Page 4 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

“I’ll tell them, then send them back here.” Ava rose and left the room.

“Do you think this kid is really the saint his mom made him out to be?” Jack said. “I mean, we were pretty good kids, but we all had our moments of stupidity.”

“We won’t know until we start asking,” I said.

“She deserves to know what happened to her son,” Tess added. “It’s heartbreaking.”

It was, but it happened all the time. Kids made bad decisions. Most of the time they didn’t die, but sometimes they did. Sometimes they went to jail. Sometimes they got away with it and did it again... and sometimes they had a wake-up call and turned their life around.

But sometimes, a kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time and whatever happened was not his fault.

Where did Elijah Martinez fit in?

Uncle Rafe and Alina walked back in, sat down where they had before.

Ramos stood on the threshold and said, “I can’t stay, I have a meeting, but I wrote my cell phone number on the back of my card.

If you have any questions, or need any access to the Stop where Elijah worked, call me direct and I will make it happen. ”

He put a couple cards down on the table, then crossed to Alina, bent over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll stop by later this week. If you need anything, call. I mean it, Alina.” He then shook Uncle Rafe’s hand. “Good to see you again, Father,” he said, then walked out.

“He’s a good man,” Alina said. “Is it... is it truly a burden to help me without payment? I can pay, but not all at once.”

“It’s not a burden,” Jack said. “If we find this taking longer than we expect, we can revisit the issue.”

I had a pretty good grasp of what we needed to do.

Talk to Elijah’s friends, coworkers, the responding officer, and the detective.

Find out where Elijah was the twenty-four hours before he died, and in learning the timeline, we may be able to piece together who he was with and where he obtained the drugs.

It seemed pretty cut-and-dried. Of course, people could lie, especially kids who thought they might get in serious trouble if it came out that they left their friend dying of an overdose.

But in this day and age, they wouldn’t be prosecuted.

They might at the most be put on probation or sent to drug rehab. And that could be a wake-up call.

“We have some questions,” Tess said kindly, “and the more you can tell us, the better, okay?”

“Of course,” Alina said. “Father Rafe says if anyone can find the truth, it’s the Angelharts.”

Uncle Rafe caught my eye. He smiled that slight smile he had when a situation ended to his satisfaction. Yes, he was a priest, but he could be very manipulative. Fortunately, it was usually on the side of truth, justice, and the American way, so I was okay with it.

Tess took notes, and Jack and I asked most of the questions.

What school Elijah attended, who his closest friends were, did he have a girlfriend, a list of his teachers, who attended the funeral, how long he worked at the Cactus Stop and which location, did he own a vehicle or how did he get around.

An hour later we had a very good sense of who Elijah was, at least from his mother’s perspective, and I had a list of people to talk to first—a teacher, the guidance counselor, three friends, and his supervisor at work.

She only had Elijah’s work number and the number for one of his friends, Andy Perez.

I’d have to track down the others. What they told me would dictate my next steps.

When we were done, I walked Uncle Rafe and Alina to the door. “I’d like to come by your house and look through Elijah’s things, if that’s okay with you, Alina,” I said.

“ Sí. Anytime.”

I wanted to talk to Josie first, so said, “Would this afternoon be good? I’ll text you exactly when, but probably between two and four.”

She nodded. “I will be home. My supervisor has been very generous with time off, but I need something to do, so I go back part-time tomorrow, then full-time next week. Everyone has been kind. Father Rafe. Mr. Ramos. Elijah’s teachers.

” Alina touched her chest over her heart. “Everyone who met my son liked him.”

“I’ll see you this afternoon,” I said to Alina. Then I hugged Uncle Rafe and said, “We’ll talk later.”

As soon as they walked out, I went to my office and called Josie. “Uncle Rafe and Alina Martinez just left.”

“Damn, I wanted to give you a heads-up. I didn’t know they’d go see you, but Uncle Rafe called me yesterday with a hundred questions, and I had a feeling he was going to ask you to look into that kid’s death. You’re taking it, aren’t you?”

“Yep. Have time to meet?”

“It’s my day off, so anytime, but I don’t want to go downtown.”

“I have some research to do here, then I’ll come up to your neck of the woods.” Josie lived in a small condo in Desert Ridge.

“I’m not going to ask you to come all the way up here.”

“Not a problem. I want to go to the wine store and get Uncle Rafe his favorite tequila and my mom her favorite wine.”

“Oh, shit!” Josie said. “I totally forgot Aunt Ava’s sixtieth birthday party!”

“You didn’t, because it’s not until Thursday. What are you doing for yours?”

September was a big month of Morales/Angelhart birthdays. Uncle Rafe’s was the day after Mom’s, and Josie’s was two days after Uncle Rafe’s.

“My mom’s taking me to a spa, then I have a date.”

“Who?”

“I’ll tell you later. I’ll meet you at those tables outside Barnes & Noble at eleven thirty, good?”

“See you then.”