Bombshell (AN FBI THRILLER) (7 page)

Savich’s house

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

Saturday evening

Since a record snowfall had brought Washington to a standstill, Savich Skyped his agents and Mr. Maitland from home. He looked at each of them arrayed in front of him on MAX’s new twenty-three-inch monitor. He could see Mr. Maitland’s wife moving around in the background, carrying what looked like a huge bowl of guacamole and chips for her four sons, whose eyes were probably fixed on the play-off game the agents were missing. In smaller boxes were the faces of agents Ollie Hamish, Lucy Carlyle, and Coop McKnight. Ollie rocked his infant daughter in his arms.

Savich said, “Thomas Malcolm Cronin was twenty years old, a student at Magdalene College in Boonton, Virginia, about an hour’s drive from the Beltway. As you probably know, Magdalene is a small, prestigious, liberal-arts school with an outstanding academic reputation. Most of its endowments come from its wealthy alumni, leaders in both the business world and in politics, in roughly the same percentage as Harvard or Yale. It’s very private and very expensive.

“Thomas declared a business major at the beginning of the fall semester, junior year, with an emphasis in international banking.”

“Like his granddaddy,” Agent Lucy Carlyle said, “following in the steps of the Big Buddha.”

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 crap derivatives and worthless home loans and selling them to pension funds and municipalities 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 bloody bankers and some of our precious lawmakers ought to be in a criminal institution. 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 assuming 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 assuming 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 identity.”

Lucy said, “I read that a lot of the child pornography 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 assured 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 assignments, 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 Saturday evening

“I got here as soon as I could,” Sheriff Dix Noble 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 Noble.”

She smiled up at the hard-faced man with heart-melting dark eyes. “Everyone in town knows who you are, Sheriff Noble. 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?”

“Yes, it was a dead man. I lost it and screamed my head off. Then something hard hit my head.”

“Did you see who hit you?”

“No, I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t remember. Sorry.”

“Are you quite sure the man in the bathtub was dead?”

Delsey shuddered. “Oh, yes, his eyes were staring straight up, and there was blood all over his chest.”

“Had you ever seen him before?”

“Yes, but I don’t know who he was. I saw him around town during the past week or so. Once on the Stanislaus campus, maybe three or four more times here in Maestro.”

“Where?”

“On the sidewalk once near the Holcombe Bank, and a couple of times at Maurie’s Diner, sitting in the back, where you’d walk past him to get to the restrooms. He always smiled at me and nodded; once he even asked me how I was doing and we chatted for a few minutes. He seemed like a nice man. No, he never came on to me, nothing like that, and we never really visited, if you know what I mean.”

Griffin asked, “Did you see him speaking to anyone in particular?”

“No, not really. He seemed quiet, like he was marking time, maybe waiting for someone, but he was always alone. He spoke to Anna, of course, since she was his waitress. I heard her laugh once, I guess at something he said to her.”

Dix said, “Did you ever think he was ‘off’ somehow? Maybe paying too much attention to you, watching you?”

Delsey shook her head. “I didn’t get any vibe like that. He never told me what his name was or why he was here, but I did wonder what he was doing on campus that time I saw him going into the administration building.”

“We don’t have a police artist on staff,” Dix said, “but we do have Miss Mavis. She’ll do a sketch with you, and then we can show his photo around town, find out where he was staying, who he was and what he was doing here. It’s only logical, Ms. Freestone, that he has to be somehow connected to you, or else why would his body have been in your bathtub?”

Delsey shook her head. “I’m sorry, Sheriff, I can’t think of any connection between us other than those few times I saw him. Maybe if you can tell me who he was I can make some sense of it.” Her breathing hitched. She again felt the punch of shock at seeing him lying there when she’d whipped back the shower curtain, and the terror that had screams ripping out of her throat. Griffin took her hand. “It’s okay, Delsey, now it’s okay.”

“Why would he have broken into my apartment? Who would have killed him?”

Dix wondered for a moment how he would have reacted had he been in her shoes.

Delsey got herself together. “Like I told you, Anna had waited on him several times at Maurie’s Diner. Maybe she knows his name. She’s really friendly to everyone, plus she’s way more visual than I am, too. She’s done some drawing herself. She should be the one you do the sketch with.”

