Left for Dead

by J. A. Jance

  When Teresa was nervous or upset, she often twisted her wedding band, moving it around on her finger. This time, when she attempted to do that, the ring wouldn’t budge. She looked at her hands. Her fingers looked swollen, but that was probably due to the way she had slept, lying flat on the couch with her hands beside her. She was sure that if she waited awhile, she’d be fine.

  Leaving Jose’s room, she realized she was hungry. She left the girls occupied, with Donnatelle and made her way to the cafeteria. Her cell phone needed recharging, but there was enough power left in it to call her mother. Late in the evening, Teresa’s uncle had driven Maria back home.

  “If you need me to come back, I will,” Maria said. “But I’m afraid I overdid it yesterday.”

  “That’s fine,” Teresa said. “You get some rest. I’ve made arrangements to keep Donnatelle’s hotel room. When it’s time to go to bed, the girls and I will go there.”

  “But you don’t have your car. Do you want me to ask Tomás to come get you?”

  “Uncle Tomás has done plenty,” Teresa said. “If we need to, we’ll take a cab.” Her phone beeped, letting her know the battery was low. “Sorry, Mom,” she finished. “The phone is running out of juice.”

  Teresa arrived back at the ICU waiting room just as a new person—a tall woman with a blond ponytail—was added to the mix. Donnatelle left the girls with their sticker books and rushed across the room to greet the newcomer. When Sister Anselm emerged from her patient’s room, she did a double take.

  “Ali! For goodness’ sake. What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” the blond woman said with a laugh.

  “I had a call out. I told you I had one, that I was going to Tucson. That usually means either this trauma unit or the one at University Medical Center. But why are you here?”

  “She’s a friend of Jose’s,” Donnatelle explained, answering for both of them. “I asked Ali to come help out because I have to leave for home shortly.” She turned to Teresa. “I’m not sure you’ve met. This is Jose’s friend Ali Reynolds, from Sedona.”

  Standing up to be introduced, Teresa was painfully aware of how short she was. Among those three towering women, she wished she were taller than her five foot nothing. She also wished she weren’t so impossibly pregnant.

  “I’m glad to meet you,” she said.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t get my e-mail,” Ali said.

  “No.”

  “I told you I was coming. I’ll be here to help out when Donnatelle has to go home.”

  Another helpful stranger, Teresa thought. She was grateful for the help but embarrassed that she needed it.

  “You’re from Sedona? I’m sorry you had to come all this way.”

  “It’s not so far,” Ali said. “And it was a beautiful drive, with all the wildflowers blooming. Besides, Jose really helped me out once. I’m here to return the favor. What needs doing?”

  “Lucy and Carinda are working their way through their sticker books,” Donnatelle said, nodding toward the girls, who were at the table with their heads tucked together in concentration. “When they run out of interest in that, they’ll probably be ready for lunch. We had an early breakfast at the hotel. Come on. Let me introduce you to them, too.”

  Donnatelle and Ali walked away. As Sister Anselm returned to her patient, Teresa couldn’t help wondering what kind of important person might be in the room across from Jose’s. Whoever she was, she merited having Sister Anselm looking after her around the clock. Maybe it was a well-known politician or some kind of celebrity.

  Teresa turned to go back to her temporary command center of waiting room chairs when her path was blocked by the sudden appearance of a large man who stopped directly in front of her. “Mrs. Reyes?” he asked.

  In the generally hushed atmosphere of the waiting room, his voice was so loud that it startled her.

  “Yes,” she said. “Who are you?”

  He was dressed in a sport jacket and a flashy tie. That meant he wasn’t a doctor. In fact, she suspected the man was a cop even before he reached into a pocket and produced an ID wallet and badge.

  As Teresa squinted to read the name on the badge, she realized that she had a splitting headache. Somehow she hadn’t noticed that before. Now she did, discovering it at the same time as the letters on his ID wallet gradually sorted themselves into a name. Lattimore. The guy from the Department of Public Safety. This was the investigator Sheriff Renteria had told her about, the one who was investigating Jose’s shooting.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m Teresa Reyes.”

