was just his relocation cover. He was heir to Thornton Enterprises, one of this country’s largest telecommunications firms.”
Josh’s words, which she hadn’t thought much about at the time, came back to her as vividly as if he were standing beside her, whispering clues in her ear. If you ever consider reinvesting, you might think about diversifying your portfolio to include telecommunication technologies. WiFi networks are literally the wave of the future….
“Telecommunications? So they would sell stuff like WiFi networks?”
The agents nodded. Walker explained, “Life was smooth sailing for Mr. Thornton here until he stumbled across evidence that his new brother-in-law was cooking the books. It turns out the brother-in-law was a Mafia plant. Marrying the sister was just a means to infiltrate the firm. He’d been selling the company’s WiFi network products to corporate consumers at triple the cost, and then funneling the illegal profits back to La Costa Nostra as well as using the firm as a vehicle for laundering mob money from other… ventures .”
Mandy wouldn’t have thought of high-speed Internet access as a commodity organized crime would set out to steal—or kill for—but when she imagined the millions of dollars that must be involved, it made a crazy sort of sense.
Pulling her scattered thoughts back to the present, she asked, “If you had evidence of the embezzlement, why didn’t you pull him then?”
“Because there still wasn’t enough hard evidence to link the brother-in-law back to the Mafia, in this case, the Romero family. They’ve been running their operation from Boston’s North End since the fifties and aside from a few petty drug busts, no prosecutor has ever been able to make a conviction stick. Thornton agreed to stay on and work for us undercover, even wear a wire, until we had enough evidence for a search warrant. When his coworker turned up as a floater in the Charles River, we knew we had to get him the hell out of Boston to some place big enough that he could get lost but close enough so we could get him back to testify without any major hassles. Baltimore seemed to fill the bill on both counts, or so we thought.”
Poor Josh, no wonder he’d worn that hunted look when she’d asked even the most basic questions about his background. At the time she’d wondered if there might be something shady in his past he was trying to hide. The truth was, he’d been a hero.
Voice quivering, she asked, “Where…where did the hit go down?”
Dr. Matthews answered, “A homeless man came across the body behind a Dumpster inside the Recreation Pier Building in Fells Point and used a pay phone to call 911. We found his car parked a block off Thames. Given the splatter on the side of the Dumpster, it’s safe to say the hit went down there.”
Recreation Pier was in the seventeen hundred block of Thames Street, the same block as The Daily Grind. Poor Josh, he apparently hadn’t lived to see much of Christmas Day.
McKinney spoke up. “Do we have an estimated time of death?”
Midnight! Mandy’s mind screamed. Just after midnight .
The M.E. rocked back on his heels, expression thoughtful. “That’s difficult to pin down. Postmortem changes are strongly affected by environmental factors. With the extreme cold last night, and the snowfall, decomposition would be notably slowed.”
McKinney knocked together the heels of his polished wing tips. “Listen, Doc, we don’t need a forensics lesson, just give us a time frame for the murder, and we’ll take it from there.”
Frowning, the M.E. said, “My best estimate is that Joshua Thornton has been dead between twelve and eighteen hours.”
Agent Walker glanced down at his Timex. “It’s almost six o’clock now. That would put the hit on Thornton at sometime between…midnight and one o’clock this morning?”
Matthews nodded. “Correct.”
Mandy’s heart leaped into her throat. Even though she’d surmised as much, the
Josh’s words, which she hadn’t thought much about at the time, came back to her as vividly as if he were standing beside her, whispering clues in her ear. If you ever consider reinvesting, you might think about diversifying your portfolio to include telecommunication technologies. WiFi networks are literally the wave of the future….
“Telecommunications? So they would sell stuff like WiFi networks?”
The agents nodded. Walker explained, “Life was smooth sailing for Mr. Thornton here until he stumbled across evidence that his new brother-in-law was cooking the books. It turns out the brother-in-law was a Mafia plant. Marrying the sister was just a means to infiltrate the firm. He’d been selling the company’s WiFi network products to corporate consumers at triple the cost, and then funneling the illegal profits back to La Costa Nostra as well as using the firm as a vehicle for laundering mob money from other… ventures .”
Mandy wouldn’t have thought of high-speed Internet access as a commodity organized crime would set out to steal—or kill for—but when she imagined the millions of dollars that must be involved, it made a crazy sort of sense.
Pulling her scattered thoughts back to the present, she asked, “If you had evidence of the embezzlement, why didn’t you pull him then?”
“Because there still wasn’t enough hard evidence to link the brother-in-law back to the Mafia, in this case, the Romero family. They’ve been running their operation from Boston’s North End since the fifties and aside from a few petty drug busts, no prosecutor has ever been able to make a conviction stick. Thornton agreed to stay on and work for us undercover, even wear a wire, until we had enough evidence for a search warrant. When his coworker turned up as a floater in the Charles River, we knew we had to get him the hell out of Boston to some place big enough that he could get lost but close enough so we could get him back to testify without any major hassles. Baltimore seemed to fill the bill on both counts, or so we thought.”
Poor Josh, no wonder he’d worn that hunted look when she’d asked even the most basic questions about his background. At the time she’d wondered if there might be something shady in his past he was trying to hide. The truth was, he’d been a hero.
Voice quivering, she asked, “Where…where did the hit go down?”
Dr. Matthews answered, “A homeless man came across the body behind a Dumpster inside the Recreation Pier Building in Fells Point and used a pay phone to call 911. We found his car parked a block off Thames. Given the splatter on the side of the Dumpster, it’s safe to say the hit went down there.”
Recreation Pier was in the seventeen hundred block of Thames Street, the same block as The Daily Grind. Poor Josh, he apparently hadn’t lived to see much of Christmas Day.
McKinney spoke up. “Do we have an estimated time of death?”
Midnight! Mandy’s mind screamed. Just after midnight .
The M.E. rocked back on his heels, expression thoughtful. “That’s difficult to pin down. Postmortem changes are strongly affected by environmental factors. With the extreme cold last night, and the snowfall, decomposition would be notably slowed.”
McKinney knocked together the heels of his polished wing tips. “Listen, Doc, we don’t need a forensics lesson, just give us a time frame for the murder, and we’ll take it from there.”
Frowning, the M.E. said, “My best estimate is that Joshua Thornton has been dead between twelve and eighteen hours.”
Agent Walker glanced down at his Timex. “It’s almost six o’clock now. That would put the hit on Thornton at sometime between…midnight and one o’clock this morning?”
Matthews nodded. “Correct.”
Mandy’s heart leaped into her throat. Even though she’d surmised as much, the
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