Chapter Ten Margo Angelhart
Chapter Ten
Margo Angelhart
All my siblings were at the Angelhart Investigations office when Mom and I arrived.
Nico said, “I need to get back to work, but Margo said this was an emergency. What’s wrong?”
“Get the day off,” I told him.
“I can’t just—”
Mom said, “Nico, I think you’ll want to.”
If he was worried before, he looked near panicked now. He took out his phone and texted someone.
“Let’s sit in the conference room,” Mom said.
“What’s going on?” Jack asked me quietly.
“Everything,” I said. “It’s about Dad and much more.”
“Is he okay?”
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“It’s a long story, and I only have some of the answers.”
We went into the conference room, and I sat next to Mom. We both had part of the story, and I needed to make sure she didn’t change her mind about telling us the truth. I didn’t know how I would do that, but I hoped it didn’t come to that.
“I don’t know where to begin,” Mom said. “The primary reason you’re here, however, is that your father was transferred to
a federal penitentiary in Colorado. It happened early this morning, without warning, without notification to his lawyer.”
“Colorado?” Jack asked. “Which prison?”
Mom hesitated, so I said, “Supermax.”
“Why?” Jack demanded. “Why would he be sent to the most secure prison in the country? Why out of state?”
“I don’t have those answers,” Mom said. “Rita is working on it, but so far all we know is that the order came from a federal
judge. It’s sealed. The warden said it’s for Cooper’s protection.”
“In the middle of the night?” Jack asked, sounding like he didn’t believe any of this. I was still having a hard time wrapping
my head around it, but I’d had an hour car drive to let it sink in.
“Yes. The warden was aware of the court order late yesterday afternoon. The transfer was scheduled for Friday, but when the
warden arrived this morning, Cooper was already gone. He’s trying to help, but Rita is in a better position to get answers
at this point.” She rested her hand on the manila envelope that Tony Zanutti had given her. There wasn’t much else to add
because they didn’t know who had requested the transfer, the nature of the threat, or how much danger Dad was actually in.
“Is that why you and Margo went down to the prison?” Jack asked, gesturing to the distinctive Eyman State Prison label on
the paperwork in front of her.
“No,” Mom said. “We didn’t know he had been transferred until we arrived. Margo and I had a scheduled visit.”
I cleared my throat. Already, Mom was obfuscating. I knew she was nervous and scared—I was scared about Dad as well—but I
wasn’t going to start this conversation by hedging.
Mom hesitated, as if not knowing how to begin. So I did, because I damn well knew how to start.
“Monday night I got a call from Liz Swanson, who used to be one of Dad’s nurses. She saw something wonky in the electronic
medical records for one of her patients.”
“Why’d she call you?” Tess asked.
“Long story short? Dr. Klein’s former assistant, Georgia Rollins.” I explained why I’d sought her out, how she disappeared,
and everything Liz told me on the phone Monday. “She agreed to meet me, but never showed. She and her husband were murdered,
shot in front of their house early Tuesday morning.”
Nico straightened. “My office is processing evidence from that case. North Peoria. You were there?”
“After the fact. I was waiting for her at a coffee shop down the street. But when I saw a line of cops and emergency vehicles
parade by, I became concerned so went to her house. It was roped off, but I put two and two together.” With a little help
from Josie, but I didn’t say that.
“What does that have to do with Dad’s transfer?” Jack asked.
“I talked to him yesterday. Told him about Liz, begged him to tell me the truth about Devin’s murder. He refused.” I glanced
at Mom. “Mom promised to share everything. Everything,” I emphasized, my eyes fixed on hers.
She closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were damp.
“Mom, it’s okay,” Tess said, leaning over and taking her hand. “Dad is fine. If it’s a protective order, then maybe they had
a reason to transfer him, and something got lost in the process so we weren’t told.”
Tess, the eternal optimist, I thought.
Mom shook her head. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“What’s in here?” Tess asked kindly, touching the manila envelope.
“Phone logs, visitor records, a cell phone he used.” Mom slid it over to Tess.
“Mom,” I pushed when she didn’t continue. “You have been thwarting my investigation into the truth about what happened to
Devin for years. Dad is innocent. Yet you and Dad went along with this lie that Dad killed his friend in cold blood. Why?”
“To protect you.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“Yes. You. Do! You all do.”
Now the fire was back in Mom’s eyes, and that was better than the fear.
