Bombshell Part 55

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 h.e.l.l 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 gla.s.sy 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 d.a.m.ning 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 d.a.m.ned 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"I agree, Mrs. Hart," Sherlock said, and took her arm and led her in the gla.s.s-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 d.a.m.ned 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

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.