Bombshell

by Catherine Coulter

  Savich said, “You said you disapproved of Melissa Ivy as much as the Cronins.”

  “Yes, it surprised me to agree with them, my step-in-laws, I guess you’d call them now that I’m their granddaughters’ legal guardian. After Barbara’s—my sister—funeral, I saw what a mess her kids were, saw their father was next to useless, and I moved here to take care of them. I remember it was a couple of weeks after that before the Cronins finally let me know, all benign and condescending, that I could call them Palmer and Avilla.

  “Well, they’re not condescending now. With Tommy’s murder they’re even more devastated than they were when their own son, my sister’s husband, Palmer Junior, died in that bloody ridiculous Ferrari of his last year.”

  “I take it you didn’t care for your brother-in-law, Ms. Lodge?” Sherlock asked her, studying her mobile face and thinking that Marion Lodge would always lose at poker.

  “I called him JP—Junior Palmer. As you can imagine, he really didn’t like that. He’d say he wasn’t like his father. But the fact is Junior and Senior Palmer were like two peas in a pod, completely consumed by their careers. Only JP was deep in the financial muck his father was supposed to be regulating, a king of the junk bond world. I know he was always talking to his father, sawing away not to change anything, not to question the wonderful boom, to keep everything on track. As I said, father and son were very much alike, so why would Palmer Senior change anything?

  “Junior didn’t like me any more than I liked him. He didn’t want me around until Barbara died. Then he swallowed his bile, and when I offered he was glad to have me move in to take care of the kids.”

  Savich said, “Your sister, Barbara, committed suicide, didn’t she, Ms. Lodge? What was it, two and a half years ago?”

  Marian raised a face fierce with warrior rage. “If it was suicide! The coroner called it that, and Barbara’s shrink agreed she was suicidal. But what else would he say when they were feeding her so many drugs, both JP and that damned shrink?”

  Talk about a fountain of black suspicion—this woman was Niagara Falls. Sherlock said slowly, “You believe your brother-in-law was responsible for your sister’s death? He fed her drugs that drove her to kill herself?”

  “I can’t prove it, but he might as well have. He kept me from seeing her, helping her. She didn’t have a lover in the wings, or any friends to speak to, because JP liked her under his thumb, the ultimate hausfrau. But none of that is important now; both of them are gone and buried. But so is Tommy, isn’t he? He’s dead, too.” She slammed her hand on the kitchen table, her mug teetering before it righted itself again. “He was twenty years old! How can any of us live with that? How can his sisters not have nightmares for the rest of their lives after seeing his dead face on YouTube? How can the Cronins survive this?”

  Sherlock wondered if she wasn’t right. Her last thought about the Cronins when she and Dillon had followed Agent Ted Atkinson out of their living room was that they were props of themselves, that the only thing keeping them going at all was the promise of catching Tommy’s killer. What would happen to them once they did catch Tommy’s killer? They’d have no focus, no reason to continue.

  Savich said quietly, “We’d like to ask you a few questions about Tommy, Ms. Lodge. Apart from his girlfriend, Melissa, was there anything else recently that caused you to worry about Tommy? Any change in his behavior or grades, any sign he was in trouble?”

  She shrugged. “As I said, I barely saw him the last month he was alive. Did his friends at school tell you something like that?”

  “We’re talking with his dorm mates, his professors, checking his room and his computer, but no, they have not, Ms. Lodge. What can you tell us yourself about Tommy’s friends?”

  She cocked her head at them. “But I thought this was a domestic terrorist act committed by someone who’d been crushed by the banking collapse and blamed Palmer.”

  “We are looking at all the possibilities,” Sherlock said.

  “Tommy had two main friends, together since they were kids—I used to call them little jerk faces, even after Tommy turned twenty last October. They’d come by with him after classes at Magdalene sometimes, try to kiss up to me or try to hit on Marla. She’s seventeen, the older of Tommy’s two sisters, and a looker, like her mom. Joanie is only fifteen, so she was safe from Tommy’s friends, only giggled a lot around them. Most of them were geeks, trying to grow out of it, like Tommy, and like most geeks that age, they had a long way to go. I mean, they’d play at speaking Klingon, but try to carry on an adult conversation with them in English?—Good luck. Except for Peter Biaggini—now, he’s a piece of work. Peter’s really smart, not a geek bone in his body. Sometimes I wanted to quash him like a bug.”

