Page 59 of Don't Say a Word
“Investigate. It’s in my job description.”
She didn’t find my joke funny. I continued, “I’ve been avoiding Detective King all day, so I’ll reach out to her and see what she’s thinking. You should go home.”
“Not now,” Angie said. “I’m going to hang here for a while.”
I remembered that I wanted her to help me identify the phone numbers on Elijah’s bill.
“I have Elijah’s phone records, up until ten days before he died. Do you recognize these numbers? I already identified his mom’s and yours.”
I pulled out my phone and showed her the screenshot of the numbers I’d consolidated from his records.
“Why don’t you just call them?” she asked as she scanned the list.
“Because if one of these people is involved in his death, I don’t want them to know I’m looking for them—at least not yet. So I have to go to my office and use a private line that won’t share my number, which they will likely decline, and then I’ll cross my fingers that they identify themselves in their voicemail.”
“There’s not a lot here.”
“I figure he texted more than he called people.”
She smiled just a bit. “Yeah. I don’t think he called me more than a couple times over the last year. Why don’t you just look at his texts? His passcode is his mom’s birthday.”
“His phone is missing.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yep.”
“Didn’t the police think it was weird?”
“I don’t know.”
She frowned, looked at the six numbers I hadn’t yet identified. “This one—ends in 1455? That’s Gina Martinelli’s cell phone. And this one is Andy, and this one is Peter.” She pulled out her phone and typed in the other numbers.
“Don’t save those,” I said.
“I won’t do anything, just looking to see if I have a contact. Yeah—this one, that ends in 2239? That’s Mr. Parsons. Mr. Parsons was helping Elijah with college applications. I don’t know the others.”
I wrote down the contact information. “This is good. Do you know when Benny works?”
“I assume after school every day, like Elijah.”
I stood, looked at her again. “Do what I say, Angie. Okay?”
“I will,” Angie assured me.
I walked out, drove my car out of the parking garage, and called Detective King on the number she left for me.
“Rachel King,” she answered gruffly.
“Hi, Rachel, it’s Margo Angelhart. You left a message for me to call.”
“I left a message this morning,” she snapped. “And I’ve called you multiple times.”
“Sounds important, how can I help you?”
She didn’t say anything for a second. “You know I need to talk to you about the Lena Clark homicide.”
“Now I do.”
