Fear

FOURTEEN

Upstairs, Miles closed the door to Joy’s office so no one could surprise him. He unboxed and fired up the new computer, hooked it up to the gallery’s wireless network, and downloaded a free open-source Web browser that he would delete when he was done; he didn’t want to leave a trail for Joy to find.

He Googled for a Web site for the Sangre de Cristo mental hospital in Santa Fe. There wasn’t one. Odd. A modern hospital without a Web site. Didn’t they need to provide information to the medical community or to potential patients? He found the hospital in the Yellow Pages; just a simple listing, no advertisement for their services.

He found a directory of New Mexican hospitals – Sangre de Cristo was listed, and licensed. Owned by the ‘Hope-Well’ Company. He Googled ‘Hope-Well’; no Web site.

Someone didn’t want to be found. Time to dig into the old bag of tricks.

He called the hospital, using his cell phone. ‘Hi, this is Steve Smith, I’m doing a story for Associated Press on the doctor who died last night, and I need to get information on your hospital.’

‘What doctor?’

‘You don’t read papers? Allison Vance.’

‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken,’ the receptionist said. ‘We have no doctor by that name.’

‘May I speak to your public relations officer?’

‘We have no comment.’ And she hung up.

He did a Web search for Nathan Ruiz, adding Santa Fe as an additional search term. There were two Nathan Ruizes in town: one owned a restaurant on the south side, one ran a community center. He clicked through the sites. The restaurateur was in his fifties; definitely not the young man who’d held a gun to his head last night. He phoned the number for the other Nathan Ruiz.

‘Corazon Community Services, Nathan Ruiz speaking.’

‘Mr. Ruiz, hi, this is Fred George with the State Insurance Board. I’m sorry to bother you but we’re conducting an investigation into insurance fraud and I’m hoping you can assist me.’

‘Um, sure.’

‘We’re tracing patterns of fraudulent claims. There have been a number of claims filed in your name for care at the Sangre de Cristo Hospital in Santa Fe and I’m calling to see if those are legitimate.’

‘I’ve never been to that hospital in my life,’ Ruiz said. ‘Am I liable for these charges? My insurance company hasn’t said a word.’

‘No, sir, you’re not liable at all. There may be a patient there with a similar name, but we’re finding that inaccuracies in filing protocols are causing claims to be misapplied to other people with the same name,’ Miles said in a rapid, officious tone.

‘It’s not me and I don’t know another Nathan Ruiz,’ the man said. ‘Do I need to call my insurance company?’

So no relative with the same name. ‘No, sir, you’ve been a big help. Thank you for your time,’ Miles said, and hung up. He went to the search engine, broadened the ‘Santa Fe’ to ‘New Mexico’, searched again.

He found a Nathan Ruiz in Los Alamos who had earned the honor of Eagle Scout, a Nathan Ruiz who had died in Clovis the previous month at the age of thirty-seven, a Nathan Ruiz who had been hurt in the Iraq war and come home to Albuquerque.

He clicked on the news story. This Nathan Ruiz had been a technician with an army battery squad, a team charged with firing missiles in the opening rounds of the Iraq invasion. His team had been accidentally bombed in the chaos of the advance toward Baghdad, misidentified and attacked by a U.S. jet as an Iraqi Republican Guard missile unit; four of the team had been killed, the others badly injured. Nathan Ruiz had been sent home.

If he was at Sangre de Cristo, coming home hadn’t gone well.

His father, Cipriano, was quoted in the story about Nathan’s homecoming. ‘We’re just so proud of his bravery, of his service, and we just want him back home with us.’

Cipriano Ruiz. Miles switched over to an Albuquerque phone listings site and found the number.

He dialed. A woman answered on the fourth ring. Her voice sounded dejected, as though each day were simply a series of disappointments. ‘Hello, Ruiz residence.’

‘Mrs. Ruiz?’

‘Yes.’

‘My name is Mike Raymond. I knew your son Nathan in Iraq.’

Silence.

‘I haven’t talked to him since he came home. I wanted to see if he’s adjusting okay.’

Silence.

‘Mrs. Ruiz, may I speak with Nathan?’

