Bombshell Part 33

"Bill said a Detective Moffett of the WPD just drove up."

They found themselves in a not-quite-gentrified neighborhood of mid- to low-end apartments that left very few trees to soften the scene. Instead, there were stuffed garbage cans lining the street, and piles of filthy snow packed back against buildings. Four cop cars blocked the street. Officers were already out canva.s.sing the neighborhood wherever they saw a light.

"I hate this," she said.

Detective Lorenzo Moffett, a fireplug topped with a short halo of hair hugging his head, and eyes that had seen too much, met them at Stony Hart's apartment door on the second floor, waved them in. "So you're Agent Savich. There's a lot of talk at the Daly Building about that poor kid found at the Lincoln Memorial. I'd say this one is a suicide, first glance, but given the circ.u.mstances, we'll see. Hart's in here."

"Our forensic team and the FBI ME will be here soon, Detective Moffett," Sherlock said.

"My Loo's got no problem with you guys taking over the forensics once he heard it's connected to Tommy Cronin's murder. I've got officers out speaking to the neighborhood, and I want to be kept in the loop. I've got the girlfriend in the kitchen. She was pretty drunk when we got here, since she'd been out partying with girlfriends. She told Agent Sparks she decided to surprise him with a return visit, all unplanned, according to her, and this is what she found. Needless to say, she's stone-cold sober now. Naturally, she didn't know about an FBI agent sitting in front of the building. Did Hart know?"

Savich shook his head. "I a.s.signed Agent Sparks to keep watch here."

Moffett didn't say a word about that, although they could tell he wanted to. "I ran a check on the girlfriend while I waited for you guys," Moffett said. "Janelle Eckles is twenty-two; she's a clerk at State part-time and finishing up her senior year at George Washington, majoring in history. Parents live in Independence, Iowa, work in Cedar Rapids, both engineers in a biotech company."

As Moffett spoke, he led them into the good-sized living room that had a lovely view of an alley. The living room furniture looked to be college dorm seconds Stony had gathered over the years, from a fifties-modern coffee table to a beat-up early-American sofa. Stacks of CDs covered an entire side of the sofa, and there was a bowl filled to the brim with shrink-wrapped flash drives on the coffee table. Along one wall was a long cafeteria-style table, mostly empty except for a lonely keyboard, a printer, and a beehive of computer wiring. Layers of dust in geometric patterns were scattered around the table, where Stony's computers and routers had stood before Spooner and his crew had removed them all that afternoon.

Moffett waved his hand around. "You can see Hart was really into his computers. Agent Sparks told me the FBI hauled away his stuff. I'd like to know what that was about. First let's see if you agree this is a suicide."

He ushered them into a long, narrow bedroom that held only a single dresser, a leather chair, and a king-size bed. No computer paraphernalia in here, maybe on orders from his girlfriend, only a big flat-screen TV hung on the wall opposite the bed.

Walter Stony Hart was lying on the bed on his back with his arms at his sides, dressed in old jeans, a blue-and-white Magdalene sweatshirt, and black Nikes on his feet, his arms at his sides. His eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. Beside him on the bedside table stood two empty pill bottles. Savich looked closely at the bottles, saw the prescription labels had been ripped off so no one would know where he'd got them? Or because he didn't want to be saved if the pills didn't kill him? Next to the bottle was a piece of white paper.

"Ms. Eckles said she read it," Moffett said. "She said it was neatly set beneath the bottles.

"We didn't touch it again," Moffett said. Sherlock leaned down, read aloud, "I can't live like this. I'm sorry." It was signed "Stony Hart."

Sherlock studied the scene, studied Stony's face. "Where is the pad this sheet of paper came from?"

"It's here, on the floor beside the bed."

"And the pen?"

Moffett said, "It's on top of the pad of paper. It's really a journal sort of notebook, but funny thing is, there's nothing written in it."

Sherlock took the journal, thumbed through the pages. "It still smells new," she said, and gave it back to Detective Moffett.

"Devil's advocate here. It's suicide; look at him, he didn't struggle, he's all peaceful, like he came to a decision and followed through, even left a note. Hard to fake all that."

Sherlock lightly touched her fingers to Stony's gray cheek. "Poor boy, you should have told us the truth, but maybe in the end it didn't matter."

Savich was studying the pill bottles. "Since he ripped off the prescription labels, it will take a few hours to know what they were. From the size of the bottles, I'd say maybe narcotic pain relievers, like oxycodone, and some kind of sleeping pills or tranquilizers. Either Stony stole them or someone else did."

Sherlock said to Moffett, "If it turns out it's not suicide, we'll have a suspect. Peter Biaggini, and that would mean Peter killed one of his best friends and danced out all pleased with himself for stage-setting a perfect suicide scene."

"Talk to me," Detective Moffett said. "Tell me who this Peter is."

Savich saw no reason not to tell him. By the time he finished speaking, Moffett was shaking his head. "But you don't know yet."

"No," Sherlock said. "We don't. Something I do know, though, is that Peter Biaggini will be alibied up to his tonsils if he had anything to do with this. We'd appreciate it if you'd keep this all close to the vest, Detective Moffett. We don't want it to get out to the media."

