Bombshell (AN FBI THRILLER) (15 page)

“And that person is here in Maestro?”

“We think so. We think that person is Rafael Salazar.”

Griffin felt the shock of surprise. Surely not possible. But—“We’ll get into that in a minute. Start at the beginning again. What do you know about him?”

“We heard last summer from the Spanish National Police—the Cuerpo National de Policía—that Rafael Salazar was a person of interest to them. He’s part of a powerful Salvadoran family, the Lozanos, involved in guns and the drug trade. They spread their business into Spain, primarily through North Africa some two generations back, and now they could be branching into the U.S. The Spanish police alerted us Salazar was on his way here, to Stanislaus, for at least a year. That jibed closely with our own investigation, and it rang big alarm bells.”

“You thought that Salazar’s coming to Stanislaus meant the Lozano family was widening their influence to the local Maras?”

She nodded. “And the establishment of new sources for them from Mexico and South America.”

Griffin was shaking his head. “Salazar is a world-famous classical guitarist. You believe he’s a drug trafficker, too? It sounds nuts. Why would he do it? It makes him a criminal, and surely he’s got to realize if caught he’d be playing guitar to prisoners for the rest of his natural life. No more fame, adoration from fans, no more money in his pockets. You’re saying he’s also involved with his family in drugs? He’s the one running organization MS-13 here at Stanislaus? I can’t get my brain around it.”

“Neither could I, at least for a while, but our information was solid. Salazar’s mother, Maria Rosa, belongs to the Lozano crime family, originally out of San Salvador, as I said. At least three generations of extortion, weapons, drugs, prostitution, you name it. Several of the cousins are high up in the Mara Salvatrucha in El Salvador. The Spanish police told us they didn’t believe Maria Rosa had any involvement with the criminal part of the family enterprise, and that like her sons, she was a fine musician.

“But Salazar—we discovered he spent a good deal of his time with his mother’s brother, Mercado Lozano, when he was growing up. His mother sent him there every summer from Spain. Mercado is now the kingpin of the Lozano operation in El Salvador. So the Spanish police have watched him for years now. But nothin’ has stuck yet.”

“I understand Salazar’s brother invited him here,” Griffin said. “Is Hayman involved, too?”

She shook her head. “To the best of our knowledge, Dr. Hayman has never dealt with the Lozano family, except, of course, his mother, Maria Rosa. She seems to have kept him out of the family business. Don’t forget, he never lived with his mother, has never met any of his relatives in San Salvador, so far as we know.”

Griffin nodded. “Twins, separated as boys. Look what happened to the two of them.”

“Very different upbringings, but the same deep well of talent.”

“Don’t you think it’s strange Dr. Hayman has no clue who and what his twin brother is? And his mother?”

“Yes, I agree with you, and so do my bosses. I’ve been keeping an eye on Dr. Hayman, but in six months I’ve seen nothing suspicious at all, and his name hasn’t appeared anywhere it shouldn’t. And so, Griffin, this is why I was sent here undercover. No one outside the DEA knew I was here, not even local law enforcement.”

Griffin spoke his fear aloud. “Anna, he wants Delsey very badly.”

“It bothered me as well until I realized she was probably only his obsession du jour.
Since his arrival in September I’ve seen him focus on other graduate students, and after a while, he moves on.”

He prayed she was right. “How did the DEA get Stanislaus to let you in?”

“Three of us agents applied, with the help of some imaginative letters of recommendation supplied by the Agency, but I was the only one to pass the audition.”

He gave her a long look, nodded slowly. “What were you supposed to do exactly, search Salazar’s house, his office? Or lie low and listen?”

“Maurie’s Diner is gossip central, the perfect place to pick up random information and news. I know about every extramarital affair in Maestro. Now, as for Salazar’s house, he’s got a state-of-the-art alarm system, no gettin’ around that, and I did try. But I did have occasional access, since he invites students to his house. But I could rarely look around alone; he’d have noticed.

“Finally in December I got into his office long enough to find a hidden drawer in his desk with records of large foreign bank transactions, and this was enough to get a federal warrant for electronic surveillance.

