Left for Dead ar-7

by J. A. Jance

  “Here in town?” Detective Rush asked.

  “In a convent just up the road,” Sister Anselm replied. “All Saints. There would be a lot less public access than there is here.”

  “Would the people at the convent go along with the idea?” Detective Rush asked.

  “The reverend mother there is a friend of mine,” Sister Anselm said. “I’ll speak to her about it, and I’ll also mention it to Rose’s physician.”

  “Is there a chance I could interview her today?” Detective Rush asked. “I need to know if there’s anything she can tell us that will help identify her attackers.”

  “There’s nothing I can do as long as she’s in the ICU. Visitors there are family members only. But it might be a good idea to hang around a little while longer, in case she’s moved to another unit.”

  As far as patient confidentiality was concerned, Sister Anselm knew she was pushing the envelope, but still …

  “Was she sexually assaulted?” Detective Rush asked, handing Sister Anselm a business card.

  Sister Anselm thought for a moment before she answered. “If there’s an official protocol for the handling of rape kits, you might want to look into that.”

  Detective Rush got the hint. “Thank you,” she said. “I will.”

  43

  3:30 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Tucson, Arizona

  With Patty gone, only the young deputy was left at the scene. Gawkers had come and gone from time to time, peering curiously out of windows and pointing in the direction of the Tewksburys’ house, but the deputy had waved them all on. Now he stepped aside so Ali could drive past, giving a respectful salute as she did. She suspected that the gesture was intended more for her exotic vehicle, her Cayenne, than it was for her.

  Between Sonoita and I-10 on Highway 83, Ali was stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint. There were several other vehicles in line, including three eighteen-wheelers, all of which were thoroughly checked by a drug-sniffing dog. As the dog carefully worked his way around and under each of the vehicles, Ali realized Patty Patton had been right. There were checkpoints along every route leading north from Nogales. Regardless of who was involved in the drug dealing, there was no way those flat-rate boxes could have been shipped in a regular mail truck without being detected. If they weren’t leaving Santa Cruz County on mail trucks, where were they going, and how were they getting there? And what was the point of those marijuana-filled flat-rate boxes they had seen being carted out of Phil Tewksbury’s garage?

  What about Christine? Would she really step outside her house for the first time in years for no other reason than to murder her husband in cold blood? The detective was evidently convinced she was responsible; Patty was not. Just as Lattimore was convinced Jose Reyes was guilty of drug dealing but his wife, Teresa, claimed to know him better than that.

  Driving back to Tucson, Ali found herself comparing those two incidents side by side. Patagonia was a small town-a very small town-with two drug-related violent crimes in as many days. No one had come right out and said that the incidents might be related. No one had even mentioned it, but Ali wondered about that. Perhaps if she could get to the bottom of what had happened to Phil and Christine Tewksbury, she’d be able to learn something about what had happened to Jose and Teresa Reyes, too.

  Despite the supposed evidence against him, Jose continued to maintain that he was innocent, that he had nothing to do with drug dealing. If he had died as a result of his injuries, the evidence found in his vehicle most likely would have been accepted at face value. No one would have been around to claim otherwise, and no one other than his immediate family would have cared. Crooked cop dies in drug deal. So what?

  Ali’s belief in Jose’s innocence remained unshaken. It appeared, however, that someone had gone to a great deal of effort to frame him. And what if the Tewksbury situation were more of the same? If Phil could be dismissed as a drug dealer-yet another dead drug dealer-who would remain in his corner? And if you were going to frame someone for murder, who would be a better target than Christine-a troubled woman, someone the whole town seemed to have dismissed as being a hopeless nutcase?

  To answer that question, Ali decided to attempt going straight to the source-the nutcase herself. There was always a chance that Christine wouldn’t be allowed visitors. She might be under sedation, or she might simply refuse to speak to a complete stranger. On the other hand, she might be happy to tell her side of the story to someone who wasn’t a cop and was somewhat sympathetic. Before getting on I-10, Ali stopped the car long enough to find the address of Catalina Vista, a psychiatric hospital in Tucson, and program it into her GPS.

