Left for Dead ar-7

by J. A. Jance

  “Yes, with the letters. The cops need to know that there’s another woman in Phil’s life, a woman who isn’t Christine.”

  “But won’t that make things worse for her?”

  “I don’t see how. Christine already knows Phil had at least one outside interest,” Ali said. “Maybe there was another one we know nothing about. If nothing else, knowing about the letters between Olga and Phil will give the detectives someone to investigate who isn’t Christine. In any event, you can’t withhold this information. It’s a homicide investigation. If you don’t call Sheriff Renteria about it, I will.”

  “Why don’t I go talk to Olga first? Shouldn’t I give her some kind of advance warning?”

  “Are you asking my opinion?” Ali asked.

  “Well, yes,” Patty said. “I suppose I am.”

  “Talk to Sheriff Renteria. Do not talk to Olga,” Ali advised.

  “All right,” Patty agreed. “I will.”

  She ended the call and put down the phone. Then she sat there and read through all the letters. The last one in the stack, the most recent, was a simple thank-you card-to Phil for changing Olga’s flat tire. As far as Patty could see, this was all harmless, innocent stuff. Olga Sanchez was a neighbor, a local, someone Patty Patton had known all her life. Ali Reynolds was an outsider; a stranger.

  In the small-town world of Patagonia, that’s what tipped the scales for Patty Patton that night-insider versus outsider; neighbor versus stranger. Olga was in; Ali was out. Patty knew she would call the sheriff eventually because she had said she would, but not until after she had given Olga Sanchez a heads-up. Patty knew how what appeared to be a perfectly platonic relationship between Olga and Phil would be viewed through the prism of Patagonia’s small-town gossip, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  Patty stuffed the packet of letters into her purse. Picking up her keys and shutting off the light, she locked the door behind her and headed out. The Lazy S was only ten miles south of Patagonia on Harshaw Road, but it would take the better part of an hour to get there. It was full dark out. Much of the unpaved road was open range, where wandering cattle made nighttime driving treacherous.

  It was fine for Patty to head out on what she regarded as an errand of mercy. It was not fine to wreck the Camaro in the process. She drove carefully and smoked one cigarette after another along the way.

  When her tires lumbered across the cattle guard at the entrance to the Lazy S, Patty could see the house in the distance. With no lights glowing in any of the windows, she guessed no one was home. Still, having come that far, she decided not to leave without at least going to the door. A minivan was parked next to a gate that led into a small fenced yard, and she pulled up next to it. When the Camaro stopped, a small dog, barking frantically, came racing to the front gate. The dog, a Jack Russell terrier-like creature, sounded completely prepared to go into full-attack mode, and Patty was glad he was apparently locked inside the yard.

  It wasn’t until she looked away from the dog that she saw, caught in her still-glowing headlights, the figure of a man sitting in a chair near the front door of the covered front porch. Despite the fierce racket from the dog, he sat with his chin resting on his chest as though he were asleep.

  Warily, still worried about the dog, Patty rolled down the window. “Hello,” she called. “Are you all right?” The man didn’t move or respond in any fashion.

  Patty switched off the engine and her headlights. Left in darkness, she got out of the car, opened the trunk, and dug out the powerful trouble light she kept there. She wished she had the doggie bag of dinner leftovers she had taken home from the cafe, but those were already at home in her fridge. She would have to talk her way around the fierce little dog without the benefit of food.

  She approached to the gate. The dog had retreated to the porch but he immediately came charging back to the gate.

  “Sit!” Patty ordered. She gave the command with feeling and was amazed when it worked. The dog sat.

  “Stay!” she ordered as she eased open the gate. That command worked too. Patty Patton wasn’t a dog person. “Sit” and “stay” were the only commands she knew, but it turned out they were the only ones she needed.

  Leaving the dog next to the gate, she walked up the gravel walkway. She was almost to the porch and shining the light on the man when she saw the blood pooling on the wooden-plank flooring under the chair. Oscar Sanchez wasn’t asleep. He hadn’t heard the barking dog because he was dead.

