Dead Wrong

Chapter 9

Joanna paused long enough to pull Frank away from the group of investigators gathered around the abandoned truck. “I’m on my way to Tucson,” she said. “How come?” “A badly injured unidentified female was dropped off at UMC earlier this morning.”

“Jeannine?” Frank asked.

“Maybe,” Joanna said. “I’m going to go check it out, but let’s not say anything to the others until we know for sure. I don’t want to get people’s hopes up. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Good luck,” Frank said. “It sounds like we need it.” Driving through Benson westbound on I-10, Joanna called Kristin. “I’d like you to check Jeannine Phillips’s employment records,” Joanna said. “I need to know her next of kin.”

“This sounds bad,” Kristin said. “Is it?”

“We don’t know,” Joanna replied. “At least not yet. Regardless, though, I’m going to need to notify someone about what’s happened.”

“I’ll get right back to you,” Kristin said. When she called back a few minutes later, she sounded dismayed. “The next-of-kin section is blank,” she said.

“What about the beneficiary of her group life insurance policy?” Joanna asked.

“All that’s listed here is the Humane Society of Southern Arizona,” Kristin returned. “What does this mean?”

“I don’t know,” Joanna said, “but thanks for the help.”

The troubling lack of next of kin made Jeannine’s situation eerily similar to that of Bradley Evans, who had lived such an isolated life that he had been forced to choose his former mother-in-law as his beneficiary.

Mulling this new revelation as she drove, Joanna suddenly remembered something Jeannine had mentioned to her in passing months earlier-something that had hinted at a troubled family life when she was growing up.

Forty minutes after leaving Texas Canyon, Joanna pulled into the parking garage at University Medical Center and walked across the chill but sunny breezeway to the front entrance. The hospital may have been given over to the healing arts, but it happened to be the place where Andy Brady’s life had come to an end. It was also where Marianne and Jeff’s beloved Esther had died in the aftermath of a heart transplant. Years of constant construction and reconstruction had completely changed the lobby from what Joanna remembered from previous visits, but the physical changes did nothing to dispel the sense of impending doom that flooded over her the moment she stepped through the glass sliding doors.

Dr. Waller was good as his word. Once Joanna gave her name to the receptionist, the doctor himself came downstairs to retrieve her. His voice on the phone had led Joanna to expect someone much older and larger. Grant Waller, however, turned out to be a relatively small man and only a few years older than Joanna.

“Thank you for coming, Sheriff Brady. You made very good time.”

“There wasn’t much traffic,” she said, which was nothing less than an out-and-out lie.

“Let’s go upstairs and see if you can identify our patient for us,” he said, leading the way.

Upstairs in the surgical ICU waiting room, she was escorted past a group of anxious people gathered there. Once inside the unit, she was motioned into a rest room and directed to wash her hands before donning a gown, mask, hair covering, booties, and latex gloves.

“The patients in this unit are very ill,” Dr. Waller explained. “We don’t take any unnecessary chances. We’re working to prevent secondary hospital-based infections.”

When Joanna was properly attired, she was led down the hallway and into a dimly lit room where the only sound was the gentle beeping of a monitor. A sleeping figure lay on the bed. Stepping closer, Joanna saw that the patient’s head was almost entirely swathed in bandages. One eye and one badly bruised cheek was all that was visible, but it was enough.

“It’s Jeannine,” Joanna managed as her legs turned to jelly beneath her. “Jeannine Phillips.”

Supported by Dr. Waller’s steadying arm, Joanna was led out into the hallway and lowered onto a chair at the nurses’ station. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Just a little woozy,” Joanna answered. “It hit me harder than I expected. She looks awful.”

Waller nodded. “I suspect she’s going to lose the sight in that one eye, and she’ll probably require reconstructive facial surgery, but what you saw in there was only the tip of the iceberg. She had severe internal injuries. We had to remove her spleen and one kidney. With all that and the amount of blood she had lost, it’s a miracle she made it to the hospital alive.”

“Will she live?” Joanna asked.

Waller shook his head. “Too soon to tell,” he said. “What I need now, though, is information-her name and the name of her next of kin. It would also help if you could provide any insurance information, although of course we’ll continue treating her in any case, regardless of whether or not she’s insured.”

While speaking, Waller had removed a PDA from a coat pocket. He paused with the stylus poised at the ready. “Did you say her name is Jeannie?” he asked.

“Jeannine,” Joanna corrected, “Jeannine Phillips,” spelling out both names, one letter at a time.

“Next of kin?”

“I don’t have that information right now,” she said. “Once I have it, I’ll get it to you right away.”

