Page 51 of Don't Say a Word

“Angela Williams?” King asked.

“Angie,” she said.

“You weren’t at school yesterday, but came to campus in the afternoon, correct?”

“Yeah. To watch the volleyball game.” Great, now she would probably get in trouble for cutting.

“A witness says that they saw you and Mrs. Clark arguing outside the gym. What were you arguing about?”

Angie shrugged.

“You don’t remember?” King said.

“I do. I promised Mrs. Clark I wouldn’t cut any more school.”

“That’s all you were arguing about?”

“Mostly.”

“And?”

What was she supposed to say? That no one cares about what happened to Elijah? That she didn’t do her job?

“Angie,” Mrs. Webb said, “if it’s personal, you can say that. We’re simply trying to figure out what happened.”

“Someone killed her,” Angie said. “Just like someone killed Elijah, but you don’t care abouthim.”

King frowned. “Is that why you left an irate voicemail on my phone, because you think I don’t care about your friend?”

“Youdon’tcare. You still think it was his fault he died.”

She tried to control her temper. It wasn’t going to help anyone if she yelled at cops.

“Did you talk to Mrs. Clark about the police investigation?” King asked.

“Yeah. I said it sucked that you closed the case. And she said that a private investigator was—” Angie cut herself off. Maybe she shouldn’t say anything about Margo Angelhart.

“A private investigator is looking into Elijah’s death?” Chavez, the other cop, asked. He didn’t look like he was surprised, and he sounded much nicer than the woman.

“Yeah,” Angie said, glancing up at Chavez before averting her gaze back to her unopened water bottle. “Elijah’s mom hired someone. The PI talked to Mrs. Clark, and Mrs. Clark said she wanted to talk to me and asked if I would come to her office during lunch today. But obviously... well... that’s not going to happen now.”

She didn’t tell the cops that she spoke to Margo this morning. Maybe she should. But it wasn’t relevant, was it? And what would they do? Could they tell the PI to stop investigating Elijah’s death? That it was a police matter? Angie had no idea what the rules were, and she didn’t want to get Margo in trouble. She was the first person who actually sounded like she wanted the truth as much as Angie.

King was writing, and Chavez said, “Two people reported that the argument between you and Mrs. Clark was heated.”

What was she supposed to say? “Maybe. I was just... I don’t know, mad about the whole thing.”

Mrs. Webb said, “Angie, there’s no need for you to be upset.”

She hadn’t thought she sounded upset. She tried to temper her tone, but the anger came out. She looked at Mrs. Webb and said, “They don’t care. They don’t care about Elijah, and whenMrs. Clark’s murder gets hard, they’re not going to care about her either.”

“That’s not true,” Chavez said. “I can assure you, we will find out who killed Lena Clark.”

“Whatever,” she mumbled.

“After you left the game, where did you go?” Chavez asked.

Angie shot a glance at Mr. Borel. Both the principal and the school secretary knew she’d gone to Mrs. Clark’s office, so she couldn’t lie about that.