Bombshell

Raj? It became clear soon enough that Raj had come from a board meeting at an investment firm—Bowerman and Hayes—and he was telling Wakefield how they were putting together a buyout offer for Lancer Inc., a large supplier of transponders to the military with a forty percent premium over the market value of the stock. The buyout would be announced publicly in two weeks. Hart ended the conversation assuring Raj he would get his usual share of the after-tax profits.

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 hell 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 glassy 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 damning 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 damned 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 bastard!”