Page 35 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Margo Angelhart

At four that afternoon, I pulled into the small parking lot outside the Cactus Stop on Hatcher. I had part of a plan, and started by calling Manny Ramos’s cell phone number, which he’d written on the back of his business card.

“Ramos,” he answered.

“Mr. Ramos, this is Margo Angelhart.”

He remembered me. “Do you have news?” he asked.

“A request. I spoke to Elijah’s coworkers yesterday, and the manager who worked with him on Friday, Desi, wasn’t in. I’d like her contact information so I can reach out.”

“Why do you need to speak with her?”

“She worked with Elijah on Friday and he may have said something to her about his plans. I still haven’t figured out where he went after work.”

“I see. I very much want to help—I went to visit Alina yesterday, she is holding on, but it’s hard for her.

I want her to have answers to give her some peace.

But I have privacy concerns, so don’t feel comfortable sharing Desi’s contact information.

However, I will have my assistant call her and instruct her to reach out to you within the next twenty-four hours. Is that sufficient?”

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

Rather than being snide and saying give me her full name and number , I said, “It would help if I had Elijah’s actual schedule—I assume there’s some sort of time card system? From his mother, I have his assigned schedule, but I don’t know if he worked late or took a day off, things like that.”

“It will help?”

“I’m retracing his steps.” I didn’t know if it would help until I looked at it. Maybe he left early every Thursday. Maybe he worked late every Wednesday. Until I could figure out what Elijah did when he wasn’t working and he wasn’t in school, I wouldn’t know where he was Friday night.

“I’ll ask the accounting department to email you his last three months, is that sufficient?”

“Yes, thank you.” I rattled off my email address, thanked him, and ended the call.

I sat in my Jeep and considered why Elijah was taking photos of people leaving the Cactus Stop. It had started mid-July and continued up until the week he died. Based on the time stamps, he left work and watched the door.

I assessed the area around the store and determined—based on the angle and the slight distortion from zooming in—that he had taken the photos from across the side street.

A short block wall would provide some cover, and the business on that corner, a veterinary practice, closed at 6:00 p.m., so no one there would have noticed him.

But directly south of the vet, on the other side of the wall, the duplex would have full visibility of anyone standing or sitting there.

I made a U-Turn and parked in front of the residence that bordered the clinic. When I stood on the sidewalk I realized that whoever was in this house would have a very clear view of Elijah behind that half wall.

The duplex was a boxy house with two front doors that shared a covered porch. A small table with a sand-filled coffee can that served as an ashtray stood lopsided in one corner. A metal chair with a faded cushion provided the only place to sit. The stale scent of cigarettes filled the narrow space.

I’d smoked for a few years in the Army—three years, to be exact. When I changed my MOS from the Field Artillery Division to Military Police, the stress and boredom of being an MP on base had me take my very occasional cigarette to daily use. I quit cold turkey when I came home.

The smell made me cringe. I didn’t crave it anymore—not like I did for the first couple of years after the Army. Instead, my stomach felt queasy.

I knocked on the door.

At first I didn’t think anyone was home. Then suddenly the door opened almost before I could register the rattling of a security chain.

A very short, very old black woman stood behind the security screen. She wore large glasses that made her eyes seem unusually big. “You selling something?”

“No, ma’am, I am not. I’m a private investigator.”

“A private investigator?” she repeated.

“Yes, ma’am. Margo Angelhart.”

“Angelhart?”

“Yes.”

I couldn’t tell if she was repeating me because she was hard of hearing or ornery. Maybe a little of both, I decided, as she pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.

“I have some questions about the Cactus Stop if you have a minute?”

“You’re not coming in,” she said firmly.

“Okay. We can talk out here.”

“Hmph.”

She closed the door and I thought she wasn’t going to talk to me at all.

I considered leaving when a full minute later she opened the door again, unlocked the screen, and came outside.

She shuffled over to the chair, sat down, and pulled a pack of cigarettes and lighter from the pocket of her apron. She lit up.

She waved her hand with the cigarette and said, “Questions! You going to stand there all day or ask?”

“Thank you,” I said, holding back a smile. “Like I said, I’m Margo. And you are?”

“Edith Ann Mackey.”

“Mrs. Mackey, I—”

She harumphed again and said, “Call me Edith. My dead husband was a bastard.”

“Edith.” This woman was a hoot. “Did you notice over the last couple of months a young man standing or sitting behind that wall.” I gestured toward the wall separating the vet clinic from the street.

It turned and traversed the property line between Edith’s half of the duplex and the rear of the vet.

It was only three feet high, but when it reached the mid-point of the duplex, it had been built up to six feet to offer privacy to the residence.

“Yes, I did. I demanded to know why he was sneaking around, then when I got closer, I recognized him as the nice boy from the Cactus Stop.”

“You know Elijah?”

“Yes, I stop there on my walk every day. Two blocks, every day, even with this bad leg.”

“Did he tell you why he was hiding there?”

“He said he was just taking a break. I didn’t believe him. Told him he was a liar, and good boys don’t lie.”

“Did he tell you the truth?”

