Shit. No wonder she was in so much pain. “He told you that?”
“No. But does it matter?”
“Yes. It matters. I don’t care what a panel of bureaucrats thinks, you worked your ass off to get to Quantico, more than anyone else.”
“I gave him my ID. Not as dramatic as handing over my gun and badge, but it was all I had.”
“You can’t.”
Sean crossed over three lanes of traffic and pulled over into the breakdown lane. Lucy clutched the dashboard and stared at him as if he’d jumped from an airplane without a parachute. “What are you doing?”
He slammed the car into park and turned to face her. “You can’t just quit.”
“I did.”
“You’re not a quitter.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Don’t tell me how I’m feeling!”
Sean wanted to go back to Quantico, but forcing Lucy to confront Hans now wasn’t going to help. No one could force Lucy to do something she didn’t want to do. He had to convince her to go back on her own.
“Hans did not accept your resignation.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m going back.” She sighed and took his hand. “Sean, this is my decision to make. Yes, I earned my spot. I absolutely should be an FBI agent. But people know. They know someone pulled strings to get me this spot, and that bothers me more than anything. Remember a few months back when I told you if I didn’t make it, I’d be okay?”
“Of course.”
“I’m going to be okay now, too. I’ll get through this.”
Sean didn’t doubt it, but that didn’t mean she should quit. “Don’t do anything rash.”
“I won’t. But you understand, right?” She squeezed his hand, imploring him with her eyes.
He kissed her. “I understand. Whatever decision you make, I’m behind you.” Sean took a deep breath. “But this conversation is not over.”
“It’s over for now.”
Sean reluctantly agreed and pulled the car back in with the traffic. “We’re going to New York to retrace Tony Presidio’s steps.”
“Why?”
“Hans asked me to.”
“Great.” She closed her eyes.
“I’ll have you back by six p.m. tomorrow. I promise.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do.”
He should tell her that he’d known. Right now—except he couldn’t. She was angry and upset and he didn’t want to compound the situation by telling her that Senator Jonathon Paxton had told him two months ago that Hans had pulled strings. What would it have helped? She already didn’t speak to Paxton anymore, and then Sean would have had to explain why Paxton told him, and that was opening a big fat can of worms Sean didn’t want to open.
So he remained silent. If Lucy wanted to be an FBI agent, she should be—there was no one here more qualified or capable.
Sean changed the subject and told her the plan. “Patrick is joining us at the airport. We’re flying into Newark. Bob Stokes, the cop you flagged for me from Weber’s first book, died of a heart attack last month. Patrick’s going to pull the report and talk to his partner and widow.”
“You think there’s something suspicious about his death?”
“He was in his early forties and close to Rosemary Weber. He’d been the responding officer at the scene, and had gone on record as believing the parents were holding back. Patrick’s going to snoop around there, while we go to New York City and retrace Tony’s steps. Hans thinks we may be able to find out why he was so hot to look at his notes. You’re the last person to have seen them; they’re fresh in your head.”
“But he was intimately familiar with the case.” Lucy paused, then said, “It’s hard to kill someone by heart attack.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Tony died of a heart attack. He had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system, which may have been a contributing factor. Or coincidence.” Lucy took out her cell phone.
“Who are you calling?” Sean asked.
“I’m sending Hans an e-mail. I don’t want to talk to him right now, but when I found Tony on Thursday there was a bottle of Scotch on his desk. They should have it tested. Just in case.”
Sean waited while she sent the e-mail. “Lucy, who told you that Hans pulled strings?”
“Laughlin.”
Sean wanted to deck the guy. “You don’t think there’s something suspicious about that?”
“Yes, I do. It tells me that Kate knew and didn’t want me to find out. It’s what they had to have been arguing about when I walked in. And it would explain why Kate wouldn’t tell me the truth when I confronted her about it.”
She glanced back down at her phone and said, “Well, I guess I’m not the only one with a suspicious mind. Hans had a forensic team come in from the FBI lab last night. They took the Scotch bottle and glass and collected trace evidence. They’re testing everything at the lab, and running an expanded tox screen on Tony’s blood work.”
“If someone poisoned his bottle, that means—”
Lucy finished his sentence. “There’s a killer at Quantico.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
New York City
Patrick met them at the small private airport in northern Virginia where Sean kept his Cessna. “I have a meeting with Stokes’s partner, and with the coroner’s office, but we need to get going—it’s Saturday, and I convinced the coroner to come in on his day off. I don’t want to keep him waiting.”
Lucy psyched herself up for the flight. She’d flown since the crash landing three months ago when she and Noah Armstrong, who’d been an Air Force pilot, had been shot down in the Adirondack Mountains. But each time she boarded a plane, her heart raced and she had to force herself to remain calm.
While Sean ran through the pre-flight check, Patrick came over to her. “You okay, Sis?”
She nodded. To change the subject she asked, “What happened with Brandy?”
“What did Sean tell you?”
“Nothing—just that you said it wasn’t going to last.”
Patrick shrugged. “Sean has a big mouth.”
“He wanted to know what I knew, which is less than he does. I thought you liked her.”