“Then about a week ago we got word from an informant in Baltimore that the MS-13 gang there was expectin’ a large shipment from this area. With the federal warrant, we were set to move, so Arnie was sent in to set up surveillance in Salazar’s house. He took a job with the Golden Goose Catering Company in Henderson because we knew Salazar would call them for the party Friday night. It gave him the opportunity to set up during the party.”

“You never saw him after that,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

She shook her head, misery shining out of her eyes. “Someone got onto him, I don’t know who. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She swallowed. “When I didn’t hear from Arnie Saturday morning, I called him on his throwaway cell phone several times, but there was no answer. I called the Golden Goose, and they told me he hadn’t helped with the clean-up at the party; they were really angry about it. That’s when I knew for sure somethin’ had happened to him. I went to his apartment house in Henderson and waited for Mrs. Simpson to go out so she wouldn’t see me. I went to his apartment and cleaned it out before someone else did. I took his files and his computer but left his clothes.”

Griffin said, “And that’s why there were only the basics there by the time Dix’s people arrived at his apartment. At least you got the stuff out before the drug dealers did.”

“A good thing, since I was in those files. They would have found me.”

Monk meowed, pressed his face against her leg. She reached down and picked him up. He was a behemoth, at least twenty pounds, and she had to brace herself. Then she stood rocking the cat, shifting from one foot to the other. He could hear Monk’s manic purrs from six feet. She pressed her face against his thick black fur.

“What do you think happened Friday night?”

“Arnie called me that night, about six o’clock, as usual, told me he’d arrived with the other caterers at Salazar’s house. I remember he told me how easy it would be, said since he was one of the crew he’d be able to move easily around the house without bein’ noticed. He said the house would soon be filled with people, so he’d have all the cover he needed.

“I remember when I told him to be careful, I swear I could see his smile over the phone. He told me it was a bummer I’d had to be here for six months with nothing more to do than serve hamburgers and play my fiddle. I could tell from his voice how wired he was.” She swallowed, looked at the wisp of smoke drifting out of the fireplace. “But it didn’t work out that way.” She paused. “I never spoke to him again.”

“But even if Salazar or someone who works for him caught Arnie wiring the place,” Griffin said, “why would Salazar have a federal officer killed? They had to know it would bring the wrath of God down on them. How was that worth it?”

“If Mac Brannon had thought Arnie’s life was at risk, he’d have never sent him in there. The gang—MS-13—most of them are anything but smart; they’re street thugs. One of them might have panicked, or gone into a rage. Or Arnie might have seen something or someone that was too threatening to let him go. We don’t know yet.”

“So why not pull the trigger? Bust in there, clap the handcuffs on Salazar, interview all the guests and caterers to see if someone saw something?”

“That’s what I wanted to do on Saturday as soon as I saw that sketch of Arnie,” she said. “Mr. Brannon was hot to do it, too, but he got orders to lay back and keep me undercover. We could have arrested Salazar and all the gang members within three counties, but we’d have had nothing firm to hold them on, and you can bet we’d never have found where they stashed the drugs. And since Arnie wasn’t killed in Salazar’s house, there wouldn’t be any trace evidence there, nothing to tie him to Arnie’s murder.

“I wanted to tell you everything I knew, but there was too much riding on taking down Salazar entirely. Mr. Brannon told me to lie low and wait. We all know there has to be panic, even chaos, behind that scene Salazar staged for you at his house on Saturday. They have to know we’ll be there at any minute, and people who are panicked make mistakes.

“Everyone in our local office is out in the field. If Salazar and the gang make the mistake of trying to move the drugs away too soon, the chances are good we’ll get them.”

“And what’s to keep Salazar from getting on a plane back to Madrid?”

“If either Salazar or Dr. Hayman, for that matter, buys a plane ticket or tries to leave the country, we’ll know, and we’ll arrest him.”

“How does Delsey fit in?”

He saw her flinch, saw a flash of guilt in her eyes. “All right, I realized Salazar was interested in her, not his obsessive sort of interest, and I thought it would be smart to get close to her. But listen, that was only at the start. I really came to care for Delsey, and she for me. I didn’t want to use her, all I ever wanted to do was protect her.