“The sooner the better,” Dr. Waller said, returning the PDA to his pocket. “I’ll be going then,” he added. “You can leave the gown and booties in a receptacle in the rest room.”

But Joanna wasn’t ready to be dismissed quite that easily “What do you think happened to her?” she asked.

Waller turned back to her. “Sheriff Brady,” he said, “with all due respect, I really can’t give you any additional information. Considering the new federally mandated patient confidentiality rules, I’ve probably said too much already. Since you’re not a parent or spouse or on a list to receive her private medical information…”

Joanna bridled at his patronizing tone. “With all due respect,” she returned curtly, “at the very least my agency is conducting an aggravated assault investigation, one that could well turn into a homicide if Jeannine dies. In that case, I’m sure the autopsy will tell me everything I need to know about her private medical information. In the meantime, you’re all I’ve got.”

They were still at the nurses’ station. Dr. Waller glanced around as if concerned someone might overhear what was said. When he spoke, he did so in an undertone. “She was stripped naked, kicked, and stomped, and left to die,” he said at length. “And when I say kicked, I mean kicked within an inch of her life. She has severe internal injuries, several broken ribs, and compound fractures of both arms and legs. You already saw what they did to her face.”

“They?” Joanna asked. “You mean there was more than one?”

Waller nodded. “Some of the bruises show actual shoe prints,” he said. “There was more than one pattern.”

“Will we be able to have photos of the shoe patterns?” Joanna asked.

Dr. Waller nodded grimly. “Eventually, I suppose,” he said.

“Was she raped?”

“That I don’t know,” Dr. Waller said. “We’ve been a little too busy saving her life to spend any time processing a rape kit.”

“If DNA evidence is available, I want it,” Joanna said. “It may be the only way to nail these bastards.”

But Waller, having given a little, retreated back into the world of rules and procedures. “We’d need a signed consent form for that.”

“Jeannine is in no position to sign anything,” Joanna pointed out.

Waller shrugged. “That’s why we need to speak to her next of kin,” he said. “One of her relatives could probably give consent.”

“What if I speak to them first?” Joanna asked. “What should I tell them?”

Dr. Waller sighed again. “I don’t really recommend that. Next-of-kin notifications are best left to the professionals.”

“I am a professional,” she reminded him. “A law enforcement professional. It turns out I, too, have had some experience with next-of-kin notifications.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Of course.”

“So what can I tell them?” Joanna persisted. “How would you characterize her condition?”

“Grave,” Waller said at last. “Her condition is grave but stable.”

With that, Dr. Waller walked away. Joanna went into the rest room and removed her hospital garb. When she walked out through the waiting room, she was aware that the people there were watching her. She knew that, even caught up in their own pain, they all were wondering which patient this very pregnant law enforcement officer had been allowed to visit and why.

On her way down in the elevator, Joanna puzzled about her next move. Jeannine may not have disclosed information about next of kin on her employment records, but there was someone who might have access to information that wasn’t in the written record-someone who was waiting and worrying and wondering what was going on-Millicent Ross.

When the elevator door opened, Joanna had her phone in her hand and was preparing to use it when, on a bench near the front door, she caught sight of Isabel Duarte. As the reporter sprang to her feet and hurried to meet her, Joanna returned her phone to her pocket.

“Is it her?” the reporter asked.

“Yes.” The answer was out before Joanna had time to think about whether or not replying was the right thing to do.

“Is she going to be all right?”

Joanna was struck by the expression on Isabel’s face and the way she asked the question. She seemed less focused on getting the story than she was about voicing concern for a fellow human being. Even so, in answering, Joanna took her cue from the way Dr. Waller had danced around the issue.

“We’re not making any comment about her condition at this time.”

Nodding, Isabel looked slightly disappointed. “But you did promise me an exclusive,” she objected. “If we hurry, we can just make the deadline for the Noon News.”

So the story was part of it after all. Joanna had lots of other things that urgently needed doing, but Isabel was right. Joanna had promised, and without the reporter’s timely intervention, it was likely Jeannine Phillips’s whereabouts would still be a mystery.

“You’re right,” Joanna agreed. “That is what I said. Is your camera guy around here somewhere?”

“He’s outside smoking a cigarette.”

“Let’s go do it then,” Joanna said.

When summoned from his cigarette break, the cameraman grimaced, ground out the stub, and then grudgingly hefted the camera to his shoulder. Standing posed before the UMC logo, Joanna held a microphone in her hand and spoke into the lens. “This morning a Cochise County Animal Control officer was attacked and severely beaten in northeastern Cochise County. We’re currently withholding the victim’s name, pending notification of next of kin, but I can assure you, my department will leave no stone unturned until we have brought all those responsible to justice.”