  “I’m Lieutenant Duane Lattimore with the Department of Public Safety. I’m charged with investigating your husband’s shooting. I was hoping to talk to you about it.”

  When she looked up at the intimidating man looming above her, the room seemed to spin around him. For a moment she thought she might faint. She grabbed hold of the back of a chair to steady herself. Finally, she managed to focus.

  “How’s he doing, by the way?” Lattimore asked.

  “Hanging in,” Teresa said. “He’s in the ICU and listed as stable at the moment, but doctor says the next twenty-four hours are critical.”

  Tired of looking up at the man and worried that she was about to fall, Teresa staggered around behind him and managed to regain her chair. She felt surprisingly dizzy, almost as though she were drunk. Sitting down helped settle some of the vertigo.

  “What do you need?” she asked. “How can I help?”

  “You might start by giving me the names of some of your husband’s associates,” Lattimore said.

  “Associates. You mean like the cops he works with?”

  “Please, Mrs. Reyes,” Lattimore said. “Let’s not play games. We found evidence at the scene that indicates your husband is involved in a drug trafficking operation of some kind. We found even more evidence of that at your home earlier today.”

  “At my home,” Teresa objected. “You went to my home?”

  “We had a search warrant,” Lattimore said. “A properly drawn search warrant. What we found in your husband’s vehicle gave us probable cause to search his residence as well.”

  “My husband is the victim here,” Teresa said, her voice rising in pitch. “He was shot. How dare you search our house?”

  Pulling out a notebook, Lattimore made a show of opening it to the first blank page. Then he pulled a ballpoint pen out of his pocket. “Do you have any idea how long your husband has been involved in the drug trade?” he asked.

  “Jose is not involved in the drug trade,” Teresa declared forcefully. “He never has been involved in the drug trade. He’s a police officer. He hates drugs. He hates people who sell drugs.”

  Lattimore gave no indication that he’d heard her objection. “When we searched your home, we found plenty of evidence that says otherwise. Now, if you’d be so kind as to give me the names of some of his business associates, perhaps we can move on to finding out who did this.”

  “You mean as in finding out who tried to kill him?” Teresa asked. “You’re going to stand there and try to tell me that you even care about who shot him? This is about something else. This is all about proving to the world that Jose did something wrong. It’s not about finding out who’s responsible for putting him here.”

  Lattimore sat down beside her. “Now, now, Mrs. Reyes,” he said soothingly. “There’s no need to shout. Perhaps we should go somewhere less public so we can discuss this situation in private.”

  Teresa was abruptly aware that the entire waiting room had gone quiet as everyone there tuned in on this conversation. Some of her anger retreated, leaving her vulnerable and more than a little afraid. She hoped there was safety in numbers.

  “We’ll talk here,” she said. “What do you want to know?”

  As if responding to the uncertainty in their mother’s voice, first Lucy and then Carinda abandoned the game they were playing with Donnatelle and came on the run. Once again, Lucy stationed herself
protectively at her mother’s side, while Carinda catapulted into her lap.

  “These are your daughters?” Lattimore asked.

  Teresa nodded.

  “Cute kids,” he said. He held out his pen, offering it to Carinda. She immediately reached out and grasped it with her short fingers. Before she could stick it in her mouth—ink end first—Teresa took it away

  “She’s two,” Teresa said. “That’s too young for pens.”

  When she handed the pen back to him, Lattimore immediately dropped it in his pocket and went searching for another one.

  “Now back to business,” he said. “Where were you on Saturday night?”

  “You mean where was I when my husband was shot? Wait. Are you asking me if I’m the one who shot him?”

  “Where were you?” Lattimore insisted.

  “I was at home with my kids—these kids, Carinda and Lucy.”

  “Can they verify that for us?”

