Stalked

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

New York City

Jimmy Bartz was picked up late Saturday night by uniformed officers in Queens. Suzanne and Joe decided to let him stew the rest of the night, and Suzanne arrived at DeLucca’s precinct at eight Sunday morning.

“We could have come in together,” Joe said.

“No, we couldn’t,” Suzanne said. Joe had wanted to go home with her last night, but she had put her foot down and after one beer had left alone. The worst thing was that she had wanted to give in, but reason vetoed her heart. Heart? Who was she fooling? It was her body that craved Joe. She didn’t want to fall back into bed with him because then her heart would be at risk and it would only end badly. Just like last time. Because she would not give him any ultimatum that affected his relationship with his son, nor did she want to play the role of mistress with a man who was hiding her from his ex-wife.

“Has he talked?” Suzanne switched the subject back to the case at hand.

“No.” Joe checked in with the desk sergeant. “Can you bring Bartz to interview?”

“Room one,” the sergeant said. He got on the phone.

Joe led Suzanne through the bullpen to his desk. It was a quiet Sunday morning. Joe sat down at his tidy desk. Suzanne glanced around at the stacks of paper on everyone else’s desk. “You have the cleanest crib in town.”

“Just in this neighborhood,” Joe said. He quickly checked his e-mail, then brought up Bartz’s rap sheet. Joe turned his monitor so both he and Suzanne could read it.

“Worst thing is assault-no weapons charges.”

“The guys who know him said he never carries a weapon, and it’s served him well. Three arrests, all bumped down to misdemeanors, one time-served, and a three-month, then six-month stint in county. No hard-jail time.”

“And he then kills a woman for a ring?”

“Could have been hired.”

They both shook their heads at the same time.

“Let’s play with him a bit. He’s a two-bit thief. Money drives him.”

The on-call detective said, “Hey, DeLucca, you need to pressure Bartz? Drop his buddy’s name-Franks. His stats are in the rap sheet. They’re friendly rivals.”

“Thanks, Parker.”

He turned to Suzanne. “Let’s see what this guy has to say.”

Jimmy Bartz was a scrappy forty-year-old who didn’t look strong enough to snap a toothpick. Suzanne could see why he was an effective thief-he looked harmless, skittish, and had quiet gray eyes. But his eyes became fearful when he saw Joe’s stern expression.

“You’re not Detective Kramer.”

“I’m Detective Joe DeLucca. This is Special Agent Suzanne Madeaux with the FBI.”

Bartz looked at Suzanne. “FBI? Why’s the FBI here? Detective Kramer handles property crimes in this jurisdiction.”

Joe smiled slyly. “You know our system well. Kramer is off today. I’m in Homicide.”

“Homicide? Why is Homicide handling property crimes? Why is the FBI here?”

This guy was either a great actor or truly clueless.

Joe said, “You tell us the truth and you’ll be able to walk out the door today. You lie to us and you’ll be in Rikers before lunch.”

“I told the officers exactly what happened. I found that ring, just wanted to know how much it was worth.”

“You pawned it for two thousand dollars.”

“It was worth a lot more than I thought. I thought it was fake, thought I’d get two bills, maybe three.”

“Where did you find the ring?”

“At Citi Field.”

“In the stadium?”

“No, in the parking lot.”

“Inside someone’s car?”

“No, just lying on the ground.”

Suzanne said, “Was it on the finger of a dead woman?”

Bartz’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of them. “Dead woman? There was no dead woman. It was just lying on one of the white lines. I saw it sparkle, picked it up. I swear to God, I didn’t take it off any dead chick. I didn’t even steal it, I swear I found it.”

Joe leaned back. “I don’t believe you.”

“Kramer would believe me. Call him; he’ll tell you if I’m lying. He always knows.”

“I’m telling you, you’re lying.” Joe stared at Bartz. The thief fidgeted.

Joe glanced at Suzanne and gave her a subtle signal. She stood up. “Well, you can have him, DeLucca. He doesn’t know anything, I’ll talk to the other guy about the reward-what was his name?”

“Carmine Franks.”

“Franks. That’s right. Is he next door?”

“Yes, just tell the desk sergeant you’re ready.”