“You promised the truth,” I said firmly.
Mom took a deep breath. “Your father did not kill Devin. I don’t think any of you really believed that he did, but . . . well,
he confessed.”
She looked at her hands, and I narrowed my eyes. Was she trying to come up with another lie? But before I could challenge
her, she continued. “As you already know, Devin called Cooper to meet him at the VA medical center the night he died. What
you don’t know is why. He wanted to show Cooper something involving a clinical trial, something that Devin was very upset
about. I don’t know any of those details. When Cooper arrived, not even an hour after talking to Devin, he was dead. Cooper
saw no one except the guard at the night entrance. He called the police, gave his statement, and he thought that was it. He
told the police that Devin had called him to meet, and that was supported by phone records.
“Two days after Devin was shot to death, your father found a gun in his car. Then a phone rang, a phone that didn’t belong to your dad, that had been placed in his glove box with the gun.
The caller—a male voice he did not recognize—told him that the gun he now possessed had been used to kill Devin, and that he was to go straight to the police and plead guilty to the murder.
He could say anything he wanted about why, as long as the police believed him.
When Cooper said no, he was sent a link.
The link . . . oh, God.” She closed her eyes.
We all waited silently, staring at Mom. Finally, she said, “The link went to a website of photos. They were of everyone Cooper
loves. Me. Uncle Rafe. The five of you. My parents. Our grandson.”
I shot a glance toward Jack. I was as shocked by this confession as anyone, but Austin? My nephew had been threatened? He’d been seven and a half at the time. Jack sat rigid, his face a hard mask.
Mom continued. “There were photos of your houses, your vehicles, Margo’s old office. Rafe entering the rectory, my parents
at church, Rita and I having lunch.” Her voice cracked.
“I need the link,” Luisa said calmly. “I can trace them.”
Mom shook her head. “Cooper found me, showed me the photos, but when we tried to download them, they disappeared. The man
called again, said if Cooper wasn’t at the police station by nine that evening, one of you would be dead by ten. So he confessed.”
The story was so incredible, so unbelievable, I didn’t want to believe it. But I did. Every word. Because it explained why Dad would confess to a murder he didn’t commit.
To protect his family.
Guilt slammed at me again, but I pushed it back.
My investigations, my questions, had opened up this hornet’s nest.
Except Liz Swanson would still be dead.
Unless someone killed her because she planned to talk to me.
I didn’t know, and that bothered me. I needed to know if whoever killed Liz knew she had called me Monday night.
“Why would someone do that to Dad?” Jack asked. “Why make him a scapegoat?”
“I don’t know,” Ava said. “Maybe because he was the one who found Devin dead? Maybe they thought he knew more about why Devin had been killed? Cooper didn’t want to tell me too much, but truth be told, he didn’t know specifics.
Not anything he could point to. The only thing Cooper told me was a week before Devin was killed, Devin believed that he had uncovered falsified data in a drug trial that some of his patients participated in.
It was a drug that was supposed to help manage PTSD.
Cooper never saw the data, Devin had asked him if I had a recommendation for a lawyer he could talk to.
I gave him a name, but later learned that Devin never contacted him.
The night Devin called, he told Cooper over the phone that one of his patients using the drug had died and he believed the records had been altered to remove patients from the trial when they showed adverse effects. ”
I made a note because I didn’t want to forget to follow up. If a patient died shortly before Devin was murdered, I might be
able to find out who it was. Maybe that patient had told family or friends what they were experiencing. But that alone wouldn’t
prove anything.
“Why didn’t Dad tell the police about the drug trial that night? About why Devin called him?” Jack asked. “When he was first
questioned?”
“He mentioned that was the reason Devin had called him, but didn’t give details because the police said a detective would
talk to him later. Before anyone did, he received the threat.” Mom looked around the table, then settled her eyes on mine,
just a beat too long.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” I said.
“You were so determined to dig and we were terrified you would be killed.”
I thought about what Dad said yesterday at the prison. His cryptic comments about my birth now made more sense.
“If we know there is a threat,” I said, “we can protect ourselves. All of us.”
“Not always.”
“What did you do, Mom?” I asked.
“I never thought you’d find anything because whoever killed Devin covered up the drug trial. I talked to Devin’s assistant—”
I sat up abruptly. “Georgia? Georgia Rollins?”
“Yes. She knew about the dead patient and what Devin suspected, but she didn’t have access to the information he did. Still,