Page 3 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

My mom, Ava Angelhart—the head of Angelhart Investigations after an illustrious career as a prosecutor, county attorney, and in private practice—looked the part.

Impeccably dressed, she wore heels and a light gray suit with a pale pink blouse.

As always, her hair and makeup was polished and professional.

She sat at the head of the table, with Tess to her left taking notes and Jack beside her.

To her right, Alina Martinez sat between Uncle Rafe and Ramos, a box of tissues within reach.

I barely refrained from squirming as I sat next to Jack. Emotional scenes always made me uncomfortable.

Tess didn’t look at me. We’d have to talk later. Seventeen years of sharing a room while growing up either created friends for life, or enemies. We had been friends. Sure, we butted heads and argued, but I would do anything for my sister, and she’d do anything for me.

Until three years ago when our lives were shaken and stirred and rubbed raw after our dad pled guilty to a murder I was positive he hadn’t committed.

We barely talked until a few months ago.

We were still working through the minefield of emotions and issues, but mostly, I thought, we were okay. I needed to keep it that way.

When we were all seated, Mom said, “Alina, I’m so glad that you came in. We are here to listen, then share our best advice on how to proceed. I am so deeply sorry for your loss.”

I was curious and wished Mom had clued us in. By the expressions on Jack’s and Tess’s faces, they had no idea what was going on either.

“Thank you,” Alina said. “I—I don’t know where to start.” She looked from Ramos to Uncle Rafe.

Uncle Rafe asked her, “Would you mind if I explained how we came to be here?”

She sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

Rafe said, “Ten days ago, Alina’s only child, Elijah, died at Mountain View Park in Sunnyslope.”

I knew the park well. When I was little we had soccer games there, and when I was older I often hiked the North Mountain trails which could be accessed from the park.

“Elijah was a high school senior and honors student. He has never been suspected of doing drugs, yet the ME ruled that he died of an accidental drug overdose.”

Silent tears rolled down Alina’s face.

“I recognize that teenagers often do things we wish they wouldn’t do, and drug use is very common,” Uncle Rafe contin ued.

“I don’t want you to think I have blinders on.

I believe in forgiveness and redemption because there are many things we need to be forgiven for.

Catholics, even good Catholics, fall off the path.

However, I knew Elijah and I know Alina and their family.

On Friday, we had the funeral Mass where I met Mr. Ramos, who owns the Cactus Stop where Elijah worked for the past six months. ”

“Mr. Ramos was generous in helping with all the arrangements,” Alina said. “I don’t know what I would have done without him.”

Ramos squeezed Alina’s hand. “Anyone in my position would have done the same.”

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.

“A woman accused of murdering her husband.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “It’s the Madison O’Neill case.”

Mom nodded.

I grinned. “Well, either way, I’m all in. That sounds like fun.”

Tess wrinkled her nose. “What if she’s guilty?”

“Still fun. If she’s guilty, we’ll prove it and the defense lawyer can work out a plea.

If she’s innocent, we’ll prove it, and she won’t go to prison for life.

Mostly, it’s completely different than the boring crap we’ve been doing for the last few months, dropping subpoenas and running background checks. ”

“Which pay our bills,” Tess countered.

“Tess,” Mom said, sounding sharp and irritated. Was she sensing that Tess was picking on me because of the dress argument? “Let’s shelve this discussion for the time being. I’ll let you know what I learn on the O’Neill case, and then we can decide—as a group—whether to take it or not.”

“Circling back to what you said, Mom,” I said, “that you wouldn’t stop us from working a case we had a passion for. I want to help Alina. Uncle Rafe asked us to.” And he wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important to him, which made it important to me.

“It’s difficult to say no to my brother,” Mom said with a small smile.

Tess glanced at me. “I can handle the background checks solo.”

An olive branch? “Thanks, sis. And I can check whatever you need in the field. I can multitask with the best of them.”

Tess preferred working in the office, or researching at the court archives, or going down an internet rabbit hole. I much preferred field work.

Jack said, “Uncle Rafe said he talked to Josie.”

“I’ll talk to Josie this morning,” I said.

“I can feel out the case with my contacts at 620,” Jack said.

Jack had been a Phoenix PD officer, then detective, for more than a decade, until three years ago.

By “620” he meant the main police headquarters at 620 Washington, which wasn’t far from our office.

“I can do that and get the subpoenas served on time.”

“So you’re all on board,” Mom said. “I need to leave to make my meeting, but I’ll talk to Manny. He wants to help, but for now we’ll respect Alina’s wishes and not accept money from him. He may be useful in gaining access to Elijah’s coworkers, which will make things easier for us.”

“That works for me,” I said.