“Reward?” Bartz said. “What kind of reward?”

“For information leading to the murderer of Rosemary Weber,” Suzanne said. “You found her ring, we thought you might have seen something. I didn’t want to deal with this Franks guy-he’s a jerk-but I need to get information any way I can.”

“I don’t know anything about a murder, but neither does Franks!”

“How do you know what Franks knows?” Joe asked.

“He’s been in Jersey with his daughter all week. Just came back yesterday. His oldest had a baby boy. First grandson and all that. Ask him, because he saw nothing.”

“And you did?”

Bartz hesitated, trying to think up something to tell them to get him closer to the fictitious reward. Joe nodded at Suzanne, and she left the room, watching through the one-way mirror.

“Look,” Joe said conversationally to the suspect, “you have a ring that was last seen on a dead woman. You hocked it. Now you’re telling me you found it at Citi Field.”

“Right. Because I did.”

“I believe you.”

Bartz looked relieved.

“What day?”

Bartz thought about it.

“It’s not a hard question, Jimmy.”

“Tuesday?”

“Morning or night.”

“Night?”

“Why are you asking me? Either you found it Tuesday night or you didn’t.”

“I did.”

Then Joe hit him with the facts. “The woman was killed at Citi Field. In the parking lot. On Tuesday night. And I’m going to book you for murder.”

“You can’t!”

“I’m a homicide detective. It’s what I do.”

“But-but-”

Suzanne came in and handed Joe a file. It was blank, but Joe smiled. He didn’t say anything.

“Special circumstances,” Suzanne said. “We’ll take the prosecution, since we can try him for the death penalty.”

“You got it,” Joe said. “I love this new task force, Agent Madeaux. Especially since New York no longer has a death sentence.”

Bartz was shaking.

“I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t. I swear to the Almighty God, I swear on my grandmother’s grave, I didn’t kill anyone, ever in my life.”

Joe stared at him. “How did you get this ring?” He slapped the ring, in an evidence bag, on the table.

Bartz stared at it. He seemed to weigh what he should say.

“You just told me you found it Tuesday night in the parking lot at Citi Field. The victim was murdered at Citi Field on Tuesday night. Every jury will agree you just confessed.”

Suzanne nodded. “I already ran it up to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. They say we have enough.”

“No!” Bartz looked trapped. “I–I didn’t find it.”

“You didn’t find the ring.” Joe’s flat voice told Bartz he didn’t believe him.

“I–I-I got it from a guy.”

“Does this guy have a name?”

Bartz shook his head. “Just a guy. Said he broke up with his girlfriend and was going to toss the ring. He gave it to me instead.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Jimmy,” Joe said. “This ring”-he held it up-“is worth over fifteen thousand dollars. No one just handed it to you!”

Suzanne didn’t think Bartz could have grown even more pale. He was downright ghostly. “Fi-fi-fifteen?”

“And a guy gave it to you.”

“I–I was hustling on my corner, selling pictures, ask Kramer, I sell pictures outside the subway across from Citi Field.”

“When?” Joe asked.

“Yesterday morning.”

Suzanne said, “The Mets are on the road.”

“But there was an event. A charity game, retired players or something. I was there at eleven; game started at noon. I swear to God.”

There was a ring of truth, but Suzanne was withholding judgment. This guy was a piece of work.

“An-and it was slow, this guy comes up and asks if I want to buy this ring. Said his girlfriend broke up with him at the game on Tuesday, and he was going to toss the ring, but decided to sell it. See, I sometimes buy things-”

“You knew him?”

“No, I swear, never seen him before.”

“What did he look like?” Suzanne asked.

“Baseball cap. White guy.”

“A white guy in a baseball cap. That’s the best you can do?”

Bartz shrugged.

“What was he wearing?” Suzanne prompted.

“Jeans. T-shirt.”

“Anything on the T-shirt?”

“It was plain. White.”

“Tattoos?”

Bartz shrugged.

“Height? Weight? Fat? Thin? Did he have wings?” Joe was getting irritated.

“Um, he was taller than me.”

“Everyone in New York is taller than you, Jimmy.”

“Um, six feet? A little less? More? I was sitting down. I don’t know!”

“And you bought the ring from him?”

