Page 6 of Don't Say a Word

Uncle Rafe continued. “I spoke with Elijah’s teachers and his friends. It was after that, and after prayer, that I reached out to Alina yesterday and suggested we talk to someone who can look into what happened the night Elijah died.”

I had a whole bunch of questions, but Jack spoke up first. “The police would have conducted a death investigation in conjunction with the ME’s office.”

“They did,” Rafe said. “After the funeral, we learned that the police have closed the case. The ME’s report was taken at face value. They are no longer investigating how he obtained the drugs or who he was with the night he died.”

“No one cares,” Alina said, her voice almost too quiet to hear.

Uncle Rafe took her hand, held it. “I called Josie, who was the responding officer that day, to see if she could find out more, because one week doesn’t seem long enough to get answers. She said she would do what she could, but indicated that the detective in charge wasn’t open to pursuing other angles. That at most, she’d refer the case to the drug unit.”

Josie. Was that why she’d texted me? To give me a heads-up?

Jack nodded. “If there is no evidence of homicide, they’d close the case and refer follow-up to the Drug Enforcement Bureau. It could become part of a larger drug investigation. Most drug-related deaths are accidental overdoses.”

“Elijah did not do drugs,” Alina said. Her voice, though quiet,was emphatic. “He would not. Since his father died in an accident ten years ago, it’s been him and me. He has always been a good son. He planned to go to college. He even took night classes at the community college this summer, because he wanted to get ahead. He has straight A’s. His teachers like him. His friends are good kids—they know he doesn’t do these things. I need someone to find out what happened to him. Someone gave him those drugs. I don’t think he knew, and then he died. Alone.” Her voice cracked.

Before my mother could speak, I said, “Alina, are you suggesting that someone gave Elijah drugs without his knowledge or consent?”

She nodded. “Sí.That is correct. He would not do that to himself.”

Mom said, “Are you prepared to share everything about Elijah, his friends, give us access to his room, his property, his life history? Are you prepared to learn the truth, no matter what we find?”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “I need the truth. No matter what.”

Ramos cleared his throat. “I’ll fund your investigation. Alina,” he said when she began to protest, “it is the least I can do to help. Elijah was a good young man, and he worked in my store. I want answers, as you do.”

Mom said, “We can discuss that later. For now, I need to confer with my partners. Rafe, can you take Alina and Manny out for a moment?”

Rafe didn’t want to leave, I could see it in the way his body tensed, but he simply nodded and the three of them left the room, closing the door behind him.

“We need to decide if this is a case we want to take,” Mom said.

“Yes, of course we take it,” I said without hesitation.

“We have paying clients we need to continue to service in a timely and professional manner,” Mom said.

“Ramos said he was paying,” Jack countered. “What am I missing?”

“Alina doesn’t feel comfortable accepting more money from Manny. He paid for Elijah’s burial.”

“I managed to juggle paying clients with non-paying clients for eight years all by myself,” I said.

“By working eighty hours a week.”

“Point?”

“My point is that you and Tess are working the background checks for Logan Monroe’s resort, and we have a deadline to complete that work. Jack has several subpoenas for the law firm that has us on retainer that must be served in a timely manner. We also have a criminal case we’ve been asked to investigate for the defense. I haven’t decided whether we’ll take it—I’m meeting with the defense attorney later today to go over the facts.”

I frowned. “Shouldn’t we all vote on whether we take it or not?”

“Mom vets our cases,” Tess said. “This isn’t a democracy.”

I bristled. “I vet my own cases.”

“You want to go back to taking sex pics of adulterers?” Tess snapped.

Mom cleared her throat. “Margo, I would not ask any of you to work on a case you didn’t want, or stop you from working on a case you had passion for. However, in this instance, I’m pre-vetting the case. Meaning, I need to be comfortable working with the defense before I ask any of you to work on it. And because it’s a capital case, I would be very involved with the legal end.”

“Capital case?” Jack asked.