Page 59 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

Chapter Forty-Five

Margo Angelhart

I walked into Angelhart Investigations two minutes before nine Friday night. Every light was on and three men sat at the conference table eating pizza and drinking energy drinks. Jack, a man I didn’t know, and the man who had been following me.

I stood in the doorway, took off my blazer and tossed it across the back of a chair.

I said to Jack, “You didn’t tell me you were buddies with the asshole who has been tailing me for two days.”

“Just met the asshole tonight,” Jack said.

The man jumped up, nearly knocking over his Monster energy drink, and strode over to me, extended his hand. “You’re fucking brilliant,” he said.

I blinked and took his hand even though I was still really angry that he’d followed me.

“I know,” I said automatically.

He grinned. “I’m Cal Rafferty with the DEA. I followed you because you met with Bradford down at Eyman, and I needed to know what you were doing.”

“You could have asked.”

“Yyyyeah, nope.”

“I could have shot you.”

He laughed. “I think you’re too smart to shoot first, ask questions later.”

Who was this guy? I didn’t know if I wanted to punch him or have a beer with him.

I did like being called brilliant.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Mike Hitchner,” the other man said and extended his hand. “Call me Hitch.”

I shook his hand, glanced at Jack as if to ask what the hell is going on?

“They brought the pizza,” he said. “Help yourself.”

Instead, I grabbed an energy drink. This looked like it would be a long night.

“So did you lie to my brother that you didn’t know what was going on when he called you and wanted a sit-down?”

“Not exactly,” Hitch said. “I wasn’t intentionally avoiding you. Bradford isn’t my case anymore. Once he was in prison, everything became Cal’s headache.”

“Why did you visit Bradford?” Cal asked me.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t owe him an explanation.

Jack said, “We are investigating the death of a teenager. Police closed the case, but there were some threads they didn’t tie off.

The kid worked at the Cactus Stop, and over the last week we’ve come to believe he was tracking illegal activity within the store, and may have been killed because of it, framed as an accidental overdose. ”

“And Bradford?” Cal pushed.

“One of the teachers at Sun Valley High mentioned him,” I said.

“Then she was killed. I wanted to figure out if he was still running things at the school, or maybe someone took over for him and Lena Clark was stabbed to death because she had been asking questions that threatened their organization. Elijah attended Sun Valley, but there was no other connection to Bradford. I was, frankly, fishing. I didn’t get anything out of him, but I think he’s somehow involved, or may know who is. ”

“Their operation was fucking brilliant,” Cal said.

“More brilliant than me?” I asked with a half smile.

He laughed. “I’d put my money on you. The Bradford operation was simple and straightforward, which is probably why it wasn’t on our radar until the anonymous call.”

He drained his energy drink, tossed the can in the trash, then grabbed another. This guy was already wired—he didn’t need more caffeine, but I didn’t say anything.

“They compartmentalized everything,” Cal said.

“Only Eric McMahon knew that Bradford was in charge—at least of distribution. So when we got him to turn state’s evidence, the only thing Eric could give us was Bradford—and by extension his wife—and everyone Eric recruited to deal for him.

It was a pyramid. But while we watched for months, we never got the top guy.

They were very, very discreet in how they communicated with the supplier.

When Scott Jimenez shot Eric, we pulled it.

Took everyone we had down and wrapped it up. ”

“Without knowing who the supplier was,” Jack said.

“Yep. Really irked us, but we really didn’t have a choice at that point.

Then, after following Margo around, I noted she stopped at the Cactus Stop on Hatcher twice.

And something in the back of my mind told me I’d missed something.

I found it. A work permit for Scott Jimenez.

He worked at the Cactus Stop for more than two years.

Lightbulb!” Cal flicked his fingers above his head and I couldn’t help but smile.

“So I began digging into the Cactus Stop,” he said.

“Manny Ramos is squeaky clean. No investigations by any agency, not even OSHA. He has a corporation, under which the Cactus Stop holdings are just one business. He started from one store and built it up. Gotta admire the guy. Hires teenagers because they’re cheap and it gives them experience.

Gives back to the community. Friends with law enforcement.

Donates to politicians and the Catholic Church. Everyone likes him.”

Jack said, “What are you getting at?”

“I’ll tell you everything we have, if you tell me everything you know. Even if you can’t prove it. Then maybe we can finally put an end to this operation.”

