Bombshell Part 44

Hart reared back, opened his mouth, closed it, and seamed his lips. He looked confused, Savich thought, perhaps bewildered, but why? Then he looked down, as if studying the ta.s.sels on his Italian loafers. He shook his head, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. When he finally looked again at Savich, he'd wiped all expression from his face.

Savich waited, but Hart said nothing.

Sherlock stepped forward. "Mr. Hart, this is a warrant to search your house without restriction. Our forensic team is already waiting outside." Sherlock handed him the warrant, watching his face.

Mrs. Hart looked toward her husband, whirled back around, and shouted, "You're saying my husband killed Peter with that ancient, ugly weapon? That's a horrible thing to say; it's ridiculous. He was here with me, all evening and all night! I have told you so. He did not leave. He did not kill Peter. He's right, neither of us have seen that gun in decades. It could have been stolen years ago, do you hear me? We haven't seen it! Are you accusing me of lying?"

Sherlock said. "Not yet, ma'am."

Savich had already texted the CSI team outside, and Tom Leads showed his face in the gla.s.s living room. Mrs. Hart yelled at him, "Our daughters are upstairs in their rooms. Will you at least leave them alone to grieve for their brother? Or are you going to tell them you believe their father killed someone?"

Tom Leads, father of six, said, "No, ma'am, we will respect your daughters' privacy. However, it might be better for you to arrange for them to go elsewhere. If you wish to go up to them, it's quite all right."

Savich saw Mrs. Hart look at her husband and slowly shake her head. "I must stay here. You will be respectful," she added fiercely, and Tom nodded.

Savich's cell rang. He walked into the hallway, saw Regina was there, her eyes red from crying. Naturally, she'd been listening.

He heard Hart yelling through the door at Sherlock, "My wife has sworn to you I was here last night. I'm calling my lawyer, to put an end to this hara.s.sment. We're going to bury our son on Thursday. Does that mean nothing to you?"

"Yes, Mr. Hart, it means a lot to me," Sherlock said. "It breaks my heart. For your family's sake, you should have waited to kill Peter until after you buried Stony."

That drew Hart up, but only for a moment. Savich heard him mutter something, but couldn't make out the words because he was trying to listen to Ollie on his cell. "While we were out interviewing your neighbors about the alarm last night, Delsey spotted an SUV cruising your neighborhood in Georgetown. She's got eagle eyes, Savich, and she tagged the car. The SUV was reported stolen right out of a garage in Mount Perse, Maryland. We'll go check that out. As you know, Coop is staying with Delsey. You know he'll keep her safe."

They'd taken Sean to spend the day with his grandmother, so he was out of harm's way, his short-term future bright with the promise of a half a dozen chocolate-chip cookies. Savich looked up when one forensic team leader, Tommy Voss, called out, "Agent Savich, could you come over here, please? Bring Agent Sherlock."

They followed Tommy into a laundry room behind a large, painfully modern kitchen with stainless-steel appliances so highly polished they looked brand-new. The laundry was large and utilitarian, lined with shelves filled with detergents, softeners, cleaning liquids, and stain removers, no doubt for Regina's use.

Tommy pointed to piles of freshly washed and folded clothes. "We'll start out with pictures of everything in here before we start looking for blood on those clothes. As you know, even washing can't get out all the blood. Nothing can. We'll go over the interior of the washer and drier with Luminol. If anyone washed b.l.o.o.d.y clothes in this washer, we'll find a trace. I'll tell you, I've got a feeling about this."

Savich did, too. "We'll have to hope he didn't burn the clothes or dump them."

Tommy said, "We'll check the clothes hampers, spray all the sinks and showers, see if anyone washed blood off themselves last night. If you really think he was stupid enough to bury the clothes in the backyard, or even farther out in the woods, we can get that bloodhound, Bitsy, from the Washington Field Office out here. She can find anything."

"Good, Tommy. I'll leave you to it."

"Wait a minute, guys; this was just my opening prelude. Now let's get to it. Come take a look at this."

Tommy led them through another door to a large storage area with more shelves and bins holding luggage, ski paraphernalia, and golf equipment. He opened a smaller door, flipped a light switch, and ushered them in.

"Would you take a look at this."

They were in the control room for what once had been the complex and highly sophisticated surveillance system. Now it was a jumbled mess of ripped-out wires and connections, all the system guts strewn on the tiled floor.

Sherlock said, "Torn to shreds by very angry hands, not neatly uninstalled. Look, there's no dust where the computer sat. This was done recently."

Savich said, "Systems like this one are typically motion-activated and store their audio and video on rewritable DVDs. I don't see any."

"They're all gone," Tommy said, "and I've looked. Maybe they're hidden in the house; if so, we'll find them. If they've been tossed, well-" He shrugged.

Savich knew in his gut the disks weren't here in the house. What was on them?

He and Sherlock returned to the living room, where the Harts stood silent and still at opposite ends of the room. Because Mrs. Hart had finally realized her husband was a murderer? He said, "Mr. Hart, where else in this house do you have cameras installed for your surveillance system?"

"What? You still think I spy on people who visit my house? That's insulting, Agent. I told you when you were here before, the cameras are simply left over from the past owner. When will your people be out of here?"

Savich said, "You seem to have torn the control center out pretty recently. The room is a shambles. What brought on such rage to push you to destroy your own system, Mr. Hart? What did you do with the recordings? Where are the disks?"

Hart's face suffused with color. "I destroyed nothing! I know nothing about any recordings, any disks! My lawyer advised me not to talk to you until he arrives, so the last thing I'll say is this. As I told you, the cameras were simply here. They do not work. There are no recordings. I have never recorded anything. Indeed, I have not been in the control room for a very long time. There was no reason for me to go there."

Savich didn't believe him for a minute. He knew Hart had ripped out the surveillance system. What had happened to enrage him so much to do it? His son had killed himself, that's what. The disks, he thought; it had to do with what was on the missing disks.

He'd thought to arrest Hart then and there, but he realized something wasn't right about the Bren Ten they'd found by Peter's body. Why would he have left the gun there? He might as well have painted a target on his back with a big red arrow pointing to it.

He said, "We'll wait for your lawyer, then, Mr. Hart."

Maestro, Virginia

Tuesday morning

It had to be fate, Griffin thought, when he saw one of Maestro's half-dozen taxis pull in front of the hospital doors as he limped out on his cane. An elderly man helped a woman out of the back, then leaned in to give the driver some cash.

The driver eyed Griffin. "You look kinda pasty, son. You sure you're not going the wrong way? Out instead of in?"

"I'm definitely out," Griffin said, and climbed carefully into the backseat. He hoped the aspirin Dr. Chesney had finally given him would kick in soon. He laid the cane over his legs. He gave the driver Salazar's address on Golden Meadow Terrace.

They pulled up to Salazar's house ten minutes later to join four other cars overflowing the driveway. "Fancy address," the driver said. "What's going on?"

"Don't know yet," Griffin said.

"Hey, that's the sheriff's Range Rover. I sure hope he wasn't the one who dragged you out of the hospital."

"Nah, this is all my idea."

Dix walked out onto the porch and watched the taxi slowly pull away, the driver leaning his head out the window to see all he could. Griffin was limping only slightly, not putting all that much weight on the cane.

Dix said, "Saw you coming. You're not looking bad."

"Nope. I'm good to go."