J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 2: Trial by Fire, Fatal Error, Left for Dead

by Jance, J. A.

“Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” Ali held up her Taser with two fingers. “I was going to Tase her, but I didn’t have a chance. And I’ve got a Glock 17 in a back holster. What about that?”

  “I’ll need to take those for the time being,” the officer said. Once Ali complied, he walked over to Olga, reached down, and felt for a pulse. After a moment, he shook his head. “She’s gone. What about the little girls? We were told there should be a pair of little girls here as well.”

  Ali stood up. “She wouldn’t tell me where they are. She evidently gave them some kind of sedative before I got here.”

  “You haven’t seen them?”

  “Not so far.”

  “We’d better see if we can find them,” the officer said.

  Ali started toward the room that had to be the kitchen with the cop on her heels.

  On the kitchen counter, Ali found an almost empty container of pralines-and-cream ice cream. In the sink, there were two dessert dishes and two teaspoons, as well as an ice cream dipper.

  “Don’t touch anything,” the cop cautioned.

  “I’m not,” Ali said. “But if Olga brought the girls here for their ice cream, they must be here somewhere. They didn’t have that much of a head start on me.”

  Room by room, Ali and the uniformed officer went through the entire house—kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, and utility room—without finding any sign of the girls. None. Ali had let herself out through the back door and was wondering where else to look when she saw the Buick that Olga had been prepared to leave parked in the driveway while she flew off to Mexico.

  By then the cop had gone back inside to deal with the arrival of a slew of other officers. Ali tried the driver’s door. It was locked. She could have gone inside and searched for the key, but she didn’t. Instead, she ventured far enough into the xeriscaped yard to pick up a fist-size hunk of river rock, which she flung through the driver’s-side window.

  A young uniformed cop who had been left out on the street to keep an eye on the scene came racing up to her. “Hey, lady,” he demanded. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Ali had already unlocked the door, pulled it open, and hit the trunk release. By the time the officer reached her, Ali was at the back of the vehicle, staring into the trunk. Both girls were there—unconscious and scarily still, but both of them were breathing.

  “I need an ambulance!” Ali yelled. “Two of them. Now!”

  The young cop skidded to a stop next to her, looked down into the trunk, and reached for his radio.

  54

  8:00 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Tucson, Arizona

  Eventually, the crowd cleared out. It was a good thing, too. Angel had been manhandling the polisher for hours, and his shoulders were killing him. As the last of the news crews began gathering up equipment, Angel did the same. He unplugged the polisher and rolled up the cord. Then he went outside and moved his van to an empty spot in the front row of the parking lot. Next he rolled his cart and polisher outside and loaded them into the van. When it was time to leave, he would need to leave in a hurry.

  He returned to the corridor as the news crew was leaving and as the mother, finished with her interview ordeal, disappeared into her daughter’s room. She came out a minute or so later and headed for the lobby.

  Angel was relieved to see her go. That meant there was only the girl and the elderly nurse left. He took a seat in the waiting room, sat down, and waited, all the while wondering how long it would take. Under five minutes later, the nurse emerged. She paused in the doorway, looked around, and then headed for the nurses’ station.

  Angel knew he had moments to make this work. As soon as her back was turned, he darted into the room, easing the loaded syringe out of his pocket as he went. He was all the way inside the darkened room and reaching for the form on the bed when the charge from a Taser knocked him senseless.

  Someone might have told him to drop it, but Angel couldn’t be sure. When he came back around, the Taser dart was stuck to his chest and his arms were secured by a pair of handcuffs.

  “I don’t know who you are,” a woman’s voice said, “but you’re under arrest. What’s in the syringe?”

  “What syringe?” Angel said. “I don’t have any syringe.”

  The nurse came back then, too. She was smiling and talking on a telephone. “It worked like a charm, Bishop Gillespie. We got him!”

  The nurse seemed to think this was funny. Angel Moreno did not, because he knew he was a dead man. If the cops didn’t kill him, Humberto Laos sure as hell would.

  55

  9:00 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Tucson, Arizona

  When the ambulance got to Olga’s house on Longfellow, it practically took an act of Congress to get the EMTs to agree to take Lucy and Carinda to Physicians Medical instead of Diamond Children’s Hospital. The point was, with the rest of the family at PMC, it made no sense to send the girls anywhere else.

  Crime scene investigators had found an empty prescription bottle for Ambien in the trash in Olga’s kitchen, so the medical personnel had a fairly good idea what the girls had been given. When the ambulances pulled out, Carinda’s was in the lead. Ali had picked up enough information from the EMTs to understand that for some reason, the younger child was considered to be in more critical condition.

  Ali managed to hold it together until both ambulances pulled away. Then she dropped into the passenger seat of the Cayenne, covered her face with her hands, and wept. That was where she was when the Tucson PD Homicide detective Adrian Howard came looking for her. They were partway through the interview when Ali’s phone rang.

  Both calls that had come in during the confrontation with Olga had been from Teresa. Ali answered this one fearing that one or the other of the girls hadn’t made it, but when she checked caller ID, it wasn’t Teresa’s number.

  “Ms. Reynolds?” a male voice asked. “This is Sheriff Renteria calling. I came back to Patty Patton’s home in Patagonia. She gave me your number and asked me to let you know that we’ve had a disturbing evening out here. Oscar Sanchez has been murdered, and we have a BOLO out on his wife. Patty wanted me to call and warn you in case Olga turns up there.”

  “Thanks for the warning, but it’s a little late,” Ali told him. “And you can rescind that BOLO. Olga Sanchez committed suicide at her home in Tucson about an hour ago. She kidnapped her own granddaughters and was holding me at gunpoint. When the cops showed up outside, she put a bullet through her head. I’m in the process of giving a statement. Before she died, she took responsibility for shooting Jose Reyes and for murdering Phil Tewksbury.”

  “She confessed to shooting Jose?” Renteria asked.

  “Yes. I have no idea why she murdered Phil Tewksbury,” Ali said.

  “I think I do,” Renteria said. “She was setting him up to take the blame for the Reyes shooting.”

  “According to her,” Ali continued, “the only thing that went wrong with the execution of her plan was that Jose didn’t die, but that wasn’t quite true. Somehow or other, Oscar must have found out about Olga’s relationship with Phil Tewksbury. She thought Oscar was the one who told us about the relationship when it was really Christine.”

  “So Oscar either found out or figured it out on his own,” Renteria said.

  “I don’t know which,” Ali said. “I don’t think Olga knew, either.”

  “Whichever it was, it sent her completely around the bend,” Renteria said.

  “There’s something else,” Ali added. “She didn’t come right out and say as much, but I’m pretty sure she’s responsible for the vandalism at Jose and Teresa’s house. I wouldn’t be surprised if the crime lab doesn’t find trace evidence from that on the soles of her shoes. Boots, rather. She was wearing cowboy boots, not shoes.”

  The sheriff sighed. “I can see now why Oscar is dead. He was a good man and a proud one. He wouldn’t have taken that kind of thing lying down. Having a wife messing around behind his back?
He would have had to do something. If I’d been him, I would have filed for divorce. I’m assuming Olga had no intention of sticking around to face the music.”

  “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 Os
car 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.