J.A. Jance - Dead Wrong

“Hello?” Millicent said anxiously when she picked up. “Joanna?”

“Yes.”

“Have you found her?” Millicent demanded. “Is she all right?”

Joanna took a steadying breath before she answered. “I have found her,” she said. “But she’s not all right. Jeannine’s at University Medical Center in Tucson-in grave but stable condition.”

There was a long pause before Millicent Ross spoke again. “Oh my God! What happened?”

“Someone attacked her while she was sitting in her truck, pulled her out of the vehicle, and beat her up,” Joanna said. “And we’re not talking your everyday, run-of-the-mill beating here, Millicent. They damn near killed her. I was just talking to her doctor-Dr. Waller,” she continued. “He needs the name of her next of kin. I don’t seem to have any record of that. For some reason the information appears to have been either omitted or obliterated from her records.”

“It’s not strange at all,” Millicent returned. “She doesn’t want to have anything to do with those people, and I don’t blame her.”

“So she does have relatives?”

“Yes, of course she does.”

“Do you know who and where they are?” Joanna pressed. “Do you know how we can reach them?”

Joanna wanted that rape-kit consent form signed. If contacting Jeannine’s parents was the only way to accomplish that goal, then that’s what she would do.

“She was born in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico,” Millicent said.

“Good,” Joanna said. “Are her parents still there? Do you have a name and address?”

“You mustn’t contact them,” Millicent said.

“Don’t be silly,” Joanna said. “Their daughter has been injured and is in the hospital. Of course I have to contact them. Why wouldn’t I?”

Millicent took a deep breath. “Do you know anything about how Jeannine was raised or why she left home?”

“A little, I suppose,” Joanna conceded. “She told me once that she’d had a troubled childhood.”

“Troubled?” Millicent snorted derisively. “I’ll say it was troubled. Her father sexually abused her regularly from the time she was little. It’s her first conscious memory. When she finally got up nerve enough to tell her mother about what was going on, her mother called her a liar and threw her out of the house. Those people are monsters. The way they treated Jeannine is absolutely criminal, but to have them called in when she’s lying helpless in a hospital bed and has no say in the matter… No. You just can’t do that.”

“Millicent,” Joanna said. “Someone needs to be here with her.”

“And I will be,” Millicent said at once. “It’ll take me a little while to cancel my appointments and make arrangements to close the clinic for the day, but I’ll be there as soon as I can. You say she’s at UMC? What’s her doctor’s name again? I’ll need to talk to him.”

“Waller. Dr. Grant Waller.”

“All right,” Millicent Ross said. “I’m on my way.”

After Millicent hung up, Joanna paced in the breezeway. Dr. Waller had already alluded to the new patient privacy rules on more than one occasion. And the sign posted on the door into the ICU had been plainly marked: Authorized Visitors Only.

In the narrowly observed rules of medical treatment, Joanna guessed that the relationship between Millicent Ross and Jean-nine Phillips wasn’t going to qualify Millicent as authorized. For more than ten minutes, Joanna walked back and forth, wrestling with what was the right thing to do in a wrong situation. Finally she redialed Millicent Ross’s number.

“Has something happened?” Millicent demanded as soon as she heard Joanna’s voice. “Has her condition gotten worse?”

“No,” Joanna said. “Nothing has changed. But I was thinking. How much older are you than Jeannine?”

“Love is love,” Millicent snapped back, her voice suddenly cold. “Age has nothing to do with it.”

“How much older?” Joanna persisted.

“Several years,” Millicent conceded reluctantly. “My daughter’s a year older than Jeannine is and my son’s a year younger. But still, I don’t see how the difference in our ages has anything to do with-”

“Actually it does,” Joanna said. “In fact, it’s the whole point. Dr. Waller is a stickler for the rules. He expects me to contact Jeannine’s mother, so presumably he’s expecting her to show up even though he has no idea where she lives or what her name is.”

Suddenly Millicent grasped where this was going. “If I were to show up claiming to be her mother, how would he know the difference?”

“Exactly,” Joanna said, “but you never heard it from me.”

“No,” Millicent Ross agreed. “I certainly didn’t. Thank you, Joanna. I owe you one.”

Joanna thought about Jenny, who wanted to be a veterinarian. Even though Jenny wasn’t yet in high school, Millicent Ross had been unfailingly encouraging about the chances of Jenny’s achieving that somewhat lofty dream.

“No, you don’t,” Joanna said. “You don’t owe me a thing.”

“I’m coming as soon as I can,” Millicent said. “Will you still be at the hospital when I get there?”

“Maybe,” Joanna said. “But it might be best if we didn’t cross paths.”

“I understand,” Millicent returned.

“But there is one other thing we need,” Joanna added. “Dr. Waller didn’t do a rape kit.”

Joanna heard Millicent’s sharp intake of breath. “You think she was raped?”

“I don’t know for sure, but performing the exam is the only way to confirm whether or not she was. And it’s also the only way to gather possible DNA evidence and photograph her wounds for the legal record. Without a signed consent form, that isn’t going to happen.”

“Believe me,” Millicent said determinedly. “There will be a signed consent form.”

“And insist they photograph whatever bruising there is and also that they do scrapings from under her fingernails,” Joanna added. “If she fought them-and from the way the truck looks, I think she did fight-there may be usable DNA material under her nails as well. The problem is,” she added, “there’s always a chance that, if word gets back to them, Jeannine’s parents will show up at the hospital after all. What you do then, I don’t know.”

“I’ll be able to handle it,” Millicent Ross returned.

Relieved that she had done as much as she could, both for Jeannine and for Millicent, Joanna put her phone away and headed back to the emergency room, where she corralled the first available clerk.

“I’m investigating that beating victim who was brought in early this morning,” she said, showing the clerk her ID. “I need the names of all the attendants who were on duty at the time she was admitted.”

“I can get you a list if you like,” the clerk said with a shrug. “But you see that guy over there-the tall skinny one?”

“Yes.”

“His name’s Horatio. Horatio Gonzales. He’s pulling a double shift right now. I’m pretty sure he was here overnight.”

Horatio Gonzales was indeed tall-six-four at least. And he wasn’t exactly skinny. Well-defined muscles showed under his hospital scrubs. “What can I do for you?” he asked when Joanna approached him with her ID in hand.

“Were you here this morning when that beating victim was dropped off?”

His dark eyes went even darker. “I was here,” he said. “She was hurt real bad.”

“What about the three men who brought her in. You saw them?”

“I guess,” he said.

“What can you tell me about them?”

Horatio shrugged. “Not much,” he said.

“Do you think they were the ones who did it?”

This time there was a spark of real anger when he spoke. “No way!” he declared.