Page 51 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Margo Angelhart

Luisa and I helped Tess and Uncle Tom clean up after the party and I didn’t get home until one in the morning. It wasn’t until I woke up at six thirty that I remembered I’d wanted to stop by the office and inspect Megan’s phone. I’d have time to do it before my meeting with Dwight Parsons.

I showered and was in the Black Rock Coffee drive-through lane when my phone rang. It was Angie.

“Margo, there’s crime scene tape around the high school, cops all over the place. Everyone says that someone was killed, but no one knows who!”

“Where are you?”

“Standing with, like, three hundred people in the parking lot.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said.

I was trapped in the line with cars in front of me and behind me, so I called Josie.

She didn’t answer. She was probably at the crime scene since she was on duty today. I texted her.

Are you at SVHS? Is there another murder?

She didn’t immediately answer, so I called Jack and told him what Angie said. He said he’d find out and get back to me.

I was halfway to the high school when Josie texted me.

I’m on scene. Suicide, teacher. Sometime last night, trying to get more details from the ME who just arrived.

I asked: How do you know it was suicide?

I was already parked in the student lot when Josie finally responded.

Left a note. Parsons, Clark’s boyfriend. He confessed.

No way. No fucking way , I thought.

I was about to tell her that Parsons left a message for me yesterday, but I didn’t. She might be compelled to put that information into the report, and I needed time to think.

Instead, I texted: Let me know if there is anything weird, as in not a suicide.

She responded with several question marks, but I texted Angie instead of Josie.

Where are you? I’m in the far corner of the student parking lot.

A second later, Angie wrote: coming , and I waited. She slipped into my passenger seat and said, “Everyone is saying it’s Mr. Parsons and that he killed himself. I don’t believe it.”

“It is Mr. Parsons,” I said.

Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t cry. “Fuck. I talked to him yesterday. He wanted to talk to you. He was sad, but... he killed himself? No way. Why?”

“Guilt, maybe?”

“For what?”

“Killing his girlfriend.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

I was having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I had listened to his message twice while waiting for Angie.

Have you made any progress in your investigation? I thought maybe we could trade notes.

He also said he was struggling and that he could have saved her. Why would he want to talk to me and then kill himself before he did so? Why would he tell me he could have saved her, yet confess to her murder?

“Is there someplace safe I can take you?”

She shrugged. “I just want to know what’s going on. Mr. Parsons was a great teacher. Do you think he really killed her?”

“No,” I said before I caught myself. “Angie, this is important. What exactly did you and he talk about yesterday when you gave him my number?”

Angie thought. “He was upset. He said he should have stayed with her, but he left papers in his classroom to grade and ended up talking to Mrs. Porter. She’s across the hall from him.

He said the detective made it sound like they thought he was guilty, but said it was just the detective’s style, like how she made it sound like she thought I killed her.

” She paused. “I asked him if he was okay, and he said he would be. He was sad, but he... he really wanted to talk to you again.”

“He left me a message. I have to talk to Detective King. Dammit.”

I didn’t want to, but she needed to look at his death as a homicide investigation, not a suicide inquiry. “Can you hang with your friends today?” I asked Angie. “Don’t be alone. Okay?”

“Yeah. Gina’s over there with Andy and a couple of her friends. School’s canceled, but I’ll find something to do.”

“I’ll call you later.”

I locked my car, watched Angie head toward her friends, then I texted Josie.

I’m here and I have information directly related to Parsons’s death. Can you get me through the line to talk to the detective in charge?

Then I called my mom.

Ten minutes later, Josie brought me through the crime scene tape and into the center courtyard. “King is pissed,” she muttered.

“I figured,” I said.

Rachel King was talking to the ME when we approached, but her partner, Jerry Chavez, saw us and immediately came over. “Margo, thanks so much for reaching out. Officer Morales, can you make sure the line is secure? We just caught two kids trying to sneak through.”

He said it with a smile, clearly trying to play nice.

“No problem,” Josie said. She glanced at me, made sure I knew that she would be close. What did she think, that King was going to arrest me?

When Josie stepped back to the crime scene tape, Chavez said, “Seriously, thanks. What can you tell me?”

