Chapter 7 - Pier 42
The rain had reduced to a fine, misty drizzle by the time the unmarked federal sedan pulled up behind the flashing amber lights of the harbor patrol units at Pier 42.
Julianna stepped out of the car, her handcuffs having been temporarily removed in light of the new radio traffic, wrapping her silk top tighter against the chilly river wind.
"Stay back behind the yellow tape, Mrs. Sterling," the federal agent warned, flashing his badge at a local harbor cop who was trying to wave them away.
Beneath the harsh glare of the halogen floodlights mounted on the police boat, a body bag lay unzipped on the wet wooden planks of the pier, revealing the pale, soaked face of a middle-aged man in a ruined dark suit. Julianna walked slowly toward the perimeter, her heart pounding against her ribs as she peered past the shoulders of two forensic technicians kneeling over the corpse. It wasn't Arthur, and it wasn't Marcus Vance—it was David Thorne, Arthur's chief compliance officer and the only man who knew the combination to the firm's off-balance-sheet ledger.
"Do you recognize the victim, Mrs. Sterling?" the federal agent asked, stepping up beside her and shining his flashlight down at the dead man's bloated hands.
"That's David Thorne, Arthur's primary financial auditor," she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand as the smell of river silt and salt water hit her senses.
"Cause of death appears to be blunt force trauma to the back of the skull prior to entering the water, which means this wasn't an accidental drowning," a forensic tech announced, standing up and peeling off his latex gloves.
Julianna stared at David's lifeless fingers, noticing something glinting faintly beneath his stiffened thumbnail—a scrap of heavy linen paper caught under the nail bed. She stepped forward before anyone could stop her, dropped to her knees beside the wet body, and used a pair of tweezers from her pocket to gently extract the tiny paper fiber. It was a fragment of custom stationery bearing the personal monogram of the Manhattan private club where Arthur and Marcus Vance used to play poker every Thursday evening. She slipped the paper into her pocket just as the federal agent grabbed her elbow and pulled her away from the corpse.
"You can't go tampering with a crime scene, Mrs. Sterling, that's obstruction of justice," the agent scolded, guiding her back toward the vehicle.
"Arthur was supposed to meet David tonight to settle their accounts, but instead, David ended up at the bottom of the East River with Arthur's monogram under his fingernail," she said, looking the agent dead in the eye.
"Are you accusing your husband of murder now?" the agent asked, his voice flat with skepticism.
"I'm telling you that David discovered the offshore accounts were tied to federal weapons trafficking, and Arthur silenced him before he could turn state's evidence," she replied, climbing back into the car.
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As the vehicle pulled away from the pier, Julianna pulled out the tiny scrap of paper and held it up to the dashboard light, reading the handwritten numbers scrawled on the back. They weren't club membership numbers; they were GPS coordinates pointing to an abandoned warehouse in the industrial zone of Queens.
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