J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 2: Trial by Fire, Fatal Error, Left for Dead (93 page)

“Where are you going to live, then?” Ali asked.

“That’s one of the little kinks we’re having to work out. The new owners will take over the restaurant on May first, but we’ll have until the end of June to move out of the house. We’re thinking about moving either into a two-bedroom unit or a town house at that new retirement community, Sedona Hills Seniors. They should be ready for occupancy about the time we need to move. Their units come with a full-meal option.”

Ali knew about Sedona Hills Seniors. Touted as “Luxurious Senior Living for Active Adults,” it was being built along the highway just a few blocks west of the Sugarloaf.

“Are you sure you and Dad are ready for such a big change?” Ali asked.

Edie laughed, “More than ready, my dear. The dining room and clubhouse are lovely, and after a lifetime of cooking and serving meals, I’m ready to have someone else serve me for a change. Besides, they do all the upkeep, inside and out. What’s not to like?”

“What about Dad?” Ali asked. “Where’s he going to work on his Blazer?”

“Don’t worry about that. Most of the units come with garages. As long as he has a place to keep his tools, we could go live in a tent for all he cares.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.”

Edie nodded. “Yes, I think we’re both going to like living there. Best of all, Sedona Hills is inside the city limits.”

“City limits?” Ali echoed. “What does being inside the city limits have to do with anything?”

Edie Larson beamed at her daughter. “I thought you’d never ask,” she said. “I’ve decided to run for mayor. That guy they have now has never been in business a day in his life. He’s been here what? Five years on the outside. I know everyone in town, and I’m hoping you’ll agree to be my campaign manager. I’m also hoping you’ll help me break the news to your father.”

“You mean you haven’t told him?”

“Not yet,” Edie said. “And chances are, he isn’t going to like it.”

6:00
P.M
., Saturday, April 10
Tucson, Arizona

In the ICU waiting room, time passed with glacial slowness. Teresa’s
mother, Maria Delgado, showed up, dropped off by a neighbor who had driven her from Nogales to Tucson. In the early afternoon, Donnatelle Craig arrived as well, having driven over from Yuma.

Initially, the girls were shy around the tall black stranger, but gradually, Donnatelle won them over. The presence of the other two women in the waiting room made it possible for Teresa to spend five minutes each hour sitting at Jose’s bedside.

Some time in the course of the afternoon, Teresa emerged from Jose’s room and was astonished to find her former mother-in-law, Olga Sanchez, striding into the waiting room carrying two gigantic shopping bags with a pair of immense teddy bears sticking out of the top of one.

Teresa had assumed that Olga Sanchez was out of her life for good. And yet here she was, showing up at the hospital as though she had every right to be there, bringing along a treasure trove of goodies.

“What are you doing here?” Teresa asked.

Thin as a rail, Olga wore her lustrous black, streaked with white, hair pulled back into a complicated chignon. From the neck up, she resembled a prima ballerina, but neck down, she was cowgirl all the way, complete with skintight jeans, a western shirt, and glossy snakeskin boots. Her wide belt sported a massive silver and turquoise buckle worthy of a world cage-fighting champion.

“I just heard about Jose,” Olga said. “I thought I’d come see if
there was anything I could do to help, if that’s all right. And I brought along a few things I thought the girls might like. It’s high time I met little Carinda. She’s my granddaughter, after all.”

As far as Teresa was concerned, it wasn’t all right, but for the moment, there wasn’t much she could do about it. That was how Olga operated, all sweetness and light when she wanted something. She had done it with Danny, and she was doing it again with her granddaughters, but today Teresa was too tired to summon any outrage about it; too tired to tell the pushy woman to go to hell; too grateful to have someone else show up at the hospital, willing to help out.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “Bringing toys was a good idea. It’s been a long day, and the girls are bored to tears.”

Olga nodded in Maria Delgado’s direction on the way past. Teresa noticed that her mother didn’t respond. That was hardly surprising. Maria had never gotten over her outrage at the way Olga Sanchez had treated Teresa at Danny’s funeral. Even if Teresa was willing to forgive and forget, her mother wasn’t.