  “The Cronins felt he dominated Tommy,” Sherlock said. “What did you think?”

  “Peter was something like the Fonzie of the group. The one with some social graces as well as brains, and they all seemed to let him take the lead. Peter didn’t talk to me or the girls too much, like he was too busy handling the controls to waste time talking to the underlings. I remember asking him if he was like his father. He gave me an angry look—it was gone real fast. Then he said his dad was dead. I asked Tommy about Peter’s father, and he told me he wasn’t dead, he ran a beauty-supply company with franchise stores all over the country. He said Peter didn’t like to talk about his father, that he was ashamed of him for being so ordinary, for selling cosmetics—the Hair Spray King, he called him. But Tommy really liked Mr. Biaggini, said he was a great guy, always doing stuff for the kids.”

  She went on to tell them of how thoughtful Tommy Cronin had been to her and his sisters, until Melissa Ivy had come into his life.

  “Do you know what Tommy’s aspirations were, Ms. Lodge?”

  “He was already studying banking and finance, like his father and grandfather, and he was ambitious, too, like both of them. He joked about running Deutsche Bank by the time he was thirty.

  “He spoke German after spending a year in Cologne. He had an internship at the Deutsche Bank Washington office this past summer. He wanted a chance to work directly at the Deutsche Bank Frankfurt headquarters.” Her voice hitched, and her hand clutched the coffee cup.

  Sherlock gave Marian a moment to collect herself. “The Cronins mentioned a Stony Hart.”

  “Stony’s was Tommy’s other main friend, and the oldest of the three of them. As I told you, they’ve all been friends since childhood. I think Stony was Tommy’s very best friend. His dad, Wakefield Hart, was a big deal in investment banking, and that’s how Stony and Tommy met, through Tommy’s grandfather Palmer.

  “I remember my sister, Barbara, telling me that Stony’s father, Wakefield, had hung on every word out of Palmer Cronin’s mouth when he was Chairman of the Fed. I don’t know what Palmer thought about the man when Hart had to resign his job at Fannie Mae along with most of their senior executives when they were caught cooking the books. Wouldn’t it be something if even one of those yahoos had the honesty to apologize for what they did?

  “Anyway, it was something Tommy and Stony shared, dominant fathers who were bankers, burned by their own greed. I think they both wanted a chance to do better.”

  Savich and Sherlock met Tommy’s two sisters, Marla and Joanie, on their way out. The girls seemed as blank and frightened as Marian Lodge said they were. It was not the time to talk with them. Savich arranged for an agent to stay with them, since they were also grandchildren of Palmer Cronin’s.

  Their last view of Marian Lodge was of her holding the sisters against her, her cheek pressed against Joanie’s head.

  They’d just pulled back into Rock Creek Court when Jimmy Maitland called to tell them Spooner had found the computer used to post the photo of Tommy’s body at the Lincoln Memorial.

  The Hoover Building

  Sunday afternoon

  Agent Lucy Carlyle gave Savich and Sherl
ock a big smile as they walked into the CAU. “You’ll love this. Walter Hart—Stony—opened his apartment door, took one look at our creds stuck in his face, and turned white as Coop’s boxers. First thing out of his mouth was “I didn’t do anything illegal.”

  Coop laughed. “Talk about an open book; his face was a lovely mixture of guilt and fear. I asked him what he did do, and he said, Nothing, I didn’t do anything. Who could forget a classic like that? I gave him my nailed you look, told him we had a warrant to seize his computers and routers and that he was coming with us to the Hoover Building. He hemmed and hawed until I told him we’d arrest him if we had to. I patted him down while Lucy slapped cuffs on him. He said his girlfriend, Janelle Eckles, was coming to see him, and could he at least call her? We said no.

