Page 31 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

“I’m talking to people who knew him to find out exactly what was going on with him before he died.”

“Elijah and I were cool. We were never friends or anything, but we were friendly. And I didn't blame him. He is—was—a pretty straight arrow, and I wasn’t being all that discreet when I cheated.”

“When was the last time you talked to him?”

She considered. “First week of school? Maybe even the first day. We have Honors Government together with Mr. Parsons. I said hey, he said how was summer, I said I took classes at PV. He said he’d talk to me later about it, because he was thinking of taking some classes at night, but didn’t want to be overwhelmed.

We never ended up talking about it, though. ”

“Did he mention the class he took over the summer?” I asked, remembering what Alina had told me about working and school over the summer.

“At PV?”

“I don’t know.”

“He didn’t say anything to me.”

“What do you know about his friends? Peter and Andy and Angie.”

“I don’t really know Peter, Andy is kind of a dork—I mean, nice guy, and we were partners in science our sophomore year, so I say hi and stuff, but—” she shrugged “—we didn’t have much in common.”

“And Angie?”

“Kind of a bitch. I know, not a nice thing to say, but truth.”

“How so?”

“Chip on her shoulder. Always assumes anything you say is an insult. I know she was close to Elijah, and I knew her boyfriend, Chris—”

“Chris...?” I questioned.

“Chris Vallejo. He graduated, goes to ASU. Lives in the neighborhood, so I’ve known him for years. Don’t know what he saw in Angie, but they were pretty tight for, like, two years. Maybe they’re still dating, I don’t know.”

I considered Dani’s impression of Angie, as well as my own.

Yeah, I could see how Angie might come off as being a bitch.

Her default reaction to everything was defensive.

But I knew about her home life, thanks to Lena Clark, and I’d met her mother’s pot-smoking boyfriend.

Those weren’t things a teenager would share with just anyone.

I saw Angie as doing what she needed to do to make it to adulthood, then I expected her to bolt.

I hoped she bolted to college or the military, both viable options for kids who didn’t have a good home life.

I said, “Did you know Elijah outside of school?”

She shook her head.

“Did you ever run into him at parties?”

She laughed. “I definitely would not have. My dad is a cop. He would skin me alive if I went out and partied. It’s really not my thing, anyway.”

“Is there anyone else Elijah socialized with? Maybe someone who did party?”

“I wouldn’t know. Andy was his best friend, so if Elijah was doing drugs or drinking, Andy would know.”

“Did he have a girlfriend?”

“No—but—” She stopped, considered. “I don’t know,” she said after a moment, “but right before finals, a girl picked him up in front of the school. I barely caught a glimpse of her, just enough to know that she was probably in college. At least nineteen, maybe twenty.”

That was the first I heard about a college-aged girlfriend.

“Do you remember her car? If you saw her again?”

“I never saw her again, or if I did, I didn’t make the connection. And cars? It was a car. Not new, not a truck, but that’s all I can tell you. The only reason I remembered it is because you asked.”

I asked about Lena Clark and Dani had nothing to add.

She knew her, but hadn’t worked with the guidance counselor because her mom was hands-on.

I asked about Mr. Parsons, and confirmed that most of the students knew they were dating.

I asked about who on campus dealt drugs, and she just shook her head.

“If I knew, I’d tell my dad. People don’t tell me things, they think I’m a Goody Two-shoes or something.

I think that’s why the cheat ing was a big eye-opener for me and my parents.

I’ve never done anything like it before, and I’ll always regret it. ”

She walked me to the door, and at the last moment, I said, “Would you mind giving me Chris Vallejo’s phone number?” I could have Tess get it for me, but she was already working on the court records.

She shrugged, pulled out her phone. “Chris is a good guy. Really smart. Maybe that’s why he liked Angie. I think she’s a bitch, but she’s a smart bitch.”

I thanked her and drove off.

I had time to stop by the office before heading to the prison. I just wanted to check out Elijah’s computer now that Lu had broken the passcode. Chris Vallejo’s phone went straight to voicemail; I left him a brief message with my number as I walked into the office.

