Page 37 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Margo Angelhart

Scotty brought over a half pint of Guinness for me.

“You know me so well.” I wasn’t quite ready to leave as I mulled through all the information I’d learned.

“I’d stay and chat, but it’s getting busy,” he said. “D-backs might clinch playoffs tonight.”

I noticed every seat in the bar was occupied, and most of the tables, chairs turned to the large screen where the pregame show played.

“That’d be awesome,” I said. I wasn’t as into sports watching as Jack and Luisa—I liked to play, not observe—but I did enjoy going to baseball games.

It was relaxing and fun and you could chat with friends and family.

Unlike fast-paced basketball where your brother would punch you in the arm if you talked too much. “I’ll free up the table in a few.”

“Take your time,” he said and went back to the bar.

The background chatting and voices of sports announcers didn’t bother me.

It was actually comforting, reminding me of the two years I’d worked here while building my business, and the people I’d gotten to know, some of whom I’d been able to help in a small way.

It was a nice neighborhood pub on the south side of Sunnyslope.

I drained my beer and was about to leave when my phone vibrated. It was Josie. I owed her a lot of groveling for outing her nickname.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite cousin,” I said cheerfully.

“If you think flattery is going to save you from my wrath, you are sorely mistaken.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“You won’t know the time or the place when I enact my retribution,” she said.

“I deserve it.”

“I’m never going to live this down,” Josie moaned. “Anyway, I was held over and am still at the station, but I dug around and have some details about the dead girl.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

“Stop kissing up, it’s not going to help,” Josie muttered. “So, she was identified as Megan Osterman, nineteen, Caucasian, five foot four, ninety pounds.”

“Petite,” I said.

“Underweight, malnourished, habitual drug user. Died of fentanyl poisoning.”

“You have the ME’s report?”

“Yep, it’s attached to the police report. Showed signs of long-term heroin abuse.”

“Heroin, not fentanyl?”

“Over the last several years, dealers have been lacing heroin and other illegal drugs with fentanyl, which is cheap, in order to increase the high and their profit. Almost every drug bought on the street these days has traces of fentanyl, which is increasing accidental overdose deaths.”

“Do you have an address for Megan?”

“She lived with her mother, Corinne Osterman. I’ll text you the address. Only a few blocks from where she was found. It was pretty cut-and-dried. DEB took the case, Detective Ian Solomon. Don’t know him.”

“Why would DEB take it? Are they still investigating?”

“No signs of foul play, but let’s see..

.” Josie clicked on her keyboard. “Okay... yeah. She had a fanny pack with packaged heroin, and tests found it contained a specific fentanyl compound they’d seen before in several OD deaths, so they took the case.

Probably as part of a larger investigation.

There’s a DEA number attached as well, so it’s a joint investigation. ”

“Are they actively investigating her death?”

“No,” Josie said. “They took the case because the drugs found on her body may connect with another investigation. You’d have to talk to DEB about that, it’s not in this report.

Unlike Elijah, Megan is a clear overdose of a known drug addict.

Interviews with her mother reveal that she tried to get her into rehab multiple times, going back to high school.

Her mother didn’t want to kick her out, but also didn’t know how to help her.

It’s a sad story, but unfortunately common. ”

I didn’t know how Megan fit into Elijah’s death, but I knew in my gut that somehow she did. Then I had another thought.

“Do you know if she went to Sun Valley?” I asked.

“I don’t have that information.”

I had the yearbooks in my car; I needed to go through them with a fine-toothed comb.

Based on her address, Megan had most likely been a student at Sun Valley.

Elijah... Megan... Lena. One more piece of a puzzle where I still couldn’t see the whole picture.

But if Megan had been a student at the same time Bradford was dealing, it was the best lead I had—thin as it was.

“I gotta go,” I said to Josie.

“Wait! How does this connect to Elijah? Did they know each other?”

“I’m going to find out. Bye.” I ended the call before she asked more questions.

I brought my glass up to the counter and put forty dollars under it. Scotty never charged me for beer—the Flannigans didn’t either—but the money would cover the sliders, Jessie’s drink, and give him a decent tip.

I went to my car, turned on my dome light, and flipped through the two yearbooks Angie had brought me.

Megan Osterman was a junior when Elijah and Angie were freshmen.

She looked young and sweet, not a strung-out addict.

What had happened in the three years between when she was this kid with a future until she turned into a habitual user who died in an alley?

I wished I’d asked Angie for more yearbooks. I would have liked to have seen what Megan looked like her senior year, after she started using. Would her decline into addiction be obvious, or something she’d been able to hide?

