Bombshell (AN FBI THRILLER)

by Catherine Coulter

  “Tie the other one down, Dane.”

  “Already done. Ollie will keep on him, you can count on that, and if anyone can get him to talk, it’s Ollie.”

  Savich said, “Ollie’s good, but you’re better, Dane. Go get yourself cleaned up and deal with this, all right? You get anything out of him, you got a week’s vacation in the Virgin Islands.”

  Savich heard an attempt at a laugh. Good, maybe the thought of sun and sand with his wife, Nick, would get Dane focused again.

  Washington, D.C.

  Tuesday night

  It was close to midnight when Savich and Sherlock drove to Melissa Ivy’s apartment through the steady veil of snow. There was only the occasional car on the road, so it took only eleven minutes. They’d both been tired from the adrenaline rush from the Bonhomie Club, but no longer. It was Sherlock who knocked on Melissa’s door.

  The door whipped open, and Melissa’s face was manic with excitement. She was wearing cat pajamas and big fuzzy slippers, and she was waving a disk at them. “I found it! I found it!”

  In a moment, she’d slipped the disk into her computer and they were looking at her computer screen, waiting for it to boot. As she worked the mouse to click the commands, she said, “I usually listen to music on my iPod, but this time I was on my computer doing a class assignment and I loaded in this disk that Peter had burned for me to listen to his favorite music. That’s when I noticed there’s an extra file on the disk that doesn’t play on my CD player, a video file. Take a look.”

  And there it was, a video file from the surveillance system at the Harts’ house.

  They watched Wakefield Hart seated at his desk in his study on his cell phone. Both his voice and the picture were sharp and clear. “Yes, Raj.”

  Raj? It became clear soon enough that Raj had come from a board meeting at an investment firm—Bowerman and Hayes—and he was telling Wakefield how they were putting together a buyout offer for Lancer Inc., a large supplier of transponders to the military with a forty percent premium over the market value of the stock. The buyout would be announced publicly in two weeks. Hart ended the conversation assuring Raj he would get his usual share of the after-tax profits.

  They watched Hart punch off his cell, slip it in his pants pocket, and leave his study, smiling and humming.

  “What does it mean?” Melissa said. “I know it has to be illegal, but what does it mean?”

  “It means,” Sherlock said, “that Mr. Wakefield Hart was profiting from insider trading and his insider at Bowerman and Hayes was this Raj.” At Melissa’s blank look, she added, “When one company buys out another publicly traded company, they need to make it attractive enough to all the company’s shareholders, and so they offer a higher price per share in the marketplace, to make enough of them happy. I’m sure we’ll find trading logs at Mr. Hart’s broker showing he bought up a whole lot of shares on Lancer Inc. before the buyout was announced. He probably made millions off this one trade. It sounds like he and this Raj have pulled this off before.”

  Savich said, “It also means with trading logs, phone records, and especially this video, that Mr. Wakefield Hart would be prosecuted by the Justice Department and spend the next twenty years of his life in prison. I’m betting he was willing to do just about anything to avoid that.”

  Savich’s cell belted out “Wild Thing.”

  “Savich here.”

  “Agent Hiller here, Savich. Sorry to call you this late, but I thought you’d want to know we’ve got a screaming match going on at the Hart house.”

  “We’ll be there as soon as we can. Are the daughters there?”

  “No, they left earlier with a woman, Mrs. Hart’s sister, I believe. There’s only Mr. and Mrs. Hart in there, flailing at each other.”

  Hart home

  Tunney Wells, Virginia

  They met Agent Hiller by a huge oak tree in the front yard of the Hart home, snow falling lazily around them. “They’ve quieted a bit, but she was screaming at him that he killed his own son, yelled some nasty names, and slammed out of the living room. She went back in a minute ago.”

  Savich nodded. “Thanks. Keep an eye on things out here, all right? If there’s any trouble, call in backup and come in after us.”

  Savich pressed on the doorbell.

  There was no “Who’s there?”—only Hart, heaving and red-faced, jerking open the door and staring at them. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s one o’clock in the frigging morning!”