  For the first time in her life, Patty Patton wished she had a cell phone. For a time she stood there, staring at him, while the flashlight trembled in her hand. Raising the light, she walked behind the man and saw the hole in the back of his head, a small hole that went into the base of his skull and angled down through his body. There was very little blood in the entry wound. The blood had to come from somewhere else-a place she couldn’t see.

  Patty stood transfixed, staring at the body. Should she go back to town and summon help, or should she try the front door?

  Mindful that this would be a crime scene, she used the tail of her shirt to try turning the doorknob. It opened. As she let herself inside, she worried about finding another body in the room, but there wasn’t one. She saw no sign of a struggle, and no phone, either. Nothing seemed to be out of order. Picking her way across the room, she stepped into the kitchen, and that’s where she found an old-fashioned dial phone mounted on the wall next to the kitchen cabinets.

  Her hand was shaking. It was all she could do to get her dialing finger into the proper holes.

  “Nine-one-one. What are you reporting?”

  “I’m at the Lazy S Ranch on Harshaw Road,” she said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “Oscar Sanchez is dead. I think he’s been shot.”

  48

  6:00 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Tucson, Arizona

  Angel Moreno had spent a very busy but very profitable afternoon. When he told Sal and Tony that Humberto had a job for them, the two dopes came along as nice as you please. They were now disposed of, wrapped in a roll of orange shag carpeting and dropped off in the landfill north of Coolidge.

  Long experience had taught Angel Moreno that orange shag was the best bet for that kind of job. Even when things started to leak, the colors more or less matched, and no one went near orange shag these days if they could help it. He had left the landfill with an empty panel truck and a feeling of accomplishment. Two down; one to go.

  Another thing experience had taught Angel was that there was no disguise quite as effective as pretending to be a janitor with a mop. Or, in this case, a janitor with an immense floor polisher. He had brought one along in his van when he drove down from Phoenix, just in case. And he had been right. It turned out that the long hallways at Physicians Medical Center were uniformly in need of polishing.

  The one thing he had expected to be a real challenge-laying hands on a hospital employee badge-had turned out to be no challenge at all. Halfway through his second pass in the parking lot, he found a Van Pool van complete with a conveniently unlocked door and a valid PMC employee badge lying right on the dashboard. Angel was able to filch it without setting off so much as a beeping auto alarm. That was the thing he really liked about auto alarms-if doors weren’t properly locked, an alarm didn’t make a sound.

  Armed with the badge lanyard attached to the pocket of a pair of anonymous scrubs, he was ready. The polisher was mounted on the front of a wheeled cart that held a tall plastic container with a convincing collection of mops and brooms. The bottom of the container held a small canvas bag with one particular item that wasn’t remotely related to janitorial supplies.

  Pushing his way across the parking lot, he used the badge to enter a locked door at the rear of the building next to the Dumpsters. That was the most dangerous time, getting inside the building. Once he was in, however, he didn’t rush. He checked the map in the lobby so he knew where to find the ICU, but he was in no hurry to get there. In fact, the later he arrived,
the better. All he had to do in the meantime was polish floors like crazy. As long as he kept the ID tag so the name didn’t show, and kept his face averted around security cameras, Angel was secure in the knowledge that no one would notice.

  Except this time they did notice. Everywhere he went at Physicians Medical, people smiled at him or greeted him, asking him things like “How’s it going?” That was not a good situation for someone accustomed to being invisible while in plain sight.

  It was unsettling, but not enough so for him to back off or give up. After all, Humberto had paid him in advance, and Angel had no intention of screwing this up. Angel Morales knew all too well what happened to people who promised something to Humberto Laos and then didn’t deliver.

  49

  6:30 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Tucson, Arizona

  Ariel Rush closed her computer and hustled out of Rose Ventana’s new room, leaving Al Gutierrez to trail along in her wake. By the time they were in the hospital corridor, Detective Rush already had her phone to her ear.

