by J. A. Jance
“That’s right. She had a pilot all lined up to fly her out of town tonight,” Ali said. “She had three packed suitcases. Two of them were filled with clothing. The third one was filled with cash, so she was going somewhere—Mexico is what she told me—and she wasn’t coming back. Two detectives from Tucson PD are out at Ryan Field right now, looking for the pilot. He’s supposedly one of Olga’s son’s pals.”
“Figures,” Renteria said. “Danny didn’t run in the best circles. But did I understand you to say that Olga kidnapped Teresa’s daughters, her own granddaughters?”
“And gave them an overdose of Ambien with their ice cream. They’re both in the hospital. I haven’t heard anything new on their condition. And the homicide detective is still waiting to finish the interview. I’d better get back to him.”
“If you don’t mind,” Renteria said, “you might want to put him on the line. Sounds like we’ll need to get together with him and Lieutenant Lattimore first thing tomorrow morning and see if we can pull all these pieces together.”
Detective Howard was on the phone with Renteria for several long minutes. When he relinquished it, he said to Ali, “I think you had a couple of calls that came in while I was using your phone.”
When the interview ended and Ali was leaving to go back to the hospital, she was finally able to check her phone. The actual number of missed calls turned out to be two—one from Sister Anselm and one from Stuart Ramey. She called Sister Anselm first.
“I thought you’d want to know that Lucy and Carinda are both in the ICU,” Sister Anselm said. “Teresa told me that they’re both still in critical condition. If you hadn’t found them when you did, it’s likely neither one of them would have made it.”
“Thank God,” Ali said.
“Yes.” Sister Anselm chuckled. “With a capital G. But how are you?”
“A little shaky,” Ali admitted. “Watching someone blow her brains out right in front of you comes as a bit of a shock to the system. If I had used the Taser, I might have saved her life.”
“Some people don’t want their lives saved,” Sister Anselm observed. “Some people don’t deserve it, either.”
“How are things with your patient?”
“She’s out of the hospital.”
“She’s well enough to leave?” Ali asked.
“She wasn’t well enough, but we moved her all the same. She’ll still be under her doctor’s care and under mine as well, but rather than being in PMC, she’ll be staying at All Saints. We figured out tonight that someone had come to the hospital hunting her, hoping to keep her from testifying against her attackers. Moving her to the convent was the closest thing we had to putting her into protective custody, and it took a whole lot less paperwork.”
“Doesn’t Sister Genevieve have something to say about that?” Ali asked.
“Actually, I believe she thinks it’s a bit of a lark to have the nuns from All Saints venture into the witness protection business.”
“Speaking of All Saints,” Ali said, “I’ll stop off at the hospital for a few minutes after I leave here, but I’m looking forward to getting back to my room at the convent. It’s been a tough day all around.”
Her next call was to Stuart Ramey. “You saved the day,” she said. “Again. Thank you.”
“And the two girls are all right?”
“Let’s hope so,” Ali told him. “Originally, Olga denied having the girls with her, but you’d already told me about the video, so I knew better. As soon as I saw the Buick in the carport, I knew I had her. This isn’t going to get you in trouble with B., is it?”
“Let’s just say it would be better if none of this shows up in any court action.”
“It won’t,” Ali assured him. “I’m not saying a word about it. For one thing, with Olga dead, there probably won’t be any court proceedings. And if there are, I’ll tell the truth and nothing but the truth, but maybe not the whole truth.”
Stuart laughed at that.
On her way back to the hospital, Ali called B. and caught him up on everything that had happened between the last call and this one.
“You’re okay, though?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ali said. “Okay but very tired. Drained.”
“Could you please consider finding something else to do that doesn’t put you in the line of fire with people like this?”
“Believe me,” she said, “I didn’t do it on purpose.”