Dix nodded and turned away to call his wife.

After he slipped his cell back into his shirt, Dix looked from Agent Griffin Hammersmith to his sister. “You two really do look a lot alike, almost like twins.”

“Nah,” Delsey said. “Griffin’s better-looking.”

Griffin said, “Even if you’re right, it’s only because you’re still in your twenties. I’m hoping you’ll improve once you hit thirty.”

Dix smiled, brought it back. “Does anyone else know you’ve remembered the dead man, Ms. Freestone?”

“Dr. Hayman left before I remembered anything.”

Griffin saw the shock and fear still mirrored in her eyes. He took her hand again. “Why don’t you tell the sheriff why you’re Freestone and not Hammersmith?”

Dix said, “Yeah, I was wondering that.”

Hadn’t she already told someone about why she had a different last name? She couldn’t remember. Freestone—Delsey had all sorts of memories of that wild time, but now they didn’t even piss her off, particularly. “I was married to a creep for longer than I should have been after I graduated from UCLA. He’d just gotten a master’s degree in civil engineering. He was smart and awesomely ripped, and I fell hard for him. I really liked his cool name—Alexander Freestone. Sorry, Griffin, but I was tired of being saddled with Hammersmith.”

Dix said, “Seems to me
Freestone
is just as much of a mouthful as
Hammersmith
.”

“
Freestone
’s more a musician’s name, at least it is to me,” Delsey said, then laughed at herself. “So I kept it, no matter that Alex turned out to be something I didn’t see coming at all.”

“What, did the fool cheat on you?”

“No, not that. He wasn’t a horn dog. He was a jewel thief. Two different women called me out of the blue after the wedding to tell me they’d had jewelry go missing after he’d broken up with them. I told both of them he hadn’t broken up with me, he’d married me, and besides, the only good jewelry I had was the wedding ring he gave me.” A laugh spurted out. “I’d forgotten about Grandmother Aladonna’s jewelry, all very expensive, all very beautiful. Since I hadn’t let him move in with me, he had to marry me if he wanted to explore Grandmother’s jewelry box. Yeah, yeah, I guess I told him about the pieces and it was enough to make him see himself drinking rum cocktails on a beach somewhere. I reported him when I discovered my grandmother’s diamond brooch gone, the same day I filed for divorce. I think he served maybe eighteen months.”

“Did you get your grandmother’s diamond brooch back?”

“The cops tracked it down and the pawnbroker had to cough it up. It’s once again snug in my jewelry box. I’m sure Alex returned to his light-fingered ways after he got out of prison, only in a different city or state. Poor women.” She laughed. “The wedding ring he gave me belonged to one of the women who’d called me. I gladly returned it to her.”

“I don’t think I’d want to keep the jerk’s name,” Dix said, “not after all that.”

“I did go back and forth for a while,” Delsey said, “but then I decided to think of Freestone as his parents’ name, with Alex an unfortunate offshoot, and they were nice people.”

Dix shook his head at her. “Do you have her jewelry box in your apartment?”

She nodded. “Oh, no. What if that was their target?”

“Let me check that out right now.” Dix turned to call one of his deputies. “We’ll know in a few minutes. I wish we had more to go on, Ms. Freestone. If the jewelry box is missing, that would mean the break-in was a burglary and one of the thieves came to a very bad end right there. I think I’ll also see if Mr. Freestone is still in prison. Who knows?”

“Nah, even though Alex was ripped and looked all sorts of heroic, he was a wuss. He’d take on any jewelry box, but not a person who could hurt him.” She sighed. “Freestone—such a lovely name.”

Dix said, “I’ll send Miss Mavis to see Anna, but I’d like to hear how you describe the dead man first.”

“He was older than you, Sheriff Noble, somewhere in his early forties. He was stocky, dark and swarthy, I remember. It was such a shock to see him there, and I was screaming—I can’t seem to focus on his features. It was horrible. Why ever would someone put him in my bathtub?”

Griffin said, “If the jewelry box is missing, then the thieves could have been in Maestro this past week looking for targets for break-ins. This party at Dr. Salazar’s would have presented the ideal opportunity. On the other hand, why pick a graduate student’s place rather than a well-to-do faculty member’s? And why didn’t they trash your place?”