Detective Moffett said, "Not a problem."

Savich lightly touched his hand to Stony Hart's flaccid hand. Another life gone, simply snuffed out. The waste of it all made him want to weep. He said, "Murder or suicide, the ME can tell us for certain."

Ten minutes later FBI crime scene techs swarmed into the bedroom. Savich and Sherlock walked with Detective Moffett to the small kitchen that smelled faintly of day-old garbage and unwashed dishes, with an occasional whiff of lemon.

An untouched pizza with congealed cheese, still in its box, looked ready to topple off the kitchen counter. Janelle Eckles sat in one of the two cane-backed chairs at a small laminated green table with salt and pepper shakers shaped like kittens sitting on top of a pile of napkins. A gift from her to Stony, Sherlock thought, and felt her throat close. A WPD officer sat silently with her.

Janelle wasn't crying. She was sitting tall, her face and her eyes blank, and Sherlock realized the only thing tethering her here was her body. She nodded to Dillon, and he and Moffett and the officer left the kitchen.

Sherlock sat beside the young woman. "Janelle Eckles? Did I p.r.o.nounce your name correctly?"

"Yes." She didn't look at Sherlock, but continued to stare blankly toward the sink filled with dirty dishes. "Some people say it Eck-less, not Eckels, like I do." She waved a hand. "I was going to clean up this mess before I left because Stony was so upset all weekend after Tommy died. But then Stony acted like a jerk this afternoon. He hardly talked to me, so I told him he could be a pig on his own time. I called some friends and we went to a rave at the DC Star on Queens Chapel Road, you know, in the warehouse district. I guess I got really drunk." She raised blank eyes to Sherlock's face. "I'm not drunk now."

A rave at the DC Star, Sherlock thought, down and dirty, so not the shy conservative girl she'd expect to be with Stony. Either that or she was so angry she was out experimenting.

Sherlock took Janelle's hand in hers, held it firmly when Janelle resisted, then felt her slowly ease. "What time did you leave, Janelle?"

"About nine o'clock. Stony was pacing around, groaning, pulling on his hair. He was obviously upset about something. I kept asking him what was wrong, asking him where he was this afternoon, who'd upset him like this. I'm not blind, I saw all his computers were gone. And I asked him what happened to them, but he shook his head and wouldn't tell me, muttered something about getting them replaced. It was like he didn't think it was any of my business to ask him. And that was after I spent most of the weekend with him to show him how sorry I was about Tommy. Finally I told him it was time he talked to me or I was going to leave. You know what he did? He punched a wall with his fist and walked out of the room. I called my two girlfriends to come pick me up right after that.

"You know he was always on one of his computers-have you seen the living room, imagine what it looked like? He wouldn't put any of that c.r.a.p out of sight. I swear all that junk would breed from one week to the next; there was always more. He spent all day at work in front of a screen, and then he came home and didn't want to do anything else." Her voice broke, but still she didn't cry, merely swallowed, and was still again.

She doesn't know anything about Stony coming to the Hoover Building, doesn't know anything about the anonymizer or Stony's involvement with Tommy's death.

Sherlock asked her, "Did you know Tommy Cronin?"

"Sure. Tommy was over here whenever he could get away from Magdalene, maybe once a week. I liked him a lot. For a while he was thick with one of my girlfriends, Melissa Ivy, and it was Melissa who introduced me to Stony. She said we might as well go out with guys who had a future rather than those jocks and losers at school who were only out to score. I remember she was so pleased when Tommy invited her to Thanksgiving dinner at his grandparents' house-well, mansion, really, she told me. But that didn't work out. I'm sorry, Agent, I got off track."

"That's fine," Sherlock said. "Tell me whatever you wish."

"Well, Melissa was with us last night at the rave, went home as drunk as I did. I think she was mad at Peter-Peter Biaggini; he's another of Stony's friends-but she wouldn't say anything about it, said she wanted to forget about it and him. I wondered if he was as upset as Stony and shutting her out.

"They're both gone now, both Tommy and Stony. And they were so young. Isn't that strange?"

Sherlock lightly touched her fingertips to Janelle's sweater sleeve to bring her back. "Were you surprised when Melissa left Tommy and went with Peter?"

"Melissa said Tommy was too uptight, said he wanted to study all the time instead of be with her. She took up with Peter then; I don't remember exactly when."

"That's all right. Now, I know this is hard, Janelle, but we really need your help. When you left Stony tonight, did he tell you he expected anybody?"

"I don't know, because we weren't speaking. He didn't even say good-bye to me. I didn't say good-bye to him, either. I slammed out." Tears were falling down her face. She didn't make a noise, just let the tears fall. "When I got back I was too drunk to fight with him. I went in the bedroom to say something snarky to him and I saw him lying there. I thought he'd fallen asleep with his clothes on, and I touched him, but then I saw his eyes and they were staring at me." She gulped, sat stone still.

"I picked up his note and read it. I know now I shouldn't have touched it, but I did. I don't understand what he meant-I can't live like this. I'm sorry. Did it have anything to do with Tommy dying? Do you know what he meant?"