J. Jance - Left for Dead

Ali suspected that was true. For as long as she could remember, Bob Larson had spent every spare hour away from the business providing all kinds of essentials-from food to used furniture to firewood-for the homeless and working poor in the area.

“Once the Sugarloaf is gone, I’ll be the one with no outside interests,” Edie Larson continued. “I’m not about to take up golf or bowling at my age, but I don’t want to sit around reading trashy novels and eating bonbons, either. I’ll go completely stir-crazy. It’s like that friend of yours Sister Anselm. She does twice as much as people half her age. It’s what keeps her going. Running for office here in town is something I can do to make a difference.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Ali told her. “Including serving as your campaign manager.”

“Really?” Edie asked.

“Really. We’ll have our first strategy meeting as soon as I get back from Tucson.”

“Good,” Edie said. “That’ll give your father a little longer to get used to the idea.”

Me, too, Ali thought.

“So what are you doing down there anyway?” Edie asked.

“Helping a friend,” Ali said. She would have said more, but Edie cut her off. “Oops,” she said. “Customers. Gotta go.” And hung up.

When Ali had packed to come to Tucson, she’d expected to stay at a hotel where the bathroom would be included inside the room. At All Saints, there were two bathrooms, one at either end of a long hallway. Sister Genevieve had loaned her a bathrobe for that reason. Showered and dressed, Ali showed up at the refectory breakfast and found herself in the presence of a dozen nuns in habits. Accustomed to Sister Anselm’s mostly business casual attire, Ali was surprised by the traditional dress. She was also surprised by the congenial atmosphere, the easy laughter, and the good food.

Over tea and leftovers the night before, Sister Genevieve had recounted a little of All Saints’ history. The main building-the one with the kitchen, refectory, chapel, and Sister Genevieve’s quarters-had once been the ranch house for the old Coughnour Ranch, which stretched from the Tanque Verde River bottom to the foothills of the Catalinas on Tucson’s far east side. The ranch had been established by a man named James Coughnour in the early part of the twentieth century. As the second son in a wealthy East Coast shipbuilding family, James had headed west with his newly inherited share of the family fortune as well as a pair of badly damaged lungs. He had bought up huge tracts of land along the Tanque Verde River and turned it into a thriving cattle ranch that had morphed into one of Arizona’s primary meatpacking companies.

When James’s only heir, his beloved daughter, Caroline, expressed an interest in becoming a nun, James had come up with a plan that allowed her to have her way without his necessarily losing her. He agreed to let her go and to use his considerable fortune to create a sanatarium for lung-damaged patients so long as she joined an order that would take charge of running the facility. Caroline had gone on to join the Sisters of Providence. What had once been the main ranch house was transformed into the All Saints Convent. Caroline, renamed Sister Antoinette, had lived there for the remainder of her life.

Eventually the sanatarium was purchased by a group of physicians and turned into Physicians Medical Center, a hospital where most of the sisters of All Saints worked as nurses. Sister Anselm had first ventured into the community in her role as a counselor to troubled nuns when Sister Genevieve’s predecessor as reverend mother slipped into age-related dementia. Ever since, All Saints had served as Sister Anselm’s Tucson home away from home.

Breakfast was delicious, with slabs of warm homemade coffee cake and mounds of freshly scrambled eggs. Coffee was hot and plentiful, as was grapefruit juice from fruit that had been picked that morning from trees growing on the grounds. Sitting there with the congenial group of breakfasting nuns, Ali felt totally at home, benefiting from the fact that any friend of Sister Anselm’s was a friend of theirs.

The meal was winding down when Sister Anselm put in an appearance. She looked more tired than Ali had ever seen her. Sister Lucille, the cook, immediately bustled around, bringing her breakfast.

“We had another tough night,” Sister Anselm said in answer to Ali’s question. “But she’s sleeping, so I’m going to grab some sleep, too. In an actual bed. They’ll let me know if anything changes.”

“No word from her family?” Ali knew that healing broken families was as much a part of Sister Anselm’s mission as healing broken bodies.

The nun shook her head. “I was hoping we’d hear from them, but there’s nothing so far, and that’s probably just as well. She’s too fragile to deal with the added stress. What about you? What’s on your agenda?”

“I’m going to go check on all my charges-Haley and Lucy and Carinda. I’m hoping to locate some help for Teresa when she’s released from the hospital and goes back home. And Juanita Cisco wants me to look into Jose’s situation at the sheriff’s department and find out why his fellow officers are treating him as a leper as opposed to a wounded hero.”

Sister Anselm nodded. “I wondered about that, too.”

8:00 A.M., Monday, April 12

Nogales, Arizona

Sheriff Renteria called into his office as he drove into town. “Going to get a haircut,” he told his secretary. “I’ll be in as soon as I can.”

Sheriff Renteria didn’t need a haircut so much as he needed information. In the old days, crooks and cops had found common ground in churches. They may have been good guys and bad guys, but they were Catholic good guys and bad guys, with priests functioning as the diplomats who moved back and forth between them.

That was no longer true. A lot of the younger people on both sides had moved away from the Church. Now the man who stood with a foot in both camps was Sheriff Renteria’s cousin, his father’s brother’s son, the barber Ignacio.

When Sheriff Renteria arrived, the barbershop was empty. Ignacio was sitting in his barber chair, reading a newspaper. He smiled, picked up his cape, and shook it out. “Need a little trim?” he asked.

“A little.”

Manuel didn’t have much to trim these days. Ignacio fired up his clipper and went to work. As long as the clipper was running, neither man spoke.

“What do you hear from Pasquale?” Manuel asked once the shop went silent. They both knew what he meant-that they were talking about the shooting.

“He didn’t do it,” Ignacio answered at once. “The people he works for didn’t do it, either. That was the agreement he made with you, that your guys wouldn’t be targeted.”

That was the informal peace treaty Sheriff Renteria had negotiated with Pasquale years ago, back when he was first elected. Some would have called it a deal with the devil. There had been nothing in writing. The sheriff had met with Pasquale in his father’s barbershop. The two had spoken briefly, then they shook hands. That had been it. The drug business was like a many-headed hydra. An agreement with one division didn’t necessarily cover another, but as far as the Nogales area was concerned, Pasquale had enough influence to make it work.

“Was Deputy Reyes dealing?” Manuel asked.

On the surface, it was a stupid question. Sheriff Renteria had seen the evidence himself-the plastic-wrapped packages in the trunk of Jose’s patrol car; the hundred-dollar bills lying scattered on the ground like so many dead leaves.

“Pasquale says no,” Ignacio said quietly. “At least not for the Nogos.”

“What would happen if he was dealing for someone else?”