Bombshell Part 21

Stony put his face in his hands and began to sob.

Savich sat forward, grabbed Stony's bony wrist, hauled him close. "Stop crying; it only makes me mad. We've got you cold, Stony, so you might as well own up to the contemptible thing you did, posting that picture. Stop being a pitiful coward. If you don't tell us exactly what you know, that makes you the murderer's accomplice. You could spend the rest of your life in jail."

Stony nearly rose straight out of his chair. "Listen, I couldn't believe Tommy was dead, couldn't believe someone would kill him and put him in the Lincoln Memorial. It was horrible. I'm not a monster, I'm not! I would never post that photo, not for anyone. You've got to believe me, I don't know anything about it. I want my dad. I want a lawyer."

Savich drummed his fingertips on the table. "I doubt Wakefield Hart or a lawyer can help you, unless you tell us what we want to know."

"How do you know my dad's name?"

"There's no hiding anything from us," Savich said, his eyes hard, "even what you did on your supposedly foolproof anonymizer software. It's about time you realized that."

"No, no, listen, I told you, I don't know anything about it. And my dad, he's smart, and he knows people, important people, people who could stop you from saying these things to me. Where is he?"

"Your dad might as well crawl on the ground and root up worms," Sherlock said. "What are you trying to do, moron, make us madder with your silly mean-daddy threats?"

Savich turned to look at Lucy and Coop. "Stony's right about his dad being smart. Did you guys know daddy-Wakefield Hart-makes his money by giving speeches now, blasting Palmer Cronin for 'facilitating' the banking crisis when he was the chairman of the Fed? Quite an accusation for Wakefield to make, especially since he was one of the major players in the screw-the-world game while it lasted. Are you proud of your dad, Stony?"

Wakefield Hart's son stuck his chin in the air. "Hey, I am proud of him. Sure he made some mistakes, but it was business, and there were a lot of events no one antic.i.p.ated." Stony fell silent, stared at them.

Sherlock said, "Yeah, yeah, I see. How can it be wrong if everyone's doing it, is that your dad's defense? It helps if you've got no moral compa.s.s, and I'd say that's a profound lesson for a son to learn at his daddy's knee. I got the impression from the Cronin family that you're not like that, and neither was Tommy. Are we wrong? Is that why you didn't flinch at uploading a photo of your brutally murdered friend on YouTube? That you were involved in killing him?"

"You've got to believe me. I don't know anything about it, I swear."

"Then why did you try to hide behind an anonymizer?"

Sherlock stood, learned over the table, and got right in his face. "Why did you do it, Stony? What did Tommy ever do to you to make you hate him so much? To humiliate him even in death?"

Stony sat frozen.

"You've got to believe me. I wouldn't do that. I loved Tommy. I can't believe he's dead, just can't believe it. I mean, why? And you think I'd upload that horrible photo?" At their stone-cold faces, his eyes rolled back in his head and he slid out of his chair and landed in a heap on the interview room floor.

Savich and Coop hauled him up, sat him back down in the chair. Savich slapped his face until his eyelashes fluttered and he opened his eyes.

"Better now?" Sherlock asked him. She poured him a gla.s.s of water, and he studied it closely but didn't drink.

"All right, Stony," Sherlock said, "if you didn't upload that photo from your computer, that means somebody else did. Where were you Friday night and Sat.u.r.day morning?"

"I spent the night with my girlfriend, Janelle Eckles. We met three and a half weeks ago. She works at State."

Savich said, "Who could have had access to your computers, or used your IP address?"

"Anyone, if they were in my apartment and knew how. Or someone could have hacked through my router, I guess."

Sherlock asked, "And who could that be?"

"I know a lot of people-at work, from school, friends-though I'm better at it than most of them."

Savich said, "Let's begin with a friend. How about Peter Biaggini? Did he have an apartment key, know your pa.s.swords?"

"Peter doesn't have a key, and yes, he may know some of my pa.s.swords. I'm not that careful with them."

"Have you ever known Peter to be involved with anything illegal?"

Stony thought about this. "Only teenage stuff, a long time ago. When he was in the eighth grade, he wanted me to ruin another kid's science project so he would win. I told him I wouldn't do it, so he slashed my mom's tires. It was her new car, a Prius, and she loved driving it around. He denied it, but I knew. When we were growing up, Peter made sure we all knew there'd be payback if we didn't do what he wanted."

"And now?"

"We're grown up now; it's not like that."

"You deny you posted Tommy's photo. Did anyone else ask you to post it for him? Like Peter?"

"No, no, I swear." Stony shook his head. "It's all so terrible," he said, and he lowered his face into his hands again.

Savich said, "You may go, Stony."

Stony's face jerked up, hope blooming bright through the tearstains on his face. "Really? You're not going to arrest me?"

"Not at the moment," Sherlock said, her eyes on Dillon, "but we'll be talking again. And if you've lied to us, you're in more trouble than you know."

Savich handed Stony a card. "If you find anything or think of anything that could help, call me. I'm sorry you lost your friend, Stony. We're keeping your computers for the time being. I'm calling a guard to take you home."

"Thank you, sir."

Savich said, "I suggest you don't speak with anyone else who might be involved in this, including Peter Biaggini, all right?"

"But how can anyone I know have done this? I mean, we're all friends, especially Peter, now that Tommy's gone. Well, sometimes Peter-well, he likes to run the herd, that's what he calls his friends, but he wouldn't have anything to do with this." He paused, shook his head, and went silent.

Sherlock leaned in close to him. "What do you want to say, Stony? Is it about Peter?"

Stony's face was white and set. "No. I don't know how or why Tommy was murdered, why anyone used my computer to upload that photo. I didn't mean anything in particular. Really."

Stony looked up at the guard who came to escort him out of the Hoover Building, then he looked down at his sneakered feet and never looked up again; he was misery walking.

Coop said, "Whatever it is Stony's not telling us, the kid's going to live with this for a lifetime."

Lucy said, "Why wouldn't he tell us what he was thinking? Was it about Peter?"

Coop said, "Or maybe he's protecting someone else. Someone close."

Savich said, "We'll speak to him again after he's had time to think things over. Right now I want to speak to Peter Biaggini and his father. I've got this feeling we'll get more out of them if they're together." Savich called Ben Raven, WPD, and asked him to send two uniforms to pick up Peter Biaggini and bring him to the FBI building in the oldest squad car he had. "Shake him up a little, too, this leader of the herd. I want him cuffed if he gives your officers any lip, and sitting behind the wire mesh, smelling that old car."

Savich telephoned Mr. Biaggini from his office, asked him to come to the Hoover Building to speak to them about Tommy Cronin's murder. Mr. Biaggini wasn't happy, couldn't understand why they would want to speak to him, but agreed. Yes, he would be there in an hour.

Not a minute later, Savich's cell sang out "Sweet Home, Alabama." When he punched off his cell, he said, "Stony's dad is here. Mr. Wakefield Hart, in the flesh."