“When Professor Salazar guilted her into coming to his party, it never occurred to me there’d be any problem, and there shouldn’t have been. Who knew Dr. Hayman’s margaritas would make her sick and she’d leave early?”

“Early enough to see a dead man in her bathtub and get bashed on the head. How in the world did that happen?”

“I was as shocked as you were. Even though Arnie spoke to Delsey a couple of times at the diner, they were never introduced. But he knew where she lived. The only way I can put it together is that they got a couple of gang members to haul him back to his apartment to search it and see what he had on them.”

She drew a deep breath, picked up Monk again, and began to stroke him really hard. He reared back and nearly toppled her over as he struggled to get out of her arms. “All right, all right.” She set him down. “Arnie knew he couldn’t take the thugs to his apartment. There was too much for them to find there. He had to decide fast where to take them. He knew Delsey was at the party. He also knew she lived alone—and that’s the biggie—so I’m thinking he directed them to her place instead. They broke in the back door, realized soon enough it wasn’t his apartment. I’m betting he made a run for it, but they forced him into the bathroom and killed him there.”

“But then Delsey came in unexpectedly.”

“Yes. They had to be gang members, violent thugs, and they probably hadn’t been told to kill anyone else. I’m thinking one of them hit her on the head before they hauled Arnie away and ended up dumping him beside Breaker’s Hill in the thick snow and trees.

“Of course, that’s a guess, but one that makes sense. If I’ve got it right, then Arnie saved my life. But he never thought Delsey would be in danger. And now the gang members who killed him know that Delsey saw Arnie well enough to describe him. They’ve got to be wonderin’ if she saw them, too, and if so, she was a witness against a gang of killers. I didn’t know what to do, what to say, or how to protect her until I realized you were worried for her safety as well, and put a guard on her door. We have to continue to protect her.”

He looked at Monk, who was washing himself in front of the fireplace, looked back at her, standing stiff and so contained that if she moved, she might break apart. He rose. “We’re now in this together. Call me Griffin. And what should I call you?”

“Anna. It’s my name.”

“Why don’t you come back to the B&B with me? You can spend some time with Delsey. Anything’s better than being stuck out here alone with a gun pressed against your leg.”

“I can’t. I’ve got Monk, and Bud Bailey would have a hissy fit if he saw this big boy come through his front door. I know him well. Trust me. Besides, I’ve got to start my shift at Maurie’s soon. Remember, Griffin, I’m still undercover, still plain Anna Castle.” She fidgeted for a moment. “Are you going to tell Delsey who I am?”

“No. When that time comes, you’ll tell her. And good luck with that.”

He gave her a long look, patted her cheek, and started to leave. “Be careful.”

“Okay. You, too.”

He looked back to see her standing at the front door, her arms around herself against the cold, that Glock of hers still settled in the back of her waistband, watching him, and Griffin knew he not only admired her greatly, he wanted more from her and wanted it badly.

The Hoover Building

Washington, D.C.

Late Sunday afternoon

Savich looked down at his cell to see another missed call from Bo Horsley. He listened to the message.
I know you’re up to your neck in alligators, but give a passing thought to coming up to New York for the
Jewel of the Lion
exhibit. I’m heading private security for the exhibit for the Met—quite a job, let me tell you. Call me when you get a chance.

Savich was on the point of returning Bo Horsley’s call when he looked up to see Mr. August Biaggini walk into the CAU. He looked so much like Savich’s father that for a moment he couldn’t speak. Like Buck Savich, August Biaggini was tall and fit, with thick salt-and-pepper hair, comfortably in his mid-fifties. But when Mr. Biaggini spoke, the spell was broken. His voice was quiet and lilting, with a whisper of Italy, not the clipped, edged cadence of Savich’s dad.

“Special Agent Savich,” he said and stuck out his hand.

“Mr. Biaggini, thank you for coming to us. This is Agent Sherlock.”

Biaggini turned his dark eyes on her, and Sherlock found a smile blooming naturally. He reminded her a bit of the photo of Dillon’s dad on their mantel. She shook his hand.

“Please sit down, sir.”