  On the way there, Ali worked out what she hoped sounded like a reasonable cover story to help her gain access to the facility and to Christine. She wasn’t surprised to find that the lobby of Catalina Vista looked more like an upscale residential hotel than a psych ward. A young woman who looked terminally bored sat behind a granite-topped reception counter, reading a paperback Joanna Brady novel.

  “I’m here to meet with Christine Tewksbury to make preliminary arrangements for her husband’s funeral,” Ali announced brusquely, slipping one of her business cards across the desk.

  Other than her name, address, and phone numbers, the only word on the card was “consultant.” It didn’t say what kind of consultant and gave no additional information, but that didn’t seem to matter. It passed muster with the young woman, who barely looked up from her book as she shoved a clipboard in Ali’s direction.

  “Sign in here,” she said. “I believe Mrs. Tewksbury is in the dayroom at the moment. That’s at the end of the hall. Press the button next to the door. I’ll buzz you in and out.”

  When Ali entered the dayroom, she found at least a dozen people gathered there, most of them clumped around a flat-screen television. The television viewers all seemed deeply engrossed in watching an episode of Judge Judy. Three people sat at a table playing dominoes. In the far corner of the room, a solitary woman in a hospital gown and robe paced anxiously back and forth in front of a floor-to-ceiling window.

  She was thin to the point of being gaunt. Long, stringy gray hair hung past her narrow waist. Of all the people in the room, she looked like the one Ali wanted.

  “Christine?” Ali asked uncertainly. “Christine Tewksbury?”

  With her face distorted by what looked like fury, Christine spun around and strode toward Ali, forcing her to take a cautionary step backward.

  “Who are you?” Christine demanded. “Are you a doctor? Are you a nurse? They’re keeping me here against my will. I want to go home. I want to go back to Phil. I know he doesn’t love me anymore, and I don’t blame him for that, but he’s a good man, really, and he takes very good care of me. Please. Make them let me go home.”

  Ali realized then that what had appeared to be anger was more likely despair. The desperation in Christine’s voice was heartbreaking. She wanted to go home. She seemed to have no understanding about what had happened, why she was there, or even that her husband was dead. Or maybe Christine Tewksbury was an excellent actress who understood everything about her situation and was dealing with it in the best way possible.

  “My name is Ali Reynolds,” Ali explained. “Patty Patton is a friend of mine. She told me about what had happened to you. I thought I’d come by and see if there’s anything you needed.”

  “Patty works with my husband,” Christine said, nodding. “And I do need something. I need Phil. Where is he? Is he still at work? Tell Patty that as soon as he gets done with his route, he needs to come pick me up. I don’t know why those men broke into my house like that. I tried to make them leave me alone-I was screaming at them-but they put handcuffs on me and brought me here. They tried to tell me that Phil is dead, but I don’t believe it. It’s not possible. He was fine yesterday. Why would he be dead today? Someone needs to let him know where I am so he can come get me.”

  Christine’s state of denial was so complete that Ali decided the best
approach was to go along with it and pretend that Phil was alive.

  “I’m sure your husband loves you very much,” she said.

  “Yes, he does,” Christine agreed. “Although I’m sure he loves Ollie, too.”

  “Ollie?” Ali asked, taking a seat in a nearby chair. “Who’s Ollie?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Christine stopped pacing and sat down beside Ali. “Ollie is Phil’s girlfriend,” she explained. “I don’t mind that he has a girlfriend, you see, but I wish he wouldn’t bring her to the house. That’s not right. Not with me living there. It’s disrespectful. I don’t like it. Cassie won’t like it, either.”