He was edging me slowly away from King and I wondered if he hadn’t told her I was here. But she saw me, said something to the ME as he and his team went into the building, and made a beeline for us.

“Why am I not surprised to find you in the middle of this?” King said with a deep scowl.

“Goodbye,” I said and started to leave.

“Hold up,” Chavez said. He reached out and held my arm. I looked down at his hand and he immediately removed it. “That came out wrong,” he said.

“Don’t apologize for your partner.”

King said, “You avoided me all day when I wanted to talk to you about Lena Clark, and then an hour after a body is found you’re willing to help? What are you in the middle of?”

“I told you. Elijah Martinez’s mother hired me to find out where her son was during the time when he left work until he died in the park.”

“And have you?” she snapped.

I didn’t answer her question. Instead, I said, “Parsons didn’t kill himself.”

“We have a note, gunshot appears to be self-inflicted, and a half dozen people said he was depressed. Guilt has a way of doing that.”

“Wraps up your homicide with a pretty bow,” I said.

“You have one minute to explain why you don’t think he killed himself, make it good.”

I pressed Play on my voicemail. The detectives listened to his message. At the end King said, “That’s not evidence of anything.”

“After he left the message, I called him back and left my own message, then he texted me and we scheduled a meeting for this morning at my office.”

“Not evidence that he didn’t kill his girlfriend and then himself out of guilt. A delayed murder-suicide.”

“Did he sound like he was in a suicidal mindset?” I said, holding up my phone.

“Send me the message,” King said. “I’ll consider it once I get the ME’s report.”

“As long as you keep an open mind,” I said.

Though her jaw was clenched, King dipped her head with a nod.

I sent her a copy of the voicemail. “Can I see the note?”

“No.”

Chavez bumped King lightly. “Maybe just a look.”

She glared at him, then breathed out a long sigh. She pulled up an image on her phone. “Look, don’t copy. I mean it.”

The photo consisted of a bloody note written on blank white paper, like what might be found in a copier. His hand was partly visible. Parsons—or the killer—had written in block letters with a black Sharpie, the thick ink making handwriting analysis much more difficult.

I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. I killed Lena. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but she broke it off and I love her so much. I don’t even remember picking up her letter opener, but I did. And I killed her and I can’t live with myself. I’m so sorry.

“He found her body. Had blood on his hands because he claimed he was trying to stop the bleeding,” King said.

“Which could be true,” I said.

“Or he stabbed her and then tried to stop the bleeding to cover it up. We have a very tight window, and Parsons said he didn’t see anyone leaving her office, nor did he see anyone in the corridor when he walked in. I think it’s because he went in, she broke it off, and he killed her.”

“Or whoever killed Lena also killed him, then framed him.”

“Very unlikely. Unlike on television, it’s not all that easy to fake a suicide.”

“You promised you’d keep an open mind,” I reminded her.

“We will investigate his death fully,” Chavez said. “It’s really going to come down to what the ME says.”

“And what if it’s indeterminate?”

“That’s rare,” King said. “Like I said, a suicide is hard to fake.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” I said. “The ME was wrong about Elijah Martinez.”

“For shit’s sake,” King muttered.

“He was murdered,” I said. “Someone poisoned him with fentanyl, and if you had followed up and asked questions, maybe you would be as suspicious as I am.”

“There was no evidence of foul play,” King said, her anger rising. “I’ve had so much shit over that kid’s death.”

“When I solve his murder, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Stay out of it—” she began.

“Why? You closed the case.”

I walked away before she made me angrier.

I had two missed calls from my mother. I called her back.

“Tell me you did not speak to the detectives without me,” Mom said.

“I did. I sent her the voicemail Parsons left for me. She said the determination is up to the ME.”

“You sound angry.”

“I am,” I said as I walked directly to my Jeep. “Told her what I think of her, and you’re right, you probably should have been here. But she didn’t arrest me so that’s a plus.”

I was trying to be light, but Mom wasn’t happy. “She could file a complaint with the licensing board. She could make your life—all our lives—difficult.”

“Not if I solve Elijah’s murder,” I said. “I’m coming down to the office. See you in a few.”