Bombshell Part 10

Jimmy Maitland shook his head. "Not anymore, sadly. That nickname, though, it sure fits Cronin, even though he's skinny as a bicycle spoke. It's that placid all-knowing smile, the way he sits with his hands folded in front of him. Too bad he wasn't enlightened enough to try to head off a worldwide banking collapse."

Savich said, "Coop, tell us about Palmer Cronin's son and wife."

Coop said, "Cronin's only son, Palmer Cronin Jr., was a big muckety-muck partner at Pearlman Lock. I'm sure some of you remember he was killed last year when his Ferrari skidded off an embankment, through a railing, and into the Potomac. His wife, Barbara, died two years ago, a purported suicide with a bottle of pills."

Lucy said, "I remember the son's death was huge news. It was ruled an accident."

Coop said, "Yes, it was. You know his son's tragic death had to hit Cronin Senior hard. First Barbara, his daughter-in-law, then his son, both dead within two years."

Savich said, "Cronin Junior left three children, two daughters and a son, Tommy. Barbara Cronin's sister, Marian Lodge, had moved in with the family after her sister's death to take over the care of the kids. After Cronin Junior's death, she applied for guardianship, and it was made official a couple of months ago."

Lucy said, "So much tragedy in one family, and now this."

Savich thought of Sean, and closed it off.

He said, "Okay, that's the background. Now let's get back to the grandson. Thomas Malcolm Cronin-Tommy-had a three-point-eight GPA, quite an achievement at Magdalene. His father and his grandfather were both alumni, and both were big contributors. There's a big new business administration building on campus called Cronin Hall, after the grandfather, who, as you know, retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve Banking System right after the investment banking debacle came to light."

Ollie Hamish snorted. "Talk about a retirement coming way too late. It still frosts me that Palmer Cronin claimed he never expected the bankers' shenanigans, that his philosophy of self-regulation turned out to be simply wrong. How incompetent does that make him?"

Coop said, "I think you're expressing only one side of the anger and frustration that's out there, Ollie. What about the politicians who said they were willing to take the risk and then pressed the banks to finance home loans for people who obviously couldn't pay the mortgage?"

Mr. Maitland said, "There was predatory lending, for sure, but don't forget the people determined to cash in on the real estate bubble, willing to sign anything to get their share of the pie. There's surely enough blame to go around."

"Maybe so," Ollie said, "but most of the anger out there is at the bankers and Wall Street. That's where it all started, with their packaging c.r.a.p derivatives and worthless home loans and selling them to pension funds and munic.i.p.alities and other banks-hey, to anyone who trusted them."

As if to agree, Ollie's small daughter burped in her sleep, making everyone laugh.

Ollie patted her small head. "I wonder if she'll agree with me when she's a teenager. So there's rage out there, and there's been some violence. There may even be justification for thinking some of the b.l.o.o.d.y bankers and some of our precious lawmakers ought to be in a criminal inst.i.tution. Where does that leave us?"

Lucy and Coop were sitting side by side on the sofa, both in sweats. She said, "It leaves us with the fact that Palmer Cronin wasn't the one who was murdered. It was Tommy, a twenty-year-old, who for all we know never did anything wrong in his short life. If Tommy was targeted by some kind of deluded out-there anarchist to make a statement, that isn't a reflection of any justified anger still circulating in society, it's a Timothy McVeigh kind of insanity."

Savich said, "That's a.s.suming the crime was a political act, Lucy, but that's not a trail I'm ready to commit to unless the investigation points us that way. All right, we've all had a chance to vent. Let's move along to the photos of Tommy uploaded to YouTube. We're going to treat the photos as part of the crime scene, since anyone close enough to upload a photo of Tommy may have been a witness, and we've been tracking those uploads to find those witnesses. Mr. Maitland?"

He saw Mr. Maitland turn around at the shouts and groans coming from his sons, who were glued to the play-off game, then back again. He said, "Ben Raven has been handling that. Most of the photos that have been uploaded aren't relevant, they're from around Magdalene College, yearbook photos, or photos with friends horsing around. We've found several photos of the crime scene, though, most showing no real detail because of the snow or because the cops had already established a solid perimeter around the Lincoln Memorial by the time they were taken. There was one, though, that was very close and very clear."

"This is the photo," Savich said, and brought it up onto the screen. "It's the one Mrs. Cronin saw on the Internet that led Mr. Cronin to call us. It's a close-up, straight-on view of Tommy's face. Was it taken by Tommy's killer or an accomplice, as a way of a.s.suming credit and publicizing his killing? Or by someone who happened by at the right time and thought it would be cool to post it? There were no comments posted with it."

Ollie said, "Or maybe even a cop."

Savich said, "No one wants a cop to be the source. Believe me, Ben Raven is all over it. We're dealing with all the photos by tracking down the IP addresses they were posted from. We have all of them already, except for this one."

