Page 66 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

Chapter Fifty

Margo Angelhart

Operation Saguaro commenced early Monday. The joint DEA and Phoenix PD operation had obtained all the necessary warrants and seemed to be working together smoothly. It was nice when agencies got along.

After seven in the morning, I went in wired to talk to Melissa Webb.

There had been intense discussion over the weekend about whether Detective King and Chavez should interview her, and Cal listened to their arguments.

But in the end, he’d said it would take too much time.

If it was a formal interview, Webb could delay long enough for Manny Ramos to shut down and leave the country.

Already, the DEA had learned that John Brighton used his passport to fly to Mexico City on Friday night, before the Cactus Stop shooting.

That meant Ramos had likely sent him south to give him an alibi, before the hit on Desi and Tony—who was the third victim of the Cactus Stop shooting.

Connecting Ramos to the criminal enterprise was going to be difficult because there was no sign the drug operation was being run out of any other Cactus Stop location.

Ramos could claim it was just Hatcher Street.

That Desi and Tony were responsible, that whoever they worked with had killed them.

He could throw his nephew John Brighton under the bus because John worked in the corporate office.

Ramos had money and a stellar reputation.

He would be nearly impossible to indict.

Unless someone turned state’s evidence.

No one wanted to let Webb walk on murder. But a reduced sentence? Federal prison? Some enticements to come clean? All on the table.

There was no evidence that Webb killed Lena Clark, and Angie’s testimony wouldn’t be enough to get a conviction. It was enough to get a warrant for Webb’s house, which was being executed as soon as she left for work Monday morning.

I wasn’t wearing the wire to catch Webb in a lie.

The feds probably couldn’t use anything she said because of potential entrapment accusations, though I was pretty certain they would try since Arizona was a one-person recording state.

The wire was for my protection, in case Webb reacted violently to what I said.

Cal had insisted.

I walked into the administration building five minutes after Cal confirmed Webb had entered, at 7:10 in the morning.

I told the secretary I was a PI investigating Elijah Martinez’s death and had information for Mrs. Webb about a student who may have given him the drugs, and I wanted to tell her before I told the police.

Melissa Webb came out to greet me and take me into her office. The keys that Angie had heard were wrapped around her wrist. They jingled as she walked. It was a distinctive sound because of a large metal shamrock in the middle of the ring of keys.

She opened her door and motioned for me to sit in the chair across from her desk before she sat behind it. “Normally, I would refer you to the district, but I hope we can handle this situation before it gets out of hand.”

“Me too,” I said.

“Who was it? I’ll call them in first thing.”

“John Brighton.”

Webb froze. Every cell in her body seemed to go still. Then she said, “Excuse me?”

“He was a student here, and while I’m not positive that he gave Elijah the drugs, he was privy to the conspiracy.

But that’s not the main reason I’m here.

Your plan to have Angie killed failed. She wasn’t at the Cactus Stop when the hired guns came in and killed three people: Desi Jimenez, the assistant manager Tony, and an innocent bystander. ”

“You need to leave.”

“Angie heard you and Lena entering the building. She heard you tell Lena ‘five minutes.’ Angie left in the opposite direction because she didn’t want to talk to Lena. Lena then called me from her office, and a few minutes later you came in and stabbed her.”

“You are crazy,” Webb said in an übercalm voice.

“Two things. Police reports are public information. And you told the police that you left directly from the volleyball game. Which is a lie, because you came into the building with Lena. You told the police you didn’t see Lena after the volleyball game, but Angie heard you talking to Lena in the corridor.

” Slight fib—Angie heard the keys and thought she might have recognized the voice, but I didn’t have to say that.

“You were concerned when you found out that Angie was talking to me, but it wasn’t until you saw Angie and Dwight Parsons talking on Thursday that you feared they would put information together.

So you figured you’d kill him, write a fake suicide note, and he’d get the blame for Lena’s murder.

What you didn’t factor is that the police generally do a good job investigating homicides.

They found Lena’s blood in the administrative bathroom.

Dwight didn’t have time to clean up—nor have any reason to clean up because he called 911 from Lena’s office and was found putting pressure on her wounds. He had her blood all over him.”

“I didn’t kill her.”

Webb’s voice was flat, her eyes calculating.