Delsey said, “I haven’t advertised my grandmother’s jewelry, not after Alex. Anna and I are the only ones here who even know about it, as far as I know.”

Dix’s cell phone buzzed. When he punched off a moment later, he said, “Grandma’s jewelry box was sitting on top of your dresser, still locked, didn’t look to have been touched.”

“That’s a relief.” Delsey squeezed her eyes shut. “But if not robbery, then why was the dead man there? I wish I could think of another reason why someone would do this. Do you know, it’s dumb, but it’s even worse to think the man might have been killed in my bathtub.”

The amount of blood, Dix thought, he very likely was killed right there. He said, “Did you plan on getting home about one o’clock, Ms. Freestone?”

“I would have been a lot later if I hadn’t gotten sick.”

“Which means you surprised them,” Griffin said. “Whoever was there probably wanted to be long gone by the time you got home.”

Delsey said, “Goodness, I write music, sing, and play the piano and guitar and not much else. I’m boring and predictable, everyone knows that.”

Dix pulled out a notebook from his jacket pocket. “Tell me about this party you went to last night. They had to find out from someone that you weren’t home.”

“Dr. Salazar’s secretary emailed me a couple of weeks ago, said I’d been invited to his lovely new-semester get-together. I didn’t want to go, so I told her I had a long-standing date with my best friend, Anna, to go ice-skating here in Henderson. Before I knew it the great man himself called me and didn’t leave me any graceful way I could get out of going.

“I’d already heard what his parties were like—booze-laden, bawdy Spanish fiestas. Henry Stoltzen, you know, the cellist and my upstairs neighbor, was right. Most of the students there were women, with a few straight and gay men sprinkled in along with some faculty. And, of course, Dr. Hayman, Professor Salazar’s brother. Yeah, I know, more different last names. That’s because the mom took Professor Salazar to Spain and left Dr. Hayman behind with the dad. New name for one brother when she remarried, and the dad’s name for the other.”

Dix said, “I’ll need a list of all the faculty you remember being there, Ms. Freestone.”

She grinned up at him. “Since your wife and my brother are colleagues, please call me Delsey.”

“Delsey, not a problem.” He eyed her for a moment. “Call me Dix. A booze-laden Spanish fiesta with the students? Stanislaus is a world-renowned institution. What is wrong with these people?”

“Well, the fact is the students at the party were older, graduate students, anywhere from, say, my age—twenty-five—to Marjorie Hendricks, an incredible flautist, who’s in her forties. Stanislaus is a rather isolated environment, and Maestro is a small town, so I suppose it’s more accepted here that, ah, friendships spring up between some of the faculty and the older students.”

“Maybe so, Delsey,” Griffin said, “but what I saw at Salazar’s this morning was something different.”

“Not so different. The reality of it is, Griffin, that a small group of women enjoy being groupies to the great Professor Rafael Salazar himself. He’s visiting Stanislaus for a year, he’s in the boondocks, hardly knows a soul, and he wants companionship, so he finds it where he can—namely, at Stanislaus. Why are you smiling, Dix?”

“My uncle-in-law, Dr. Gordon Holcombe, who was director at Stanislaus until circumstances forced him to leave last year, would agree completely with you. I remember he called some of the undergraduate students he slept with his muses.”

“I’ve heard some stories about Dr. Holcombe,” Delsey said. “Usually with whispers and rolled eyes.”

“Whatever their age,” Griffin said, “the faculty is in a position of power over all of them. Salazar pressured you into coming to his party, for example.”

“And why, I wonder? I remember thinking—before I got so drunk I couldn’t see straight—that Professor Salazar didn’t seem all that involved. I mean, as the host, he made the rounds, gave students and faculty drinks and munchies, but he seemed sort of set apart from his own party. I remember thinking it must be driving Gabrielle DuBois mad. The drunker she got, the more she stuck next to him, trying to get him to dance, but—”

“But what?” Dix asked.

“I just remembered. Professor Salazar was watching me, and I wondered why. Here I was, trying to fend off Dr. Hayman, and I remember seeing Professor Salazar standing across the room, his very expensive cashmered back leaning against the fireplace mantel, a drink in his hand, looking my way.”