Page 10 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

Chapter Seven

Margo Angelhart

I drove by Angie’s apartment on Nineteenth Avenue south of Dunlap. Since she’d cut school, maybe she’d stayed home.

Central Phoenix had its fair share of run-down apartment complexes, especially near the freeway, and Angie’s was no exception.

While it wasn’t the worst, it was definitely sketchy.

The complex consisted of clusters of two-story white rectangle buildings, each crammed with tiny apartments and small windows—no balconies, no patios.

There was some grass, a few trees, and rows upon rows of identical buildings, all enclosed behind fencing that resembled a prison more than a place to call home.

Half the gates were broken or wide open, and any window large enough for someone to crawl through had bars.

I didn’t leave my gun locked in my Jeep; I concealed it with a lightweight jacket that covered my holster.

First, I wasn’t confident that my car was safe here even during the day, and second, the police call log showed sixty-nine calls for service to the complex in just the last two months—averaging more than one a day. I didn’t want to be one of those calls.

Angie’s apartment was on the ground floor of Building D. The doors were painted black, half had missing numbers, but I figured out D-10 was the second door from the east. Downstairs were even numbers, upstairs odd.

I smelled an excessive amount of chlorine, but couldn’t see a pool. After knocking on the door, I stepped back. The street traffic masked any sound coming from the apartment.

Suddenly, the door opened and I was assaulted with the sweet, foul stench of marijuana smoke. A man stood there, his red eyes flashing with irritation.

“What?”

“Mr. Williams?” I guessed.

He snorted. “Nope.”

Not-Mr. Williams wore sagging shorts, his beer belly hanging over the waistband. No shirt on his hairy chest. Unshaven face, and not the good kind of five o’clock shadow. He had large doughy biceps, as if he’d once regularly worked out but had slacked off.

“This is Angie Williams’s apartment,” I stated.

“Kid’s at school. Or walking home. Text her fucking phone, I’m not her secretary.”

I decided not to tell this guy who I doubted was her father that she had cut school today.

“Is her mom home?”

“Working.”

“When does Angie usually come home?”

“You deaf? Call her . Jeez.” He shut the door and I stood there a moment, not quite sure what I had expected or where I should look next.

A few seconds later I walked away.

I went back to my Jeep and considered waiting for Angie to come home, though I didn’t know when that would be. I rarely minded surveillance gigs—stake outs were a good time to clear my mind—but I’d told Alina I would come by this afternoon. The Martinez apartment was only three blocks away.

If I wasn’t able to track down Angie tonight, then I’d tap my part-time assistant Theo Washington to sit on her place tomorrow.

The apartment complex where Alina lived, though just across Nineteenth Avenue and down two blocks from Angie’s, was far better maintained.

There were a dozen four-apartment buildings situated on the deep lot.

Each building was a cube, two apartments upstairs, two down.

The lower units had patios, and the upper units had balconies.

A lot of trees, trimmed bushes lining pathways, and a partly covered kids play area.

It was just after four in the afternoon and several moms were talking at a picnic table while watching their young children play.

No graffiti or trash anywhere. Security cameras on the corners of each building.

Having residents and management who kept the property clean made a huge difference in the crime rate.

Alina Martinez lived in a downstairs unit. I knocked and she answered immediately.

She looked even more exhausted than she had this morning.

“Thank you for letting me come by,” I said.

Alina smiled thinly and opened the door for me to enter.

The open sliding glass door let in a soft breeze through the too-warm home.

Cluttered but tidy, with a spacious living-dining area and a functional kitchen in the front.

A short hallway, likely leading to the bedrooms. Framed photographs covered almost every inch of wall space—mostly older black-and-white pictures of family that reminded me of my grandparents’ long hallway Pop called “Ancestor Alley.” Many pictures of Elijah everywhere.

A prominent wedding portrait of a young Alina, no older than twenty, and her equally young husband, stood out in the living room.

When Alina saw me staring, she said, “My husband, Marcus. He was a very good man. Worked so hard. We had a good life, Marcus and me. A better life after Elijah. Now, they’re both gone.”

I felt for the woman, but emotions always made me feel uncomfortable, and I never had the right words to help.

Tess was so much better at this than me; I preferred doing something.

In the weeks after Iris’s husband died, Tess sat with her for hours and let her talk and cry.

I cleaned her house and cooked, then took her teenagers to the movies so they’d be distracted for a few hours.

“You were a lovely couple,” I said because it was the first thing that came to mind and it was true. “Would you mind if I looked through Elijah’s things? I’ll put everything back the way I found it.”

She led me down the hall. Elijah’s room was also neat, and not as cluttered as the living area.

His walls were decorated with music posters of bands I hadn’t heard of, and an Arizona Cardinals pennant.

A neatly made double bed. A short bookshelf overflowing with books, papers, binders. Laptop computer centered on his desk.

Alina was hovering, and I asked, “Would you mind if I went through his room alone?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Please. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Alina,” I said.

She smiled nervously, then left, closing the door behind her.

I went first to his computer. Password-protected. Alina might know the password, but I didn’t want to call her back in right away.

Nothing of interest in his drawers—no drugs, no drug paraphernalia, no weapons, no wads of cash.

I found a file folder with pay stubs from the Cactus Stop.