Biaggini sat. “My son is not here yet, I see.”

Savich said, “He’s waiting in the interview room down the hall. Before we join him, I wanted to hear your thoughts about Tommy Cronin’s murder.”

Biaggini’s expressive face turned hard, and Savich saw grief etched in the lines beside his mouth. “I have called poor Marian to give her my family’s condolences. She is inconsolable, as are Tommy’s grandparents and his sisters. I keep thinking it simply cannot be real, but no, it happened, some monster actually did this to Tommy. Neither my wife nor I can begin to understand the callous brutality, much less what sadistic message the murderer meant to send. Was there any sort of actual message found, Agent Savich?”

“Not yet, sir.”

Sherlock said, “Mr. Biaggini, do you believe Tommy’s murder had something to do with his grandfather and his role in the banking scandal?”

Mr. Biaggini said, “As you undoubtedly know, revenge against Palmer Cronin seemed to be the consensus among all the talking heads on television both yesterday and today. The single member of the Federal Reserve Board I saw interviewed said he believed it had been a personal matter. All others interviewed implied he was whistling in the wind, trying to deflect any blame from himself and the Board.

“It’s a much more titillating news story, isn’t it, to imagine some poor soul stripped of his livelihood and his self-respect in the banking collapse lashing out at Palmer Cronin through his grandson?”

“Yes, but what do
you
think, sir?” Savich asked him.

Biaggini waved a hand, an artist’s hand, Sherlock thought, like Dillon’s. “I find myself agreeing with the one lone opinion. Unless the man was insane, I can’t understand killing Tommy to exact some sort of belated revenge on his grandfather. Palmer Cronin didn’t mean for the banking collapse to happen; he wasn’t involved in anything unethical during his watch himself. His guilt lay in holding the wrong economic philosophy, and, I suppose, a stubborn blindness to what was happening. But again, he did not actually dirty his hands. If someone wanted revenge, why not kill the CEO of one of those big banking or investment firms who actually were responsible for leaving their investors dangling in the wind because they cared more about their golden parachutes than about morality, or ethics, or responsibility?

“I have thought about this and am forced to conclude that even though Tommy was only twenty, he must have made a violent enemy. A classmate, perhaps, though it chills me to think someone that young could have murdered Tommy so brutally.”

Sherlock said, “Do you know of anyone capable of doing this?”

“No, I do not. From what I know about Tommy over the years, he never seemed to venture far out of his circle. He had a comfort zone, and he stayed well within it. If he enraged someone, it would seem likely to have been one of his intimate group, but I know that isn’t possible. We’re talking three young people—Tommy, Stony, and Peter—who’ve known each other most of their lives. Of course there are other friends as well, but none so close as those three.

“And yes, Peter is one of the three.” He gave her a charming smile. “But of course Peter wouldn’t be capable of such a thing, and certainly not Stony.”

Savich said, “Naturally, Tommy’s circle enlarged significantly when he entered Magdalene.”

“Yes, of course. I imagine he initially had difficulty adapting, but adapt he did. Tommy was always liked well enough, but even more so at Magdalene, so my son Peter told me.” The charming smile bloomed again. “My son Peter will graduate from Magdalene himself in the spring, with a degree in international business. He has already accepted a position with Caruthers and Milton here in Washington. After a year of training and exposure to all the Washington clients, they may transfer him to the New York headquarters.” Mr. Biaggini radiated a father’s pride, and no wonder, Sherlock thought. Caruthers & Milton certainly was a big deal, one of the large investment banks that had taken its share of the billions of dollars coughed up by American taxpayers so they could stay in business, chastened, at least in the short term. Last she’d heard, C&M was flourishing. She couldn’t imagine anyone ever again handing their money over to any of the investment banks, but evidently there were many who hadn’t learned their lesson.

Savich said, “Have you spoken to your son about Tommy’s murder, Mr. Biaggini?”

“No, I have not seen him since Thursday evening, when he came over to the house for dinner. Spaghetti, always spaghetti. Peter loves his mother’s meat sauce. My son is very popular, always in demand. Although he spends much of his time on campus, he also has his own apartment over on Winston Avenue.”