Donnatelle had the girls corralled in a corner of the room and was reading to them from the Dr. Seuss book Teresa had stuffed in her bag. They looked up warily as Teresa approached, bringing Olga and her shopping bags.

“This is your grandmother,” Teresa said simply. “Your other grandmother.”

“I’m your daddy’s mommy,” Olga said.

“But she’s dead,” Lucy said.

Jose’s mother had died suddenly a year ago.

“I’m your real daddy’s mommy,” Olga said. “You can call me Grandma Olga. And look. I brought you some toys. Do you want to see them?”

Knowing she’d been outmaneuvered, Teresa paused long enough to introduce Olga to Donnatelle, then she walked away as the girls dove for the bags. With everything that was going on, Teresa understood that she had only so much strength. With that in mind, it was important to choose her battles. This was a fight for another day and another time, when she wasn’t dog-tired and when she didn’t have a possibly dying husband lying in a bed in the ICU. When she was stronger, she would sit down with her daughters and explain this mystery. Teresa had always intended to tell the girls about Danny and Oscar
and Olga, but she had imagined that it would be at some time far in the future, when the girls were old enough to understand

“You shouldn’t have let her get away with that,” Maria whispered to her daughter when Teresa was back in earshot.

By then Olga had pulled a camera out of her purse and started taking pictures. Lucy loved posing for photos, and anything Lucy did, Carinda wanted to do, too. The girls mugged for the camera while Olga snapped away. What could it hurt if Danny’s mother had photos of her granddaughters? Maybe it was time to get over some of those old hurts. Maybe it was time to move on.

“It’s called turning the other cheek, Mother,” Teresa said. “Right now, with everything else that’s going on, I need all the help I can get.”

“You’ll be sorry,” Maria predicted.

“Maybe,” Teresa said. She leaned her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes. “Right now I’m going to try to take a nap. Wake me in an hour.”

6:00
P.M
., Saturday, April 10
Tucson, Arizona

There had been a rollover semi accident on the bridge where I-10
crossed the Gila River. If Sister Anselm had been listening to the traffic advisories from her GPS, she might have known about the accident in time to choose another route and come down through Chandler or Apache Junction. But the constant chatter from the GPS lady’s voice got in the way of Sister Anselm’s thinking time. Since she knew the way to PMC with her eyes closed, she left the GPS off, and when she got caught up in the hour-long traffic delay, there was nothing to do but sit and wait.

When Sister Anselm finally arrived at the PMC campus on Tanque Verde, she parked her Mini in the far corner of the large lot. She was healthy enough to walk. It seemed important to leave the parking places closer to the main entrance for people who needed them.

People meeting Sister Anselm Becker for the first time would have thought they were encountering a retired businesswoman. In public she favored tailored pantsuits with no-frills blouses. In hospital settings she wore flowered scrubs that let her blend in with the other health care professionals. Her silver hair was cropped short. Her lined face was devoid of makeup. She walked with a slight limp from her hip replacement surgery years earlier. Her most striking feature, however, were her blue eyes. Beaming with cheerful intelligence, they offered a window on her soul through a pair of plain wire-framed glasses. Sister Anselm was a woman of faith, and that was where it shone through—in her eyes.

She had walked the halls of Physicians Medical many times. Once inside the lobby, she had no need to ask for directions. She made her way directly to the hospital administration office, where she signed in as a visiting service provider and was issued a temporary identification badge. From there she went to the ICU. Before looking in on Jane Doe, Sister Anselm tracked down the charge nurse at the nurse’s station. Mona Lafferty was someone Sister Anselm had worked with on previous occasions.

“I wondered if you’d be able to come,” Mona said.

“I got here as soon as I could,” Sister Anselm answered. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s pretty heavily sedated but lucky to be alive.”

“No ID?”

“None.”

“Any distinguishing marks?”

“She’s got a tattoo of a rose on her right breast,” Mona said. “And what looks like cigarette burns and cuts all over her body.”

Tattoos were common enough on male illegals. Less so on the female of the species. As for the torture? That might have been used to extract information about friends and associates.