  “He was nearly in tears he was so scared. He kept babbling in the backseat about how everything he had on his computer was legal, or if it wasn’t, it should be, and why wouldn’t we tell him what he’d supposedly done? We ignored him, told him you’d be answering his questions. Made you and Sherlock sound as mean as The Hulk on a green day and his sidekick Cruella, who scared him even more.

  “Good. You’ve got him all set up,” Savich said. “You got a background check yet?”

  “So far, not much more than a Google search. His name is Walter Hart, goes by Stony. His apartment is right off Dupont Circle. He really is a computer nerd, had quite a setup in his apartment, several boxes and monitors. He graduated with honors last year from MIT, started work after that as a junior securities analyst at the UBS office here in D.C. Just started to make a name for himself, I would guess. Spooner says he’s got the IP address dead to rights. There’s no chance he’s wrong. It was the kid’s computer.”

  Savich said, “At least we know now this wasn’t a domestic terrorist act committed by some disenfranchised victim of the banking scandal.”

  “Nope,” Sherlock said. “What we’ve got is something very close to home. Where is Stony, Coop?”

  “We stashed him inside the interview room, where he’s been sitting by himself. I took him to the men’s room a little while ago. Strangest thing, he acted scared, of me, yes, but it was more. He seemed terrified, as if his life was over and someone was going to come up to his urinal and pop him. For uploading that photo on YouTube or because he’d gotten caught? He asked me if he should get a lawyer, and I said he should talk to you about it. Then I left him alone to do his business, because, frankly, he was too scared to get it done. I marched him back to the interview room and left him snuffling into his shirtsleeve.”

  Sherlock said, “You want to hear something interesting? It turns out Stony and Tommy Cronin and Peter Biaggini have known each other all their lives. We know that Stony and Tommy were best friends.”

  Lucy went nearly bug-eyed. “You’ve got to be kidding. I mean, he uploaded a photo of his murdered friend? But that would make him—what? The murderer? At least an accomplice?”

  Coop shook his head. “I don’t see him murdering Tommy Cronin.”

  “Why?” Savich asked him.

  Coop was thoughtful for a moment. “He doesn’t have the fire in the belly for it—he’s a nice kid, Savich, that’s the long and short of it.”

  Lucy said, “But he was willing to upload the photo of a dead friend, which means if he didn’t kill Tommy, he has to know who did. That’s pretty slimy.”

  “We’re about to see,” Savich said. “Why don’t you guys come in and stand against the wall looking grim while Sherlock and I speak with Stony. From what you say, he responds to that.”

  Coop grinned. “I like the Gestapo look—arms crossed over the chest, eyes mean and slitted.”

  Lucy poked him in the ribs. “Good thing you took him to the bathroom, Coop.”

  Savich and Sherlock walked down the hallway to the interview room, Coop and Lucy behind them. They paused to listen at the door, then Savich unlocked it and went in. Savich could practically see waves of despair rolling off Stony Hart. Coop was right, whatever else this young man was, he wasn’t a murderer. But then what was he? Given what he’d done, it was hard to believe he was really Tommy Cronin’s best friend.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Hart. Everyone calls you Stony, right?”

  The young man’s eyes met theirs and froze like a deer in the headlights. He looked terrified down to his pocket protector, and painfully young, though Savich knew he’d turned twenty-three last week. His eyes slid to Coop and Lucy, standing with their backs against the door, ready to leap on him. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip and managed a hoarse whisper, “Yes, I’m Stony. I already told those agents I haven’t done anything wrong. I didn’t call a lawyer because I’m not a criminal, and I understand I haven’t been arrested. It’s very important if I’m going to keep my job that I not be arrested.”

  Savich said, “You’re not a criminal? I’m glad to hear it, because that means you’ll tell us the truth.” Savich leaned in close. “I always know when someone is lying to me, Stony, always, so save us all time and don’t try it. I want you to tell us what you meant when you told these agents you didn’t do anything illegal. What is it you did, exactly?”