  “We want you to tell us about Raj, Mr. Hart,” Sherlock said pleasantly, and she stepped forward. He took a step back into the large entry hall automatically, his face for an instant confused, then frozen with shock.

  “That’s right, Mr. Hart,” Savich said, stepping forward and sending him pedaling back. He held up the disk. “We saw this video of you speaking on your cell to your buddy Raj about the Bowerman and Hayes buyout of Lancer Inc. Turns out Peter left a copy with his girlfriend, Melissa Ivy.”

  Hart was shaking his head now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I want both of you to leave.” But he didn’t move, as if he couldn’t, only stood there, his hands fisted at his sides, struggling with the panic showing on his face.

  “Peter must have told you he wasn’t going to let you kill him like you did Tommy, didn’t he? Told you he’d secreted the disk someplace safe? Didn’t you believe him?”

  Mrs. Hart stood in the doorway to the living room. Even from this distance her eyes looked glassy from drugs. She must have taken more when she’d stomped out of the living room a little while before. She crossed her arms over her chest and smirked. “Insider trading? White-collar crime is your specialty, isn’t it, Wake? But murder? What’s on the disk that’s so damning you had to murder Tommy? What, he was blackmailing you?”

  “Shut up, Carolyn, shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t murder Tommy, I didn’t murder anyone. I don’t know anything about that damned disk, I don’t—” Fear bloomed wild in his eyes. Savich grabbed Hart’s arm to keep him from bolting. “Let’s all go into the living room, Mr. Hart. You can tell us all about it.”

  Carolyn Hart yelled at her husband, “It’s over, you bastard!”

  “I agree, Mrs. Hart,” Sherlock said, and took her arm and led her in the glass-walled living room, with Mrs. Hart craning her head about to look at her husband. It was silent in the room except for Mrs. Hart’s heavy breathing and the crackling of a fire that burned brightly in the fireplace.

  Sherlock released Mrs. Hart’s arm. “So you have information your husband killed Tommy Cronin? You know Tommy was blackmailing him because he and Peter had that video on the disk?”

  She stared at Sherlock. “I heard him screaming one night that Stony had fixed the damned surveillance system, and he was banging his fists against the wall in his study he was so furious. I asked him why that was a problem, but he wouldn’t tell me. Then he ran into the control room behind and tore out the system, tore it out with his bare hands, and he never stopped cursing. He frightened the girls.”

  Savich said, “You had no idea, did you, Mr. Hart? Stony liked to fix things, decided to fix the surveillance system and didn’t tell anyone. Maybe he thought it was funny to spy on his family with his friends when they were bored. I’d have to say he was surprised when he saw his father committing a major felony. Tommy, Peter, Stony, all of them must have been having a fine time until they saw you on this video.

  “They all knew banking and finance, knew exactly what you’d done. Stony probably made Tommy and Peter swear they’d never say anything, but Peter was Peter, wasn’t he, Mr. Hart? A greedy manipulator. I don’t doubt it was Tommy who called you, demanding money. Peter would have put him up to it.”

  “This is all nonsense, all of it.”

  “Shut up, Wake! That is exactly what happened, isn’t it?” She looked like she would have run at him, but Sherlock again held her in place.

  Savich continued, “Tommy was flush with cash in December,
as was Peter. They got that cash from you, after Tommy sent you a copy of the disk. I’ll bet he promised he’d give you the original and you’d never hear from him again.

  “But Peter wouldn’t let this gold mine go, and you did hear from Tommy again, so you met him at your office on M Street, which just so happens to be on the third floor of the Hampton Building, and you threw him out your window.”

  Hart listened, saying nothing, fists at his sides, shaking his head back and forth.

  “Quite an idea to leave his body at the Lincoln Memorial, to send us off in the wrong direction, at least for a while. But you overthought what you did next. You thought you understood your son Stony’s anonymizer software, you thought no one on earth could ever trace anything sent using it, but the thing is, Mr. Hart, you didn’t understand as well as your son did, and we traced the photo you uploaded of Tommy Cronin’s body back to Stony’s computer.

  “And that brought Tommy Cronin’s murder right back to you.”