“Talking?”

Mona shook her head. “Not so far. Do you want to look at her chart?”

“Please. I’d like to take it to her room, if you don’t mind.”

Mona smiled. “Knock yourself out. Her room’s the second one on the right.”

With the chart in hand, Sister Anselm let herself into Jane Doe’s room. She stood for several long moments, staring down at the injured and unconscious woman. Sister Anselm had encountered damage from beatings before, but in her experience, this was one of the most brutal. The real surprise was that the woman was still alive.

Her head had been shaved so the wounds on her scalp could be stitched together. Both arms and one leg were broken, but due to skin damage from the burns and cuts, the broken limbs were encased in splints rather than plaster casts. Her jaw was wired shut. What was visible of her face was a road map of stitched cuts and vivid bruises. It looked as though both her nose and one eye socket had been damaged and would require reconstructive surgery. Wherever bare skin
was visible, so were the scabby tracks that burning cigarettes had left all over her body.

Settling into the room’s single chair, Sister Anselm switched on a reading light and began to read. The list of injuries was appalling. At least four teeth had been knocked out of her mouth. So far Jane Doe had already undergone two separate surgeries to repair damage to her internal organs. The surgical intervention that had no doubt saved her life had also resulted in the removal of her uterus. The chart estimated the young woman’s age to be late teens or early twenties. When Jane Doe awakened from what was at the moment a medically induced coma, she would discover that having children of her own was no longer an option.

But not having children might be the least of it. She had sustained several blows to the head. So far there was no sign of brain swelling, but with any kind of head injury, there was always a possibility that the patient would be left with impaired mental faculties, which could necessitate relearning things like reading and writing.

At the bottom of the chart was a notation that said that a rape kit had been taken. Sister Anselm didn’t put a lot of stock in that. If the young woman had been attacked by fellow illegals, it was all too likely that the perpetrators who had raped, beaten, and tortured the girl and left her to die would never be identified, much less brought to justice.

As Sister Anselm went to return the chart to the nurses’ station, she heard the sound of a raised female voice. “That’s not true!” a woman declared heatedly. “My husband would never do such a thing!”

The speaker was a pregnant woman in her late twenties or early thirties. She was sitting a few seats away from the rest of her group of visitors, talking with an older man in a law enforcement uniform who was wearing a badge. His handgun was in its holster, and a white Stetson was in his hand, on his lap. A few yards away, a wide-eyed girl who looked to be five or so and another, younger one stood on either side of a seated black woman, whose arms encircled both of their waists. Their big eyes never left the pregnant woman, and they seemed disturbed.

“I’m so sorry about all this, Teresa,” the man said in more hushed tones and looking around. “I’m sorry Jose is hurt, of course, but I wanted to let you know what’s going on. What was found at the scene
makes it look like drugs were involved. You need to be prepared for what’s coming.”

“This can't possibly be true,” said the distraught woman, obviously trying but failing to speak quietly. “He must have stopped someone who was smuggling or transporting drugs. No matter what you say,” she added vehemently, “my husband is not a drug dealer!” With that she burst into tears.

The black woman rose, ushered the girls over to a seated older woman, and came to put her hand on the pregnant woman’s shoulder. She looked at the officer. “What exactly is it that’s coming, Sheriff Renteria?” she asked.

The man turned to her. “And you are?” he asked.

“Deputy Donnatelle Craig,” she answered. “With the Yuma Sheriff’s Department. I’m a friend of the family.”

“Since it’s an officer-involved shooting—” he began.

“I understand all that,” Donnatelle interrupted. “Just tell us who’ll be investigating the shooting. DPS?”

“Yes. Lieutenant Duane Lattimore with the Department of Public Safety. I’m sure he’ll be stopping by sometime soon—if not today, then tomorrow. I felt obligated to let Teresa know what’s really going on.” The sheriff reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a business card, which he handed to Donnatelle. “I’ll be going, then,” he said. “But here are my numbers in case Teresa needs to get in touch with me.”

That’s the problem with waiting rooms,
Sister Anselm thought.
There’s no such thing as privacy.