J. Jance - Left for Dead

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.

But the drama wasn’t over. As soon as the sheriff left the room, an older woman who was wearing jeans and cowboy boots approached the younger woman, who was in tears.

“I’m sorry, Teresa, but I couldn’t help hearing what the sheriff was saying. Can this be true?”

The pregnant woman looked up, dazed. “Of course it isn’t true! None of it!”

“Well,” the other woman said in a huff, “I don’t know Jose, but he’s the stepfather of my flesh-and-blood grandchildren, and this is all very distressing.”

“You ignore them for years and now act like they are yours?” Teresa asked, incredulous. “You have some nerve!”

“I stayed away out of grief for my son,” the woman said. “I assumed you were a better mother to them than you were a wife to Danny, but now … well, I just don’t know.”

“Please, Mrs. Sanchez,” Donnatelle said. She deftly stepped between the weeping younger woman and the irate older one. “You’d better go now. This isn’t the time or the place.”

“If what the sheriff said is true, you haven’t seen the last of me,” Mrs. Sanchez continued, lowering her voice and almost hissing. “I won’t have Danny’s girls-my granddaughters-being raised in this kind of mess.”

“Go!” Donnatelle ordered.

To Sister Anselm’s relief, the older woman did as she was told. She stalked back over to the table where she had been entertaining the children and gathered up her belongings. Then she marched out of the waiting room. In the silence left behind, other than the muted beeps of lifesaving equipment, the only sound came from the brokenhearted sobs of the young woman. The two girls ran to her, one on either side.

“Don’t cry, Mommy,” the older girl said, hugging her thigh. “Please don’t cry.”

As quiet gradually returned to the waiting room, Sister Anselm retreated to Jane Doe’s room. Once there, she used a wireless connection to access the hospital’s monitoring equipment. An app on her iPhone allowed her to keep track of the patient’s vitals as well as her periods of waking and sleeping even when Sister Anselm wasn’t actually present. Then she settled into the chair next to the bed. For the next twenty-four hours or so, it was simply a matter of waiting and watching.

Sister Anselm was a great believer in 1 Thessalonians 5:17: Pray without ceasing. That was something else she kept on her iPhone-a prayer list app. Under Jane Doe’s name, she added the names of the distraught little family out in the waiting room-Jose and Teresa as well as the angry woman who had just left, Mrs. Sanchez. As an afterthought, she added Sheriff Renteria’s name. He seemed to be hurting every bit as much as everyone else.

Just because Sister Anselm didn’t happen to know any of those people personally didn’t keep her from praying for them. That was part of her job, too.

10:00 P.M., Saturday, April 10

Sedona, Arizona

“You’re not going to believe what’s going on around here,” Ali told B. later that night when he called to say good night. She went on to give him a shorthand version of what her parents had told her about selling the Sugarloaf.

“And that’s not the half of it,” she added. “My mother has no intention of retiring. Once they get moved, she’s planning to run for mayor of Sedona. When she dropped the mayor bomb at the dinner table, I thought Dad was going to have a coronary on the spot.”

To Ali’s dismay, B. seemed to find the whole idea exceptionally funny. “That’s what I like about your parents,” he said. “They’re always full of surprises. On the one hand, your mother figures she’s old enough to live in a retirement community, but on the other, young enough to start a career in politics! Sounds like she wants to have it both ways.”

“That’s pretty much what my father said,” Ali conceded. “And when she let on that she hoped I’d agree to be her campaign manager, he lit into me and accused me of keeping the whole mayor-run thing a secret from him.”

“Had you been keeping it a secret?”

“Since I only found out about it this afternoon, I don’t see how I can be considered guilty as charged.”

“If your dad is as upset as you say he is, what are the chances he’ll try to back out of signing the papers on Monday?”

“I suppose it could happen,” Ali said, “but I doubt it.”

“From my point of view, your mother could be a great mayor,” B. added. “She’s short on political theory and long on common sense. That might be an excellent combination for public office.”

“Not according to my father,” Ali said with a laugh.

“How are you with all this?” B. asked.

“I’m not sure. I should be happy that they have a chance to retire while they’re young enough and healthy enough to do things they want to do …”

“I think I’m hearing an unstated ‘but’ in there,” B. said.