The director of security for Target News was a big lug with slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair, a mustache, and a Vegas-style double-breasted suit. Tony Mancuso had an oversize personality that sucked the air out of his tiny office, but he seemed like a straight shooter, an old-time law enforcement guy with no ax to grind. That’s why Melanie was so surprised when he told her Clyde Williams, or someone close to him, had probably sent the threatening package to Suzanne Shepard.
“You don’t seem like the type to toe the corporate line,” Melanie said.
“Look, we both know Seth Parker is looking to take Williams down. I don’t give a rip about that. Parker’s a twit. His agenda has nothing to do with my findings. But facts are facts. The package was mailed right after Suzanne broke the Williams scandal.”
“Why would a successful politician do something so stupid?”
“Honestly, I don’t think it was Williams himself. I think it was somebody around him, somebody with a stake in him winning the election.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I reviewed the surveillance video from the post office where the package was mailed, and Williams isn’t on it.”
“You have the surveillance video? I need to see it right away.”
“No, I never had it. This U.S. postal inspector I contacted let me review the tape. I’ll give you her name if you want it, but it’s kind of a waste of time. The tape is inconclusive anyway, because the camera malfunctioned.”
“In what way?”
“The date and time stamp was turned off. I know what time the package was mailed, but it would take a video forensics expert to match that up with a specific point on the tape. The one thing I can say, though, is that Clyde Williams isn’t in any of the footage I reviewed, and I reviewed a mountain of it.”
“Walk me through the timing,” Melanie said. “When exactly was the package mailed?”
“The Williams story ran a week ago Wednesday, and the package was mailed Thursday,” Tony said. “I think that looks pretty bad. Bad enough to be worth investigating. Seth told me Williams’s son is a U.S. attorney. Not for nothing, but if you don’t look into this, Seth is gonna make a huge stink. I’m not saying that like a threat. I just thought you should know.”
“I am looking into it. That’s why I’m here. But I still find it hard to believe that Clyde Williams would be so reckless.”
“Let me brief you on the evidence. You’ll see, it’s more convincing than it sounds.”
Tony laid out a series of eight-by-ten glossies on the desk in front of Melanie. They showed a white box addressed in block capital letters to Suzanne Shepard, first in progressive stages of being opened, then with its contents laid out on a desktop. Several photographs featured pieces of excrement on a plastic backdrop, and others showed what looked to be torn scraps of colored paper.
“The box was hand-addressed in permanent marker to the location given on the Internet for people who want to contact Suzanne,” Tony said. “No return address, as you would expect. It was postmarked from a facility on Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, Queens, at three seventeen P.M. last Thursday, which was June first. It arrived here the next afternoon and was clocked into our mailroom at approximately four nineteen. We have a whole protocol for X-raying packages, but the X-ray machine was down, so the package wasn’t screened until Monday morning.”
“You mean, just this past Monday?” Melanie asked.
“Yes.”
“And Suzanne was murdered Wednesday night.”
“Right. Again, close timing. Monday morning, the screener detected suspicious contents. He called me. I took custody of the package, brought it here to my office, and performed a secure opening. One of my security officers witnessed the procedure and took these pictures.”
“Was Suzanne present when you opened the package?”
“No,” Tony replied. “We perform the secure opening wearing hazard suits, just in case the contents are dangerous. Then we inform the addressee and ask if they want to inspect it. She didn’t want to. I can’t blame her.”
“But she knew about it?”
“Oh yes. In fact, Suzanne and I had a long talk about whether she should get protection, because I was so convinced the threat was real. I kick myself for not insisting. See, Suzanne had always attracted a large amount of hate mail. People get numb to it after a while. I couldn’t make her take this seriously.”
“You actually suggested she hire protection? Like a bodyguard?” Melanie asked.
“Yeah. But I didn’t push, you know. I wish I had. Maybe this Butcher prick could’ve been stopped.”
“If she got so much hate mail, what made this threat different? I understand the dog excrement is disgusting, but—”
“It wasn’t the excrement that worried me, it was the picture,” Tony said.
Melanie picked up one of the photographs showing the torn-up pieces of paper and examined it. “What about the picture? I can’t tell from this photo. Did it have a message written on it or something?”
“No. The scary thing was that the guy actually took it.”
“Took what?”
“The person who mailed the box took this photograph.” He plucked up another photo and handed it to Melanie. “Here’s a picture of the ripped-up pieces taped back together. You can see, it’s a photograph of Suzanne having dinner at an outdoor café near her house. It was taken the night before the box was mailed, literally an hour after the Clyde Williams segment aired.”
“An hour?”
“Yes.”
“Seth Parker never told me about this,” Melanie said. “I assumed the ripped-up picture had been taken from a magazine or something.”
“If it had, I wouldn’t’ve been so nervous, and I wouldn’t be so convinced now that this threat is connected to her murder. But, you see, we know that whoever sent the box was actually following Suzanne.”
The hair stood up on the back of Melanie’s neck as she remembered the guy on the subway and the strange e-mail she’d gotten. I’m watching you, it had said. Melanie was so busy doing her job and so jaded after four years in law enforcement that she hadn’t taken those small events very seriously. Wasn’t that the mistake Tony Mancuso was describing, the mistake Suzanne Shepard had made that resulted in her death? Melanie decided she would mention the e-mail and the guy in the hooded sweatshirt to Dan and see what he thought.
Her eye fell on one of the photographs lying before her on the desk. “This is a picture of the box before it was opened?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Melanie scrutinized it closely. “It’s sealed with clear plastic packing tape,” she said.
“Does that mean something to you?” Tony asked.
“Suzanne was gagged with very similar tape.”
“There you go. Another fact to support my theory.”
“I need to have this tape analyzed to see if it matches,” Melanie said.
“Everything is off getting fingerprinted by a private lab we use. I can ask them to do a report on the tape also, unless you’d rather—”
“I want the FBI lab to do it.”
“Sure, no problem. Frankly, our lab is very professional, but they take a year and a day to do anything. I’ll get it back from them and deliver it to the FBI lab for you.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. So you’ve seen the evidence. What do you think? Do you agree with me now?” Tony asked.
“I’m still not convinced that Clyde Williams sent this box,” Melanie replied, “although I agree the timing is troubling and bears investigating.”
“What about the idea that the Butcher sent it?”
“That, I’m starting to believe. We have more work to do to establish the connection with certainty. But this box is going to turn out to be a critical piece of evidence.”