She said nothing for five seconds and he wondered if she’d hung up when she spoke. ‘No. He doesn’t live with us.’

‘Is there a number where I can reach him?’

‘He – he’s in a hospital.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘No, he’s not. He’s at a special clinic. For when you have problems after war, you know. He…’

‘I don’t mean to pry, Mrs. Ruiz. I just wanted to see how he was.’ He paused. ‘If he’s at a clinic, is it Sangre de Cristo up in Santa Fe?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘You’ve heard of it?’

‘Yes, ma’am, just that it’s very good.’

‘Oh, yes, I hope they take good care of him. Because…’ and she stopped. ‘I don’t understand.’ She paused again, as though wrestling with the words. ‘You tell me, why he doesn’t just get over it… the sadness.’

Miles’s stomach tightened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He survived. Those other boys died. He should be grateful he didn’t die. Why isn’t he happy? He’s alive.’

‘The post-traumatic stress disorder, ma’am, it’s’ – he struggled with a way to describe it – ‘it’s not a lack of willpower. It… affects the way the mind works, the way he reacts to everything. It’s a fire he can’t put out. You think the fire’s out, it’s gone, then it burns again.’

‘Then get an extinguisher.’ She sounded beaten. ‘He wants to cry and jump at shadows and have bad dreams forever? Mister, I had a baby die. Nathan’s older brother, he was only three weeks old and he died in his sleep. Crushed my heart. But if I didn’t get over it, I don’t have Nathan. I don’t have a life. Where’s his strength?’ Her voice wobbled.

‘He still has his strength, ma’am, I’m sure.’

‘Last time I talked to him, leaving him at the hospital, I said, Have hope, baby, and he said, Mama, all my hope’s dead because I’ll never forget. I say, Don’t forget, just deal with what happened, and he shakes his head at me like I’m crazy.’

‘How long ago did you see him?’

‘When he went to the hospital, six months ago. I miss him terribly. We get him home, out of danger, and’ – her voice broke – ‘but he’s not doing well, it hurts my heart.’

‘I’m very sorry, Mrs. Ruiz. Would it be possible, do you think, for me to see him?’

‘No visitors. Not even family. The doctor said it’s part of the therapy.’

‘That seems really unusual. Who’s his doctor there?’

‘Doctor Leland Hurley.’

‘Well. I’d like to write Nathan a letter, then.’

‘No contact. At all. The only way to clean out all the pain from his mind, they said.’

He inched onto thin ice. ‘That must be expensive. I didn’t think the government would cover a private clinic.’

‘I’m not supposed to talk about the program,’ she said suddenly. ‘What was your last name again?’

‘Michael Raymond. I’d really like to talk to Nathan when he’s back home.’

‘You leave me your number, I’ll give it to him.’

He left her his cell-phone number. ‘Thanks, Mrs. Ruiz, I hope Nathan is better soon.’

‘I hope so too. Before he hurts himself, before he hurts somebody else. Good-bye.’ She hung up.

I’m not supposed to talk about the program. No contact, that’s what the doctor said. Weird. He didn’t know what was considered cutting edge in PTSD treatment, but surely isolating a patient from his loved ones wasn’t typical.

Allison said Sorenson ran a special program. Sangre de Cristo offered a special program. So was it one and the same, and was the shooter connected to the program?

The next name on his list was Celeste Brent, the woman who’d left the message on Allison’s phone. He Googled her name combined with ‘Santa Fe’ and got an avalanche of results. The first was a headline: ‘Reality TV Star Moves to Santa Fe after Tragedy.’

TV star?

A knock sounded against the door. Miles closed the browser.

‘The computer working yet, sweetie?’ Joy asked, sticking her head inside.

‘Having trouble getting your e-mail running,’ he fibbed, ‘but I’ll figure it out.’

‘We need to rotate a few pieces, can you please come help me?’

‘Sure,’ he said. He could read the rest about Celeste Brent later. But he realized with a cold shiver, if he was to find the truth, he had to get inside that hospital, Sangre de Cristo, find out what was going on there.

A mental hospital. His worst nightmare.

‘The crazy guy,’ Andy said from the other side of the room, as Miles hung a new painting with Joy’s guidance, ‘breaking into the asylum. This I have to see.’