By the time the call with B. ended, Ali had pulled into the parking lot at PMC. She could have saved herself the trouble. Teresa and Carmine were asleep in the maternity wing. Jose was asleep in his room, and the girls were sleeping in the ICU. Even Sister Anselm had decamped for the night, so Ali left, too. When she pulled up to the gate at All Saints and rang the bell, Sister Genevieve’s cheerful voice greeted her and buzzed her in.
“Come on up to the main building,” Sister Genevieve said. “Sister Anselm and I are sharing a cup of tea—decaf chamomile, of course. I hope you’ll join us.”
Ali did so. Tea at All Saints, served in mugs, was accompanied by some delicately flavored lemon bars that Leland Brooks would have been proud to claim as his own. Somehow Sister Anselm managed to steer the accompanying conversation away from a rehashing of the day’s events and into a spirited discussion of the days and times of Don Quixote. The book had always been a particular favorite of both nuns, who had read it in Spanish rather than English.
Instead of drifting off to sleep with visions of Olga Sanchez’s lifeless body tumbling to the floor, Ali thought instead of Don Quixote and the loyalty and friendship of his somewhat reluctant squire, Sancho Panza. Which brought her around to thinking about her somewhat unorthodox friendship with Sister Anselm.
If one was going to go around tilting at windmills, real or imaginary, it was always a good idea to have a friend there to back you up. Sister Anselm Becker was exactly that kind of friend.
She had told Ali on more than one occasion that life had a way of showing you what you were meant to do. That was what had happened today. By the simple act of offering to take the car seats to the girls, Ali had ended up saving their lives.
With that one final thought in mind, Ali Reynolds drifted off into a deep and restful slumber.
56
10:00 P.M., Monday, April 12
Patagonia, Arizona
By the time Sheriff Renteria got off the phone with Detective Howard and Lieutenant Lattimore, Patty Patton had made a pot of coffee and was frying up a pan of scrambled eggs. It had been a long time since the sheriff had sat at a kitchen table while someone else took charge of the cooking.
All he had to do was hold the traumatized dog, who, hours after the event, continued to shake. Together Sheriff Renteria and Patty had agreed that there was no way either one could walk away and leave Bert, the devastated little Jack Russell, alone at the crime scene. Sheriff Renteria had gone into the house in search of dog gear. In the kitchen he had located a pair of dishes—a water dish and a food dish—as well as a bag of dog food. In a corner of the master bedroom, he found a small dog bed and a few well-chewed toys. All of that had been brought back to Patty’s house in Patagonia.
“I suppose I should turn him over to the pound,” Renteria said.
“Try it,” Patty said. “You’ll take that poor little animal to the pound over my dead body. If someone from the family comes forward to claim him, fine. Otherwise, Bert is mine!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sheriff Renteria said. They both laughed. It was the laughter that night when there should have been no laughter that took them both completely by surprise.
They ate scrambled eggs, put the dog on a bed in the corner of the room, and then talked for hours. It wasn’t an interview. Patty Patton needed to talk to someone about losing her good friend and coworker, Phil Tewksbury, and about the horror of discovering Oscar Sanchez’s lifeless body. That night Manuel Renteria wasn’t a sheriff so much as he was what Patty needed—a good listener.
“What’s
going to happen to Christine?” Patty asked when she started to run down.
“I don’t know. We’ll see what the psych evaluation says. After that, we’ll do what we can to get her the help she needs.”
“Thank you,” Patty said. “I was hoping that’s what you’d say.”
When Sheriff Renteria left Patty’s house to drive home to Tubac, it was almost four in the morning. But he wasn’t tired. He felt better than he had in years. Something had changed for him.
He was relieved to know he hadn’t misread Jose Reyes all that time. He was confident that when ballistics finished with Olga Sanchez’s .38, they’d be able to link her weapon to the Reyes crime scene as well as to Oscar’s murder. Renteria was also convinced that once they were able to track the drugs from Jose’s vehicle and Phil’s garage back to their original source, they would be found to have come from one of Danny Sanchez’s old cronies.
