Bombshell

by Catherine Coulter

“I forgot to ask you when your shift ended.”

  “I should have called you, but all I could think about was getting away. My gut was right. I’m busted.”

  “I’m five minutes behind you.” And Griffin punched off before she could even say Mr. Chivers’s name.

  She was spooked, a premonition again. She passed two cars with single men driving them, their faces indistinct in the dull late-afternoon light. She watched until she saw them turn off.

  She mentally packed a few things in her duffel. She’d be ready to leave the instant Griffin pulled in. She looked in her rearview mirror at a black SUV, but it was way back. When she turned onto Wolf Trap Road she realized she didn’t want to go near her charming cottage in the lovely dense woods, not when it would be dark in an hour, not with the winter wind whipping the tree branches into a mad frenzy. She hated that she was afraid.

  She pulled into her driveway, cut the engine, and the world became quiet as a tomb. Even the wind seemed dead now. She locked her hands on the steering wheel and stared out the car window at the trees, huddled together like dark monoliths, brooding and waiting, the dark clouds weighing down on everything.

  She didn’t want to open the car door, didn’t want to walk the twenty or so steps to her front entrance, out in the open, for anyone hiding in the woods to see her, and what? Shoot her? No, there was no one there. Anna calmed herself and her breathing. She was a strong, smart, well-trained DEA agent. There was no reason for her to let her imagination run away with her, no reason to get freaked out. If there were bad men out to get her, she’d shoot them first, no problem. She’d face things head-on and not feel terrified at what could be hiding behind all those heavy shadows that cloaked the trees. And there wasn’t anything there. There wasn’t.

  Everything was as it should be, even if the shapeless low-hanging clouds made everything seem otherworldly, like the devil himself was nearby, counting souls.

  Don’t run in the house to pack; don’t get out of your car. Stay locked in and safe. No, don’t wait for Griffin, leave now. Who needs clean underwear?

  A laugh spurted out. That last thought was too much for her to stand. She opened the car door and eased out, her Glock clutched at her side in one hand, her keys fisted in the other hand. She could kill with a gun or with her keys, didn’t matter, she was ready.

  You’re an idiot to come back. Who cares if you’re wearing jeans and a sweater that smell like hamburgers and fries? You’ll be back in Washington soon enough.

  This was nuts. I’m smart and I’m fast, so shut up! Anna pressed her Glock against her leg and refused to sweep it around her as she walked to her front door.

  She heard something, something like a branch dragging on the ground, and froze in her tracks. Then nothing. She didn’t fumble with the keys, in and open, and she had her back pressed against the wall next to the door, her breath coming fast, and for a crystalline instant, she was back in the abandoned warehouse in New Orleans that was really a meth lab where she’d seen her first and only firefight. You came through that, didn’t you? You stayed focused, didn’t lose your nerve, even though, admit it, your hands were clammy with sweat and fear, and your heart was beating a mad tattoo. You did okay; you did great.

  She’d never before been so spooked, so close to having her control shatter. It was humiliating.

  Would Griffin be scared?

  No, he wouldn’t. She wouldn’t, either. She’d get a grip.

  Sure enough, no one was hiding behind the mop in the kitchen pantry. Nothing had disturbed the meager lineup of shoes in her closet, and she heard no quiet breathing that wasn’t her own. She opened the bathroom door and turned on the light, the white tile glaring back at her. Her heart skipped as she remembered Delsey finding Arnie’s body behind her shower curtain, his blood trailing into her bathtub. She stared into the bathroom mirror at the pasty white face of a woman running too close to the edge. She stood there and changed that woman’s face into her own, strong and sure and ready to kick big butt. She heard a car engine, heard fast footfalls coming toward the front door.

  Griffin was here. There was a loud knock on the door, and his steady, sane voice: “Anna?”

  Washington, D.C.

  Monday evening

  It was way past Sean’s bedtime, but since Delsey was a new chapter in Sean’s life, they’d let him stay up, even microwaved a bag of popcorn. Savich watched Delsey clean the butter off Sean’s fingers as he confided in her how his future wife, Emma Hunt, could play the piano nearly as well as his mama. He was going to make sure Emma had a big grand piano so she wouldn’t regret marrying him, and maybe Delsey wouldn’t mind playing it, too?

