Bombshell

“My wife is not well enough to speak to anyone. Director Mueller did not, naturally, ask about her prescriptions. It’s more than likely the pills were hers; where else would Stony have gotten them?

“Listen, Carolyn is not well. She has a great many prescriptions to help her deal with her chronic pain and an anxiety problem. I doubt she would have noticed a missing bottle or two, and I’m certainly not going to ask her now. What difference does it make, except to try to absolve the FBI from being responsible for his death?”

Sherlock didn’t let that indictment hang in the air for long. “Mr. Hart, when Stony came yesterday, did he have an argument with anyone while he was here? On the phone, or with you or Mrs. Hart?”

“I told you, we talked about Tommy’s death and your accusations against him. It was an emotional day for all of us, but of course we didn’t argue. What in heaven’s name would we argue about? As for phone calls, he only had two that I remember, and they made him cry. Is that enough for you?”

Savich said, “You told us Peter Biaggini wielded great influence over Stony.”

“Yes, that’s true. I asked Stony if he thought Peter might have posted that picture, since my son certainly didn’t post it. Stony said he didn’t know who did.”

Sherlock remembered Hart’s veiled contempt toward his son yesterday about how Peter treated him. She said, “Stony told us yesterday he and his friends usually did what Peter wanted. He said Peter slashed the tires on your wife’s new Prius years ago because he’d refused to do something Peter wanted him to do. Do you remember that?”

Mr. Hart began pacing the living room, all the way to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows and back, his hands clenched at his sides. She saw him take a quick glance up at the camera, then away. “I don’t want to believe that, but, the thing is, I do. Carolyn was livid. Stony didn’t tell us it was Peter who’d done it, but I knew. I knew.”

Savich said, “Sir, you told us Saturday you thought Peter Biaggini was a little shite. I neglected to ask you why you believe that.”

“Peter’s as arrogant as only a young man who’s smart and knows he’s smart can be. I don’t understand why this isn’t clear to you. Peter must have uploaded Tommy’s photo on Stony’s computer because it has the anonymizer software and he believed no one could ever trace it. There’s simply no other reason I can think of for any of this. So why don’t you go arrest him and make him tell you who it was who viciously murdered his friend, and why he uploaded that photo, thus putting blame on my son.”

Savich wished he believed Peter had murdered Tommy, but deep down he knew he didn’t believe it at all, despite Peter’s asinine behavior in interview, despite his just-so alibi. Had he uploaded the photo? If he had, then—“Was there any reason you know of for Peter Biaggini to kill Tommy Cronin?”

That brought Hart up short. “Well, no, not really. And listen to me, as much as I dislike Peter Biaggini, I don’t believe he did murder Tommy Cronin; why would he? If he uploaded the photo, then where did he get it? I have no idea, but still, where’s the motive for him to do such a heinous thing? It had to be someone striking out against the old man, against Palmer Cronin. If the fool hadn’t turned a deaf ear to all the warnings bombarding him, if those imbeciles in Congress hadn’t kept encouraging the banks to continue writing unpayable mortgages, let them develop and market derivatives no one understood, the collapse wouldn’t have happened. It’s that simple. But no, they all kept going on, a triumph of greed and stupidity.”

Savich had already heard about a more flamboyant version of the same diatribe delivered by Hart to the Commonwealth Club two weeks before. He’d probably been paid a princely sum for it. Savich said, his voice precise and cold, “I understand, Mr. Hart, that you sold quite a few of those bonds yourself before the crash. Wasn’t it after they went under that you decided to turn against your own compatriots and join the talk circuit?”

Hart looked like he wanted to punch Savich in the face, but he was smart enough not to try it. He turned away and walked quickly toward the windows, to get control of himself. He said over his shoulder, “What we did, we did because it seemed smart, it seemed simply good business that made money for the banks and a good return for our investors. None of us guessed some of the biggest banks in the world could totter toward collapse in a few short weeks. Impossible, most thought, but happen it did.

“I am on the talk circuit now, as you call it, to encourage the Fed, the SEC, Congress, all interested parties to move forward with the regulations I suggest.”