“Peter has three residences? One of them an apartment? Why?” Sherlock asked. “I understand you live with the rest of your family—Peter’s mom and his two younger brothers, nearby in Hillsborough?”

“His mother and I gave it to him as a gift for his senior year, to give the young man some privacy. We can always let the lease go when he moves to New York for Caruthers and Milton.”

Savich already knew about Mr. Biaggini’s extravagant gift to his eldest son—not too surprising, perhaps, for a successful owner of a chain of cosmetics stores. But he also knew about Peter’s country club membership, and the two troublesome DUIs he’d gotten in Virginia. No consequences for Peter, thanks to his father’s intervention.

Savich said, “How is your son doing in his senior classes at Magdalene?”

“Why, he’s doing very well. He’s a brilliant young man. Even though Peter is—was—Tommy’s senior by nearly two years, they were still close growing up; our families spent time together.”

Sherlock said, “Did you like Tommy, as a person?”

Mr. Biaggini thought about this for a moment. “Tommy was usually well mannered, respectful. But I remember thinking that as a teenager Tommy saw people as they really were and took advantage when he could. The word
sly
comes to mind, though it pains me to say such a thing now that he’s dead.”

Sherlock said, “Could you give us an example?”

Mr. Biaggini looked thoughtful. “I remember hearing him bait his aunt, Marian Lodge, about not preventing his mother’s suicide. I will admit, I was appalled and thought that was very unlike him, since he had to know that was very painful for her.” He shrugged. “Then his father died and Tommy seemed to change; he looked out for his younger sisters, became more thoughtful, more mature, rather than a spoiled teenage boy spewing out hormones and attitude. I guess you could say he became the man of the house, and Marian seemed pleased to let him assume that role.”

Sherlock said, “Did Tommy Cronin defer too often to Peter?”

Mr. Biaggini blinked. “That’s quite a question to ask a father, Agent Sherlock, and it is difficult to answer because Peter and Tommy were so different from each other. What I mean is, my son is a natural leader, and Tommy, well, wasn’t. Tommy tended to hang back, as did Stony, to see what direction Peter wanted to go.” Mr. Biaggini looked away for a moment, shook his head. “Who knows what Tommy would have done with his life if he’d been allowed to keep it.”

She said, “And what do you know about Stony Hart, sir?”

“Stony? The second major member of Tommy’s circle, and Peter’s good friend as well, I might add. The three of them together since childhood. Unfortunately, Walter—Stony—lacks maturity, something common at his young age, I suppose, but with Stony I always wondered if he was ever going to grow up. He seems much younger than Peter in his behavior, in how he views the world and his place in it, even though he’s a year older. Even his father, a rather authoritarian man, still treats him like a teenager in some ways.

“Of the three friends, Stony was the shyest, and the hardest to pry away from his computers. I remember when he was only eleven years old he was caught trying to hack into a local bank.” Mr. Biaggini smiled at the memory. “The FBI, if I remember correctly, made it a point to scare the socks off him.

“Stony is a kind soul, though; he seems to feel things more than most others. I’ve noticed over the years that his father thinks Stony’s kindness is a weakness, makes him less a man. But he’s wrong.”

Sherlock said, “You don’t care for Mr. Hart, sir?”

“No, I don’t,” Mr. Biaggini said. He paused for a long moment, studied his thumbnail, then added, “Wakefield Hart wants Stony to be a chip off the proverbial old block, but he isn’t, and never will be.”

Savich rose and motioned Mr. Biaggini down the hall. He opened the door to the same interview room Stony had occupied not two hours before.

As with Stony, Coop and Lucy stood silent and grim, their backs against the wall, arms crossed over their chests. Unlike Stony, though, Peter Biaggini was sprawled in his chair, looking loose and bored, his fingers tapping a smart tattoo on the tabletop. He was whistling under his breath and texting on his cell with racing fingers. Sherlock’s first thought was that he could be Dillon’s younger brother—handsome as sin, dark-eyed like his father—surely strong enough to haul Tommy Cronin over his shoulder and drop him at Lincoln’s feet.

Her second thought was that he looked as though he didn’t have a care in the world.