Chapter Forty-Three Jack Angelhart
Chapter Forty-Three
Jack Angelhart
Jack had been up half the night making sure that everyone in his family was safe.
So far, so good.
He barely slept, but knowing they had evidence that might help his dad prove his innocence, and that Margo had come away from
a firefight unscathed, gave him some peace. He and Nico were eating breakfast when Nate called him.
“I talked to Jim Novak,” Nate said. “He’s going through withdrawal, but is in pretty good shape, all things considered.”
“Learn anything?”
“He has a standing appointment every year for his arm—he has a prosthetic left arm. That’s how Liz remembered him, because
your dad had fitted him for the prosthetic piece. She told him on Monday that there was something wrong with his file, and
that she would put in a request to Medical Records to research it. She was concerned about potential allergies because of
a note in the record, but there was no allergy listed and Novak didn’t remember being allergic to anything.”
“Which would explain why she followed up that afternoon,” Jack guessed.
“Yep,” Nate said. “As far as the drug trial, his memory is fuzzy. The doctor says it might come back. But what he distinctly
remembers is how when he was on the drug, he had intense nightmares, to the point where he was terrified of going to sleep.
He told Dr. Klein about it, and thinks the doctor told the woman who he had to see every week during the trial, but that’s
fuzzy. He remembered the woman telling him to continue the drug, that the nightmares would pass, but Dr. Klein told him not
to take it. He stopped, but the nightmares didn’t, and he started drinking more. If he was drunk, they didn’t come back.”
“That’s awful.”
“He still gets them,” Nate said. “The doctor here is going to work with him to find tools other than drugs and alcohol to
combat the terror. Get these bastards, Jack. Novak is a war hero and doesn’t deserve to suffer like this.”
Jack thought back to what Christina Aberdeen’s sister and friend told him and Margo about her ups and downs after she started
on the trial. Maybe she had nightmares too. Or maybe the drug affected her differently. But she was dead, and no one could
ask her.
“Are you going back to Tess’s?” Jack asked.
“In a bit. I was going to hang here for a while, unless you need me.”
“Cal and Margo are on their way back from Flagstaff, so go ahead and stay. If you learn anything else, call.”
“Roger that,” Nate said, and the line went dead.
“Did you hear any of that?” Jack asked his brother.
Nico frowned. “Night terrors? I looked at the chemical compound of the Phase 4 drug, and there’s nothing in there that should cause that. They must have significantly changed the drug between the first phase and the last. I wonder if there are any records of it left.”
Jack’s phone rang again; it was an unknown Phoenix number.
“Angelhart,” he answered.
“Jack Angelhart?” a female voice said.
“Yes, who’s this?”
“Detective Jane Childs from Paradise Valley Police Department.”
Paradise Valley had a tiny jurisdiction nestled in between Phoenix and Scottsdale. Many of Jack’s cases when he was with Phoenix
PD overlapped with the PV jurisdiction, but he didn’t recognize the name.
“How can I help you?”
“We got a bulletin in our morning briefing from Phoenix PD to be on the lookout for a man named Carter. We found him.”
“And you’re calling me?”
“Well, no, I called my boss, he gave me your name and number. Carter’s in critical condition at the trauma center, probably
won’t make it. I’m at his house now, and my boss said to call you and see if you can come down for a consult. We found some
interesting things here.”
Twenty minutes later, Jane Childs—a newly minted detective, Jack quickly learned—escorted Jack around the sleek modern mansion
built into the southern side of a mountain on one of the priciest streets in Paradise Valley. There was blood in the family
room which had one of the best views of downtown Phoenix he had ever seen other than from the top of Camelback Mountain.
“You know the federal agent who shot the guy? Rafferty?” Childs asked.
“I do.”
“Carter was wearing a vest. One bullet pierced his gut right below it. The other his hip. Surprised he survived driving back from Flagstaff, that he didn’t pass out on the way. He did some triage on himself, but still, he lost a lot of blood.”
“And he called for an ambulance from here?”
Childs shook her head. “Nope. His girlfriend called. She had been sleeping upstairs when he came in. He put on music and it
woke her up. She found him in that chair.” She gestured to where most of the blood was centered. “He was losing consciousness,
she called 911.”
There were both police and crime techs going through the house. Two federal agents were talking to the top cop in Paradise
Valley, who Jack knew well. They nodded to each other before Childs led Jack upstairs and into a huge master bedroom suite,
then into the larger of two walk-in closets. A crime tech was there processing an extensive gun collection.
The closet had been converted into a high-tech storage room. The tech said, “We had to remove the doors, they were secured
electronically. Took us hours, but wow, it’s impressive.”
More than a dozen guns were neatly displayed on shelves, and another six in evidence boxes spread out just outside the closet.
Also in the room was a computer, currently dark, and a file cabinet that had been built into the wall.
Jane handed him gloves, which he put on.
“This has all been photographed and printed, but my boss wanted you to see it and didn’t want to send it electronically.”
She opened a file and placed it on the table in the middle of the closet that was bigger than the bedroom Jack shared with
his brother growing up.
Inside were photos of everyone in his family. His anger grew as he flipped through them. Margo. Tess. His son, Austin. More.
They were older, from three to four years ago. These were the pictures he guessed had been sent electronically to his father to compel him to confess to Devin Klein’s murder.
“What else is in these files?”
“Financial records, more photos—but not only of your family. This guy was watching a lot of people. According to Rafferty’s
statement, he’s a hired gun. Maybe we’ll find out who hired him somewhere in these files.”
“Do you have any idea who?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you. You know that. This is an active investigation. My boss just wanted you to know that these
pictures existed, that they’ll be logged as evidence and if you needed them for one of your cases to just call.”
She waited to find out why her boss was being so generous with a PI, but Jack didn’t share any more information.
The photos were one more piece of evidence that might help his dad.
He thanked the detective and went back downstairs. He looked around the great room. The windows with the view. The simple
but clearly expensive modern furniture. The sleek bar that took up one entire wall.
He saw a bottle of Macallan 18 on the floor near the chair, the contents spilled out. Yellow numbered markers littered the
area. What a waste.
A coaster was on the floor near the bottle. Jack leaned over. He didn’t touch it, because there was a crime scene marker next
to it. But he could read what was printed on it.
Marconi’s
Whiskey & Wine
Marconi. Mildred Maddox’s mother had remarried a Marconi.
Jack didn’t believe in coincidences.