“Thank you,” Isabel said, when she came to retrieve her microphone.

“It wasn’t much,” Joanna said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t say more.”

Isabel smiled. “It’s more than anyone expects me to get,” she said. “The news director didn’t send me to the hospital in the middle of the night because he thought I’d actually come away with a story.”

“You think this will help show him what you can do?”

“Something like that.”

“But whatever made you think that there might be a connection between the woman here and the incident at Texas Canyon?”

The reporter shook her head. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I heard the police scanner reporting that the missing officer was a woman, and I just put two and two together. I guess you could say it was gut instinct or maybe even woman’s intuition.”

“Good gut instinct,” Joanna said, shaking the reporter’s hand. “Thank you.”

Once Isabel and her cameraman had left, Joanna settled onto a concrete bench next to a reeking outdoor ashtray and dialed Frank Montoya’s number. “It’s her,” Joanna said when he answered. “It’s Jeannine.”

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“Very bad.”

“Is she going to live?” Frank asked after a pause.

“Too soon to tell.”

“Want me to contact her next of kin?” he asked.

“No,” Joanna returned. “I’ll do it. There’s evidently some kind of discrepancy with the office records. Notifying them isn’t going to be the kind of slam dunk you’d think it would be.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “Once it’s done, I’ll talk to the press. There’s a swarm of reporters out here, all of them clamoring for information.”

“Not all the reporters are there,” Joanna corrected. “One of them, Isabel Duarte from KGUN, ended up following me here to the hospital. I gave her a brief statement, but I didn’t ID the victim.”

“The others are going to be bent out of shape,” Frank said.

“Too bad. She was on the ball, and they weren’t.”

“But you don’t usually talk to the press.” Frank sounded puzzled.

“I made an exception this time,” Joanna said. “I’ll get back to you later.” She ended the call, then located Millicent Ross’s number in her incoming-calls list and punched the button.

“Hello?” Millicent said anxiously when she picked up. “Joanna?”

“Yes.”

“Have you found her?” Millicent demanded. “Is she all right?”

Joanna took a steadying breath before she answered. “I have found her,” she said. “But she’s not all right. Jeannine’s at University Medical Center in Tucson-in grave but stable condition.”

There was a long pause before Millicent Ross spoke again. “Oh my God! What happened?”

“Someone attacked her while she was sitting in her truck, pulled her out of the vehicle, and beat her up,” Joanna said. “And we’re not talking your everyday, run-of-the-mill beating here, Millicent. They damn near killed her. I was just talking to her doctor-Dr. Waller,” she continued. “He needs the name of her next of kin. I don’t seem to have any record of that. For some reason the information appears to have been either omitted or obliterated from her records.”

“It’s not strange at all,” Millicent returned. “She doesn’t want to have anything to do with those people, and I don’t blame her.”

“So she does have relatives?”

“Yes, of course she does.”

“Do you know who and where they are?” Joanna pressed. “Do you know how we can reach them?”

Joanna wanted that rape-kit consent form signed. If contacting Jeannine’s parents was the only way to accomplish that goal, then that’s what she would do.

“She was born in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico,” Millicent said.

“Good,” Joanna said. “Are her parents still there? Do you have a name and address?”

“You mustn’t contact them,” Millicent said.

“Don’t be silly,” Joanna said. “Their daughter has been injured and is in the hospital. Of course I have to contact them. Why wouldn’t I?”

Millicent took a deep breath. “Do you know anything about how Jeannine was raised or why she left home?”

“A little, I suppose,” Joanna conceded. “She told me once that she’d had a troubled childhood.”

“Troubled?” Millicent snorted derisively. “I’ll say it was troubled. Her father sexually abused her regularly from the time she was little. It’s her first conscious memory. When she finally got up nerve enough to tell her mother about what was going on, her mother called her a liar and threw her out of the house. Those people are monsters. The way they treated Jeannine is absolutely criminal, but to have them called in when she’s lying helpless in a hospital bed and has no say in the matter… No. You just can’t do that.”

“Millicent,” Joanna said. “Someone needs to be here with her.”

“And I will be,” Millicent said at once. “It’ll take me a little while to cancel my appointments and make arrangements to close the clinic for the day, but I’ll be there as soon as I can. You say she’s at UMC? What’s her doctor’s name again? I’ll need to talk to him.”

“Waller. Dr. Grant Waller.”

“All right,” Millicent Ross said. “I’m on my way.”