  “Look. You took all my computers, though I don’t see how you have the right. Sure, I have some file-sharing stuff—music and videos, mostly—and that might not be strictly legal, but they can sue me, can’t they? Some of it’s a little embarrassing, maybe. But I don’t have a clue why you brought me here like this”—he swallowed—“in handcuffs.” His eyes darted to where Lucy had left the handcuffs on the edge of the table.

  Savich asked, “So is that why you use anonymizers? So you won’t be embarrassed?”

  “Sure, I have the software to do that. It’s the best, I vetted it myself, even made adjustments to make it better. It’s best to have the option of keeping out of sight on the Internet. Sometimes I cruise underground sites in China, Iran, and no one ever knows who I am. Why do you care about my anonymizer? What do you think I’ve done?”

  Savich backed off, let him wait. “Tell me first, how’d you get the nickname Stony?”

  Stony flexed and unflexed his fingers. “What? You want to know that? My mom and dad said I kept looking at stones when I was a kid; I had kind of a compulsion that way, had to see what was under every rock. Now I’m an adult I see it has a different meaning, but I’m still Stony. My folks thought it was funny. My friends picked it up from my folks. Look, I tried to get past some firewalls, but nothing dangerous—” His face drained of what color was left. “No, I mean, nothing illegal. Just fooling around.”

  Sherlock said, “Then why don’t you tell us why you used your anonymizer to upload the photo of your best friend’s dead body on YouTube.”

  Stony sputtered, put his face in his hands, and shook his head back and forth. “What are you talking about? This is about Tommy? That photo? You think I did that? No, never, it was horrible.”

  Savich leaned forward. “The thing is, Stony, the commercial proxy you used is secure enough, highly sophisticated with your tweaks, but not for someone committing a cybercrime linked to what might be an act of terrorism.”

  “That would be impossible with my software, Agent Savich. You’d seriously have no way.”

  “The NSA has access to more of those servers than you’ll ever know. We nailed you, Stony. We can prove the photo was sent from one of your computers.”

  Stony Hart sat frozen, his eyes fixed, still shaking his head back and forth. “One of my computers? No, that’s not possible, it’s not.”

  Sherlock said, “We know Tommy was dropped from a great height, and not at the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever took that picture probably carried him there and arranged him at Lincoln’s feet for a public display. Was it you?”

  “No! I couldn’t do that; I wouldn’t.”

  Now, that’s the truth, Savich thought. “But you know who did? You posted that picture for someone else, didn’t
you?”

  Stony put his face in his hands and began to sob.

  Savich sat forward, grabbed Stony’s bony wrist, hauled him close. “Stop crying; it only makes me mad. We’ve got you cold, Stony, so you might as well own up to the contemptible thing you did, posting that picture. Stop being a pitiful coward. If you don’t tell us exactly what you know, that makes you the murderer’s accomplice. You could spend the rest of your life in jail.”

  Stony nearly rose straight out of his chair. “Listen, I couldn’t believe Tommy was dead, couldn’t believe someone would kill him and put him in the Lincoln Memorial. It was horrible. I’m not a monster, I’m not! I would never post that photo, not for anyone. You’ve got to believe me, I don’t know anything about it. I want my dad. I want a lawyer.”

  Savich drummed his fingertips on the table. “I doubt Wakefield Hart or a lawyer can help you, unless you tell us what we want to know.”

  “How do you know my dad’s name?”

  “There’s no hiding anything from us,” Savich said, his eyes hard, “even what you did on your supposedly foolproof anonymizer software. It’s about time you realized that.”

  “No, no, listen, I told you, I don’t know anything about it. And my dad, he’s smart, and he knows people, important people, people who could stop you from saying these things to me. Where is he?”

  “Your dad might as well crawl on the ground and root up worms,” Sherlock said. “What are you trying to do, moron, make us madder with your silly mean-daddy threats?”

  Savich turned to look at Lucy and Coop. “Stony’s right about his dad being smart. Did you guys know daddy—Wakefield Hart—makes his money by giving speeches now, blasting Palmer Cronin for ‘facilitating’ the banking crisis when he was the chairman of the Fed? Quite an accusation for Wakefield to make, especially since he was one of the major players in the screw-the-world game while it lasted. Are you proud of your dad, Stony?”