by Jance, J. A.
Tucson, Arizona
There had been a rollover semi accident on the bridge where I-10 crossed the Gila River. If Sister Anselm had been listening to the traffic advisories from her GPS, she might have known about the accident in time to choose another route and come down through Chandler or Apache Junction. But the constant chatter from the GPS lady’s voice got in the way of Sister Anselm’s thinking time. Since she knew the way to PMC with her eyes closed, she left the GPS off, and when she got caught up in the hour-long traffic delay, there was nothing to do but sit and wait.
When Sister Anselm finally arrived at the PMC campus on Tanque Verde, she parked her Mini in the far corner of the large lot. She was healthy enough to walk. It seemed important to leave the parking places closer to the main entrance for people who needed them.
People meeting Sister Anselm Becker for the first time would have thought they were encountering a retired businesswoman. In public she favored tailored pantsuits with no-frills blouses. In hospital settings she wore flowered scrubs that let her blend in with the other health care professionals. Her silver hair was cropped short. Her lined face was devoid of makeup. She walked with a slight limp from her hip replacement surgery years earlier. Her most striking feature, however, were her blue eyes. Beaming with cheerful intelligence, they offered a window on her soul through a pair of plain wire-framed glasses. Sister Anselm was a woman of faith, and that was where it shone through—in her eyes.
She had walked the halls of Physicians Medical many times. Once inside the lobby, she had no need to ask for directions. She made her way directly to the hospital administration office, where she signed in as a visiting service provider and was issued a temporary identification badge. From there she went to the ICU. Before looking in on Jane Doe, Sister Anselm tracked down the charge nurse at the nurse’s station. Mona Lafferty was someone Sister Anselm had worked with on previous occasions.
“I wondered if you’d be able to come,” Mona said.
“I got here as soon as I could,” Sister Anselm answered. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s pretty heavily sedated but lucky to be alive.”
“No ID?”
“None.”
“Any distinguishing marks?”
“She’s got a tattoo of a rose on her right breast,” Mona said. “And what looks like cigarette burns and cuts all over her body.”
Tattoos were common enough on male illegals. Less so on the female of the species. As for the torture? That might have been used to extract information about friends and associates.
“Talking?”
Mona shook her head. “Not so far. Do you want to look at her chart?”
“Please. I’d like to take it to her room, if you don’t mind.”
Mona smiled. “Knock yourself out. Her room’s the second one on the right.”
With the chart in hand, Sister Anselm let herself into Jane Doe’s room. She stood for several long moments, staring down at the injured and unconscious woman. Sister Anselm had encountered damage from beatings before, but in her experience, this was one of the most brutal. The real surprise was that the woman was still alive.
Her head had been shaved so the wounds on her scalp could be stitched together. Both arms and one leg were broken, but due to skin damage from the burns and cuts, the broken limbs were encased in splints rather than plaster casts. Her jaw was wired shut. What was visible of her face was a road map of stitched cuts and vivid bruises. It looked as though both her nose and one eye socket had been damaged and would require reconstructive surgery. Wherever bare skin was visible, so were the scabby tracks that burning cigarettes had left all over her body.
Settling into the room’s single chair, Sister Anselm switched on a reading light and began to read. The list of injuries was appalling. At least four teeth had been knocked out of her mouth. So far Jane Doe had already undergone two separate surgeries to repair damage to her internal organs. The surgical intervention that had no doubt saved her life had also resulted in the removal of her uterus. The chart estimated the young woman’s age to be late teens or early twenties. When Jane Doe awakened from what was at the moment a medically induced coma, she would discover that having children of her own was no longer an option.
But not having children might be the least of it. She had sustained several blows to the head. So far there was no sign of brain swelling, but with any kind of head injury, there was always a possibility that the patient would be left with impaired mental faculties, which could necessitate relearning things like reading and writing.
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,” th
e 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.
16
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.
“The Sugarloaf has always been part of our family,” she said. “Even when I was living out of state and only home for the holidays, everything revolved around the restaurant.”
“Change is tough,” B. said. “Even change for the better.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll try to keep that in mind when I’m on my way to Tucson tomorrow.”
“What for?”
“Donnatelle called tonight. Things have just gotten way worse for Jose and Teresa Reyes. Jose’s boss, the Santa Cruz County sheriff, stopped by the hospital earlier to let Teresa, Jose’s very pregnant wife, know that evidence found at the crime scene has put Jose under suspicion of drug trafficking. And Teresa’s former mother-in-law evidently rode in on her broom this afternoon in time to hear all about the drug-dealing allegations. Now she’s questioning if her granddaughters—her deceased son’s children—are being raised in a ‘suitable’ environment. Donnatelle is concerned that she might be considering launching a custody fight.”