  Savich grinned as he leaned down to pick up stray popcorn from the kitchen floor. He liked Griffin’s sister, the Trouble Magnet, and so did his son.

  Jimmy Buffett sang out “The Piña Colada Song” on Savich’s cell. Savich met Sherlock’s eyes. They both hated late calls because a lot of the time it meant bad things had happened, that their night with Sean was over. He was aware that Delsey was staring hard at him.

  “Savich.”

  He listened to a hysterical Melissa Ivy screaming at him: “He’s dead! Oh, dear God, Peter’s dead!”

  “Where are you, Melissa?”

  “I’m in Peter’s apartment. I just walked in and he’s dead, do you hear me? He’s dead!”

  “Listen to me now, Melissa, I want you to call 911 and do as they say. Wait for the police. Tell them you called me. We’ll be there as quickly as we can.”

  “What?” Sherlock said.

  Savich punched in Detective Moffett’s cell number as he said to Sherlock, “Peter Biaggini’s dead. That was Melissa Ivy. She found him; she’s at his apartment.”

  “Stony and now Peter? What’s going on here? Oh, Delsey, this is about the Tommy Cronin murder. We’ve got another”—she gave a quick glance at Sean, who was all ears—“incident.”

  Delsey felt bile rise in her throat, gulped. “I’ll take care of Sean.” She looked down at the little boy, who was still staring at his parents. “Do you mind staying with me, Sean, while your parents go out and take care of some business?”

  Sean thought about this as he watched his father punch in a number on his cell.

  “Do I have to go to bed?”

  “Not yet. Let’s play some Hot Dogger. I’m good, really good at skateboarding, Sean. I can skateboard with the best of them.” Hot Dogger, Sean had told her, was like the real thing.

  “We only got Hot Dogger a week ago, but Daddy said I’m already a champion at it.”

  “We’ll see. You ready to put your thumbs where your mouth is, Sean?”

  “I want to play until Mommy and Daddy get home.”

  Delsey smiled back at Savich and Sherlock, nodding.

  On the third ring, Savich heard a low pissed-off voice. “Yeah? Moffett here. I’m not on call.”

  “Sorry, Detective, but I need you.”

  • • •

  IT TOOK THE PORSCHE only seven minutes to reach Peter Biaggini’s upscale apartment building at 322 Willard Avenue. Sherlock had put Mr. Maitland on speakerphone on the way, and he’d nearly flatlined at the news, and finally said he would notify Mr. August Biaggini. “Keep him away from his son’s apartment, sir, please,” Sherlock said.

  “Yes, I will. I’ll call Director Mueller, too. Guys, this can’t be happening. Three kids are dead, three promising young men. Three! And here I thought Peter Biaggini was behind Tommy Cronin’s death, that you were looking hard at him. Who’s responsible for this? We’ve got to put a stop to it, Savich.”

  There were four cop cars with their running lights on in front of the apartment building, and two plain Crown Vics. A dozen people were already milling around in the street, wondering what was going on. Savich pulled in behind Detective Moffett’s big black SUV. He must live close to be here so quickly.

&nbs
p; Savich’s first thought upon entering Peter Biaggini’s apartment was that Daddy must have laid out a bundle for this place—it was spacious, lots of windows. There was a single posh brass number spelled out on the door—Three. When you walked through it, you entered a large entryway that seemed to boast of space by wasting it. Large windows that had to mean lots of light and gorgeous wooden floors led your eyes to a kitchen out of the next century.

  They heard sobbing from the living room, but didn’t stop there. They walked to the master bedroom at the end of a wide hallway. The three cops near the doorway stepped aside. Detective Moffett said, “Not a pretty sight.”

  Peter Biaggini, twenty-two years old, lay sprawled on the floor at the foot of his king-size bed, on his back, his head and face a mess of gore. Blood splattered the pale gray bedspread, the gray leather easy chair, had even spewed in an arc high on the bedroom wall. His green cashmere sweater was soaked in his own blood, his blue jeans streaked with it, even down to his black sneakers. His bloodied cell phone lay on the rug next to his arm. And beside his cell lay a highly polished old Bren Ten.