“Good luck with that,” I said. “We have a witness, and the police have evidence.” Some, not enough. I needed her to break.

She sounded calm, but she was shaking.

“You were Manny Ramos’s mole here,” I continued.

“Bradford didn’t even know you were part of his own operation.

He thought he was the head honcho, working for his uncle-in-law.

He remained silent to protect his wife’s son, the boy raised by his uncle, the boy who was the light of his uncle’s eyes because he never had a son of his own.

Manny Ramos didn’t want John to go to prison, and Ben would do anything to stay in Manny’s good graces—and to make his wife happy. ”

Webb paled. “You can’t prove anything. Manny Ramos is a pillar of society.”

“Angie will testify that she heard you entering the administration building with Lena Clark. Circumstantial? Sure. But my guess is there is a lot more evidence as soon as the police start looking. And they will, when I turn over all my notes to them.”

“What do you want? Money? I have plenty. I’ll wire you a million dollars today.” She snapped her fingers.

“Tempting, but no. I want Manny Ramos.”

She laughed, but she sounded scared. “You’ll never get him.”

“You’re going to give him to me on a silver platter.”

“I don’t have a death wish.”

“Then you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“You have no idea who you’re going up against.”

“Manny Ramos thinks he’s a god. He sits in his big house on the mountain and looks down on the city of Phoenix and thinks he owns it.

He doesn’t. You recruited teenagers for Ramos, kids with no dad in the picture, kids with a troubled home life.

” I remembered then what Eric McMahon told me, that Scott Jimenez spent a lot of time in the vice principal’s office.

“You recruited Scott Jimenez, didn’t you?

” Webb didn’t respond. “Elijah knew what was going on, but when his friend died of a drug overdose, he needed proof. Maybe he came to you, said something that had your instincts humming. And you warned Ramos that Elijah was a problem.”

“No.” But her voice was quiet, too quiet.

“Who killed Elijah? Who poisoned him with fentanyl?”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Ms. Angelhart.”

“My favorite kind,” I said.

We were at a standoff, and I needed something to knock her over the ledge. And the only thing I could do was show most of my cards. Or lie.

Or a little of both.

“Okay.”

She looked at me quizzically.

“Not talking to you,” I said and put my finger to my ear where there wasn’t an ear bud, but she couldn’t see that with my hair down. “Just got word that the warrant on your house is being executed. They already know about the off-shore account.”

She blanched, reached for her phone.

“Don’t pick up that phone. I mean it.”

“Who’s going through my house?” Her voice ended on a squeak.

“Who killed Elijah?” I countered.

“I don’t know! I told John he was asking the wrong questions and two days later I heard he was dead. Kids make bad choices.”

“Sometimes they do.”

“I didn’t know until Monday that Elijah was dead.”

As if that made her innocent.

The door opened, and Webb looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Cliché, but in this case very true.

Detectives King and Chavez entered. “Melissa Webb, you are under arrest for the murders of Lena Clark and Dwight Parsons.”

She turned from them to me. “I didn’t! I—I didn’t.” Her voice trailed off.

Chavez read Webb her rights.

“I thought you had a search warrant,” Webb said, looking at me. “You lied about that?”

“No,” I said. “I just didn’t say who was executing the warrant. I think it was the feds.”

I, unfortunately, couldn’t participate in Melissa Webb’s interrogation, but Cal was in there with King and Chavez and came out an hour later grinning ear to ear.

“She spilled everything and all we had to do was reduce her sentence to twenty years for second-degree murder and promise a federal penitentiary as far from Arizona as she can get.”

“And?”

“I have a list of all the drug houses, a statement of how the operation worked—you were right about that—and all the players she knows, including John Brighton. It’s a multimillion-dollar operation.

Plus the kicker—Webb has Elijah’s backpack.

John Brighton gave it to her and told her to put it in a locker.

She did, in the gym, since there are no other lockers on campus.

No one thought to look in it, not even the coaches, because the lock was standard for the school.

Your cousin Josie and her partner are getting it now and will transport it to the crime lab for processing. ”

“What now?”

“The FBI is going to raid the corporate offices, Phoenix PD and DEA are going to raid the drug houses, and I’m going to serve the warrant on Manny Ramos at his house. I’d love for you to come with me, because you’ve earned it, but I can’t.”