Criss Cross

Chapter 80

I almost lost my balance when Maria Joan said those words.

Mahoney’s face had gone slack, but it firmed before he came around in front of the wheelchair with me. I stopped short at her appearance.

The last time I’d seen Margaret Edgerton, she had had the poise and polish of a wealthy and accomplished businesswoman. But the polish had gone off her in the four weeks that had passed since that day at the Greensville Correctional Center when we’d both watched her son die the cruel and barbaric death he’d chosen.

She looked exhausted and wore tinted sunglasses, a plush blue robe, and thick socks. Her hands shook slightly, and there was an air of bewilderment about her when she turned her head and peered at me and Mahoney.

“Visitors?” she said in a sleepy, slightly slurred voice. “I thought the therapists had all gone for the day, and I’m tired, Maria.”

“Mrs. Edgerton, I’m Special Agent Mahoney with the FBI,” Mahoney said, stepping forward with his credentials and the warrant. “You can go now, Ms. Joan.”

“She won’t be able to read anything you show her,” she said, walking into the kitchen.

Mrs. Edgerton looked puzzled. “What’s this about?” Mahoney said, “The kidnapping of a young mom named Diane Jenkins.”

The old woman wrinkled her nose and then squirmed upright.

“Kidnapping?” she said, indignant. “Me? How dare you!”

She began to cough and hack. She waved her fingers in the air.

“Please,” Maria Joan said, rushing back into the room toward an oxygen canister set on a dolly in the corner. “You’ve upset her, and she can’t breathe now.”

I was beginning to feel bad about coming.

The aide got the oxygen line below Mrs. Edgerton’s nose and then snarled at us, “Can’t you come back? She had a stroke three weeks ago. It damaged her vision, and she gets anxious.”

Now I felt really bad, but I said to Mahoney, “Tell her exactly why we came.”

Mrs. Edgerton’s head cocked and swiveled toward me. “Who else is here?”

Mahoney said, “A consultant, ma’am. But back to why we’re here. The kidnapped woman’s husband paid her ransom in what’s called a cryptocurrency.”

“I know what that is, blockchain nonsense,” she snapped. “So what?”

Before Mahoney could answer, Mrs. Edgerton waved her shaky left hand in my direction. “You answer. Consultant.”

“Mrs. Edgerton,” Ned said. “I am in charge here.”

“I don’t care,” she said, wheeling six or seven inches toward me. “I may be legally blind now, but I still have most of my hearing, my rights, and my wits about me. Mr. Consultant, tell me why you and the special agent are really here.”

I cleared my throat and said, “The ransom money moved through hundreds of digital accounts all over the world and ended up in your personal cryptocurrency account. It landed there yesterday. All five million.”

It was as if she hadn’t heard. After I’d said about ten words, Mrs. Edgerton gripped the handles of her chair so hard, her knuckles turned pearly, and her face contorted into something bitter and vindictive.

“You’re here to finish me off, aren’t you, Cross?”

I hesitated, then said, “No, Mrs. Edgerton, I’m not.”

She chortled at that. “Sure you are. You railroaded my son into that electric chair, and you’d like nothing better than to see me fry too.”

“We’re here about a completely different matter,” Mahoney said. “Mrs. Edgerton, we have a federal warrant to seize any and all computers from your home and the Edgerton family office in Manhattan.”

The old woman seemed not to hear. She strained forward in her wheelchair, looking as angry as she’d been when her son was executed.

In a harsh, cold whisper she said, “I told you that you would burn in hell, Cross. Do you remember that?”

“I do. Are you M, Mrs. Edgerton?”

“Don’t answer that!” a man behind us roared. “Mom, do not say another damned word, and you two are out of here. I don’t care if you are FBI. You don’t barge into my invalid mother’s house and start asking her questions without counsel.”

We’d both turned to see a bull of a man in his fifties coming at us across the kitchen. He was balding, fit, and wearing a hooded sweatshirt and workout gear. I remembered him from the execution.

“Peter Edgerton?” Mahoney said. “We have a warrant for your house too.”

That stopped Mrs. Edgerton’s older son in his tracks. “My house? For what? And what the hell do you think you’re going to find in my mother’s computers? She hasn’t used one since the stroke!”

“Ransom money demanded by kidnappers ended up in your mother’s crypto account,” Mahoney said.

“Pete!” Mrs. Edgerton shouted. “I don’t even have an account like that.”

“Yes, you do, Mom,” her son said sharply.

“What?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” he said. He studied us. “Are you bullshitting me? Did that crypto really go into her specific account?”

“It did.”

“Then someone out there hacked it and sent it there, the real kidnappers.”

“What would be the point of that?” I asked.

Peter Edgerton seemed to notice me for the first time, and his entire demeanor changed.

“No way,” he said. He looked at Mahoney. “You get this son of a bitch out of my mother’s house or I promise you, I’ll spend every dime of my personal crypto fortune to sue you both into oblivion.”

“Mr. Edgerton,” Mahoney said.

“Get him out of my house, Pete!” his mother shouted.

Her son struggled to control himself as he glared at Mahoney. “If Cross goes, out of here completely, off the property, we’ll co-operate, let you look at my house, my brother’s place, the family office, whatever. I promise you we’re not involved.”

Mahoney looked at me and gestured with his head toward the door.

I left without argument. I heard Pete Edgerton say in a soothing voice, “He’s gone, Mom. He’s never coming back.”

I was heading toward the front door when his mother shouted, “You’re still going to burn, Cross! No matter what you do, you’re still going to burn for what you did to Mikey!”