  She looked up at Moffett. “The murder weapon and the killer left it beside him. Just walked over and dropped it. Leaving it here smacks of a professional, but the chances of that are highly unlikely.”

  Moffett said, “You’d better believe the killer wiped off the prints, and you can bet there’ll be no registration. It looks old, maybe 1970s. We’ll check it out.”

  Savich said, “I wonder why the killer didn’t take the pistol and dump it in the Potomac.”

  Sherlock went down on her knees beside Peter Biaggini’s body, fighting sadness and regret, trying to focus. She felt a moment of nausea, swallowed several times. She would have laid her hand against his cheek or his forehead to see how warm he was, but he didn’t have a cheek. There was so much blood in a human body. She touched her hand to his throat instead, feeling the sticky wet of his blood. She said, trying her best to keep her voice flat, “He’s still quite warm. I’d say he’d been dead only minutes before Melissa got here. When the doorbell buzzed I’ll bet Peter thought it was Melissa, so he opened the door without checking, or else he knew the person who killed him. When he saw the gun, I’m thinking he turned and ran, but his killer was right behind him. He would have slammed the bedroom door, locked it? Dillon, could you see if the door’s been damaged?”

  Savich said, “There’s no lock on the bedroom door, no need to shoot it open or slam into it. The killer opened it, and Peter turned to face him, his cell phone in his hand, only he didn’t have time to call 911.” Savich leaned down, carefully picked up the black cell phone beside Peter Biaggini’s right hand to check his calls.

  Sherlock sat back on her heels, careful not to touch anything else. She looked around her. “When the door flew open, Peter looked at his killer, maybe he was begging for his life, but it didn’t matter, his killer shot him twice in the head from no more than six feet away.”

  Sherlock got to her feet, stared down at Peter Biaggini. “What a waste, what a horrible waste.” And she thought, Peter, you poked at the wrong lion this time. This lion wasn’t twenty years old. He didn’t run away; no, this lion ate you.

  Savich said, “His last call was to Melissa Ivy forty-five minutes ago. I’ll get Ollie started on the rest of this call history.”

  Sherlock stared around the room. “Peter’s death—it makes no sense. We have to start fresh, Dillon, look at all our assumptions. Tommy, Stony, and Peter—they were friends most of their short lives. They had to be involved in something more dangerous than they knew, with people they shouldn’t have been.” She looked down once more at the ruin of Peter Biaggini. “They were in over their heads.”

  “Let’s see what Melissa knows,” Savich said.

  Melissa Ivy was rocking back and forth on the expensive burgundy leather sofa, her beautiful face slack, her eyes vague, unfocused. A female officer held a cup of no doubt very sweet tea in her hand, encouraging her to drink, then holding the cup to her mouth as she sipped, all the while speaking quietly to her, telling her to breathe.

  Melissa was wrapped up in two afghans that looked to be hand-knitted, Sherlock thought, probably by Peter’s mother. It was odd that she was sitting in a living room as modern as Wakefield Hart’s house in Tunney Wells.

  The female officer moved aside, and Savich sat beside Melissa, took her limp hand. “Melissa? Do you remember you called me? I’m Agent Savich. I need to speak with you, all right? I need your help.”

  There was no sign of life from Melissa, not a sound, not a blink, only her relentless rocking back and forth. It always surprised him at how quickly shock could leach the life out of a person. Even Melissa’s hair looked dull under the cold light of the fluorescent lamps scattered around the living room.

  Sherlock sat down on the sofa on Melissa’s other side, slipped her hand beneath the brilliant blue afghan, and lightly stroked her forearm. “Someone killed Peter, Melissa. Do you know who it was?”

  Melissa slowly turned her head to look at Sherlock, looked through her, really, Sherlock thought. “Did you see someone, Melissa? We want to catch the person who killed Peter. Can you help us?”

  Melissa licked her lips, leaned toward Sherlock, and whispered, “I didn’t know who you were until yesterday. Isn’t that strange? And now you’re stroking my arm because Peter’s dead. Three days—Tommy and Peter are both dead. Stony, too. How can that be?”

