Left for Dead ar-7

by J. A. Jance

  “What about the rest of it?” Renteria asked.

  “The crime lab guy said what he saw on the working end of the bat looks good for possible brain matter, but official verification will take time.”

  “How much time?”

  “I got the feeling that it depends on who’s asking,” Zambrano said. “You might have better luck than I did. I just heard that the phone company warrants came back tonight, earlier than I expected. I plan to work on phone records first thing in the morning, before our meeting with Lattimore. If we can connect some communication dots between Reyes and Tewksbury, it’ll make our lives a lot easier. I’ll do the Patty Patton interview after we finish up with Lattimore.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Stopping off at the Triple T to grab some dinner. There’s nothing like good old-fashioned deep-dish apple pie to take my mind off spatters of brain matter.”

  The second line on Sheriff Renteria’s line lit up. “Okay,” he said. “Let me take this other call.” He clicked over. “Sheriff Renteria.”

  “We just had a nine-one-one call from Patty Patton,” the watch commander said. “She’s out at the Lazy S Ranch south of Patagonia. She says Oscar Sanchez has been shot. He’s dead.”

  Renteria was already on his feet, reaching for his Stetson. “Okay,” he said. “I’m on my way. Any idea where Mrs. Sanchez is?”

  “None.”

  “What kind of car does she drive?”

  “I’ll find out and get back to you. According to Patty, there’s a minivan parked in the front yard. No signs of struggle inside the house.”

  “Patty went inside the house?”

  “She had to go inside to use the phone.”

  “All right,” he said. “I’m on my way to my car. Call Zambrano on his cell and tell him he’ll need to order that deep-dish pie to go. He needs to meet me at the Sanchez place ASAP. Can we get Patty Patton to call me back on my cell? I need to talk to her.”

  “I can’t,” the operator said. “She called on the Sanchez home phone, but I told her that since the house is now a crime scene, she should go outside and wait for us to get someone there.”

  Sheriff Renteria knew that was the right move, but he was beyond frustrated. “Why the hell doesn’t the woman have a cell phone?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know,” the operator said. “You’ll need to ask her when you get there.”

  Forty minutes later, Renteria pulled into the front yard at the Lazy S and parked his patrol car next to Patty’s Camaro. She was sitting inside the open passenger door, cuddling a shivering Jack Russell terrier.

  “His name is Bert,” she said without looking up. “It says so on the tag. I think he must have been Oscar’s dog.”

  “Did you touch the body?”

  “No, but I know he’s dead.”

  Not content to take her word for it, Renteria went to see for himself. It was true. Oscar Sanchez was propped in a chair. The bullet had been shot into the back of his head at an angle and exited through the bottom of the chair. As far as Manuel Renteria was concerned, it gave a whole new meaning to the term “execution-style slaying.” Patty had left the front door open, and the sheriff was able to peek into the living room without having to step inside. Patty was right-there was no sign of a struggle. Nothing seemed to be out of place.

  Renteria went back to the Camaro. Since Patty was still in the passenger seat, he slid in behind the steering wheel. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I came to see Olga, but she’s not here.”

  “Lucky for you,” Renteria said. “But why did you come to see Olga?”

  “About these,” Patty said. She opened her purse, pulled out a packet of envelopes, and handed it to him. “I wanted to let her know about it before I turned these over to you.”

  Renteria searched around the visor until he found the switch for the reading light, then he had to pat around in his pockets to find his reading glasses. “Popeye,” he said once he could see the top envelope. “Who the hell is Popeye?”

  “That would be Phil Tewksbury,” Patty said. “After Christine told Ali that Phil had a girlfriend-”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Who’s Ali?”

  “Ali Reynolds. Jose’s friend. You met her today when she came to report the vandalism at Jose’s house. When she went back to Tucson, she stopped by Catalina Vista and talked to Christine-”

  “Christine actually talked to someone?”