After Millicent hung up, Joanna paced in the breezeway. Dr. Waller had already alluded to the new patient privacy rules on more than one occasion. And the sign posted on the door into the ICU had been plainly marked: Authorized Visitors Only.

In the narrowly observed rules of medical treatment, Joanna guessed that the relationship between Millicent Ross and Jean-nine Phillips wasn’t going to qualify Millicent as authorized. For more than ten minutes, Joanna walked back and forth, wrestling with what was the right thing to do in a wrong situation. Finally she redialed Millicent Ross’s number.

“Has something happened?” Millicent demanded as soon as she heard Joanna’s voice. “Has her condition gotten worse?”

“No,” Joanna said. “Nothing has changed. But I was thinking. How much older are you than Jeannine?”

“Love is love,” Millicent snapped back, her voice suddenly cold. “Age has nothing to do with it.”

“How much older?” Joanna persisted.

“Several years,” Millicent conceded reluctantly. “My daughter’s a year older than Jeannine is and my son’s a year younger. But still, I don’t see how the difference in our ages has anything to do with-”

“Actually it does,” Joanna said. “In fact, it’s the whole point. Dr. Waller is a stickler for the rules. He expects me to contact Jeannine’s mother, so presumably he’s expecting her to show up even though he has no idea where she lives or what her name is.”

Suddenly Millicent grasped where this was going. “If I were to show up claiming to be her mother, how would he know the difference?”

“Exactly,” Joanna said, “but you never heard it from me.”

“No,” Millicent Ross agreed. “I certainly didn’t. Thank you, Joanna. I owe you one.”

Joanna thought about Jenny, who wanted to be a veterinarian. Even though Jenny wasn’t yet in high school, Millicent Ross had been unfailingly encouraging about the chances of Jenny’s achieving that somewhat lofty dream.

“No, you don’t,” Joanna said. “You don’t owe me a thing.”

“I’m coming as soon as I can,” Millicent said. “Will you still be at the hospital when I get there?”

“Maybe,” Joanna said. “But it might be best if we didn’t cross paths.”

“I understand,” Millicent returned.

“But there is one other thing we need,” Joanna added. “Dr. Waller didn’t do a rape kit.”

Joanna heard Millicent’s sharp intake of breath. “You think she was raped?”

“I don’t know for sure, but performing the exam is the only way to confirm whether or not she was. And it’s also the only way to gather possible DNA evidence and photograph her wounds for the legal record. Without a signed consent form, that isn’t going to happen.”

“Believe me,” Millicent said determinedly. “There will be a signed consent form.”

“And insist they photograph whatever bruising there is and also that they do scrapings from under her fingernails,” Joanna added. “If she fought them-and from the way the truck looks, I think she did fight-there may be usable DNA material under her nails as well. The problem is,” she added, “there’s always a chance that, if word gets back to them, Jeannine’s parents will show up at the hospital after all. What you do then, I don’t know.”

“I’ll be able to handle it,” Millicent Ross returned.

Relieved that she had done as much as she could, both for Jeannine and for Millicent, Joanna put her phone away and headed back to the emergency room, where she corralled the first available clerk.

“I’m investigating that beating victim who was brought in early this morning,” she said, showing the clerk her ID. “I need the names of all the attendants who were on duty at the time she was admitted.”

“I can get you a list if you like,” the clerk said with a shrug. “But you see that guy over there-the tall skinny one?”

“Yes.”

“His name’s Horatio. Horatio Gonzales. He’s pulling a double shift right now. I’m pretty sure he was here overnight.”

Horatio Gonzales was indeed tall-six-four at least. And he wasn’t exactly skinny. Well-defined muscles showed under his hospital scrubs. “What can I do for you?” he asked when Joanna approached him with her ID in hand.

“Were you here this morning when that beating victim was dropped off?”

His dark eyes went even darker. “I was here,” he said. “She was hurt real bad.”

“What about the three men who brought her in. You saw them?”

“I guess,” he said.

“What can you tell me about them?”

Horatio shrugged. “Not much,” he said.

“Do you think they were the ones who did it?”

This time there was a spark of real anger when he spoke. “No way!” he declared.

“But if they weren’t responsible, why didn’t they stay around after they dropped her off?”

“Why do you think?” he said. “They didn’t speak much English. Maybe they were illegal or something. Or maybe they didn’t have the right kind of insurance for their vehicle or the right kind of license. I’m sure they were scared. If they’d talked to a cop, even a little lady cop like you, they might have gotten in some kind of trouble.”

On most occasions a “little lady” comment like that would have sent Joanna into a fury, but somehow, coming from Horatio Gonzales, she understood it was due to their very real disparity in size rather than a patronizing put-down. Joanna Brady was tiny compared with him.