  “Yes,” she said into it. “I want the name of that friend of yours who left Phoenix PD to go to work in Fountain Hills. That’s Tim Barrow, B-A-R-R-O-W. Don’t worry about the phone number. I can get that.” She ended the call and turned back to Al. “How does hospital cafeteria grub grab you?”

  Now that the interview was over, Al had expected to be on his way back to Vail, sooner rather than later. He was grateful for the opportunity to hang around a little longer. “Better than starving.”

  They made their way to the cafeteria, where she gave him money and sent him off to fetch burgers from the fast-food line while she set up her computer once more. When he returned with the burgers, she was back on the phone.

  “Okay, Captain Barrow,” she was saying into the phone. “No, I don’t have an address, just a description. This is what we’ve got. A two-story-plus-basement house in Fountain Hills. It’s supposed to be set on a large lot that backs up to the desert. There’s a long steep driveway with wrought-iron gates at the bottom of the drive and a guard shack by the gate. Any of that sound familiar?”

  Ariel Rush paused to listen and then laughed. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me, but put it out to your patrol division. I think it’s possible that you’ve got a serial killer sitting right there in town, and he’s finally made his first mistake-a homicide victim who didn’t quite die. We need to get to this guy and take him down before he figures out we’ve got a witness.”

  She cradled the phone on her shoulder long enough to apply ketchup and mustard to her burger. “Okay,” she said. “You’ve got my number? And if you find it, I need someone to send me a photo of the gate and the driveway.”

  Detective Rush put down her phone and took the first bite from her burger. Al’s was already half gone.

  “You really think he’s just going to sit there and wait for us to come find him?”

  “Actually, I think he will. From what Rose told us, he’s got money. He likes to torture girls, but he likes his creature comforts. He’s also arrogant as hell. He’s got people on the payroll who do his dirty work for him. The two guys who dumped Rose Ventana without properly finishing the job won’t be eager to let him know they screwed up.”

  “Which gives us time,” Al said.

  “Some time,” Ariel Rush allowed. “Some but not a lot. While we wait for Fountain Hills to get back to us, let’s collect that rape kit and deliver it, along with our Three Points cigarette butt, to the crime lab to check for DNA.”

  “Isn’t that expensive?” Al asked. “Who’s going to pay for the testing?”

  Detective Rush looked at him and grinned. “If this case turns out to be as big as I think it is, we’re going to have all sorts of people lining up to have the evidence processed, up to and including the FBI. But we’re not bringing in anyone else until I’m damned good and ready. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Al agreed. “Let’s do it.”

  Just then her phone chirped. “Text message,” she said. She pressed a button, glanced at the screen, then passed the phone to Al. “I believe we have a bingo,” she said. “Let’s go show it to Rose.”

  Al studied the photo on the screen. It showed a pair of ornate gates in front of a driveway that led up a very steep hill with what appeared to be a guard shack off to the left. The caption beneath the photo said 15568 CENTIPEDE CIRCLE, FOUNTAIN HILLS, ARIZONA.

  Al looked from the photo to Detective Rush. “It can’t be this easy,” he said.

  “Sometimes it is,” Detective Rush said. “First we’ll show this to Rose Ventana, then we’ll see.”

  When they got back to the hospital, Rose’s mother and Sister Anselm were still in Rose’s room. As soon as the young woman looked at the photo of the gate, Ariel Rush knew they were on to something. “That’s it?” she asked. “That’s the place?”

  Rose nodded.

  “All right, then,” Detective Rush said. “You get better while we go to work.”

  “How did they know which house it was?” Al asked.

  “The guard shack,” she said. “That’s what gave it away.”

  She was back on the phone by the time they were halfway down the corridor. “Okay, Tim,” she said. “That’s the right house. Send me anything and everything you have on this guy.” She listened for some time. When she ended the call, she turned to Al.