The pilot who had been scheduled to fly Olga Sanchez out of the country had been surprised when cops had shown up instead of his client. He was reportedly spilling his guts, and that was a very good thing. It seemed that raising horses was no longer nearly as lucrative as it had once been. Once Danny was gone, Olga had taken over his contacts and had been operating her own boutique drug-running business ever since. She had been willing to sacrifice a big chunk of product and profit in order to bring down Jose Reyes.
As Sheriff Renteria pulled into his own garage, he looked at his shiny red Dodge Charger and thought about Patty Patton’s shiny red Camaro, both of them almost the same color and both of them of similar vintage. A love of old red cars, scrambled eggs, good coffee, and dogs was a lot for two people to have in common from the get-go.
Yes, maybe he’d need to consider going on a diet and getting back into shape. And if he and Patty ended up getting together? Manuel Renteria was pretty sure Midge would approve.
57
10:00 A.M., Tuesday, April 13
Tucson, Arizona
On Tuesday morning, Al Gutierrez walked into the office for the morning briefing, expecting all hell to break loose. He had spent the whole night worrying about it and wondering what stunts Sergeant Dobbs would pull to make Al’s life as miserable as possible.
To his surprise, the watch commander stood up and read a fax from the Phoenix Police Department citing that one of the Tucson sector’s agents, namely Al Gutierrez, had provided major assistance to Phoenix PD in breaking one of their recent homicide cases. The note ended by saying that kind of cross-jurisdictional help was all too rare most of the time and, as a consequence, was greatly appreciated.
Al managed to sneak a glance at Sergeant Dobbs’s stony face while the letter was being read. He didn’t look happy.
Al, on the other hand, was happy. Lighter than air. Thanks to Detective Rush, he had public acknowledgment that he had helped with something important, and he wasn’t done helping, either. He planned to contact Detective Rush to let her know that he’d be happy to go straight back to PMC to continue looking after Rose Ventana the moment his shift was over. And if Dobbs gave him any grief about it? Tough.
Al Gutierrez had been looking for a job when he found this one. And if push came to shove, he could always go apply at Phoenix PD.
58
10:00 A.M., Tuesday, April 13
Tucson, Arizona
During the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Tucson back to Phoenix, Detective Ariel Rush managed to scare the hell out of Angel Moreno. With a prosecutor backing her up and the possibility of a plea deal on the table, Moreno was ready to talk. And talk he did.
By nine o’clock the next morning, the detective had enough probable cause to get a search warrant for Humberto Laos’s Fountain Hills mansion. She was determined to move forward in a hurry. Detective Rush knew that once Laos realized Angel Moreno was in custody, the big guy would pull a disappearing act. He had the means to flee, and she was convinced he would do so. She was also concerned about gaining access to that basement room while there was a chance of retrieving damning DNA evidence.
She knew she had the goods on the guy, but it was rewarding to be in the room and watch as the luminol spray on Laos’s basement floor lit up like a Christmas tree.
Detective Rush had left two cops in charge of Laos while she went down to the basement with the crime scene techs. She came bounding back up the stairs with a smile on her face.
“Mr. Laos,” she said, turning him around and slipping on a pair of cuffs, “I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Chico Hernández, Sal Lombardi, and Tony Verdugo. You’re also being charged with the attempted murder of Rose Ventana.”
“Who?” Laos asked, trying to look genuinely puzzled. “I never heard of anyone named Rose Ventana.”
“Right,” Detective Rush said, securing the cuffs. “And your friend Angel Moreno didn’t have a syringe filled with enough ketamine to kill a horse, either.”
She saw the surprise register on his face when she mentioned Angel’s name. That was when she pulled out the card and began reading. “You have the right to remain silent …”
59
10:00 A.M., Tuesday, April 13
Tucson, Arizona
As soon as Ali got to the hospital the next morning, she could see there had been a sea change. Not one but three Santa Cruz County sheriff’s vehicles were parked in the parking lot. Since Jose Reyes was no longer officially off-limits, there were three uniformed deputies in his room, chatting and laughing.
