Stalked

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

New York City

Kip Todd lived in a small studio loft in SoHo. Suzanne met Joe DeLucca and two uniformed NYPD officers outside the building. “No doorman, manager gave me a key,” Joe said. He ordered the uniforms to split and take front and rear entrances. “Second floor.”

They took the stairs up. Joe knocked on the door. “NYPD, open up.”

Nothing. No response, no sound of movement.

Joe glanced at Suzanne. “Ready?”

She nodded.

He put the key in. “It’s nice working with you on a case.” He grinned. “We should do it more often.”

“Just watch my ass,” she said, then moaned when he laughed. “You know what I meant.

“FBI and NYPD,” Suzanne said. “Kip Todd, we’re coming in.”

They cautiously entered the one-room apartment, guns drawn. Joe checked the closet and bathroom while Suzanne looked in the cabinets in the small kitchen space. The bed was a futon. There weren’t many places to hide, and Kip wasn’t in any of them.

They holstered their weapons and looked around. The studio was L shaped, with two walls of windows. Small, but with new hardwood floors, a modern kitchen, and a bathroom not much bigger than an airport stall.

Kip Todd didn’t have much stuff-a futon, end table, kitchen table with two chairs, and desk. The place was tidy, even the desk, though it was obvious someone had cleaned up and cleared out quickly. The printer was still there, with a cord that had connected to a missing computer. Phone cable for the Internet. A cell phone charger had been left behind.

Suzanne e-mailed her boss and asked for a warrant to track Kip Todd through his cell phone GPS. “It’ll take a couple hours, but we’ll get it,” she told Joe.

Joe pulled on gloves and was going through Kip Todd’s desk drawers. “He didn’t grab everything,” he said.

He pulled out a scrapbook. Every page was well designed, with care in picture placement. The first few pages were pictures of Kip Todd and his two older sisters, according to the labels.

“According to the information Noah Armstrong sent,” Suzanne said, “Kip and Camille were eleven months apart.”

After a half-dozen pages, newspaper articles and police reports replaced the photos. The headlines told the story.

TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL ABDUCTED FROM PARK

SEARCH PARTIES STILL LOOKING FOR TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL MISSING SINCE SUNDAY

POLICE SAY THE RACHEL MCMAHON KIDNAPPING IS UNCONNECTED TO GIRL MISSING SINCE SUNDAY

The early newspaper articles were carefully clipped and preserved in the book. Passages had been underlined. Other than articles about Rachel McMahon that mentioned Camille Todd’s disappearance, there were no other articles about McMahon or her family.

A year after Camille’s disappearance, Todd had pasted in another article.

BODY FOUND IN WASHINGTON PARK RESERVE MAY BE MISSING GIRL

As the articles told the story of Camille Todd’s body being found and identified, someone had blacked out paragraphs. Suzanne did a quick search on her smartphone for one of the articles and found out that all the paragraphs that had been blacked out related to comparisons between Camille Todd and Rachel McMahon. In fact, as the journalistic story continued, more and more dealt with rehashing Rachel’s murder and less about Camille’s disappearance.

According to the police reports, there was never a viable suspect in Camille’s abduction and murder. However, the autopsy indicated that she’d been dead only two weeks before her body was discovered.

Joe was disgusted. “What guy keeps the autopsy report of his sister? There’s pictures-wait, these are evidence photos.”

“He could have stolen them.” Suzanne turned the page. The last page in the scrapbook was really two pages, torn from a copy of Rosemary Weber’s book Sex, Lies, and Family Secrets.

Suzanne’s blood ran cold.

One week before Rachel was kidnapped from her bedroom while her parents swapped sex partners, another young girl was abducted. Camille Todd, twelve, was playing at a neighborhood park on a cold but sunny Sunday afternoon when she went to the public bathroom. No one saw her alive again.

Officer Robert Stokes of Newark was the first responder to both 911 calls. “We immediately ruled out any connection between Rachel and Camille. Camille was taken from a public park in broad daylight, and Rachel was taken in the middle of night from her bedroom.” Stokes was proven correct in his analysis after Rachel’s killer was identified as Benjamin John Kreig. Kreig had an airtight alibi for Camille’s disappearance.

“The first seventy-two hours are the most critical in any stranger abduction,” FBI Media Information Officer Dominic Theissen said. “Camille had been missing for a week when Rachel was abducted. We always hope that these victims are found alive, but after a week the chances are less than one percent. We focused our resources where we felt they would do the most good.”

Unfortunately, both girls met tragic ends. Rachel’s body was found six days after she was raped and murdered; Camille Todd was found nearly a year later.

“Theissen and Stokes were involved in both investigations,” Suzanne said. “What are the chances that Tony Presidio was as well?”

“Look at this,” Joe said. He pulled out a second scrapbook. This book was thicker and a complete mess.

“Shit,” Suzanne mumbled when she opened it. “It’s everything about Rachel McMahon and her family.”

“There are pictures of her brother from what? Junior high? High school?”

“That’s when it starts.” She turned pages and watched as Peter McMahon grew up. There were handwritten notes about where he lived and his routine.

“Todd has been following him for a long time.”

“It makes no fucking sense.”

“I’m not a shrink, but maybe Todd felt a kinship with Peter because they both lost their sisters to violence.”

“I don’t think it’s kinship. I think this guy is crazy.”

“We met him. He’s not crazy. Methodical and obsessed, maybe.”

There were photos taken from afar of a kid they presumed was Peter McMahon from the time he was fourteen until he was about twenty. There were some labels to help identify the places, and it fit with what little Sean Rogan had found on the guy. Then nothing until a series of photos printed from a cell phone camera. The quality was poor and they were all taken from a distance.

“This is more recent,” Joe said.

Suzanne assessed the photos. “That’s the Saint Patrick’s Day parade, but I can’t tell what year.”

“I think it was this year-I know this street; that closed storefront he’s standing in front of shut down end of December.”

“Here’s another recent photo of McMahon at a cemetery.” Suzanne frowned. “I don’t recognize this place.”

“Neither do I.”

“McMahon may have been off the grid for a few years, but it looks like he’s been found.”

“Was Todd stalking him? What was his endgame?”

“Hell if I know, I can’t see inside his head. Let’s box this up and take it to the Bureau. Noah and Lucy are on their way and she’s a criminal psychologist. She was instrumental in profiling the Cinderella Strangler, and without her that loony tune would have killed even more people.”

While Joe bagged the two scrapbooks, Suzanne tried Noah. His phone was off-he was probably still on the plane. She then called Sean Rogan.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Just landed at the Executive Airport.”

“You’re here in the city?”

“I know where Peter McMahon is.”

“Tell me.”

Sean hesitated. “I can’t.”

“This is a federal investigation, Rogan. Tell me where he is or you’re obstructing justice.”

“He’s now my client. Detective Charlie Mead retained RCK and I’m his bodyguard. That was the condition on which I got his location. I’m not telling anyone where he is until I have him in my custody.”

“Kip Todd has recent pictures of him. He probably knows where he lives. The FBI is perfectly capable of protecting him.”

Sean hung up.