  “Ali said Christine was waiting for Phil to come get her, that she didn’t seem to understand he was dead. Christine also said something about being upset because Phil’s girlfriend was at their house earlier this morning.”

  Sheriff Renteria stared at Patty. He had wondered about Phil’s love life-if he had one-and whether Patty herself might have been the object of Phil’s affection. That was evidently wrong, but how the hell had Ali whatever-her-name-was gotten Christine Tewksbury to stop screaming and start talking?

  “Christine told her that Olga Sanchez was Phil’s girlfriend?”

  “No. She just said that he had a girlfriend, a woman named Ollie-that she had seen a letter Phil wrote to someone named Ollie. And Christine claimed that Ollie had been at the house this morning-at Phil’s house-that she had smelled her perfume.”

  Renteria felt a clench in his gut. Somewhere in the midst of the pitched battle in Phil Tewksbury’s living room, while they were grappling with Christine and trying to wrench the bat out of the madwoman’s hands, he seemed to remember her screaming something incomprehensible about perfume, but she had been a raving maniac at the time. He hadn’t really paid attention. He had been too busy trying to keep from having his own head bashed in. Even in the patrol car, Christine hadn’t made any sense. She had kept right on screaming and pounding her head against the window.

  “Since Christine said she had seen one letter,” Patty was saying, “I wondered if there might be others. If so, obviously, Phil wouldn’t have left them lying around the house, where Christine could find them. I went back to the post office and looked in his set of drawers in the sorting table. That’s where I found them. They’re from Olga, but she signs them Ollie, short for Olive Oyl. I guess it’s like a joke or something, but because she mentioned Oscar, I knew who she was. Since Christine claimed Olga had been at her house, I knew I’d need to turn these over to you, and I wanted to let her know.”

  “That was probably a really stupid idea,” Renteria said.

  “Yes,” Patty agreed. “I know that now.”

  While they waited for the overworked county coroner and the crime scene techs to show up at Santa Cruz County’s second homicide scene of the day, Sheriff Renteria decided to read the notes. First he went to his patrol car and retrieved a pair of latex gloves from the trunk. Then he came back to the Camaro.

  What he found in the envelopes were notes rather than letters-notes that made arrangements for future meetings. There were brief comments on things Ollie and Phil had done, where they had been, and how things were at home with Oscar’s increasingly precarious health situation. It wasn’t until Renteria got to the last one, the thank-you note, that it all came together for him. As soon as he saw the part about changing the tire, he knew what had happened.

  Phil Tewksbury hadn’t shot Jose Reyes. He’d been set up-framed by someone who made sure his prints were on the lug wrench left at the crime scene. Olga had tried to murder her former daughter-in-law’s new husband, first by passing the blame on to Phil and then by blaming Phil’s murder on Christine. Now, with Oscar Sanchez dead, Olga had no one else to blame.

  The sheriff pulled out his cell phone and dialed the office. “Have you located all the Sanchez vehicles?”

  “Yes. They own a 2008 Dodge Caravan, a 2006 Range Rover, and a 1998 Buick Regal.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I want you to put out a statewide BOLO on the Range Rover and the Buick. Olga Sanchez is now a person of interest in three separate homicides. Tell people to be on their guard. She could be armed and dange
rous.”

  “Three?” Patty Patton asked. “You mean you no longer think Christine murdered her husband?”

  Sheriff Renteria sighed and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m afraid when you’re right, you’re right.”

  51

  7:00 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Tucson, Arizona

  Detective Rush had been gone only a few minutes when the first reporter showed up at PMC. Hearing raised voices in the hall outside Rose’s room, Sister Anselm went out to find a reporter, backed up by a cameraman, attempting to interview Connie Fox.

  “What’s going on?” the nun demanded.

  Connie nodded in the reporter’s direction. “What should I do?”

  The reporter stepped forward and held up her ID for Sister Anselm’s perusal. “My name is Abby Summers,” she said. “I’m with the FOX affiliate in Phoenix. Someone who knows I’ve been following Rose’s story for years sent me a tweet about it-a tweet from someone named Jasmine-claiming that Rose had been found and was being treated here.”

