Page 1 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

Phoenix PD Officer Josie Morales stood over the body of a kid who couldn’t be over eighteen. She said a silent prayer, but still wanted to punch something. What a waste.

“Where’s the damn ME?” her partner, Tyrell Jones, said. “It’s already hot as balls out here.”

“Detectives are on their way,” Josie said. The ME always came after the detectives.

She and Tyrell had just finished their morning briefing when dispatch reported that park rangers had found a dead body in Mountain View Park, only a couple blocks from their precinct. Now they were stuck here until the detectives cleared the scene. Their coffee run would have to wait.

“How long until the dicks get here?” Tyrell said. He wasn’t a fan of the detective squad, mostly because of how some of them treated uni’s.

She asked dispatch for a status.

“Twenty minutes,” she told Tyrell.

“Fuck,” he whispered as he took another long look at the deceased. “Drugs,” he said, though they couldn’t be certain. They couldn’t see any blood or external wounds, but that didn’t mean that a drug overdose was the cause of death.

Josie had already sectioned off the area with crime scene tape, not because she thought this was a homicide, but because she didn’t want people being disrespectful and nosy.

A couple joggers slowed as they passed Josie, straining their necks to see what the cops were doing.

Tyrell glared at them, then walked back to their patrol car and returned with a tarp. They carefully covered the body.

“Fucking waste,” Tyrell muttered.

He’d been a uniformed officer for fifteen years and planned to retire after putting in his twenty, then open a bar.

Or a gun range. Or a gym. It changed depending on his mood, but one thing was certain, he’d told Josie more than once, he wanted to work for himself and take orders from no one except his wife.

He was cynical and rough around the edges, but Tyrell was a solid and seasoned cop.

He never dodged calls and called out cops who routinely did, which didn’t make him a lot of friends.

Josie had learned a lot from Tyrell since she’d partnered with him after shifting to days three months ago, and while she wished he would be a bit more diplomatic with their colleagues, she respected and trusted him.

Josie kept her eyes on the people in the area, making sure they stayed beyond the crime scene tape. She glanced at Tyrell and, even though he was wearing sunglasses, she could tell by his tight jaw and the way he stood that he was upset.

He had two kids. To see a dead teen was difficult for her, but had to be harder on a father.

By the time a detective sedan pulled up, they’d drawn a larger audience, but Josie had put the tape far enough away that onlookers couldn’t overhear their discussion.

“Well, shit,” Tyrell said when he saw Rachel King was the responding detective. “Deal with her, I don’t have the patience today.” He walked over to the tape to wait for the ME’s van.

Good that Tyrell walked away, because Rachel had made few friends during her years on the force, primarily because she was both prickly and hypercritical of uniformed officers. However, the CSI who rolled up behind her was Josie’s cousin Nico Angelhart.

Nico smiled when he saw her, but before they could exchange a word, Rachel removed the tarp and motioned for him to take photos.

He was quick, methodical, and efficient as he photographed the body, the surrounding area, and then motioned that Rachel could search the victim. They would want to identify him as soon as possible and notify his parents. Josie was glad she didn’t have to do that part of the job.

As she watched, Rachel turned out the teen’s pockets. A small baggie of blue pills along with a couple twenties were in one pocket; his other held a thin wallet.

Rachel opened it. “Arizona State Identification Card, no driver’s license. Elijah Martinez, seventeen. Lives in an apartment off Nineteenth Avenue. That’s more than two miles away. What’s he doing here?” She continued flipping through the wallet. “Sun Valley High School,” she said. “That’s...”

“Less than a mile down the road,” Josie said. “My alma mater.” She was trying to build a rapport, but the detective neither looked at her nor acknowledged her comment.

Rachel handed the wallet, drugs, and cash to Nico, who sealed them in separate evidence bags. Most likely fentanyl. Dammit, this was the sixth fentanyl death Josie handled since moving to day shift. She’d stopped counting the ODs that she and Tyrell reversed with Narcan.

But Elijah Martinez was the youngest.

“No sign of external injuries. Likely drug overdose. Nico, what do you think?”

“The ME will do an exam, but I see no weapon, no biologic matter, no sign of violence or bruising. No external signs of drug use, no needles. Eight likely fentanyl tablets in the bag.” He couldn’t confirm fentanyl until the pills were tested in the lab.

They’d seen fentanyl tainted with xylazine, an animal tranquilizer, as well as stimulants.

“Time of death?”

“You know better than to ask me,” Nico said with a half smile.

“But?” Rachel pushed.

“Four to six hours.”

Rachel glanced at her watch. “Likely after midnight. Call the ME, they can take the body. Officer... Morales?”

“Yes,” Josie said.

“Did I see that the park rangers called this in?”

Josie nodded. “They found the body at 5:35 a.m. My partner and I were first on scene at 5:45.”

Josie followed Rachel’s gaze as the detective looked up and down the park.