Iris was there and I asked, “Mom and Jack aren’t in yet?” They’d met Logan Monroe for a late breakfast.

She shook her head. “Ava will be here by ten.”

Good to know. I wanted to be gone before she arrived so I didn’t have to fib about my plans for the day.

If Mom or Jack knew I planned to visit Dad, they might want to join me.

Jack and I often drove down together, but I didn’t want Jack with me while I was chatting with Ben Bradford.

He looked and acted too much like a cop.

I figured if I could learn anything from Bradford, it would be because I wasn’t a cop.

Luisa had left Elijah’s laptop on my desk with a note explaining how to access his browsing history, what email program he used, the user names for his accounts, including social media, and the last time he accessed the computer—Friday morning before he went to school.

“Thanks, Lu,” I mumbled with a smile and got to work with one eye on the clock.

Most of Elijah’s emails were to and from teachers about assignments, from his mom who sent him a daily inspirational poem or Bible verse, and a few from other family members.

This was par for the course for this generation—they didn’t communicate as much by email as they did by text.

There were no emails from his three closest friends, except Andy had forwarded a birthday invitation his mother had sent out for his sister Labor Day weekend.

He had taken an online community college class over the summer and there was a chunk of emails, mostly automated, from the class.

Online class? Hadn’t his mother said he went to a night class after work? Was she mistaken?

Maybe I misunderstood what she said. I would double-check.

Then I thought back to Angie’s surprise that Elijah had taken a course, and his question to Dani about the classes she had taken. It made more sense that his mother assumed an in-person class... Maybe Elijah spent those evenings at the library.

Every two weeks Elijah received an automated email from an accountant that, upon further research, was the firm hired to process the Cactus Stop payroll. He had filed all of those, along with any other financial information such as his monthly bank statement, into a special folder called Tax Info.

I looked at his sent messages and most of them were about school, college, and a few general inquiries that didn’t seem to have anything to do with his work or school.

I skimmed the three days of browser history that Luisa had archived for me. She’d saved it by link and the time and date the site had been accessed.

He accessed Sun Valley High’s web portal daily—where he submitted homework and accessed documents related to his classes.

He’d visited social media sites mostly in the evening, and Google Maps on Thursday night where he looked up an address in Paradise Valley.

I wrote it down and would drive by later.

He’d gone to the Cactus Stop corporate page also on Thursday, which had a login for employees where I assumed he could access pay stubs, withholding information, benefits, and the like.

One of the extensions on the Cactus Stop page was contact . The night before Elijah died, he’d gone to the contact page. Had he looked up information? A phone number or address? Had he submitted a web form? If so, whatever he’d written hadn’t been copied to his email. Could it have been anonymous?

I made a note to follow up and also ask Luisa if she could find the information somewhere on Elijah’s hard drive.

Then something jumped out at me.

Elijah had gone to the Phoenix PD Silent Witness information page twice—on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. He’d googled the site on Tuesday, clicked through a bunch of Phoenix PD pages, but Silent Witness was the last one he went to. Then on Thursday he went right to that page.

Had he reached out and called?

I made another note. Rick or Josie would know who was responsible for monitoring the Silent Witness program website and phone.

I couldn’t help but think about the Bradford case. The Silent Witness program wouldn’t release any recordings without a court order, but there was a public recording about Ben Bradford because it came through the 911 system or directly to Phoenix PD.

Had Elijah reported a crime through Silent Witness?

Did it have anything to do with his job.

.. or something he witnessed at school?

If he had used the Silent Witness program, not even Rick could access the information without jumping through hoops, and then he’d only receive non-identifying details.

I considered the original Bradford call.

The investigators at the time said they suspected it came from a softball player because Bradford coached softball as well as football.

The call came in September, which would suggest that the student had been there both the spring before—during softball season—and the current year.

That would make her at least a sophomore when she phoned in, and based on her voice, I couldn’t imagine she was much older.

I doubted I’d learn much, but it wouldn’t hurt to grab the yearbook for those two years. Elijah would have one; I wanted both.

I texted Angie.