He had direct deposit and these were pay summaries he’d likely printed from his computer.

After taxes, he took home just under $550 every two weeks, though during the summer it went up to $800.

That was working roughly twenty hours a week during the school year, and about thirty hours during the summer. A decent job for a teenager.

His closet was messier than his room, but it was mostly stuffed with clothes, sports equipment that hadn’t been used in years, worn shoes, an empty laundry basket.

On his dresser were LEGO figurines—maybe a remnant of his childhood. Sticky notes from his mother about chores, reminders of family events. No pictures, but I’d bet he had some on his phone.

I looked around but didn’t see a cell phone. A charger sat next to his computer, but no phone and no backpack. I couldn’t imagine a studious kid not having one. He’d gone to school Friday, then went to work directly from school. His backpack would likely be either at work or wherever he went after.

I pulled up the police report on my phone and skimmed through it. No backpack found in the park.

And no phone logged into evidence.

I was about to leave, frustrated that there seemed to be nothing of import in his room—other than the missing phone and backpack—when I spotted a bright green sticky note in the small wastebasket.

Wastebasket. Private Investigation 101: Always Check the Trash.

I had failed. Well, did I actually fail because I thought of it last minute? I’d give myself a pass this time.

I picked up the small plastic bin and put it on the desk. The sticky note was from his mom.

Going with Aunt Nina to Kelsey’s baby shower, leftover chicken in the blue container.

No date.

There wasn’t a lot of trash—a few other sticky notes from his mother, a couple pieces of crumpled binder and graph paper, a flyer for a job fair in the courtyard of the Central Library. The fair had been held on the Saturday his body had been found.

Had he been looking for another job? Or tossed it because he liked his job?

I put it aside and smoothed out the other papers.

Math. Just looking at the numbers and letters brought on the beginning of a headache.

Some of the letters didn’t look right, and I had a flash of my brother Nico doing calculus homework.

Greek letters, or something like that. There was something disturbing not only in mixing numbers and letters together, but throwing around Greek symbols to really confuse someone.

I left his room and found Alina in the kitchen slowly washing a pot.

“I’m done,” I said.

She turned off the water and dried her hands, leaving the pot in the sink.

“Did you find anything that helps you?”

“Do you have Elijah’s computer password?”

“I never thought to ask him.”

“Would you mind if I borrowed his computer? My sister may be able to get in.”

“You think there’s something there? Something about what happened?”

“I won’t know until I look. I might be able to check his calendar, maybe emails he sent to a friend. Did Elijah have a cell phone?”

“Of course.”

“Did the police tell you if they had it?”

She frowned, shook her head. “They didn’t say. I didn’t ask. I should have asked.”

“It wasn’t on his body,” I said, then inwardly winced, hoping I didn’t sound too callous. “He could have lost it or left it somewhere.”

The police should have asked her about it, since it was unusual not to find a phone on a teenager.

“Would you do me a big favor?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“I would like a printout of all Elijah’s calls for at least the last thirty days. Three months would be great.”

“I call the phone company and ask?”

“You should be able to log into your account and print out the bill.”

She shook her head. “I don’t have a computer.”

“Do you get a paper bill?”

She brightened. “Yes. I can get that for you.”

“Before you do, one more question. What color is Elijah’s backpack?”

“Dark gray. It has a football patch, the Arizona Cardinals, that he ironed on the front pocket. His uncle took Elijah and his cousin to a game for their sixteenth birthdays last year. So expensive, those tickets. I told Donny it was too much money, but he said you’re only sixteen once.

Ever since, Elijah loved the team, even when they lose. ”

Which lately was often, I thought. They seemed to either start strong, then fall apart, or start poorly, only to win when it didn’t matter anymore.

“I don’t know where it is,” she said.

“Maybe I can track it down.” Work, school, a friend’s house—all possible. The contents could be enlightening.

“I’ll get the phone records for you.”

I waited in the kitchen and looked out the window at the small park in the center of the complex. A couple of the moms were trying to wrestle their kids inside. Did the squeals of laughter comfort Alina? I hoped so.

She brought me a folder. “Here,” she said. “These are everything for the year. His number ends in 1719, the other number is mine.”

I looked through the file. It cut off ten days before he was killed.

“I need you to do one thing that may help me piece together Elijah’s last few days. I need his phone records up until the day he died.”

“They will be on the next bill, won’t they?”

“Yes, but according to this, we’d have to wait another eight or nine days. The sooner I get it, the better. If you call, as the account owner, they’ll send it to you.”

“I can do that.”

She looked out the window and observed the children. “I don’t know what I will do without Elijah,” she said quietly, more to herself than me. “I miss him so much.”

The pain in her voice tore at my heart.

I would find out exactly what happened. It wouldn’t bring Elijah back, but maybe I could give his mother some peace.

It was after five by the time I was back in my car. I called Luisa, my youngest sister, the computer whiz. Like me, she’d done six years in the military after high school—she picked the Marines—and now she was starting her second year of college on the GI bill.

Luisa didn’t answer, so I left a message to call me.

I wished I could just go home and analyze these phone records, but Jack left files at the office—the opposite direction from my house.

I was going to be stuck in traffic. I considered waiting until tomorrow to grab the files, but what else was I going to do tonight?

I headed toward Seventh Avenue for the long drive back downtown.