  Carolyn Hart was panting now, nearly hysterical with rage. “Even I didn’t think you uploaded that horrible picture from Stony’s computer yourself! Stony wasn’t even involved. Stony knew you’d done it, knew you’d killed his friend, and he couldn’t bear it and he killed himself!”

  Hart kept himself in tight control. “Shut up, Carolyn. You have no idea what you’re talking about. They have no proof of anything at all.”

  Savich shook his head at him. “No proof, Mr. Hart? We found a lot of cash in Peter’s apartment. Your cash, Mr. Hart, because he didn’t withdraw it from his own bank account. He didn’t have that kind of money. Neither did Tommy. But you made a large withdrawal from your brokerage account in early December, deposited in your bank account. Then you made three large cash withdrawals, two in December, and one yesterday, Monday. What happened, Mr. Hart? Peter called you, didn’t he? He told you he had copies of the disk, too. Knowing Peter, he would have tried to persuade you it wouldn’t do to try to kill him, as you killed Tommy, that he had copies hidden away.”

  Hart walked to the middle of his modern living room surrounded by falling snow and pulled out his speaker’s voice, smooth and deep. “I want you out of my house. I’m going to call my lawyer.”

  “Feel free,” Sherlock said. “But before he arrives, you might as well know our lab will be looking for trace evidence in all of your cars. If you used any of them to haul Tommy’s body to the Lincoln Memorial, they’ll find it. We’re going to track your whereabouts, and Tommy’s, on Friday night, and we’ll be searching your office and the concrete sidewalk under your office windows. A human body that falls onto concrete from that height leaves traces. Your phone records, and Tommy’s and Peter’s—there will be calls you have no good explanation for. You cannot hope to get away with killing them, Mr. Hart.”

  “But I didn’t kill Peter, I tell you. I didn’t kill that little bastard!”

  Sherlock said, “Then why, Mr. Hart, was your gun lying beside Peter’s body?”

  “I told you, it’s been missing for years, anyone—”

  “Did you panic, Mr. Hart, run before you could get yourself together to search Peter’s apartment?”

  “My wife and I were here last night together! And Friday night as well. Ask her!”

  Hart looked at his wife, standing beside Sherlock, looking vague and stupid to him from all her drugs. She was his only chance, and he knew it.

  Mrs. Hart said slowly and precisely, “He could easily have slipped out Friday night; last night as well. We have separate bedrooms, you see.” She looked at him appraisingly, as if they both knew something Savich didn’t, as if challenging Hart to say what he would.

  Savich saw Hart’s face go slack, saw defeat in his eyes.

  “Of course, Mr. Hart,” Savich said, “it could be you are telling the truth about Peter. Melissa Ivy saw someone leaving Peter’s apartment building, not well, but well enough to think it wasn’t you she saw, but someone shorter.

  “So let me paint another scenario. Since Mrs. Hart can’t vouch for your being home that night, you can’t vouch for her. It could have been Mrs. Hart who drove to Peter’s apartment last night, Mrs. Hart Peter let in, not realizing she knew and guessed enough to blame him for Stony’s death, for Tommy’s death, too. Peter would have pleaded for his life when he saw the gun, told Mrs. Hart everything about the video, about Tommy’s blackmailing you, that it was you who had killed Tommy. But she knew Peter well enough to know he’d put Tommy up to it, that he would never have done such a thing by himself.

  “That’s when she realized if she shot Peter, you would be blamed for it, that all the evidence would point to you, particularly if she left your gun next to Peter’s body. All she had to do was to vouch for your being with her that night, as any good wife would. All she had to do was wait, knowing the FBI would find a copy of the video, and that we would arrest you, not her, Mr. Hart.”

  Another long look passed between husband and wife. Carolyn Hart said to him, her voice low and despairing, “Our son, our precious Stony, he did nothing wrong. And now we have only our two daughters. Would you leave them out in the world without a parent? Do the right thing finally for one time in your miserable life.”

  Hart looked at her again, then said very quietly, “I did kill Tommy and Peter. I killed both of them.”

  • • •

  THEY WEREN’T HOME UNTIL DAWN. Sherlock lay on her back in the dull gray light, exhausted and sad. Had Wakefield Hart really killed Peter, and dropped his own gun there beside Peter’s body? And did it even matter, since Hart was willing to swear to it now? At least the two Hart daughters would have a parent to raise and nurture them. And there was closure.