  “Are you kidding?” she demanded. “Look at them. They’re preschoolers. The younger one can barely talk. Neither of them can tell time. But I wouldn’t go off and leave them alone, and if I were capable of doing what you suggested, I certainly wouldn’t take the girls with me. What kind of a person do you think I am?”

  “Perhaps someone called you at home that night,” Lattimore suggested. “If you used your landline phone or your cell, we can use presence technology to verify exactly where you were at the time your husband was shot.”

  “I didn’t talk to anyone on the phone. When the girls go to bed, I usually unplug the phone so it doesn’t wake them.”

  “What about your cell phone?”

  “Same thing. I turn it on silent or vibrate when they go to bed, but nobody called me on Saturday night. I went to bed as soon as America’s Most Wanted was over.”

  “You watch that?”

  “Every week.”

  “Why?’

  “Because we live in a place where we might see some of those people.”

  “I see,” Lattimore said, sounding as though he didn’t. “Back to the phone situation. In your husband’s line of work, isn’t turning off the phone when he’s on duty a bit unusual? What if there was an emergency? What if his department needed to reach you?”

  “There was an emergency,” Teresa reminded him, feeling a flood of anger surge through her body. “Sheriff Renteria didn’t call me on the telephone. He came to the house to let me know what had happened. In person.”

  Lattimore moved closer to her and lowered his voice. “Are you involved in the drug trade, Mrs. Reyes? Is it possible that both you and your husband are in this together?”

  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I’m a mother with two kids. I’m expecting another one. Of course I not involved in the drug trade.”

  “Tell me about the money we found in your underwear drawer.”

  “What money?” she asked.

  “Five thousand dollars in a plastic Ziploc container—all of it in hundred-dollar bills.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s no money in my underwear drawer.”

  “You’re right about that,” Lattimore said with a knowing chuckle. “Because it isn’t there anymore. It’s in an evidence bag and on its way to the crime lab.”

  “That’s enough,” a woman’s voice said. “Leave her alone.”

  Teresa and Lattimore looked up in surprise as the blond woman Donnatelle had introduced as Ali Reynolds came striding across the room, cell phone on hand.

  “And who might you be?” Lattimore asked. “The lady’s attorney, possibly?”

  “I’m a friend of the family. My name is Alison Reynolds. I’m not an attorney, but I have one on the phone right now.” Ali handed her iPhone over to Teresa. “Her name is Juanita Cisco,” Ali went on. “She’s a criminal defense attorney here in town. I called her while you and this nice police officer were having your not so pleasant conversation, and she’s been listening in on the speakerphone. You might ask if she’s interested in representing you. If you can’t afford her, I’m sure you can have an attorney appointed by the court, but given the circumstances, it seems to me that you need someone to represent you right now.”

  Teresa held the phone and looked at it warily, as though it might be an incendiary device set to explode. The same was true of Agent Lattimore’s face. It, too, appeared close to exploding.

  “I don’t know who you think you are …” he began, shaking an outraged finger in Ali’s direction. “You’re interfering with an officer of the law.”

  That outburst was enough to move Teresa to action. She held the phone up to her ear, even though, with the thing set to speaker, holding it up to her ear wasn’t necessary.

  “Mrs. Reyes?” The voice over the phone bristled with urgency. “Did you hear what your friend said? My name is Juanita Cisco. I’m willing to serve as your attorney. All you have to do is say yes.”

  “Yes,” Teresa whispered. “Yes, please.”

  “All right, then, hand the phone over to the officer.”

  Teresa did as she was told. She gave the phone to Lattimore. He took it reluctantly, scowling as he did so.

  “Did you hear that?” Juanita asked. “Mrs. Reyes wants me to serve as her attorney in this matter.”

  “Yes,” Lattimore muttered. “I heard.”

  “Would you like me to represent your husband as well, Mrs. Reyes?” Juanita asked, her voice booming through the cell phone speaker.

