Page 137 of Don't Say a Word
“You’re not the only agent who went over these files, nor the ranking agent,” George said. “If anything was missed, we all missed it.”
“Okay—bear with me,” Cal said. “We ended the investigation with one unknown—the supplier. We knew Bradford had a deal with someone, and we assumed that person was in Yuma because of his travels. We never had a line on him, but we had, between Bradford and Eric McMahon, all the players at Sun Valley High. Everything they gave us confirmed what we had learned. So nothing was off, right?”
“Have you slept in the last two days?”
Cal ignored him.
“So, case closed, supplier on the back burner, I put in all the alerts so if something pops, we get it. Now, three years later, a PI who’s investigating an overdose death suddenly is talking to all our people. She talks to Bradford. She talks to Eric. So I’m looking at where she’s going, and she’s been to the Cactus Stop twice in the last two days. Why?”
“She was thirsty? She wanted smokes? It’s a convenience store, Cal.”
“Yeah, but she was talking to people. Investigating. I know what it looks like when someone is looking for answers.”
George’s mouth twitched, but Cal ignored him.
“So I’m going through everything that we have and seeing if the Cactus Stop was mentioned.”
Cal pulled out a thin folder. “Reams of paper, and I find this.”
He handed it to George. “A work permit?”
“For Scott Jimenez. Anyone under fifteen and a half needs a work permit signed by the school. He worked at the Cactus Stop on Hatcher from age fifteen until he was arrested when he was seventeen. He worked there for more than two years. But it was a job, and no one else worked there that we interviewed or arrested, just Scott.”
“This is weak, Cal.”
Cal ignored the comment. “So I looked up Scott’s data, wanting to see where he is, what he’s doing, maybe I’d pay him a visit, see what’s what. I can’t find him.”
“Moved out of state?”
“Gone. No sign that he has moved, left the state, got a job, has a phone, gone to prison for another crime, nothing. But get this, I called juvenile detention, thought they might have some info from when he was released, and surprise—two days ago Teresa Angelhart from Angelhart Investigations pulled his file, asked specifically for his last known address.”
“That’s a little interesting.”
“It’s more than alittleinteresting. I don’t want to work witha PI, but they know something, and I need to know what they know. But that means I’m going to have to give them something, because they’re not going to want to share.”
“Especially when Margo Angelhart finds out a DEA agent was following her.”
Cal winced. “You read my report.”
“Thank you for at least writing a report. I got your back, Cal. It needed to be done. Reach out to them.”
“I’m going to use Hitchner with Phoenix DEB as a buffer. He knows the Angelharts and can smooth things over.”
“Fine. Keep me in the loop. I’m gone for the weekend with the family, so technically, you’re in charge. Don’t abuse it.”
Cal grinned. “No promises.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Margo Angelhart
Manny Ramos lived in a beautiful house in Paradise Valley built into the southern edge of the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. While it faced mostly south, the slight angle had the setting sun turning the house aglow in golds, reds, and oranges as I drove up the steep drive. Discreet lighting along the edge, interspersed with desert-thriving shrubs and cactus, guided my route to the sprawling two-story mansion that blended beautifully into the rocky terrain.
I parked next to my mother’s classy Escalade. My mother wasn’t pretentious, but she’d bought the SUV after she went into private practice. After decades of driving either a beat-up Excursion that finally stopped running with 420,000 miles on the odometer a week before Lu graduated from high school, or the subsequent practical Volvo she’d bought used, she wanted what she wanted. Who could blame her? She gave the Volvo to Tess after she graduated from law school, and Tess was still driving it.
I didn’t knowexactlywhat was going on at the Cactus Stop. I had a tickle of doubt about bringing in Manny Ramos only because of what I had learned about EBT fraud. If it was happeningat scale, someone in accounting would know. This wasn’t a mom-and-pop shop, this was a thirteen-store chain.
Yet, I could be wrong about the fraud. It could be a simple drug-running operation, which would better explain Megan’s messages to Elijah, and his subsequent stakeout of the store. He had been looking for someone specific, or looking to catch someone in the commission of a crime.