Martinez lay against a tree west of the small gazebo and playground area.

The rest of the park was open space, grass, paths, and a community garden.

The body couldn’t be seen from the road, but it would have been seen from the main east-west trail before it forked north and south.

If someone was paying attention, Josie thought. She’d encountered runners who put in their earbuds and looked straight ahead. If someone saw the body, they might assume homeless. But the park rangers rousted the homeless from the area early every morning.

Nico said, “The ME will have a van here within forty-five minutes. I’m going to inspect the playground.”

Drug addicts often left paraphernalia in the area they partied. The park would be overrun with kids this morning before the heat drove them indoors.

Josie joined Nico. He handed her an extra rake and together they combed through the sand, looking for pills, foil that might contain drug residue, needles, and anything else that might be a danger to little kids.

“How’re things?” Josie asked.

“Good. Just lost my intern.”

“Theo?” Theo Washington was a nineteen-year-old student going through the forensic science program at Paradise Valley Com munity College. He worked part-time for Nico’s sister—and Josie’s best friend—Margo.

“His internship ended yesterday, and he starts classes next week. I tried to get him hired part-time, but it’s not in the budget.

Fortunately, I’ll have first dibs on him in May when he graduates.

While he sometimes jumps to conclusions—probably Margo’s bad influence—” he added with a smile “—he’s detail-orientated and takes direction well. Doesn’t mind tedious work.”

“Shouldn’t you give Margo credit for his positive skills as well?” Josie said lightly, knowing Margo and Nico loved ribbing each other.

“And further enlarge my sister’s already big ego?” He laughed. “Anyway, his computer skills could be better—I thought everyone in his generation were tech gurus. He’s adding an extra computer class at my suggestion.”

“Is he still working for Margo?”

He nodded. “We had dinner last night and she gloated about it.”

“You’ll be gloating in May.”

“Damn straight,” he said. “She won’t mind. The city can pay Theo far more than she can, and it’s a great career. Plus, Theo is motivated.”

They found two used condoms—both older than twenty-four hours, per Nico, so he tossed them. One foil that seemed old but had what was likely fentanyl residue, so he bagged it. And a knife, which he also bagged, though it didn’t appear to have blood on it. Probably fell out of someone’s pocket.

“You think this is an accidental OD?” Josie asked Nico as she tossed a broken beer bottle into the trash can.

“That’s up to the ME.”

“We’ve enough of them,” she commented.

“Yeah, we do. I wish we could find whoever left him to die, though no one will prosecute.”

“Bingo,” Josie said. Generally, if an individual left someone to die when that person could have been saved with prompt medical treatment, it would be charged as a misdemeanor, if charged at all.

It was a debate they’d had at their grandfather’s house on occasion—moral, ethical, and legal ramifications of action versus inaction.

Retired Judge Hector Morales loved to play devil’s advocate.

He could argue any side of any issue effectively, and was brilliant at seeing different angles.

He’d been a respected jurist for more than forty years.

“Doesn’t make it right,” Nico said.

“I’m with you. You know, Sun Valley High School won’t have a school resource officer until October. I can probably get permission to talk to the students, especially since the kid went there.”

School resource officers worked for a special division of Phoenix PD and, depending on funding levels, would be assigned to high schools in the region. Josie had applied for the program, but hadn’t been accepted into one of the limited slots. She’d apply again next year.

How did she explain she felt invested in finding out what had happened to Elijah Martinez? “I’ve seen dozens of ODs since I’ve been a cop—six in the last two months alone,” Josie said. “But this kid is the youngest. How did he end up here?”

She didn’t mean here, physically; she meant dead.

Nico understood and said, “I’ve worked so many of these cases they’re a blur.”

He sounded discouraged and sad. Josie didn’t want to think of Elijah Martinez as a statistic, one of many, lost and broken. He was a son. Maybe a brother. A friend. A student. And until last night, he’d had a future.

Josie wasn’t going to easily get past his death. Maybe she didn’t want to. Maybe, if she found out the how and the why, she could do something to help fix this crisis.

“I’ll talk to the school,” Josie said. “I’ll convince the principal to give me a forum.”

“Good,” Nico said. “I’m not really as cynical as I sound, but I have to stay detached or I can’t do the job.”

Cops—and apparently CSIs—compartmentalized so they could handle difficult and tragic cases, then go home to live a relatively normal life with normal relationships.

But sometimes, it was hard. And Josie did care—a lot. If she stopped caring, she’d have to quit being a cop. Make yet another career change after a long line of career changes.

If she could prevent another kid from ending up like Elijah Martinez, she’d talk to every school in Phoenix. Would it help? She didn’t know, but it couldn’t hurt.

She glanced at the tree behind the crime scene tape, knowing a young man lay dead under the tarp. I have to do something , she told herself.

Josie had no idea the can of worms she’d open when she spoke to the student body the following week.