“On one condition,” Jack said.

I glanced at him, confused. Jack usually jumped to work with law enforcement.

“Sure, if I can,” Cal said.

“Promise me that you’ll never follow anyone in my family again.”

Cal shrugged. “No can do.”

Hitch said, “Cal, come on .”

“Well, I don’t know if our cases are going to cross again. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep.”

I laughed. “I like honesty.”

Cal grinned.

“One minute,” I said and went to my office.

I’d put up all my notes this morning on my whiteboard, but hadn’t really had time to analyze them. I rolled the board into the conference room and turned it to face the three men.

“Whoa,” Cal said. “Holy shit.”

He stared, taking in everything at once. The notes, the connections, the questions, and the copies of Elijah’s photos that I’d taped along the bottom because I had run out of room.

Jack slowly rose and I saw he had narrowed in on one corner. I looked where he was looking—my notes on Lena Clark and Dwight Parsons. He glanced at me and I shrugged.

“They’re connected, Jack. I just don’t know how.”

Hitch looked at the photos. “I know half these people. They’re dealers.”

“Yeah,” Cal said. “This guy—he’s been on our radar on and off for a while.”

Cal stared at the photo of Megan Osterman, then glanced over at me. “What do you know of Megan?”

“Is that your case?”

“It’s in my office as part of a task force with Phoenix.

But I refreshed myself this afternoon. She dated Scott Jimenez before he went to prison.

We looked at her, interviewed her, scared the bejesus out of her, but she hadn’t been involved with Bradford, and we had no evidence she was dealing with Scott. ”

“We had one of our female detectives try to scare her straight,” Hitch said. “I thought it worked, but I guess it didn’t.”

“She died of a drug overdose on July 6,” I said. “Across the street from the Cactus Stop.”

Cal squinted at my board, then at me. “You think Scott is dead?”

“Jeez, what gave that away? My starred note Jimenez killed after release ?”

“Funny,” he said.

“My sister can’t find him, and if Tess can’t find him, he’s either completely off the grid or in WITSEC or he’s dead. I think dead.”

“We’ll look into that,” Hitch said.

“We couldn’t get anything on Desiree,” Cal said. “But we interviewed her since she was Scott’s sister.”

“EBT,” Hitchner said. “What do you think is going on there?”

Cal frowned, as if he were thinking.

I said, “Well, I don’t have all the pieces, but Desi and her assistant manager, Tony, are running a drug operation out of the Cactus Stop.

I think it works like this: Someone comes in, either using a debit card or an EBT card, and ostensibly buys something.

But they don’t take anything from the store.

Instead, they’re given a receipt and they leave.

So I’m wondering if they take the receipt to another place to pick up drugs. ”

“You are brilliant,” Cal said. “That’s exactly what’s happening. Fuck!”

He was excited. And I was pleased that he thought I was brilliant yet again.

“Brilliant,” I said to Jack and pointed to my chest. “Me.”

“I’ll have it engraved on your headstone,” he said. I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Damn! Cash?”

“I didn’t see cash,” I said. “One witness I have said he only saw debit and EBT cards.”

“How does this work?” Jack asked. “I never worked white-collar.”

“Not my expertise,” Cal said, “but I know a lot about laundering drug money. It’s why I was so impressed with Cecilia Bradford and her laundering operation.

If she’d used her brains for good instead of evil, she’d have gone far and not be in prison.

These people are dealers.” He tapped the pictures Elijah had taken.

“Just like Sun Valley, but they’re not students.

Some look like homeless, some gangbangers, others could be college kids for all I know.

They’re buying their product at a discount, then setting their own prices.

It’s fucking brilliant. No drugs on the property, much harder to catch. ”

“But how ?” I asked. “They get a receipt and do what with it? Go to the drug emporium down the street?” Then I thought of what Edith Mackey had said, about people walking up and down her quiet street. Maybe I wasn’t that far off.

“Pretty much,” Cal said. “Go in, run your card for some predetermined amount, get a receipt, take that receipt to pick up your supply, sell it. Where do they go? There has to be a place close by where they bring proof of purchase.”

“Same street?” Margo asked. “At least in the neighborhood?”

“Most likely. From the pictures, these people came on foot.”

“That’s what I also observed.”

“So close by. Blocks. And that’s why this works. Someone raids the place, they’re not going to find anything.”