside.

“Dominic Theissen was the public face of the FBI. He’s the one who verbalized the seventy-two-hour window. The Todds think that the police gave up after seventy-two hours and presumed she was dead.”

Joe said, “In the police reports, it looks like they felt she might have drowned. The creek was running high and kids playing close to the banks have slipped and fallen in the past, washing to shore miles downstream.”

Lucy nodded. “With Rachel, everything appeared to have been done right, and with Camille, everything appeared to have been done wrong—from the Todds’ perspective. Officer Stokes, who later became a detective, had been the responding officer to both crime scenes. Theissen spoke for the FBI. Tony Presidio was the FBI case agent—because initially, they believed the cases were connected. But Tony stayed with the McMahon case all the way through. Camille became a cold case, passed on to another agent when Tony moved to D.C.”

“That doesn’t explain Hans,” Noah said.

“He wrote the profile.”

“How would they get that report?” Joe asked.

Noah responded, “Not difficult. It’s not a classified file. Alexis Sanchez may have accessed it from Quantico.”

“You don’t know?”

“It would have been in Tony’s files,” Lucy said. “I think that’s why she wanted the McMahon file—for the newspaper articles that talked about Camille’s kidnapping. She didn’t want Tony or me to make a connection to either her or Kip, now that the FBI had interviewed him.”

Suzanne said, “If Tony had connected Rosemary Weber’s murder to McMahon, he may have seen the Todd name in the files, and traced Kip Todd back to Camille. Kip wasn’t hiding.”

“But Alexis was, using her married name, lying about her marital status.”

“But why now?” Joe asked. “It’s been fifteen years.”

“It started ten years ago,” Sean said. “Two things happened. Peter moved back to New Jersey, and Rosemary Weber published Sex, Lies, and Family Secrets. Peter was harassed in high school.” He pulled out his laptop and showed the group files he’d downloaded. “Kip Todd was a junior when Peter was a freshman. Same high school. But Kip, who has a degree—not in literature like he told you but computer engineering—hacked into the school system and deleted all his files. When Patrick was in Newark he grabbed a physical copy of the yearbook. And there’s Kip. It’s the only record that he went to the school—if you call them and ask, there are no computerized files. And Patrick followed up—all physical copies were destroyed after they were digitized.”

“When did he do it?” Lucy asked.

“When Peter was in Syracuse,” Sean said. “At least, that’s my educated guess.”

Lucy suspected that Sean knew for certain but that he hadn’t found the information through legitimate channels. She worried that someday his hacking skills were going to get him in trouble, but she had to admit that they often came in handy.

Lucy said, “They lost track of him when he ran away. Kip graduated from high school. Peter got his GED, then he went to college a year early. Kip would have been in college at the same time, and since Peter hadn’t legally changed his name or hid his identity, he was easy to find.”

“And Alexis got close to him? To psychologically torture him?” Suzanne shook her head. “They’re sick.”

“They’re methodical sociopaths.”

“What I don’t get is how Alexis beat the FBI background check,” Joe said. “Don’t you guys run your new agents through a vigorous system?”

“Yes,” Noah said, “but she didn’t lie about anything. Just because her sister was murdered doesn’t disqualify her from being an agent. When she interviewed, she lived in Denver, she was married, she had a daughter. All that was true. When she and her husband split, she amended her file. It’s all there, in her file, but unless you know what to look for, it’s not going to raise any concerns.”

“Why go through all that trouble to become an FBI agent if you’re only going to leave in the middle of training?”

“My guess?” Sean said. “They wanted information they couldn’t get without being an insider. Either on their sister’s murder investigation, or maybe they believed after Peter disappeared from Syracuse that the FBI knew where he was.”

Noah concurred and added, “Also, I don’t think Alexis planned on killing Tony so soon after killing Weber. But when Tony himself went to New York, she panicked and poisoned his Scotch.”

“Do we have a confirmation from the lab that his Scotch was definitely poisoned?” Lucy asked.

Noah shook his head. “We’re waiting on more tox reports. Right now, an ERT unit is combing through her dorm room looking for trace evidence. If she’s guilty, we’ll find it.”

“Why kill Rosemary now?” Lucy mused out loud.

“Because,” Joe said, “Rosemary was looking into the Theissen subway accident. The day before she was killed, she requested the autopsy report, the police report, and all security footage. Maybe Todd thought she’d see something that would nail him. Though we can’t confirm from the security tapes that Todd was the person who tripped Theissen, he fits the general description.”

“Theissen’s death set the chain of events into motion,” Suzanne said. “They’d quietly taken out Theissen. They may or may not have poisoned Bob Stokes. Kip Todd is keeping an eye on Rosemary—maybe he got the internship to see if she had information about Peter. Or maybe just to get close to her before he killed her, like Alexis got close to Peter.”

Noah asked, “Did they conspire to kill Theissen? Or was that the brother acting alone?”

“They had to be working together,” Sean said.

“Why?”

“The only way Alexis could have known Tony was working with Suzanne was if her brother tipped her off.”

Suzanne said, “They’re both looking very guilty.”

Lucy considered the facts they knew and all the conjecture and speculation. “I’m having a hard time figuring out which one of the siblings is dominant. Traditionally, it’s the male partner, but he was much younger when Camille was kidnapped. How his mother and his older sister responded to their grief would have a huge impact on him. He may have put himself into the protective role, that he needed to look out for them because he couldn’t protect Camille. Yet, Alexis went into the lion’s den—she was one of us. She ate with us, studied with us, lived with us. She kept up the act at all times. That shows an intense and controlled personality, capable of extreme emotional restraint.”