“No, I thought it was hot.”

“He was selling stolen jewelry.”

“Yes. No! I didn’t know, I just thought, you know?” Bartz was wringing his hands, the cuffs jangling. “I said I didn’t have the money to buy it, and he said keep it. Said he couldn’t look at it without thinking about his girlfriend.”

“And you didn’t find this suspicious?”

“You’d be surprised what people give me. It’s the God’s honest truth, ask Kramer; he knows when I’m bullshitting. I swear, he gave it to me.” He paused. “Is there a reward? Because I found the ring and all?”

Joe and Suzanne stepped out without answering his question.

“What a ridiculous story,” Suzanne said.

“He’s telling the truth.”

“Damn, I thought so, too. I just hoped that I was wrong.”

Joe said, “The killer reads the article, worries that we’re going to start looking at other motives and that he might be under the gun, but he’s smart enough not to hock the ring himself. Gives it to a street vendor knowing there’s a better than good chance the guy will pawn it.”

“He’s got to know we’ll track the guy,” Suzanne said.

“You heard Jimmy. He can’t even ID the guy.”

“You should get a sketch artist in here anyway.”

Joe concurred. “I’m also going to check and see if there’s a security camera that caught Bartz yesterday at that subway station. We might get lucky. And I know Kramer; I’ll see what he says about this guy.” Joe shook his head. “I don’t see Bartz as the killer.”

“And that’s why his story has a ring of truth. Shit, we’re back where we started.”

“No, we have an advantage. Your friend Tony played the killer, and the killer did exactly what we wanted-pawned the ring. He just used a middleman.”

Suzanne stared at Bartz through the window, but she was thinking about the guy in the cap. Smart, but he’d have to know Bartz’s story would never hold water. “Do we pressure him or let him think he deceived us?”

Joe said, “Give the killer a little breathing room? Announce that we’re interrogating a suspect?”

“Except that the killer would know Bartz’s story is pathetic. He can’t possibly know that Bartz won’t be able to ID him.”

“Let’s see what we can learn from the sketch artist and security cameras. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Sean was driving toward Bridget Weber’s house on the Upper East Side when Lucy’s cell phone rang; she was surprised to hear Noah Armstrong on the other end.

“Hello, Noah.”

“Lucy, there’s been an accident.”

Flashes of friends and family, bloody and dying, flew through her head. “Who?” Her voice cracked.

“Hans. He’s in critical condition at Prince William Hospital. I can’t talk on the phone, but I need you back at Quantico now.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll explain when you get here. Don’t discuss this with anyone except Sean. Let me talk to Rogan.”

Lucy handed the phone to Sean. He listened for a long minute. Lucy watched his face but couldn’t read his expression. “Got it,” Sean said, and hung up. He handed Lucy back her phone. “Noah wants me to put you on a plane ASAP.”

“Put me on a plane?”

“Commercial. He’s made a reservation for you; it leaves in an hour. He asked me and Patrick to stay here and follow through.”

“What happened to Hans?”

“He didn’t say-he was vague. He said, ‘Follow up on the assignment Hans gave you.’ My guess, it wasn’t an accident.”

First Tony, now Hans. “It’s all connected to what happened to Rosemary Weber.”

Sean maneuvered through New York traffic like a native and merged onto a freeway.

“It all connects here in New York,” Sean said. “I’m going to call Suzanne and find out where she is, fill her in on the news about Hans, and have her or her cop friend pull the files on Theissen.”

“Be careful,” Lucy said.

Sean took her hand. “You, too, princess.”

*

“What’s going on?” Suzanne demanded when she met Sean in front of the Webers’ narrow three-story town house on the Upper East Side. “You’re thirty minutes late, and you tell me to wait? Sunday is usually the only day off I get, and yet I was up at the butt crack of dawn to interview a suspect, then ordered to rush over here, only to be kept waiting by a friggin’ P.I.?”

Sean smiled and handed her coffee. “Black and sweet, right?”

She grabbed the coffee but didn’t return his smile. “Where’s Lucy?”

“Headed back to Quantico.”

“Why?”

“It has to stay between you and me. Can’t even tell your boyfriend.”

“DeLucca isn’t my boyfriend.”