Patrick sighed. “She’s beautiful and smart, but I just don’t feel it, you know? I’m going through the motions and it shouldn’t be like that. She called me on it last night, and I let her walk away.”
“Is Mom getting on your case because you’re next up to get married?”
Patrick paled. “Don’t even say it. I’m not ready.”
“You’re going to be thirty-six next month.”
“I’m young at heart.”
Lucy laughed and hugged him. “It is Mom. Don’t let her push you.”
“She has a long arm, even three thousand miles away.” In a low voice he said, “She’s planning on setting me up with Gabrielle Santana when I go home for Christmas.”
Lucy stared wide-eyed. “What? You can’t.”
Lucy knew Gabrielle, even though the woman was three years older than her. Like the Kincaids, the Santana family was large and Catholic. In high school, Lucy had dated Gabrielle’s brother for two weeks, and even in two weeks the stories she’d heard from him about all five of his sisters, and in particular Gabrielle, had Lucy both envious and terrified. Gabrielle had a wild reputation.
“Apparently, Gabrielle is the first Santana ever to get divorced. Mom and Mrs. Santana think I would be good for her. Why do I feel like I’m being set up to tame a shrew?”
“So this means we have four months to find you a girlfriend.”
Patrick stared at her as if she’d suggested he become a monk. “No. This means we have four months to find me a job that will keep me out of San Diego at Christmas.”
Sean approached. “Christmas?”
“Nothing,” Patrick said.
Lucy smiled and whispered, “I’ll tell you later.”
“Shut up, Rogan,” Patrick mumbled.
Sean grinned. “Plane’s ready; let’s go.”
At least the conversation with Patrick went a long way in alleviating Lucy’s apprehension about the plane ride, and the hour passed quickly while Sean ran through a list of women he could set Patrick up with just for the three days he would be in San Diego. Patrick mostly pretended to sleep and ignored him.
Sean landed them in Newark just after three that afternoon. Both he and Patrick rented cars, because they were on a tight schedule if Sean was truly going to get Lucy back by 6:00 p.m. tomorrow. He didn’t believe for a minute that she would follow through on her threat to quit, and he wasn’t going to make her late.
Sean turned onto the Jersey Turnpike heading toward Manhattan. “So that’s what this whole dating kick he’s been on has been about. Finding a girl to bring home to your mom?”
“I guess so. But honestly, I’m glad that’s all it is, because I was worried about him. He’s not usually like this. Anyway, what’s our plan for tonight?”
“Suzanne is meeting us at a bar near the Bureau along with the NYPD detective working the case.”
“Vic Panetta?”
“Some guy named DeLucca, out of Queens. Weber was stabbed in the parking lot of Citi Field in the middle of a baseball game. Money and jewelry stolen.”
“She was wearing expensive jewelry at a baseball game?”
“According to her insurance records, she always wore her mother’s wedding ring on her right ring finger. It was valued at over fifteen thousand dollars. Her friends said she never took it off.”
“So her attacker may have asked her to hand it over and she refused?”
“Could be. We’ll know more when we read the reports. Suzanne didn’t tell me much of anything over the phone. Except she wasn’t there for the game—didn’t have a ticket—but apparently planned to meet someone.”
“No witnesses?”
“None came forward. No security cameras in the area—only on the entrances and exits.”
“And Weber herself?”
“I know what you know.”
“I thought we were retracing Tony’s steps.”
“We are. Suzanne will give us the rundown, but he made at least one stop after he left her and that’s what we’re going to follow up on.”
“And Suzanne is fine with us helping?”
“Hans called her already. He wanted this off-the-books because he didn’t know what Tony was up to and he didn’t want anything in the press.” Sean glanced at Lucy. “And I want to know what’s in her files.”
“Why did we have to come here? Couldn’t we have gotten the files e-mailed or faxed? Talked to Suzanne on the phone?”
“We could have, but I wanted to get you away. Last time we were in New York you said you wanted to come back, and this is our chance to have a night off, just you and me.” He glanced at her. “You’re okay with that, right?”
“Of course I’m okay with it.”
“Good. Because I missed you and I only have twenty-four hours having you all to myself. In between this investigation.”
“Tonight, Sean, will be ours.”
She smiled, and Sean was relieved. While he knew Lucy loved him, he was the more romantic one. He relished these moments when they could get away. And every vacation they’d had to date had ended in disaster. So he wasn’t calling this a vacation, but he was going to treat tonight as such.
The time away would help Lucy regroup and think clearly before she decided what to do about Hans, as well as how to deal with the possibility that Tony’s death might not have been of natural causes. Sean wasn’t convinced it was murder—could a killer get away with two murders, in different states, at different times, staged as heart attacks? That would be pushing it. However, if it worked once, why not again? They needed to find out if there was any connection between Stokes and Presidio other than the McMahon case.
Sean drove straight to the Park Central Hotel where he and Lucy had stayed in February when he was searching for his missing cousin. He grinned at the smile on Lucy’s face. “Surprise.”
“You’re sneaky.” She leaned up and kissed him. “I love it.”
He glanced at his watch. “We’re going to have to hustle to meet Suzanne by six.”