  “Talk to me, Melissa. Did you see anyone? Hear Peter speak to anyone?”

  Her voice was so thin Sherlock imagined she could see through it. “I talked to Janelle, Stony’s girlfriend. It was horrible she found Stony’s body. Just like I found Peter.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I wanted her to know how sorry I was. She . . . she couldn’t stop crying. She was waiting for her parents to drive in from Delaware to take her home.” She turned deadened eyes to Sherlock. “There isn’t anyone for me to go home to.”

  “Do you want me to call your folks?”

  “No, they’re in Kentucky, and they really wouldn’t want to come here. Do you know, I was thinking that Peter probably did drug me, even if he wasn’t using me for an alibi. I didn’t tell you, but I was real sore Saturday morning, like he’d done things to me he shouldn’t have. Peter was like that; he was cruel, he used people. Peter didn’t love me, not like Tommy did.”

  Her voice fell into a pit. She lowered her face in her hands, but she didn’t cry.

  Sherlock met Dillon’s eyes over Melissa’s head. His eyes were cold and flat, but he didn’t know what to say to this girl who’d gotten together with the wrong boy, a boy craven enough to give his girlfriend a roofie in her wine. In their first meeting with her, she’d lied through her perfect white teeth, but not now, she was too shocked, too strung out. She was only twenty years old, young enough to have believed even a week ago the world’s doors would be flung open for her. She was beautiful enough, surely, to attract boys with money to help her with her bills and tuition. But she’d never counted on a Peter Biaggini, and now her world was in tatters. She would have nightmares for a very long time, maybe for the rest of her life.

  Sherlock pulled Melissa into her arms and rocked her. Still, Melissa didn’t weep, didn’t move. Sherlock stroked her long, straight hair, then said against her cheek, “Why did you come over to Peter’s apartment, Melissa?”

  Silence, then a whisper: “He begged me to come over, said he needed me. I thought he wanted to apologize after our fight yesterday, wanted to make up. Now I’ll never know what he wanted to say to me.”

  Sherlock said, “Let’s go back a minute. You spent much of Saturday with Peter because both you and he were upset about Tommy?”

  “I think I was more upset than Peter was. He was quiet for a long time on Saturday, like he had a lot on his mind, like he was really worried rather than sad, or maybe he was scared of something.”


  Sherlock said, “Did you ask him what was wrong? If he was scared and why?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me anything. I started crying, not about how cold he was being, but about Tommy. I told Peter Tommy had really been a nice guy, and Peter gave this ugly laugh and said I was wrong about that. He said Tommy was no saint.

  “That was so weird, and I asked him why he’d say that, now that Tommy was dead, but he wouldn’t tell me. Then he got this look on his face like he’d come to some decision, nodding and talking to himself. He acted nervous, jumpy, you know what I mean?”

  “You don’t know what he was nervous about?”

  Melissa shook her head. “Since he was being such a jerk, I left. The snow had lightened up, so I hooked a ride on a motorcycle.”

  “Did you see Peter yesterday?”

  She nodded. “He called me after you interviewed him and his dad. He sounded really pleased with himself, said how he rubbed your noses in it since we were together in Georgetown Friday night, at that gallery.”

  Savich said, “Do you know if he spoke to Stony yesterday?”

  “I don’t know.” She raised her eyes to Savich’s face. “Stony killed himself. Why did he kill himself? I don’t understand it. All three of them are dead, just dead. Why?”

  “We have to find out,” Sherlock said. “Melissa, what exactly did you and Peter fight about last night before you went to the rave with Janelle?”

  “I finally accused him of drugging my wine. He denied it, of course, grinned at me. Do you know he said I should have some more of that wine, since it made me so wild? He thought he had the right, you know? Because he was helping me pay some bills. He didn’t have the right.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Sherlock said. “No one has that right.”

  Savich said, “You got here at what time, Melissa?”

  She blinked at him, as if she couldn’t quite understand what he’d said. She looked at Sherlock, who said, “Was it about nine o’clock when you knocked on his door?”