  Ali had picked up enough of Christine’s life story to know that Cassie, Phil and Christine’s daughter, had been dead for years. If Christine somehow thought her daughter was alive, how much of the rest of the story was true? At this point, did Christine Tewksbury have any idea what was real and what wasn’t? For that matter, what was her grasp on the difference between right and wrong? But the idea of a girlfriend thrown into the mix put the whole situation in a different light. And since Christine was willing to answer questions right then, Ali went right on asking them.

  “Phil has a girlfriend?”

  “Oh, yes,” Christine said, “for months now. It’s supposed to be a big secret, and I haven’t let on that I know, but I found a letter he wrote to her. He left it sitting on the counter. It was silly. ‘Dear Olive Oyl,’ he said. And in the middle of the note, he called her Ollie, and he signed it, ‘Love, Popeye.’ That was the only part of the letter that was silly. The rest of it was real. He was telling her all about me-about what’s wrong with me. That wasn’t right. What’s wrong with me is nobody else’s business, especially not hers.”

  Patty had said that Christine hadn’t left the house in years. Had Phil Tewksbury been so thoughtless as to bring the other woman in his life into the house with Christine still there?

  “You’re saying Ollie’s been to your house?” Ali asked.

  “Oh, yes. She was there this morning,” Christine said confidently.

  “Did you see her?”

  “No, but I smelled her perfume. At least I think it was her perfume. It wasn’t mine. Who else’s would it be?”

  “Did you tell the officers who came to your house earlier that you suspected someone else had been there?”

  “I didn’t tell them anything. I wanted them out of my house. I wanted them to leave me alone, but they wouldn’t.”

  “This is important, Christine,” Ali said. “Do you have any proof that some other person was in your house today?”

  “Only the bat,” Christine said. “Cassie’s new bat. It wasn’t there in the living room last night when I went to bed. I thought Phil had gotten rid of it, but this morning it was there by my chair as if by magic, and just when I needed it, too, when all those people came charging through my house without my permission. You do believe me, don’t you?”

  In a way, Ali did believe her. Part of the story sounded like the fantastical ravings of a madwoman, but part of it sounded like undeniable truth. Ali knew that the Tewksburys’ house had been searched earlier in the day. Chances were that if Phil had entertained a girlfriend there, they would have found some evidence of her visit. And if there had been correspondence between Phil and Ollie squirreled away, that would have been found, too. Under the circumstances, the fact that Phil had had a girlfriend would be another black mark for Christine. In a homicide investigation, it was often only a short step from insane to insanely jealous.

  But what about the presence of another person in the house that day, as either a possible perpetrator or a possible witness? Had Christine tried to tell Deputy Carson or Sheriff Renteria about that earlier when they had accosted the poor woman in her home? The presence of another person might be vitally important, but with Christine screaming at them and brandishing a lethal weapon, Ali doubted the officers on the scene had paid close attention to what she said. After all, everyone in town seemed to be convinced that Christine Tewksbury was crazy, and listening to crazy people was … well … crazy.

  “Do you happen to know someone named Jose Reyes?” Ali asked. “Is he a friend of your husband’s?”

  Christine shook her head. “I don’t recognize the name. He might be one of the guys at the cafe. Phil goes there every morning for breakfast.”

  “What about drugs?” Ali asked.

  “What about them?”

  “Is there a chance Phil might be involved in the drug trade?”

  “What kind of drugs?”

  “Marijuana,” Ali said.

  “Phil?” Christine said with a harsh laugh. “Are you kidding? He doesn’t even smoke cigarettes. What would he do with marijuana? Besides, he’s too busy working. That’s all he does, really-he works, and he looks after me.”

  Ali glanced at her watch. Haley had an evening class to go to, and it was close to time for her to drop off the girls. Ali wanted to be back at the hospital in case she was needed to help chase after Lucy and Carinda. She stood up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Tewksbury,” she said. “I need to go now.”

  “Can I go with you?” Christine asked. “Please? What if Phil doesn’t come get me today? What if he doesn’t know I’m here?”

  In some part of Christine’s tangled reality, she truly believed that her husband was alive and coming to get her. It wasn’t Ali’s responsibility to convince her otherwise.