  “Back to Vail for you,” she said, “and then I’m headed back to Phoenix. Our suspected bad guy’s name is Humberto Laos, and he’s very busy. He runs several companies, including a janitorial supply house and an exterminating company, with any number of white panel trucks registered to the company. The feds think he’s using those companies as fronts to do money laundering for the Mexican cartels, with a bit of loan sharking on the side. The panel trucks do dual duty. When he’s not using them for business, I’ll bet they help out with the other more sordid parts of his life. I’m pretty sure we’ll discover that one of those vans was used in the hit on Chico, and either the same one or a different one was used to transport Rose.”

  “And now Rose, the one who got away, may be the one who will bring him down,” Al said.

  “Yes,” Detective Rush said. “Thanks to you. But the really good news is this: The feds have had his property under video surveillance for some time. Tim says there are vans coming and going all the time, with a clear shot of Chico’s Lincoln dropping Rose off on Thursday. They gave her a ride up the hill in a golf cart. There’s no film showing her coming back down.”

  “What are you going to do next?” Al asked.

  “I’m going to get myself a warrant and see if we can find some of Rose’s DNA in Laos’s basement before he figures out a way to get it cleaned up.”

  “What am I going to do?” Al Gutierrez asked.

  He already knew the answer. He would go back to work and take more of Sergeant Dobbs’s crap.

  “If you can, stay in touch with Sister Anselm,” Detective Rush said. “The sooner we can get Rose out of that hospital and into the convent, the better. Since you almost got into her room the other night, someone else could, too.”

  “You think Laos is that dangerous?”

  “I do.”

  “Okay,” he said. “When I’m not working, I’ll be there.”

  They drove the rest of the way to his place in Vail in silence. When he got out of the car, Al Gutierrez felt let down. Something special had happened to him that day. Now it was over.

  “Thanks,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand. “It’s been a trip.”

  “It has been,” she agreed. “For me, too. You’re a smart guy, Al, and a cop at heart. If you ever get tired of chasing illegal immigrants through the mesquite and decide that the Border Patrol isn’t for you, call me. I happen to have more than a little pull with the hiring guys at Phoenix PD. I’ll see to it that they give you a chance.”

  “And I can tell Kevin Dobbs to go to hell?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Detective Rush drove away
and left him standing there alone but feeling altogether better.

  50

  7:00 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Nogales, Arizona

  Sheriff Renteria was dozing at his desk when the phone rang. “Okay,” Detective Zambrano said. “The two cases are definitely a package deal. The prints on all postal boxes track back to Phil Tewksbury, and his prints match the ones on the lug wrench from the Reyes shooting scene.”

  “Have you talked to Lattimore about any of this?”

  “Touched bases. He’s planning on meeting with us at the department tomorrow morning at ten.”

  “What about the bundles of drugs?” Renteria asked.

  “I went into the evidence room and took a look at them. They’re all pretty similar in terms of size and shape. Unless dope smugglers are into some kind of uniform packaging, I’d say they’re all from the same source.”

  “Any prints on those?”

  “Not a single one.”

  “In other words, whoever was doing the packaging wore gloves,” Renteria suggested.

  “Seems likely,” Zambrano agreed.

  “What about the sunglasses we found in Phil’s truck?”

  “Wiped clean, although they may be able to obtain DNA evidence from the nose pads, hinges, and earpieces. I’ve also asked the crime lab to check both the wig and the head scarf for prints. Finding prints on fabric is more difficult than finding prints on hard surfaces, but it’s also harder for crooks to wipe fabric clean, because you don’t wipe prints you can’t see.”

  It was just what Renteria had hoped. The fingerprint evidence was telling them what they had expected to find-that the two cases were connected, and Phil Tewksbury was most likely responsible for the Reyes shooting.

  “What about prints on the bat?” the sheriff asked.

  “Those definitely point to Christine. There were actually two sets of prints on the bat-a very old set that belongs to Phil Tewksbury and several brand-new prints that match Christine’s.”