  At first Teresa only nodded. Then, glancing at Ali’s face, she realized her mistake. “Yes, please,” Teresa said. “I want you to represent us both.”

  “And what’s your name, Officer …”

  “Lattimore,” he replied. “Lieutenant Duane Lattimore. I’m an investigator with the Arizona Department of Public Safety. And there’s no need to involve an attorney at this time. I’m merely asking Mrs. Reyes a few questions. After all, she’s not a suspect.”

  “It sounded very much like you were treating her as a suspect, Mr. Lattimore,” Juanita said. “So for right now, you’re done. The conversation is over. Neither she nor her husband will be speaking to you again without my being present in the room. Understood?”

  Lattimore knew he’d been outmaneuvered. “Understood,” he said.

  Without another word, he ended the call and thrust the phone back in Ali’s direction. Turning, he strode out through the doors of the waiting room and disappeared down the hall.

  To Teresa’s surprise, the waiting room seemed to have filled with people without her noticing—nurses, orderlies, other visitors. They had all heard what was being said, and they understood instantly that this was a case where, against all odds, the little guy had beaten the big guy. Quietly, one person began to applaud. Soon other people joined in, and in a moment they were all clapping.

  Teresa Reyes sat there, looking from one face to the other. Then her eyes rolled back in her head. Seconds later, as she slumped forward in her chair, the large purse that had been perched in her minimal lap fell to the floor, scattering possessions in every direction.

  “I think she fainted.” Teresa heard the words, but they seemed to be coming from very far away.

  “Help me lower her to the floor,” Sister Anselm said. “And somebody call a doctor.”

  That last remark was unnecessary, because the ICU charge nurse was already sounding the alarm.

  22

  12:00 P.M., Sunday, April 11

  Tucson, Arizona

  Ali watched as orderlies and nurses sprang into action. While one of them pushed an unoccupied bed out of one of the ICU rooms, a nurse slapped a blood pressure cuff on Teresa’s arm and pumped it up. By the time the nurse finished taking the reading and listening to a stethoscope held to Teresa’s chest, the expression on the woman’s face was grave.

  “We’ve got to get her to maternity,” the nurse ordered. “Now!”

  Several people stepped forward. Together they lifted Teresa from the floor and onto the makesh
ift gurney. As the gurney rolled toward the doorway, the two little girls tried to follow.

  “Mommy, Mommy,” Lucy wailed. “Where are you taking my mommy?”

  Only Donnatelle’s timely intervention kept the screaming children from following their mother down the hall. As they went through the door to the waiting room, the group almost flattened a uniformed hospital volunteer coming in the opposite direction, carrying a massive foil-covered, potted, and blooming Easter lily.

  While Ali gathered the scattered contents from Teresa’s bag, Donnatelle and Sister Anselm took charge of the children, trying to calm them. Pocketing Teresa’s fallen cell phone, Ali handed the purse over to the charge nurse for safekeeping. Just then Ali’s cell phone rang.

  “Somebody hung up on me,” Juanita Cisco complained when Ali answered.

  “That would be Lieutenant Lattimore,” Ali said.

  “Maybe I should talk to my client again when we’re not on a speakerphone.”

  “That’s going to be tough,” Ali said. “She fainted dead away. They put her on a bed and are rolling her to the maternity ward as we speak.”

  “She’s pregnant?”

  “Very.”

  “When do you think I’ll be able to talk to her?”

  “I have no idea. The nurses didn’t say anything, but I have a feeling that whatever’s going on is pretty serious. Do you think Lattimore meant what he said—that he suspects Teresa has some involvement in her husband’s shooting?”

  “The spouse or significant other is always suspect,” Juanita replied. “You’re the one who knows these people. What do you think?”

  “I know Jose,” Ali said. “I met Teresa for the first time this morning, but that’s not the reading I’m getting.”

  “Lattimore was trying to scare her into talking to him. Which is why you were absolutely right to put me on the phone. So what about the husband?” Juanita asked. “When can I talk to him?”