Can you get me two yearbooks? Your freshman year and the year before that?

She didn’t answer immediately, but she was likely in class. Hopefully in class.

I then looked through Elijah’s photos on his cloud account.

There were thousands.

The settings indicated that his phone uploaded photos to the cloud, and I sorted them by most recent first.

Immediately, I saw something very weird.

There were no pictures from Friday, the day he died, but there were several pictures that week of people exiting the Cactus Shop at night.

I looked at the times, and they all had been taken after 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

I needed to go back to the store to figure out where he had been standing when he took the pictures.

There were dozens of photos, but I didn’t recognize anyone.

The youngest person looked fourteen, the oldest sixty.

Men and women, all ethnicities. Almost all solo.

Many of the people were repeat customers—one attractive, clean-cut Hispanic male in his mid-twenties was at the store at least twice a week.

Over the six weeks Elijah had been taking these photos, starting the second week of July, there were nineteen pictures of this same person.

No one he photographed left the store with bags. It was something I noted on Tuesday when I stopped by, but I hadn’t really thought much about it after talking to Rick.

The Friday a week before Elijah died, he took a photo of a license plate and the Tesla it was attached to.

Some of the pictures were taken outside a different Cactus Stop. I looked at geolocation—he hadn’t turned it off—and they were taken at the store off Nineteenth and Camelback, the same store that had been involved in my first big PI investigation eight years ago.

Before July, there were only pictures of friends and family.

Hundreds of pictures from what appeared to be a family reunion, then end-of-school-year pictures, the occasional screenshot of something he felt was important to save—confirmation of submitting college applications, a confirmation of a payment made, things like that.

When he was a junior, most of his photos were selfies.

I didn’t recognize most of the kids but there were several with Elijah, Angie, and a tall boy I didn’t recognize but—based on his arm over Angie’s shoulder—suspected was Chris Vallejo.

These were taken outside a movie theater, on campus, in the stands of the gym.

A couple videos of a girl with a wicked volleyball serve, possibly Angie’s friend Gina.

Dozens of Elijah with Andy and Peter. Pictures of Elijah and his mom, or just his mom while she cooked or was reading or on her birthday when she blew out a candle.

Alina Martinez would want these. But first, I would find out what happened to her son.

My cell phone rang. I grabbed it.

“Hello.”

“It’s Rick. Jessica Oliver is the lead on financial crimes, said she’d be willing to meet after shift today.”

“Great, where? When?”

“She can be at Flannigan’s between 4:45 and 5:00?”

“I’ll be there.” I had been a bartender at Flannigan’s nine years ago while working to get my PI business off the ground; it was convenient for cops who lived north of downtown because it was on the way to all major freeways. “Give her my number if she needs to cancel. You going to be there?”

“Working,” he said. “Let me know how it goes.”

“Thanks, Rick.”

I looked at my watch. I was now running late, but if I left in the next fifteen minutes I’d be at the prison before 11:30 a.m. I wanted to know who owned that Tesla. It was the only vehicle Elijah had photographed, which told me it was important.

I called my friend Harry Jorgenson. Harry was sixty and the definition of a crotchety old man. He reminded me of Mr. Wilson in the old comic strips—or in the movie played by Walter Matthau.

Harry worked at a Motor Vehicles Department annex.

There were dozens of semi-private MVD’s where drivers could get their license, change title, and register their vehicle, among other things.

They charged more for convenience and speed, because getting an appointment in the MVD took forever, and there were always lines.

I’d met Harry shortly after I separated from the Army while in line at the VA.

He had given thirty years to the Army. Over the years he had helped me with some sensitive situations.

Like me, Harry was willing to bend—or break—the law if it helped someone in dire need.

He didn’t answer. I could ask Rick or Josie, but Phoenix PD tracked everything done on their computers, and if there ended up being a criminal investigation, it could jeopardize the case. Better to go through the back door.

I left Harry a message. “Hey, it’s Margo. Call me.”

As I walked out of the office five minutes later, my phone buzzed. I hoped it was Harry; it wasn’t. Angie had responded to my text.

k

Such was communication with teenagers.