They dropped their bags in their room—which had a view of Central Park—and left the hotel. Sean hailed a taxi. “We’re not driving?” she said.
Sean always preferred to drive, but he didn’t like traffic. “Don’t want to deal with parking,” he said.
It was less than a ten-minute cab ride and Lucy and Sean walked into the bar and grill. Lucy spotted Suzanne sitting at a table, facing the door. A plainclothes cop sat next to her. Lucy watched as the cop handed Suzanne a twenty.
“What was that for?” Sean asked.
“I was right. I said you’d be here within forty-eight hours. DeLucca doubted me. Good to see you both.”
After introductions, Suzanne got down to business.
“I’ll let you look at the files, but you’re not taking a copy.” She stared at Sean. “I’ll be watching you.”
He smiled. “I don’t want a copy.”
“You want to talk to the sister. Why?”
“See if she’s lying.”
“About?”
“Anything.”
Suzanne shrugged. “My gut says she’s clean, but that’s fine with me. And Kip Todd, Weber’s assistant?”
“Ditto.”
“So you’re checking up on me? Didn’t you learn last time that I know how to do my job?”
Lucy said, “We trust you, Suzanne. It’s my story I don’t want getting out. And Kirsten has finally started to get her life back. She’s in Los Angeles, going back to school; what happened here is buried. I want to make sure Rosemary Weber’s assistant isn’t planning on writing the book.”
“And that’s the only reason you came to New York?”
Sean nodded. “And to find out where Tony Presidio went. Off-the-record.”
Suzanne nodded. “Dr. Vigo called me. I told him exactly what happened, sent him my report. I also told him that Tony had some ideas he didn’t share with me. But his strategy paid off.”
“Strategy?”
“Tony leaked to the press that we didn’t think robbery was the motive, and bam, this afternoon we get a call from one of the pawnshops DeLucca briefed. A junkie walks in and pawns the ring. We got his prints.”
DeLucca said, “A street thief from Queens, Jimmy Bartz, I have patrols out looking for him at all his haunts. We’ll have him before midnight.”
“And that’s it?”
“Maybe; we’ll know when we interrogate him.”
“And why would a street thief kill Weber?”
“Could be that he robbed her after she was killed,” DeLucca said.
Sean assessed the cop. “You don’t think he killed her.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know Bartz, but my buddies in Property Crimes laughed their asses off when I said we were looking at him for murder. Stealing purses, rolling a drunk, smashing a window to grab shopping bags—that’s Bartz. Not a stiletto in the heart.”
“But he could have grabbed the ring if he found her in the parking lot,” Suzanne said. It was obvious that they had discussed this theory.
DeLucca nodded, but Sean sensed he thought something was fishy about the whole deal.
“Do you know Bob Stokes, a cop down in Newark?” Sean asked.
“Should I?” Suzanne said.
“Weber’s first book was dedicated to him. Presidio’s phone records show he tried to call Stokes Thursday evening driving from the airport to Quantico. He died of a heart attack.”
“Stokes or Presidio?”
“Both,” Lucy said. “Bob Stokes died last month. Did his name pop up in any of Weber’s files?”
Suzanne looked through her notes. “He was in her
address book, that’s it. Why was Tony trying to call him?”
Lucy said, “He was very upset about the missing McMahon files, and he called me about his own personal file—he wanted to see it as soon as he got back.”
“Did you bring it?”
Lucy hesitated, then said, “It disappeared.”
“You lost it?”
“No,” Lucy said, “it disappeared from his office between the time of his heart attack and when Hans arrived the next day.”
“This is starting to smell like a conspiracy,” DeLucca said. “Maybe your federal colleagues are trying to cover something up.”
Suzanne hit him on the arm, hard. “Shut up, Joe.”
Sean said, “Lucy’s the only one who’s recently read Tony’s file, so we hope if she goes everywhere Tony did, she’ll figure out what Tony was thinking.”
“It’s a long shot,” Lucy admitted.
“After watching you analyze that psycho nut job back in February, I’ll put my money on you,” Suzanne said.
Lucy said, “So essentially, from what you’ve said and the reports show, the victim was most likely meeting someone at Citi Field, a baseball stadium, in the middle of a baseball game, was killed, and either the killer took the jewelry to make it look like a robbery, or this Bartz guy stole the ring himself after the fact.”
“Bingo.”
“But,” Suzanne said, “what’s making me crazy is why did he pawn the ring today, four days after her murder, but only hours after the newspaper came out with the deliberate leak to the press?”
“It’s like he wants you to think it’s a robbery,” Sean said. “Not very smart.”
“Not smart fits Bartz,” DeLucca said.
“Why meet someone at a baseball stadium in the first place?” Lucy asked.
“Citi Field is very family friendly,” DeLucca said. “We don’t get a lot of real trouble out there. It’s public; she might have thought it was safe.”
“I take it no security cameras,” Sean said.
“Nothing on the section of the parking lot where she was killed.” DeLucca looked from Lucy to Sean. “Is there anything you know that I should?” he asked. “I don’t like surprises, I don’t really like P.I.’s doing police work, and I’m not a fan of the feds.” He glanced at Suzanne. “Except blondie here.”
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