“Alleging drug dealing is a long way from being convicted of same,” B. observed.
“That’s true,” Ali agreed, “but with everything that’s going on, I’m not sure Teresa can make that distinction. According to Donnatelle, the scene at the hospital was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She’s afraid Teresa might have a total breakdown, and she knows her pretty well. I’m going down first thing in the morning to see what, if anything, I can do to help.”
“Like what?” B. prompted.
“Like be there,” Ali said. “Sometimes that’s the only thing you can do.”
Lying awake after she got off the phone with B., Ali thought of something else she could do. While Teresa was dealing with the immediate health crisis, it probably hadn’t occurred to her that Jose might need a good criminal defense attorney every bit as much as he needed quality medical care.
In the long run and as a police officer, Jose would probably qualify for help from the Arizona Police Officer Legal Defense Fund, but that might take time and paperwork. But what about the short run? According to Donnatelle, the DPS investigator had not yet come by the hospital to interview either Jose or Teresa. Maybe that was something Ali could do—make sure that when it did happen, there would be someone on tap, looking out for their best interests.
17
8:00 A.M., Sunday, April 11
Tucson, Arizona
Sister Anselm hadn’t meant to spend the whole night in the ICU, but she had. Much of that time had been in the waiting room rather than in Jane Doe’s room itself.
When Sister Anselm first arrived at the hospital, her patient had been resting comfortably. Hours later, though, Jane Doe began to flail in her bed. Sister Anselm, noticing that her temperature had soared, ran to the nurses’ station to summon help. Within minutes, the room was overflowing with doctors and nurses battling what Sister Anselm had suspected to be the onset of a serious infection that might well have led to sepsis without immediate corrective measures.
The fact that Sister Anselm had alerted hospital personnel right away probably made all the difference. Although there were screens and readouts at the nearby ICU nurse’s station, the on-duty staff members were busy with other patients, and no one other than Sister Anselm had been watching the monitors.
While the staff was stabilizing Jane Doe, Sister Anselm had been banished to the waiting room, where three new sets of worried families came in, grabbing seats near their loved one’s rooms or pacing and hovering nearby.
The young woman named Teresa, clearly tired beyond bearing, was numbly coming and going from her husband’s room on an hourly basis, with her two little girls nowhere to be seen. No doubt someone—the black woman Sister Anselm had seen earlier, most likely—had collected the girls and taken them elsewhere. It probably had been done as a helpful gesture. In most instances, Sister Anselm wou
ld have agreed that hospital waiting rooms weren’t suitable places for young children. When the two girls had been present, however, Teresa had made the effort to keep it together. With them absent, she seemed to be sinking into a state of exhausted despair.
“You look like you could use some water,” Sister Anselm said, taking a seat next to Teresa and handing her a bottle she had liberated from her bag. “It’s easy to get dehydrated in places like this.”
Teresa looked at her questioningly, then opened the bottle and gulped down half the contents.
“Your husband?” Sister Anselm asked, nodding in the direction of Jose’s room. She already knew the answer. She was simply making conversation.
“Yes,” Teresa said. “His name’s Jose. I’m Teresa. Are you a nurse?”
“No,” Sister Anselm said. “My name is Sister Anselm. I’m not a nurse. I’m what’s known as a patient advocate. The doctors and nurses are dealing with my patient’s medical needs right now, which is why I’m out here. What happened to your husband?”
“He’s a deputy sheriff,” Teresa said. “He was shot last night.” She paused and looked at her watch. “About twenty-four hours ago.”
“I saw two little girls earlier. Your daughters?”
“My friend took them to a hotel. They were really tired of being here, and I don’t blame them. I’m tired of it, too.”
Sister Anselm pulled another chair within range and motioned for Teresa to put her feet up. Her ankles were swollen. So were her hands and fingers. At that stage of pregnancy, it could be a dangerous precursor to some serious medical issues.
“When’s your baby due?”
Teresa looked down at her bulging belly. “About three weeks,” she said. Her voice broke. “What if Jose dies? What if my baby never knows his father?”
“What does his doctor say?”
Teresa gave a halfhearted shrug. “That it’s touch and go. Jose lost a lot of blood, and he was lucky to survive surgery. The doctor says that the next twenty-four hours are critical.”