Murder by the Book by Melanie Jackson Page B

peculiar talent talk again.
    “In fact, there’s a course at Quantico on amateur detection.”
    Hey, who’s he calling an amateur?
    “The course features some of Ms. Boston’s more unusual cases.”
    Wow, they teach me at Quantico?
    “It was an elective course. I chose not to take it.”
    That certainly brought me back down to earth in a hurry.
    “Ms. Boston, why don’t you take my seat while we bring you up to speed on the second case,” Agent Stillwell said, rising from his chair.
    “You mean on your investigation into Rankles and Edwards Construction?”
    I thought I heard Eddie whimper at the mere mention of the company name.
    “Please, just have a seat. You can remain standing,” he directed at Gordon.
    Gordon stood. I sat since I was wearing heels. I wanted to hear what the Feds had to say. As it turned out, they had a lot to say. Apparently they had been investigating the company for quite some time. Agent Stillwell wanted me to know how excited he was by the book plot murder tie-in. But before he could begin, he first had to deal with Gordon.
    “Officer Gordon, should you utter a single word regarding what you are about to hear outside this room I will have you arrested for interfering in a federal criminal investigation. Have you got that?”
    “Yes, sir!” Gordon barked as he snapped to attention and saluted.
    The agent then started to explain.…
    It all began with an attempt to draw more than the three hundred dollar daily limit from a checking account being used to launder millions of dollars in mob money. These accounts were discovered and impounded daily. They sprang up when they were needed and disappeared overnight once their usefulness was exhausted. They were used to syphon mob money to offshore accounts in the Caribbean. The difference was that no one had ever used one of these accounts to draw money from an ATM. What’s more, the ATM that had been used had a camera that had taken a picture of the ATM user. It was during the image enhancement process that someone thought they recognized the man in the picture. No records search was needed after it was confirmed by the technician’s superiors that the image was indeed a picture of the wealthy construction company owner Randolph Rankles.
    No one could say how Rankles had obtained a credit card to the specialized account or why he would try to use the card to draw cash from the account. But the act was enough to get a warrant to dig further and that’s when the information really began to flow. Rumors of embezzling, witness tampering, influence buying, safety violations, payoffs—these were just a few of the discrepancies the Feds were pursuing. Meanwhile, the Chief was helping out by developing a snitch he’d uncovered within the Rankles and Edwards organization. That snitch was Eddie Springer. Eddie had been negotiating with the authorities to produce that one piece of information that would put Rankles away for good.
    The Feds wanted Randolph Rankles’ books. They wanted all of the digital records outlining Rankles’ criminal activities including whom he paid off and who did his dirty work for him. And they felt that Eddie could get them.
    “I’m telling you, I know where the books are but I don’t know how to get to them,” Eddie chimed in. “They’re in my father’s office, accessible from his computer, but they’re not on his computer. They’re stored on a network server somewhere on the Internet. I’ve got to get to his passwords or it will continue to be nothing more than rumors.”
    “And where are these passwords kept?” I asked.
    “To the best of my knowledge, they’re in his head.”
    We all considered his response in frustration.
    “You know, there’s one aspect of this case you’ve neglected,” I said, breaking the silence.
    “Oh, and what’s that?” Agent Stillwell countered.
    “What’s the connection between Agatha and the murders?”
    “I was hoping that, since you’re our foremost expert on C. J.