I remembered the anonymous call to Phoenix PD, about how the police believed the call was made by a girl on the softball team. I flipped to the sports section of the yearbook, thinking I’d uncover something big that would connect all these events.

No such luck—Megan Osterman hadn’t played softball. Just to be diligent, I picked up the yearbook from Megan’s sophomore year, before Elijah and Angie were in high school. I looked at her picture again, younger, smiling, happy. Thinking that she was now dead was damn depressing.

I flipped to the softball page, not expecting to find her; I didn’t.

But I found one name I didn’t expect.

Bradford, Kayla

What were the chances that Kayla Bradford was Coach Bradford’s daughter?

She was a freshman the year Megan was a sophomore.

.. I flipped to the later yearbook, and there she was, a sophomore when Megan was a junior.

There was only one photo of Kayla in the second yearbook—her official school picture.

She was no longer on the softball team, likely because she’d been shipped to South Dakota to live with her grandparents in January.

She would have graduated high school this past May.

What were the chances that Kayla Bradford didn’t mean to say my coach but instead almost slipped and said my dad ?

What if his own daughter turned Bradford in to the authorities?

Why had I jumped the gun and talked to Bradford today? I felt like I’d royally screwed up. No way would he speak to me again.

I’d found a trail from Elijah to Coach Bradford when I wasn’t even looking for it. Yes, it was thin, and yes, I’d already decided to focus on Elijah’s Cactus Stop surveillance, but this was something I hadn’t expected.

As I drove home, I came up with a plan. I sent Tess all the names of the girls on the softball team from both years, and asked her to find out where they were now.

Most of the girls overlapped: A couple seniors in the first book were not in the second, and there were a few girls in the second who weren’t in the first. I’d played softball for years, and there was always a core group that moved through together.

My phone buzzed. It was Harry, from the MVD annex.

“Hi, Harry.”

“What do you want?”

Always blunt and to the point.

“A Tesla owner.”

He snorted. “Tomorrow,” he said. “I was training this idiot today, fucking gave me a headache. There was nothing behind the eyes. Why they hired him I don’t know.”

I rattled off the number. “Thanks.”

“What they do?”

“Don’t know yet. I’m investigating a suspicious overdose death. Tesla may be involved, may not be.”

“Fucking drugs,” Harry said and hung up.

My sentiments exactly.

I called Jack.

“What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“I just dropped Whitney and Austin off and am heading home.”

“What? Whitney again?”

“It was open house at Austin’s school.” Austin went to a Catholic school in Avondale, near where Whitney still lived in the house that they’d bought when they were married.

“Oh.” I shifted gears, asked all the right questions about Austin and his teachers. He was in sixth grade now.

“Not one insult about Whitney, I know your heart is not in this conversation,” Jack said after a few minutes.

“Sorry. Yeah, I’m preoccupied. I really need to talk to Hitchner.”

“I reached out, he hasn’t gotten back to me.”

“Where can I find him?”

“What’s going on?”

“I think—” I hesitated, because as I was about to verbalize my theory I wasn’t certain it would make sense.

“I’m not going to shoot you if you’re wrong,” Jack said.

“It’s a theory,” I said.

“Continue.”

Jack really was the best person to bounce ideas off.

“Elijah caught on to illegal activity, likely drug dealing, at the Cactus Stop, probably around the time Megan Osterman—who he’d gone to school with—died of a drug overdose across the street.

” I told him what Edith Mackey had said.

“Maybe Elijah had reached out to Silent Witness, or maybe he just thought about doing it. But he lied to his mom about taking community college classes. He took online classes, but she believed he was going to night classes.”

“And instead he was surveilling people where he worked.”

“Yes. It started the week after Megan Osterman died.”

Jack didn’t say anything.

“You there?”

“Just thinking. He might have suspected she obtained drugs through the Cactus Stop and wanted to prove it. But two months is a long time—he had how many pictures?”

“Hundreds. All at night, some of the same people.”

“But no photos of drug deals or suspicious behavior.”

“No. I need to sleep on this. I’ll be in the office early in the morning.”

“You also have to go to Prescott tomorrow and finish the back ground check. Logan wants to hire the new groundskeeper ASAP. Or ask Tess to do it, she won’t mind.”

“I’ll do it. I already told Tess I’d take care of it, and I sent her a bunch of names to run since she can do it faster than me. I’ll go first thing in the morning, the drive will help me clear my head. I’ll be at the office around noon.”

“And I’ll call Hitch again.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

I took a shower and lay in bed, but it took me a long, long time before I fell asleep.