“They wouldn’t have gotten in trouble with me,” she said. “That woman is a member of my department. They saved her life. All I want to do is thank them.”

That wasn’t entirely true, of course. Joanna did want to thank them. And they wouldn’t be in any trouble as far as she was concerned, but she desperately needed to know where they had found Jeannine. Locating the crime scene was most likely her investigators’ only chance of finding any real evidence. The attack had begun inside the truck. The rest of it had been carried out elsewhere-in the desert someplace. Whatever evidence remained would be there, too, waiting to be discovered.

Despite ten more minutes of questioning, Hector Gonzales was unable to recall anything of use. Looking at the list of names the clerk had given her left Joanna feeling even more discouraged. The other ER attendants probably wouldn’t be any more interested in answering Joanna’s questions than Hector had been. She was standing near the entrance, thinking, when an ambulance rolled up to the door. Watching the action unfold, Joanna noticed, for the first time, the security cameras discreetly set in the supporting columns on either side of the driveway.

She turned and went straight back to the desk. “Who monitors the security tapes?” Joanna asked.

“The campus cops do that,” the clerk said. “We have nothing to do with it.”

Frank called her while she was driving from UMC to the University of Arizona campus proper. “Any luck finding the next of kin?” he asked. “The natives are restless. If I don’t give the reporters some info pretty soon, they’re going to go berserk.”

Joanna felt uneasy. Telling Millicent Ross wasn’t exactly abiding by the rules, but she had done it, and the chips would have to fall where they may. “It’s handled as well as it’s going to be,” Joanna told him. “Talk away.”

Ten minutes later she was on the U of A campus in the cubbyhole office of Captain George Winters, the man in charge of the University Police Department. “We usually have an officer stationed at the ER entrance,” he said. “Last night Dick went home sick around midnight, and we weren’t able to locate a sub on such short notice. The best I can do for you is to let you view the security tapes.”

Seated at a console, Joanna scrolled through a series of security camera videos. The time readout read 03.33.46 when a 1980s vintage Chevy LUV pickup with a camper shell over the bed pulled into view. Two people leaped out of the truck and went running inside. Moments later, in a flurry of activity, attendants-one of them clearly Horatio Gonzales-appeared pushing a gurney. It took some time for them to maneuver a blanket-swathed figure out of the pickup, load her onto the gurney, and then roll her inside.

Once the patient disappeared into the building, the three men from the pickup conferred briefly, then they all piled back into the pickup and drove away. Try as she might, Joanna was unable to make out the letters and numbers of the license plate. The image simply wasn’t clear enough. Captain Winters had given her two different tapes to review, taken via two different cameras. When she examined the second one, taken from a slightly different angle and from closer to the vehicle, she was able to read the last three numbers on the license-464-and the saguaro cactus that identified it as an Arizona plate, but the preceding part of the license wasn’t visible at all.

Captain Winters came into the room as she finished rewinding the second tape. “Did you find what you needed?” he asked.

“Some, but not all,” she answered. “Is it possible to make copies of these?”

“I don’t see why not,” he said. “It’ll take a few minutes. Maybe you’d like to come back for them later.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “I’ll wait.”

While waiting, she redialed Frank Montoya. “I’ve got a security video of the vehicle that dropped Jeannine off at the hospital, but I can’t read the whole license number-the image is too grainy. Where would you suggest I go to have the images enhanced? Should I take the tapes to the Arizona State Crime Lab here in Tucson?”

“No way,” Frank said. “Those guys are a bunch of amateurs. Go to Pima Community College, the one out on Anklam Road. One of my cousins, Alberto Amado, teaches computer science there. He does photo imaging on the side. I’ll call and see if he’s in.”

“Please do that,” Joanna said.

By one o’clock that afternoon, with Alberto’s help, Joanna was armed with the complete license number from the Chevy LUV as well as the name and address of the registered owner. She felt guilty as she called the Department of Public Safety to put out an APB on a man named Ephrain Trujillo, who listed a Douglas, Arizona, home address, but there wasn’t any choice. No doubt, Mr. Trujillo was one of the good Samaritans who had rescued Jeannine Phillips from certain death and brought her to the hospital. That meant he and his friends were the only witnesses who would be able to take Joanna and her investigators to the spot where the attack had occurred.

Regardless of any adverse consequences for Mr. Trujillo, Joanna understood that locating the crime scene was the next essential piece of the puzzle.

Joanna felt guilty about making the call, but she did it anyway. She had to. It was her job-her job and her duty.