She shrugged, took a deep drag on the cigarette. Slowly let out the smoke.

“Don’t know, maybe. Not all, but maybe.”

“Which was?”

She stared at me with her magnified eyes. “Why you want to know?”

“Elijah died two weeks ago,” I said. “His mother hired me to find out what happened.”

She froze, the cigarette halfway to her lips. “I was wondering why I hadn’t seen him around.”

She thought, took a drag, stared at the store.

“How’d he die?” she asked me.

“The police say he died of a drug overdose. His mother is skeptical. I found pictures Elijah took from that spot behind the wall—people going in and out of the store. Based on the time stamps, he went there when he got off work, stayed for several hours.”

She was nodding as I spoke, but didn’t look at me.

“Edith, I’m stuck,” I said. “Do you know why Elijah was taking pictures of people leaving the store?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but I saw him many times. Confronted him. When I caught him lying, he asked me questions. He said, ‘Miz Edith, you ever notice that when I’m not working, store traffic picks up?’ I told him I didn’t pay no attention to it, but then I started.

Told him so. Told him mornings and nights were busy.

Then he said a damn funny thing, made no sense to me, maybe it will to you. ”

I waited as she finished her cigarette and stubbed it out in the sand. “He said, ‘Now I know why they never let me work nights.’ ”

I didn’t know what to make of it.

“One more question,” I said. “No one can find Elijah’s backpack. Could he have left it by the wall? Did you see it at some point in the last two weeks?”

Edith laughed. “If he left it, it’s long gone. So many people in and out of my neighborhood. I’ve lived here for nineteen years, ever since I retired. See down the street?”

I looked where she pointed, away from the Cactus Stop.

“This was a nice little street. Still is, mostly. People keep to themselves, help when they can. But it’s become a pathway from there—” she pointed toward the busier Hatcher “—down to Dunlap. And the people walking don’t live here.

They don’t care about the neighborhood. They litter.

” She pushed up from her seat and shuffled to the door.

“You know,” she said, holding on to the screen door, “there was a dead girl behind the vet a few months back. Younger than you, maybe twenty, not much older. Whole life ahead of her. Died of a drug overdose, I heard. That’s what the police said when they came.

” Edith shook her head. “I saw her there out my window. A Sunday. Thought she was homeless, had that look about her. My granddaughter picked me up for church as she does every Sunday at eight a.m. Mimi is a good girl, has been taking me to church since she got her driver’s license, when my eyes got so bad I couldn’t pass the damn test. That morning there was a line at my favorite diner after church, so I told Mimi I’d make her pancakes.

We got back at ten thirty, and that girl was still there.

I called the police, because she hadn’t moved. ”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That must have been upsetting.”

Edith didn’t respond, but there really was nothing to say. The girl had died, and the old woman felt helpless.

I knew that feeling.

Edith stepped inside the house and said, “Maybe that dead girl upset Elijah as much as she upset me.”

Then she closed the door, and I stood there a moment, considering.

I walked over to the vet clinic. They were open, and I considered talking to the vet, but through the window I saw two people with animals in the waiting room.

I would come back. Maybe they had cameras I could look at, but they likely didn’t keep video for long.

Most businesses wiped recordings every few days because of data storage limits.

I stood in the spot where I suspected Elijah had been taking pictures.

He could sit behind the wall and not be seen, easily take photos through a section of wall that had crumbled.

I looked around and, not seeing anything dangerous like used needles or broken glass, sat.

Bingo. This was the exact angle. This was where Elijah sat damn near every night for two months.

He’d told his mom he was going to a night class, but he had taken the class online. Instead, he’d sat on asphalt looking through a hole in the wall. Why?

That was the million-dollar question, but I had that tingle. The tingle that said this was important.

During the drive to Flannigan’s to meet Jessica Oliver, I called Josie.

“Hey,” Josie answered.

“You working?”

“Yep. What do you need?”

“There was a dead woman on the corner of Hatcher across from the Cactus Stop, behind the veterinary clinic,” I said. “She died of a possible OD on a Sunday morning over the summer. A neighbor called it in about ten thirty. Can you look up the case for me? Pretty please?”

“Is this related to Elijah Martinez?”

“Maybe.”

“Not a problem, but I’m heading to a call right now. Is an hour or two okay?”

“Absolutely, go save the world, Pussycat.”

I heard a deep laugh coming from the car—a laugh that wasn’t Josie.

“Pussycat?” I heard faintly and realized that Josie’s partner was in the car. Sometimes day shift rode together, sometimes they rode single, but how was I supposed to know Josie wasn’t alone?

“I will kill you,” Josie said and hung up.

Whoops.

I thought back to what Angie had told me.

Elijah loved his job when he was hired in March.

They hadn’t seen each other much over the summer, and when they started school the second week of August, he had changed, was preoccupied.

Angie didn’t know why. Elijah asked Andy’s mother if she had an opening in her house-cleaning business.

He was looking to quit, I deduced... but he hadn’t quit.

What had changed? Why hadn’t he quit if he was miserable at his job?

Could this girl’s death have been the catalyst? Had he known her?

I hoped Josie got back to me sooner rather than later.