  In her head, Sister Anselm replayed the telling glance that had passed between Jasmine and Lily Ventana when Detective Rush had been explaining the need not to go public with Rose’s situation. It seemed clear that even then the cat was already out of the bag. Sister Anselm also knew that if one reporter was here, others were bound to follow. And no telling who else. So if the strategy of keeping quiet wasn’t going to work, maybe it was time to do the opposite. She thought it might be time for a media circus of her own making.

  “I think you should go ahead and tell Ms. Summers the whole story,” Sister Anselm said decisively.

  Connie Fox’s eyes widened. “All of it?”

  “All of it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Sister Anselm said. To the reporter, she added, “I think doing the interview right here in the waiting room will be fine.”

  As the reporter and cameraman moved into position, Sister Anselm set out on a brisk walk through the hospital, looking for something that didn’t fit. She found what she was looking for in the next wing over when she walked past a man pushing an enormous floor polisher.

  She looked at the man, smiled, and nodded. When he ducked his head and looked away, she knew. This was the guy.

  One of the terms of sale between the nuns of All Saints and the doctors who created PMC had been a written agreement that, wherever possible, the hospital would make use of workers from a nearby sheltered workshop that was also operated by All Saints. Developmentally disabled adults from there did much of the hospital’s grunt work, from the laundry to routine janitorial functions. One glance was enough to tell Sister Anselm that the guy pushing the floor polisher wasn’t developmentally disabled.

  She stopped off in a restroom long enough to dial Bishop Gillespie’s number. “I need some help,” she said when he answered. “I want an anonymous but urgent tip to go out to every media outlet in both Tucson and Phoenix.”

  Bishop Gillespie had a reputation for being well connected inside the law enforcement community, but his media savvy was just as extensive. “About?” he asked.

  “I need a flash mob of reporters here at PMC as soon as you can drum one up. Tell them that Rose Ventana, a teenager from Buckeye who went missing three years ago, has been found outside Tucson. She was the victim of a vicious assault and is currently receiving treatment at Physicians Medical Center.”

  “Are you sure?” Bishop Gillespie asked. “This doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I’m sure,” Sister Anselm said. “And I need those reporters here ASAP.”

  She made three more calls before she left the restroom. The first one was to Detective Rush. “Where are you?” the nun asked.

  “I just dropped Al off in Vail and I’m on my way back to Phoenix. Why? What’s up?”

  “I think we have a problem. There’s a guy here running a floor polisher in the wing next to Rose’s. I think he’s a ringer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he’s someone who’s pretending to be an PMC janitor who isn’t an PMC janitor.”

  “Do you think he poses a danger to Rose?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s a very real possibility. Enough that I think we need her out of the hospital immediately.”

  “All right,” Detective Rush said. “I’m on my way back to the hospital right now.”

  “No,” Sister Anselm said. “I want you to go straight to the All Saints Convent. It’s on San Pedro Road. The entrance is on the left, about a mile and a half beyond the hospital. Ask for Sister Genevieve. She’ll know what to do.”

  “But-” Detective Rush began.

  “Please,” Sister Anselm urged. “Just go. I’m working on a plan to smuggle Rose out of the hospital, and I need to make two more calls.”

  The next call was to Sister Genevieve. The one after that was to Dr. Lazlo. When she left the restroom, the floor polisher was still working his way down the corridor. Once again, she smiled at him as she passed. Once again, he looked away. By the time she got back to the hospital’s main lobby, the first Tucson-based camera crew was already arriving on the scene.

  Thank you, Bishop Gillespie, she thought.

  Outside Rose’s door, Abby Summer was finishing her interview. As the second crew came down the hallway, Sister Anselm motioned for them to stop. “Mrs. Fox will be doing interviews one at a time on a first-come, first-served basis,” she announced to the woman leading the charge.