"What's the holdup?" Coop asked.

Savich said, "Our techs have run into a roadblock, because whoever posted this photo used a bogus YouTube account and a proxy server to hide his tracks. We're up against a computer nerd who knew we'd be trying to track his posting and knew how to protect himself. It's the strongest reason we have to believe the killer or killers posted this picture, and not someone who happened by."

Mr. Maitland said, "So why not get Spooner in on this? You've said yourself, Savich, it takes one to catch one."

"You're right," Savich said.

Ollie said, "We've all heard about surfing the Web anonymously, using what they call anonymizers. What do they do exactly, Savich?"

"They're a sort of privacy shield between a client computer and the rest of the Web, so you can protect your personal information by hiding your computer's ident.i.ty."

Lucy said, "I read that a lot of the child p.o.r.nography on the Internet is accessed through anonymizers."

Savich said, "Like a lot of tools, anonymizers can be used for good or bad. If you lived in Iran or China, for example, where the Internet is severely restricted, using an anonymizer could save your life unless you make a mistake, and believe me, you've got to know what you're doing. It gets even more complicated when you're posting something-like a photograph. Then you need your own software to create a Web proxy and establish connections between chains of servers to hide your tracks. We've got a shot, though. I'll get Spooner on it right away."

Mr. Maitland said, "Spooner has liaised with the NSA for us in the past. If there's a way to find this guy, Spooner will do it. Of course, there are new articles and postings about the Cronins all over the Web now-photos of the family, comments by Tommy's friends at Magdalene College, as well as blogs and forums with theories about why he was murdered in such a public way. It's a hodgepodge, though some of them are cruel. There's even talk of a family curse, what with the death of both Tommy Cronin's parents in the last two years, and now their only son."

Ollie said, "All the Internet hype-I'm thinking it's what the killer wanted. Savich, do we have anything else going besides Spooner tracing that upload to YouTube?"

"Not much. Ben has already spoken by telephone to two men and one woman he tracked down who'd uploaded what they could see of the crime scene on social networks. They told him they didn't see anyone get close to the body because the police were keeping everyone at a distance by the time they arrived.

"Needless to say, we'd know a lot more about Tommy's whereabouts last night by now if the weather hadn't shut down the power and the roads, making it a no-go today.

"Sherlock and I will drive to Chevy Chase to visit Tommy Cronin's grandparents tomorrow morning. Then we'll go on to see Marian Lodge, Tommy's aunt, who lives in Potomac Village in Montgomery County, Maryland. I've already spoken to them, and they'll be expecting us."

Maitland said, "The snow's supposed to stop during the night, and then it'll warm up again. Director Mueller called Palmer Cronin and has a.s.sured him and his wife that we will find whoever murdered his grandson. Guys, I don't want to make a liar out of the director."

Sean came dashing into the living room, Sherlock racing to catch him. Sean shouted, "Papa, I bet Marty my next allowance the Patriots are going to win the Super Bowl!"

There were some boos, some laughter, some "Hey, Sean, how's it going?" To which his boy grinned and waved wildly at all the faces displayed on MAX's monitor.

After Savich gave out a.s.signments, Mr. Maitland ended the conference call and everyone went to catch the rest of the play-off game. Savich shut MAX down. Sherlock went to the kitchen to make Sean hot chocolate. Savich and Sean walked to the front window and looked out at the deserted street blanketed deep with snow. Savich could barely make out Mr. MacPherson's house across the street through a veil of soft fluid white snow, with no end in sight for the moment. No way would he make his Porsche dig its way through that mess tomorrow morning. It would have to be Sherlock's stalwart Volvo to make the trip to the Cronins' and to Marian Lodge. He said to his son, "Hey, kiddo, you're going to hang out with your Aunt Lilly and Uncle Simon tomorrow while your mama and I take a field trip."

"Aunt Lilly's going to have a baby," Sean said, and he didn't sound very happy about it, because Lilly's and Simon's attention wouldn't be focused on their one and only precious nephew.

"These things happen, Sean," Savich said, and he lifted Sean in his arms and hugged him. "Sometimes you've got to suck it up."

"Marty's mom is really fat now. Marty says she's going to have a little brother in March, and I should want a sister so I'd be balanced out like her. I told her I didn't want to be balanced. I told her I like being the only kid here."

Now, that, Savich thought, was something to think about.

Henderson County Hospital

Early Sat.u.r.day evening

"I got here as soon as I could," Sheriff Dix n.o.ble said, shaking off his leather coat as he came into Delsey's room. "Ms. Freestone, you're looking much better than the last time I saw you." He studied her face for a moment. "I'm Sheriff n.o.ble."

She smiled up at the hard-faced man with heart-melting dark eyes. "Everyone in town knows who you are, Sheriff n.o.ble. I met your wife, Ruth, today as well. You're kind of local heroes."

Dix waved that off. "Griffin said you remembered what you saw in your bathtub?"