How did Stevie D. find Harry and who hired him?

Question

In the book Changes, a hitman named Stevie D. was hired by someone with Susan's description to try to kill Harry. After finishing the book, I'm still unclear as to the motivation behind this and whether or not it was actually Susan, the Eebs, or someone else.

Harry postulates that the Eebs were behind it and altered Stevie D.'s memory to think it was Susan, but he has further questions that are never answered, emphasis mine:

Esmerelda's blue and green eyes could have made Stevie remember being hired by Mister Snuffleupagus, if that was what she wanted. But how would she have known where to find me? Had they somehow managed to tail Sanya back to the church from my apartment without being noticed by Mouse?

And just where the hell were Susan and Martin? They'd had more than enough time to get here. So why weren't they?

The following scenes answer the question of where Susan and Martin were (caught by the FBI), but as far as I can tell, the question of who hired Stevie D. and how he found Harry is still unresolved. I was thinking that perhaps it could've been Martin, but that makes no sense, seeing as Martin's orchestrations required Harry to be present at the temple, which Harry even notes himself:

Everything he had done, I realized, he had done for one reason: to be sure that I was standing here when it happened. To give me a chance to change everything.

So it stands to reason that hiring a hitman to try to take out Harry would be counter to that purpose. What am I missing? Is there something in the book that resolves this but I just didn't notice it, or is this a (seemingly) dangling loose end?

Answer 1

He's in the phone book. He's also a creature of patterns - the church is one of his known 'go here to recuperate' places. The Red Court also has the resources to track down what model of car Susan rented (it just takes longer if you use cash, it's not impossible) and the license.

Stevie could easily have checked 'known Dresden hideouts', found the car, and voila: target on hand.

Frankly, no one involved thought that Stevie had a chance. He was just dangerous enough to be a threat, but there was no real chance he could have taken Dresden out.

It's also possible Stevie was hired by someone else

Like the Fallen angel who convinced Harry to hire Kinkaid

(spoiled section is from Ghost Story and is a BIG plot point)

to further their own ends. Said spoilered baddie wanted to push Dresden towards a certain course of action, and throwing an assassin at him is a good way to keep Dresden from stopping and thinking things through.

They wouldn't even have had to hire the assassin themselves, they could have just provided info to whomever did.

Answer 2

It's never explicitly resolved. We can't be sure it was the fallen angel, or the vampires, but it's highly unlikely that Susan was the one to call down the hit. It is more likely someone pretending to be her did it. Hopefully it'll be resolved in future books.