  “I’m sure he does,” she said reassuringly. “And I’m sure he’ll come for you as soon as he can.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?” Christine asked. Distress took over. Her voice rose to a keening wail. “What if I have to stay here forever? Please take me with you. Please.”

  By then, alerted to the disturbance by Christine’s raised voice, a pair of uniformed attendants rushed into the room. While they tried unsuccessfully to calm Christine, Ali hurried to the door and buzzed to be let out. All the way down the hall and out through the lobby, she could hear that terrible, despairing cry. She felt guilty. Ali’s presence was what had caused Christine’s outburst, but Christine was the one who would suffer the consequences.

  Back in her vehicle, Ali had to call information to get Patty Patton’s telephone numbers. She tried both the home number and the one listed for the post office. In each case, the phone rang and no one answered. Patty was a landline person, and she evidently wasn’t home.

  “Patty, it’s Ali Reynolds,” Ali said into what sounded like an old-fashioned desktop answering machine. “It’s about Christine, and it’s important. Give me a call when you get this.”

  44

  5:30 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Tucson, Arizona

  In the course of the afternoon, Sister Anselm ushered family members into Rose Ventana’s room in the ICU. She knew that the visits were wearing on Rose, not only emotionally but also physically. The difficulty of communicating through her wired-shut jaw made speaking exceptionally difficult. Between each visit, she needed time to rest and regroup.

  Sister Anselm was also aware that Detective Rush had taken her words of advice to heart. She and Al Gutierrez had spent the afternoon sitting on the sidelines. Sometimes Al seemed to be fielding phone calls while Detective Rush worked on her computer. Sister Anselm knew they were hanging around in hopes of interviewing Rose Ventana.

  That opportunity came at five-thirty in the afternoon, with Rose’s long-awaited move from the ICU to a regular wing of the hospital. Since her new room was only a few doors away from Jose Reyes’s new room, many of the people Sister Anselm met in the corridor and in the new waiting room were familiar faces.

  Shortly after the move, when the Fox family left for dinner in the cafeteria, Sister Anselm turned to her charge. “There’s someone else in the waiting room who would like to speak to you.”

  “Who?”

  “Detective Ariel Rush, a homicide detective from Phoenix, and Al Gutierrez, the Border Patrol agent who found you.”

  “Do I have to talk to them?�
�� Rose asked. Her mumbled words were understandable, but just barely.

  “You don’t have to,” Sister Anselm said, “but they’d like you to. Detective Rush needs your help.”

  “Why? Who’s dead?”

  Sister Anselm had noticed that during their brief visits in the course of the day, Rose’s parents and sisters had all managed to avoid any discussions of Rose’s life as Breeze Domingo. They also hadn’t mentioned anything about Chico Hernandez’s murder, leaving it up to Sister Anselm to break the bad news.

  “A friend of yours,” Sister Anselm said. “Chico Hernandez.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Detective Rush is investigating his murder. She seems to think his killer may also be responsible for what happened to you. So if you’ll speak to her, you may be able to help.”

  Rose thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “All right.”

  Sister Anselm went out into the corridor, caught Detective Rush’s eye. “You can come in now,” she said. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “Not necessary,” Detective Rush said. “This is a preliminary interview only. With Agent Gutierrez and me here, she’ll probably be more comfortable with you here as well.”

  As they entered the room, Rose’s eyes followed Al, who was carrying an oversize briefcase. “You found me?” she asked him.

  It seemed to take him a moment to understand her. When he did, he nodded.

  “Thank you,” Rose said.

  That sentence was entirely understandable. Al’s face broke into a wide grin. “You’re welcome,” he said.

  During this exchange, Detective Rush was busy placing her open computer on the movable table next to Rose’s bed.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Ventana,” she said. “Ariel Rush from the Homicide unit of Phoenix PD. I’d like to record this. There’s a video device loaded into my computer. If you don’t mind, we’ll be using that to record this session.”