One
Though I didn’t know it at the time, Fate walked into the bar on Monday night in the form of Andy Flannigan.
“Usual?” I called out to the county prosecutor, holding up a cold mug.
He nodded and motioned that he’d be sitting at a table in the corner. That was odd—he always sat at the bar, unless he was with friends.
I poured Andy his favorite Harp on draft and brought it over to where he sat.
“It’s been a while,” I said as I did a quick swipe over the table with my rag, then placed the pint on a coaster I pulled from my pocket. He usually came in every week, but I hadn’t seen him in more than a month.
“Thanks, Margo,” he said. “When you have a few minutes, I’d like to talk to you about something.”
“Sounds serious.”
He shrugged, didn’t elaborate.
I was curious. “Give me fifteen? Scotty will be off his break and I can take a few.” It was a quiet Monday night; I could probably take more than a few minutes.
“Thanks,” he said.
I went back to the bar, unloaded the dishwasher, checked stock. Andy was acting more serious than normal. While he was always on the calm, cool, collected side of the line, he had a great sense of humor. Fun and friendly. I’d known Andy most of my life. We’d gone to school together, though he was a couple years older than me and was still friends with my brother Jack and the group they had hung with in high school. The slight frown on his face was a bit disconcerting because Andy was definitely the least serious of the group.
I hoped there was nothing wrong with his parents, who owned the bar, Flannigan’s, where I had been working since I left the Army last year. They were in their late fifties, still worked full-time, but didn’t want to work most nights or weekends anymore. Hence, I had a pretty good gig with flexible hours. Plus, I liked beer.
By the time Scotty returned from break and I could take my fifteen minutes, nearly half an hour had passed. “Sorry,” I said when I finally sat down across from Andy. “So, what’s going on? You seem worried...and you only drank half your beer.”
“Dad said you finally got your PI license.”
I tilted my head. “Finally?”
He gave me a slight smile. “You were dragging your feet for a while.”
True. I was still dragging my feet because I didn’t know if I really wanted to be a private investigator.
“I haven’t had much business,” I said. “If you’re concerned I’m going to leave your folks high and dry, I’m not quitting anytime soon.”
“I want to hire you.”
I leaned back and must have given him an odd look because he said, “You’re not doing a very good job of acting like you want business.”
“It’s not a priority right now.”
I was in that place in my life that my mom assured me everyone goes through, though I had my doubts considering none of my siblings had ever been in limbo. I was twenty-five, had changed career paths, and didn’t know if I was doing the right thing.
The few PI cases I took were easy, and most I did for expenses only. A background check for one of my cousins who had concerns about a new hire, finding an elderly man from my grandparents’ neighborhood who had wandered off, then giving his daughter advice and help in securing the house so he didn’t do it again. Strangers had called to check my rates to prove their spouses were cheating; I declined those cases. But I took one from a high school friend who caught his wife in a lie, though she denied having an affair. We were both surprised when I uncovered that she was dealing drugs where she worked at Arizona State University.
“I trust you,” he said. “And this is...well, I shouldn’t be doing this. But I can’t sleep. My entire life, when I get insomnia I know what I’m doing is wrong.”
“Then don’t do it.”
“It’s not that easy. Will you just hear me out?” His eyes were puffy and shadowed. He wasn’t lying about not sleeping.
“Sure.” Maybe he just needed advice, not a PI. I gave advice freely, to the frustration of my siblings and cousins who often didn’t listen to me (but usually wished they had). Andy was practically family.
He visibly relaxed. “Thank you.”
“I haven’t taken the case yet.”
“You will when you hear the story.”
I laughed. “When did you become a psychic?”
“You’re an Angelhart,” he said, as if that explained everything. The weight of my name wasn’t lost on me. A lot was expected from Angelharts.
Andy continued. “It’s about a nineteen-year-old kid who was arrested for armed robbery and murder. He confessed. It’s a slam dunk case. The problem? He didn’t do it.”
Two
Before Andy started spilling his story, I got up and told Scotty I needed more than fifteen minutes. When Monday night football was over, it wasn’t yet baseball season, and the Phoenix Suns weren’t playing, Mondays were slow, so leaving Scotty to handle the bar wasn’t a problem. Plus, it was cold. Arizonans didn’t like going out in the cold. Most didn’t own warm coats, just windbreakers and sweatshirts. Yes, it can get very cold in Arizona. People only think about the heat of the summers and the comfortably warm days of baseball spring training, but December and January could bite your ass with sub thirty-degree mornings and sunny days that didn’t top fifty. Phoenix was in the middle of a desert. Sometimes, I wondered what people thought when they decided to settle in this valley—did they enjoy battling mother nature? Freezing in January and roasting in August?
Then I would jog into a sunrise bursting with color as it ascended the mountains, or sit outside with friends and a beer to witness a crimson sunset setting the desert aglow, and I knew why. People who didn’t live here couldn’t understand that with the bad came the good. Phoenix wasn’t perfect—no place that topped 120 degrees in the summer for weeks on end could be perfect—but the Valley of the Sun was unique. I never saw myself leaving again. After six years in the Army, away from home, I realized how much I loved and missed my hometown—and my family.
I poured a cup of coffee for myself and walked back to Andy. I sat down and said, “Lay it on me.”
“Two weeks ago, a convenience store off Camelback near 19th was robbed, the clerk shot and killed. In the process of canvassing the scene, pulling security footage, talking to witnesses, police questioned Sergio Diaz, a nineteen-year-old who works at a fast-food restaurant two blocks from the scene. The Taco House.”
“I know it,” I said. “Best street tacos in Phoenix. My cousin Millie knows the owner.”
“Millie knows everyone,” Andy said.
True, I thought. “Why’d they question Sergio?”
“He’s known to stop there after work, and he has had words with one of the clerks. Not the one who was killed, but a part-time clerk who told police that the week before the robbery, Sergio came in and was short two dollars. When the clerk refused to extend credit, Sergio threw the items back at him, then kicked a display rack on his way out.”
“That might be motive to shoot that clerk,” I said, though it seemed weak.
“It was enough for the police to talk to him. They asked him to come in, he did willingly, didn’t ask for a lawyer. He denied ever kicking a display rack, though admitted he walked out when he realized he was short on funds.”
“Is there video?”
“They record over the old footage every couple of days. The system is ancient with limited storage.”
“So the police talk to Sergio and he just says yeah, I killed the guy?”
Andy shook his head. “Not at first. He claimed he was home by 11:30. Police confirmed that he left work at 11:10 and it’s a fifteen-to twenty-minute walk to his apartment along the route that passes the store. Though the robbery occurred around 11:45, no one saw Sergio enter his apartment when he said he arrived home. They really went at him, he didn’t budge, and they had no hard physical evidence. The weapon hasn’t been found. They let him go.”
“What about the camera? You said it was an old system, but they must have something.”
Andy nodded. “It’s black-and-white, poor quality. Two young white, possibly Hispanic males entered at 11:40 wearing ball caps, brims low. There’s no clear view of their faces. They walked to the back of the store, off-camera, and the clerk appeared to watch them in the mirrors mounted in each corner of the store.
“About a minute later, ....
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