Mackenzie shared all of this with Ellington as he drove them into the city. She also shared her peculiar encounter with Amy Campbell. As it turned out, it was the most interesting visit out of their combined nineteen homes. Ellington agreed that Amy’s mood could have simply been a reflection of a woman her own age being killed less than a thousand feet away from her front door.
By the time they entered the city and were headed for Todd Thompson’s residence, they both felt that this could be the visit that sealed the case. Mackenzie did not say anything out loud about it, but she was anxious to get back home. The single call from her mother had upset her more than she was willing to admit and she suddenly felt foolish for thinking her mother would be able to keep a child without somehow making it all about her.
Night was just beginning to fall when Ellington parked the car in front of Thompson’s apartment building. He lived in one of the nicer areas of the city, the apartment building located on a corner that looked out over a small park and a square where it looked as if farmer’s markets and crafts fairs were set up on the weekend. As they entered, a few of the vendors were just finishing packing up for the day.
When Mackenzie knocked on the door of the second-floor apartment, she wondered how many doors she had knocked on today. Eleven? Twelve? She wasn’t sure.
“One minute,” a man’s cheerful voice called from the other side. When the door was finally opened, they were greeted by not only a middle-aged African American man, but the smell of Thai food as well.
“Are you Mr. Todd Thompson?” Ellington asked.
“That’s me,” he said. He looked confused at first, but when he saw both agents reaching for their badges, a look of understanding fell across his face. Seeing that expression, Mackenzie realized that Mr. Thompson had been expecting this visit for quite some time.
“We’re with the FBI,” Mackenzie said. “We’re looking into the murder of a young woman about twenty miles north of here. Given that your fingerprint showed up on her license, I’d appreciate it if we could come inside.”
Thompson nodded, stepping aside and allowing them in. Now, more than ever, Mackenzie was sure he had known this day was coming. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem all that scared. This was further proven when, after he closed the door behind them, he immediately went to the small table in the kitchen and sat down behind his Thai takeout.
“Forgive me for saying so,” Mackenzie said, “but you don’t seem all that upset to have the FBI showing up at your door.”
“With proof that you handled a now-dead woman’s driver’s license at that,” Ellington added.
“When was she killed?” Thompson asked. He did sound sad, and his eyes started to grow distant as he ate his dinner.
“You honestly don’t know who we’re talking about?”
“No. But I know about the licenses.”
“Plural?” Mackenzie asked.
Thompson took one last bite, then dropped the plastic fork into the food and slid the plate away from him. He sighed deeply and looked at the agents with sad eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “There’s probably quite a few of them floating around.”
“You’re not making sense, Mr. Thompson,” Mackenzie said. “Why don’t you tell us why your thumbprint appeared on a dead woman’s fake license?”
“Because I made it. Though I used a powder when making them that was supposed to keep my prints off of them. You use UV?”
“We did.”
“Shit. Well, yeah…I made the license.”
“At the DMV, I assume?” Mackenzie asked.
“Yes.”
“Did the young woman pay you for it? The name on the license was Marjorie Hikkum.”
“No. It’s always the same woman that pays for them.”
Mackenzie was starting to get irritated with the cavalier nature in which Thompson was explaining things. She could tell by the way Ellington’s jaw was set that he was getting mad, too.
“Mr. Thompson, please explain what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I’ve been doing it for about three years now. This woman comes in, pretends to have some sort of issue, and slides me some money. Five hundred bucks per ID. A week later, I give her what she asked for.”
“You understand how highly illegal that is, right?” Ellington asked.
“I do. But this woman…she’s trying to do some good. She gets these IDs because she’s trying to help those girls.”
“What girls?” Ellington asked, almost barking the question.
Thompson looked at them, confused. It took him a moment to understand what was happening and then he gave them an apologetic look. “Damn. I’m sorry. If you were here asking about the IDs and a dead woman, I figured you probably already knew. The IDs I make are for women that manage to escape that crazy-farm on the other side of Fellsburg.”
“What crazy-farm?” Mackenzie asked.
This question made Thompson look genuinely worried for the first time since they had knocked on his door. He made a slight grimace and shook his head softly. “I don’t feel right talking about it. Too much power up there, you know?”
“No, we don’t know.” Though she did remember McGrath stating that there was some sort of religious community in the area, which was one of the reasons the local agents were jumping at the case.
“Well, Mr. Thompson, I hate to play it this way,” Ellington said, “but you already fessed up to making fake IDs. If we wanted, we could arrest you for that and make sure you spend at least six months in a federal prison. Depending on who you sold them to, it could be worse than that. However, if you can let us know about the women these IDs are for and it helps us with this case, then we can sort of wave that away. We’d insist that you stop creating fake documents at a government facility like the DMV, but that would be it.”
Thompson looked a little embarrassed that he had even fallen into such a trap. The pained look on his face dissolved into a defeated grin. “Any way you can keep my name out of it?”
“Unless there are extenuating circumstances, I don’t see why not,” Mackenzie said. “Are you afraid someone may seek some kind of revenge?”
“With these people, I just don’t know.” When he saw that the agents still had no clear idea of what he was talking about, he sighed again and went on. “This woman comes in and buys the IDs. She gets them for women that are trying to escape the Community. They use them to get back on their feet—just some small thing they can possess that helps them start a new life. A normal life.”
“What’s the Community?” Ellington asked.
“A religious commune about fifteen miles on the other side of Fellsburg—about forty minutes away from here. A lot of people know about it, but no one really talks about it. When they do, it’s either in a joking way or in a spooky campfire sort of way.”
“Any idea why women that join this Community would need to escape it?”
Thompson shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. And that’s the truth. Honestly, I don’t know much more about the place than anyone else you’d pull off the street. I just make and sell those IDs.”
“You know nothing about what they practice?”