Sean coughed a laugh. “I was speaking metaphorically, but good to know.”

She glared at him from under the brim of her Mets hat, all fire.

“Hans Vigo had an accident yesterday. He’s in critical condition. Lucy was called back in, and my guess is that it wasn’t really an accident.”

“Why are you still here?”

“Hans asked me to find Peter McMahon. That’s what I’m doing.”

“Back up-is this the Peter McMahon whose sister was murdered when he was a kid? The case Tony was so curious about?”

“Four people involved in his sister’s investigation are dead under mysterious circumstances.”

Her brow furrowed. “Four people? Who?”

Sean ticked them off on his fingers. “Weber, Bob Stokes, Dominic Theissen, and Tony Presidio.” He explained the suspicious circumstances of Stokes’s and Theissen’s deaths and how they might not have been accidents, or natural.

“McMahon has been completely off the grid for the last six years,” Sean said. “No death certificate, no Social Security number in use, nothing. FBI is going through their channels; I’m going through mine. I traced him to college at SU; then he seemed to just vanish.”

“There has to be something else.”

“Agent Presidio’s personal file on the McMahon investigation disappeared from his office the day he died. Something is going on, maybe it has nothing to do with Peter McMahon, but it’s not easy to go completely off the grid.”

“So you’re thinking he’s targeting cops who worked his sister’s case because why?”

“I don’t think anything at this point,” Sean said. “I’m just going to find him.”

“And you think Bridget Weber knows something she didn’t tell me?” Suzanne sounded skeptical.

“I think Rosemary Weber has a lot of files and information on the McMahon investigation that may shed light on these deaths.”

“So you don’t think her murder has anything to do with the Cinderella Strangler case?”

“We’re not going to know until the feds are done with their forensic investigation.” Sean walked up the steps to the front door. “Hopefully, there’ll be enough answers here to give us a clear direction.”

Bridget Weber was five years younger than her sister, but judging by Rosemary’s author photo on her book, they had looked very much alike-blond hair, blue eyes, and deep dimples.

“Thank you for agreeing to see us on such short notice,” Suzanne said.

Bridget tried to smile but didn’t quite make it. “Do you have information about Rosie’s murder?”

“We’re pursuing every possible lead,” Suzanne said. “We just have a few questions. Did your sister discuss her books or what she was working on with you?”

“Sometimes. But I travel a lot for work, and when she’s in the middle of a project she’s very focused, doesn’t talk to anyone but her research assistant, if that.”

Sean said, “Did you talk about her current project?”

“The Cinderella Strangler? A little-she was excited about it. She said it had all the hallmarks of a bestseller.” Bridget paused, then said, a bit sheepishly, “Rosie’s first book was a big hit. None of her other books did as well as Sex, Lies, and Family Secrets. She was always looking for what she called a big, juicy story, and she thought this new one fit.”

“Did she say why?” Sean asked.

“Not specifically, but anyone could see that the case was alluring. Underground sex parties, drugs, prostitution-the backdrop was more interesting than the crimes themselves.”

Sean was grateful Lucy wasn’t here. To Lucy, it was always the victims who mattered, not the trappings, and she would take issue with the sister’s description.

Suzanne said, “When we were going over her calendar and notes, we noticed she had scheduled a meeting with a reporter, Rob Banker. Do you know him?”

“Yes, he was one of Rosie’s closest friends.”

“She canceled the meeting because she had a lead to follow. Did she tell you anything about it?”

Bridget shook her head. “I didn’t see her before she left. I was out at dinner. I invited her to join me, but she thinks my friends are boring.” She smiled sadly. “She did mention she had a meeting, but I didn’t ask any details.”

Sean said, “She dedicated her first book to a Newark police officer, Bob Stokes. Do you know him?”

Bridget straightened in surprise. “Actually, I do. He was one of the officers she’d known when she was a reporter in Jersey. They were friendly. But she hadn’t talked to him in years until he came up here for the funeral of Dom Theissen. Dom was a friend of Rosie’s. They talked a lot. I thought there might be something romantic between them, but she never said anything. I know his accident hit her really hard.” Bridget began to look irritated. “I told all of this to the other FBI agent who came by.”

“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.”