  “Not a press conference?” the reporter asked.

  “No,” Sister Anselm said. “Individual interviews only.”

  And the longer they take, the better.

  Sister Anselm nodded encouragingly to Connie Fox on her way past. She hadn’t told Rose’s mother what she was planning, for fear she wouldn’t be able to carry it off. Right now she was better off not knowing.

  52

  7:15 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Tucson, Arizona

  When Angel Moreno reached the next hallway, he was shocked by what he saw. Most of the hallways had been relatively deserted. This one was jammed, and not just with people. There were reporters and cameras-way too many cameras.

  During his briefing, Humberto had given him a series of photos, and Angel immediately recognized one of the faces in the crowd. The woman being interviewed was Connie Fox, the target’s mother. So this was the right hallway and the right waiting room. No doubt the door to the right of where the mother was sitting was the room where he needed to be.

  Pushing his supply cart into the hallway, he parked it as close to the target room as he was able to, then took the polisher to the far end of the hallway and went to work. The people with cameras and microphones gestured that they wanted him to turn off his machine, but he ignored them.

  At one point, an elderly nun pushing another nun in a wheelchair appeared at the lobby end of the corridor. She deftly threaded her way through the milling reporters and went into the target room. They went in and came out in under a minute, then went back to the lobby.

  Angel was at the wrong end of the hallway. Turning off the polisher, he followed them, but it took time to fight his way through the crowd. He arrived at the front entrance in time to see a wheelchair-accessible van speeding away from the front door so fast that he didn’t catch a glimpse of the license plate. He wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but he didn’t think it was worth making a mad dash across the parking lot in hopes of giving chase.

  Two nuns had gone into the room; two nuns had come out. The girl’s mother was still there, calmly talking to reporters. On his way back down the crowded corridor, Angel paused by the open doorway to the target room long enough to see that the patient was evidently still in her bed. Relieved, he went back to the polishing. All he had to do now was wait for the damnable reporters to finish what they were doing and get the hell out.

  53

  7:30 P.M., Monday, April 12

  Tucson, Arizona

&
nbsp; After a solitary but relaxing dinner at McMahon’s and a forty-five-minute decompressing phone call with B., Ali pulled into the Physicians Medical parking lot at seven-thirty and was surprised to see that the place was full of media vans. Her initial concern was that Jose’s condition had taken a turn for the worse. So she was relieved when she entered the lobby and Lucy came running toward her to give her a quick hug.

  “We’re over there with our cousin,” Lucy said, pointing toward a table in the corner of the room. “We’re playing Chutes and Ladders. I’m winning.”

  “Great,” Ali said. “I was never any good at Chutes and Ladders.”

  A dark-haired teenager, chatting on a cell phone, came after Lucy and caught her up while Carinda stayed at the table, hugging a teddy bear that was almost as big as she was.

  “I’m Julie,” the girl explained. She closed the phone and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans. “Tomas is my grandfather. My mom and I came over from Silver City to help out.”

  “I’m Ali Reynolds from Sedona. I’m here to help, too.”

  As Julie led Lucy back toward the board game, Ali headed for Jose’s room. Once she was in the corridor, she could see a crush of media people in the waiting room beyond Jose’s room. They were interviewing a woman Ali didn’t recognize. Relieved that the media attention was on someone else, she hurried into Jose’s room. A tearful Teresa, with little Carmine in her arms, sat in the visitor’s chair.

  “She’s upset about the mess at the house,” Jose explained. “I told her it’s one of those things. We’ll just have to get through it. Juanita Cisco got on the phone to the insurance company. They’ll have an adjuster out at the house first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Good,” Ali said. “And I talked to Patty Patton, the woman who runs the post office. She says she’ll be happy to help organize cleanup crews when you get to that point.”

  Jose turned to his wife. “See there? We won’t have to do it all ourselves. That’s why we’re living in a small town-neighbors helping neighbors.”