  Maestro, Virginia

  Wednesday morning

  Gabrielle DuBois was packing. They could see her suitcase open, impossible to hide it even with her standing in the doorway, blocking them.

  She eyed the three of them, then said, her accent thick, “What is it you are doing here? What do you want?”

  Griffin said, “You seem to be in a big hurry, Ms. DuBois. Where are you going?”

  “Not that it is any of your business, but I am going home.” She shrugged, and crossed her arms over her chest, not moving. She wore loose black sweats and thick white socks on her feet. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she was wearing bright red lipstick. “I do not approve of Stanislaus any longer. I had such high hopes, but I was deceived. Look at what has happened here in your countryside—a cave filled with cocaine, a murder, Professor Salazar shot. Even you, Agent Hammersmith, shot in the leg. Thank you, no, I will return to France, to civilization. I am afraid to remain here.”

  “That’s not very nice of you to say,” Griffin said. “What about Professor Salazar? He’s hurt very badly. Doesn’t he need you? I thought you were in love with him and he with you. Why aren’t you at his bedside at the hospital?”

  There was no explosion of French expletives, only a lovely Gallic shrug. “I was deceived by Professor Salazar as well. He toyed with my affections. He prefers your sister, I think. It seems he is nothing more than a common criminal, in any case. I no longer care what happens to him.”

  “Interesting that you are the only student with urgent plans to leave the country, don’t you think?” Griffin asked. He stepped forward, but she didn’t oblige him and back up. Instead, she leaned into him. “I do not invite you into my apartment.”

  Anna pulled her creds out of her pocket. “We haven’t actually met properly, Gabrielle. As you can see, my real name is Agent Anna Parrish, DEA, and I’ve been working undercover here at Stanislaus. And your own name is not Gabrielle DuBois, but Claudine Renard.”

  Griffin was pleased to see Gabrielle flinch and her face go pale, but she recovered quickly, even managed a sneer. “I do not know this Renard person.”

  Griffin said, “Sure you do, Gabrielle—excuse me, it’s Claudine—isn’t it? Claudine Renard, longtime student of Madame Maria Rosa Salazar of Madrid? That will make it impossible for you to leave the cou
ntry, since you entered illegally under an assumed identity.” Anna simply shoved her back and moved in, Griffin behind her. He shut the door.

  Gabrielle stumbled, managed to right herself. She shot Anna a venomous look. “All right, so you have forced your way in, and you are the law. They are rude and pushy everywhere. But I am not impressed, Anna. I don’t care who you are. I want you to get out.”

  Griffin said, “I’m afraid that’s no longer up to you, Ms. Renard. A gang member we’ve identified as a José Ramirez was shot last night at the Bonhomie Club in Washington, D.C., while lying in wait for my sister, Delsey. I have his picture on my cell phone. He is the same man Delsey and I saw running away after the attack on her at the B&B here in Maestro. Unfortunately for you, he was carrying a disposable cell with your number on it. Careless of him not to toss it, but he was like that, wasn’t he? I guess he didn’t think it would be necessary. He was one of the men who called you for instructions from Delsey’s apartment, too, wasn’t he?”

  “Vous est dingue! Vous avez perdu la raison! C’est completement fou!” She waved her hand in his face. “This is lunacy, it is madness, do you hear me?”

  Anna pulled a sheaf of pictures from her jacket pocket. “I appreciate your fluent French and your dramatic gestures, Claudine, but they won’t fly now. Take a look at these.” Anna handed her the pictures. “Once we knew who to ask about, we sent a photo of you to the Spanish police, asked them if they could identify you, match your photo with anyone in their files of the Lozano and Salazar family contacts. There you are at a recital at about age eighteen, I’d say, standing next to Maria Rosa Salazar, accompanying you on the piano. You seem quite happy. She taught you voice, and no doubt brought you into the Lozano family business. Odd you never mentioned her. Did you even study with Professor Salazar here at Stanislaus at all, or spend all your time on the drug business?”