Ali found Teresa and Carmine in the ICU waiting room. Maria Delgado was there, along with her brother and a much chastened Julie.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” Teresa said to Ali. “If it hadn’t been for you, my girls would be gone.”
“How are they?”
“The doctor says Lucy should come out of the ICU later this morning. Carinda may take a little longer.”
“Good.”
Teresa was quiet for a moment. “I can’t believe that Olga hated me enough to do all this.”
“I believe it’s a safe bet that Olga Sanchez had a couple of screws loose,” Ali said. “It’s probably terrible of me to say so, but I think she did the world a favor by ending it the way she did. At least it’s over. Nobody has to go to court. Nobody has to testify. Items found in her trunk—the remains of Jose’s dashboard camera and the fishing filament used to trip Phil Tewksbury—link her to both crimes, and they are currently considered closed.”
Teresa nodded. “Juanita Cisco called me a little while ago. She said Lieutenant Lattimore called and told her we’re no longer under investigation. That’s thanks to you, too.”
“No,” Ali said. “I think it has a lot more to do with Patty Patton, the lady who runs the post office in Patagonia, and with Sheriff Renteria. They’re the ones who got Lattimore to back off.”
“And then there’s the will,” Teresa said.
“What will?” Ali asked.
“Oscar’s will. The ranch, the house in Tucson, all of it goes to the girls—to Lucy and Carinda. They’re Oscar and Olga’s only grandchildren and their only heirs. I’m sure it’s going to be complicated, but …”
“Yes, depending on how the will is written, there will be probate issues, and the properties will need to be sold or held in trust for your girls. There may even be other relatives who come crawling out of the woodwork, hoping to grab some share of the pie. Your lives will be different and probably far more complicated than you ever would have thought possible. And far more interesting. After what you and Jose have been through this week, I think you’re up to the task.”
Late that afternoon, Ali headed home to Sedona. She wanted to see her bighorn sheep. She wanted to see the plants going into her garden. She wanted to sleep in her own bed. She wanted to tuck in to some of Leland Brooks’s cooking. When he heard she was coming home, he promised to have some roast beef hash ready to cook the moment she walked in the door.
When Ali knew Donnatelle would be off shift, she called to give her the lowdown.
“I knew Olga was trouble the moment I met her,” Donnatelle declared, “but I had no idea she was as bad as all that. Now, though, thanks to her, Lucy and Carinda get everything?”
“That’s how it looks,” Ali said. “The ranch and the house in Tucson.”
“Sweet,” Donnatelle said. “So some things do turn out right in the end.”
A full moon was rising as Ali pulled into the driveway at Manzanita Hills Road. She left the car inside the garage and walked around the outside of the house. Her bighorn sheep was just visible at the far end of the front yard. He looked for the world as though he might come to life and scramble up and over the man-made cliff that was his home. In that moment, Ali Reynolds couldn’t have been more proud of her son, Christopher. He was indeed a talented young man.
The porch light snapped on, and Leland Brooks came out through the front door. “What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Breathtaking.”
“Yes, it is that. Come on in this way,” he added. “I’ll go fetch your bags from the garage.”
Ali stepped onto the porch and inhaled the delicate scent of wisteria. The gnarled old tree was heavy with blooms, just as it had been years earlier when Ali had stepped onto the porch the first time, coming to hear the surprising news about being the recipient of an Askins scholarship.
Inside the door on the entryway table, she saw the mail, neatly stacked. She thumbed through it and opened the two small envelopes that contained the RSVPs for Sunday’s tea. Not surprisingly, both Olivia McFarland and Autumn Rusk would be coming to tea on Sunday, Olivia at two o’clock and Autumn at four.
“They’re both coming?” Leland asked as he returned from the bedroom, having dropped off Ali’s luggage.
“Yes, they are.”
“I supposed I’d best start planning the menu,” he said.
“I saw Haley and Marissa while I was down in Tucson,” Ali said. “They’re both doing very well. So is Liam.”