“I’ve looked at this security footage a dozen times,” Joe said, “and she wasn’t trying to kill Peter. I think she wanted to disable Sean.”

Sean concurred. “She wanted Peter to go with her. When I wouldn’t let him, she shot at me.”

“She could be fixated on him,” Suzanne said.

“If Peter isn’t a target, why was he stalked for so many years? In high school and college? Why did Alexis pretend to be someone else?” Lucy looked through the scrapbooks again. “Except…” She hesitated.

“What?” Noah prompted.

“There are two distinctly different targets. Those who elevated Rachel’s murder and minimized Camille’s—in the eyes of the Todds—would be Rosemary Weber and any law enforcement involved in either investigation. Then there is Peter. Peter had nothing to do with any of it. He didn’t talk to Rosemary Weber; he didn’t do anything to make himself the center of attention. If anything, he diminished himself and became inconsequential. He moved, changed his name, disappeared. And still, they sought him out.”

“Or,” Suzanne said, “one of them did.”

“You’re not thinking that Alexis isn’t part of this whole thing,” Joe said, “or being manipulated by her brother? She attacked a federal agent and shot a civilian.”

Lucy considered Joe’s comment. “I think Alexis is fully cognizant of her actions. I don’t think she’s being manipulated by her brother. They planned everything out, from Agent Theissen to Rosemary Weber to Tony Presidio to Hans. It’s Peter who doesn’t fit. Especially since Sean says she aimed to kill him, not Peter.”

“Alexis and Kip could be in the middle of a falling-out,” Noah said. “And we need to capitalize on it.”

*

Suzanne and Lucy laid out their theory about Kip and Alexis Todd to Peter. He didn’t say anything for several minutes. Lucy didn’t blame him—it was an incredible story.

“Why do they hate me? What did I ever do to them?”

“Nothing,” Lucy said. “You became the object of their sociopathy. When their sister was killed, they had no one to blame. They blamed the police, the media, your family, everyone, because they felt helpless.”

Suzanne added, “You were a convenient target for them.”

It was clear that Peter didn’t believe them, not completely.

“There may be another factor we haven’t uncovered,” Lucy said. “There’s a lot we don’t know about their childhood. There’s a lot we don’t know about their relationship. Detective Mead gave Sean your file, which helps with the time line.”

Suzanne slid a recent picture of Kip Todd in front of Peter. “Do you recognize this man?”

Peter stared at it. He shook his head.

Suzanne then slid a picture of Kip Todd from Peter’s yearbook ten years ago. Kip had changed a lot—his hair was darker and he was heavier in high school.

“What about him?”

Peter stared and frowned. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

He shrugged. “I remember a short, pudgy kid when I was a freshman. We didn’t have any classes together, but his locker was near mine. He talked to me a few times, but I didn’t have friends and didn’t want to make any friends.” He looked at them. “My grandmother had just died. My mother was a slut. You’d think after everything that happened, how humiliated they were when their sex parties were exposed, that she’d clean up her act. Instead, my mom goes to one extreme and sleeps with every breathing male, and my dad goes to the other extreme and becomes a fire-and-brimstone-preaching dictator who says sex is evil. I missed my sister, but I missed her even more after Grams died.” He paused, looked at his clasped hands. “Which seems weird after five years.”

Lucy said, “It’s not weird.” She hesitated, then said, “When I was seven, my best friend—my nephew—was killed. He was practically my brother; we saw each other every day. Like Rachel, he was kidnapped from his bedroom. Senseless. I still miss him, and every once in a while, even now, I feel almost overwhelmed with loss. It comes and goes quickly. On the one hand, I want to hold on to that feeling because I want to remember him; on the other, it feels so real, so painful, I never want to feel it again.”

Peter seemed to find peace in her understanding.

Suzanne showed him a recent picture of Alexis. “Do you recognize this woman?”

“It’s Cami. But different.”

“But you think it’s the same woman.”

“I know it is. I loved her. She had lighter hair back then—I knew she’d dyed it, but I never saw her with brown hair. And her features are a little different—maybe fuller? Rounder? But it’s her.”

“Her name is Alexis Todd Sanchez.”

He frowned. “She’s married?”

“Divorced.”

Lucy considered something. She opened the file and looked at the birth records of Missy Sanchez. Alexis said she’d just turned four. That meant she could have been conceived in October, right before Alexis left Syracuse after allegedly putting the dead pig in Peter’s bed—Lucy needed Alexis’s medical records to know for certain.

Or they could call her ex-husband.

“Excuse me,” Lucy said.

Suzanne looked at her oddly, but Lucy slipped out.

Noah and Joe were watching through the one-way mirror in a room next door.

“What are you thinking?” Noah asked Lucy.

“The time frame—what if Alexis wasn’t the one who put the pig in Peter’s bed?”

Noah was skeptical. “She scrubbed down the apartment, lied about where she lived, was never a student. She lied about everything.”

“They were having sex. I think he’s Missy’s father.”

“That’s a big leap.”

“The timing is right.”

“She’s involved, Lucy. Even if Tony was poisoned in New York, or if his death was truly a coincidence, she attacked Hans.”

“I think she did both, no doubt in my mind. I think she’s as much involved in all of it as her brother. Except for Peter. I think she truly wanted to warn him, to protect him.”

“I trust your hunches,” Noah said, “but that doesn’t help us find her, or her brother.”

“I have an idea to draw Alexis out,” Lucy said. “But I need to confirm my theory.”

“All right,” he said. “What do you need?”

“To talk to her ex-husband.”