Left for Dead

25

3:00 P.M., Sunday, April 11

Tucson, Arizona

It took two and a half hours for Al Gutierrez to drive from Tucson to Buckeye and locate the address he had found online. The neighborhood was nicer than he had expected: fairly new houses, most of them with desert landscaping in the front and pools in the back.

Much to his frustration, when he arrived at the right house and rang the bell, no one was home. He went back to the car and waited there for a while. Eventually, he began losing heart. What if Rose Ventana’s family had moved away for good? What if they were out of town on a trip of some kind? Finally, Al went knocking on doors and got lucky the first time out.

“Jim’s at work,” the woman next door told him helpfully. “He doesn’t usually get home until almost dinnertime. On Sundays, Connie and the girls spend most of the day at church. I can take a message for them.”

Al didn’t want to leave a message. He had driven over a hundred miles, one way, to talk to Rose Ventana’s family in person. That was the whole point.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I’ll go grab some food and come back later.”

He went to a nearby Pollo Loco, where he stayed until a quarter past five. Al had gleaned a lot of information about the family from the articles. He wanted to be sure James Fox would be home when it came time to deliver the news. Al expected it would be easier to speak to the stepfather and harder to speak to the mother and sisters. It had been three years, but he was pretty sure they were still grieving.

When he drove up to the house the second time, a BMW sedan was parked in the driveway, and a man with a Michelob Ultra in hand sat on a lawn chair on a covered front patio. Al recognized the man from the photos. This was definitely the stepfather, although he had aged considerably since the first television interview three years earlier.

The whole time Al was driving, he had contemplated how he would approach the family. He wanted to be thorough, calm, and convincing. If it had been a matter of straight good news or bad news, he suspected it would have been simpler. He could tell them that he believed their daughter was alive. At least she had been alive the last time he saw her, and he hoped she still was, though there was always a chance that she would die before they could get there.

“Mr. Fox?” Al asked, holding out his hand. “My name is Alonzo Gutierrez.”

James Fox ignored the hand and took a drink of his beer while studying Al’s face with an unapologetic stare. “My next-door neighbor said somebody stopped by earlier looking for us. Was that you?”

Al nodded.

“She said you looked like a cop. Are you?”

“Not exactly. Border Patrol.”

“Well, Mr. Border Patrol,” James Fox said sarcastically, “what do you want?”

This wasn’t starting off the way Al had anticipated. Fox seemed hostile and angry and not the least bit welcoming.

“It’s about your daughter,” Al said. “It’s about Rose.”

“Sure it is,” Fox said. “First of all, Rose is my stepdaughter, not my daughter. Second of all, she’s dead. She died three years ago. I suppose you’re here claiming you found the body?”

“It’s possible she isn’t dead—” Al began.

Fox ignored the interruption. “In that three years, my family has been through enough hell to last a lifetime. We don’t need any more worthless yahoos showing up trying to jack my wife around by lifting money out of her pocket. They always claim they know where Rose is and say they’ll help us find her and all kinds of claptrap. Some of ’em are psychics; all of ’em are jerks; but they all have one thing in common: They claim they can tell Connie exactly what happened to her daughter, and all she has to do is cough up a thousand bucks. Or two. We’re not playing that game anymore, and we’re not going through this again. It hurts too much. Now get the hell out of here before my wife gets home.”

“I’m not asking for money,” Al countered. “I just wanted to let you know that I believe I know what happened to her—to your stepdaughter. Someone beat her up pretty badly on Friday and left her for dead. She was found near Three Points, which is west of Ryan Field. She’s in the ICU in Physicians Medical Center. I believe she’s alive, although I don’t know that for sure.”

Fox set his empty beer bottle down on a nearby table. Then he stood up and stepped closer to Al, invading his space. “And you know all this how?”

Al stood his ground. “Because I’m the one who found her,” he said. “I was out on patrol and found her.”

“If this is supposed to be some kind of official notification, why aren’t you in uniform? Why didn’t you show me your badge?”

“This isn’t an official notification. As I said, I found an injured woman out in the desert—beaten, burned, cut. It looked like she had been through hell. Everyone thought she was an illegal immigrant, but she spoke English, not Spanish. I called for a chopper and had her airlifted into town.”

“If this isn’t an official notification, why are you here? What do you want?”

Al thought about that for a minute—about Kevin Dobbs and the apparently buried “official” report. “Because someone needed to do it,” he answered. “And because no one else seemed to give a damn.”

“Our Rose has been gone for three years. What makes you think this woman you found in the desert is her?”

“I saw the tattoo, Mr. Fox. A rose tattoo that’s right here.” He pointed to a spot on his chest. “This morning I sat down with my computer and started looking for missing persons with rose tattoos. That’s how I found you. When I saw the picture of the tattoo on the Internet and the part about her being from Buckeye, Arizona, it hit me that the girl I found might be her.”

The man’s anger dissipated some. At least he was listening, and he no longer looked as though he were ready to punch Al’s lights out. He seemed to want to believe what Al was telling him, but he wasn’t quite there.

“And you came all this way to tell me?”

Al nodded.

“If you’ve seen the information on the various sites, did you look at the photos? Does the woman you found look like the girl in any of those photos?”

Al thought about the assault victim’s bruised and battered face; her missing teeth; her misshapen features. “No,” he said at last. “The way she looks right now, it would take dental records or fingerprints or DNA to tell for sure. She was messed up pretty bad. Whoever did it meant for her to be dead. She was supposed to be dead. If I hadn’t come along when I did and chased them off, she probably would be dead.”

“And she may still die?”

Al nodded.

“So you expect me to tell my wife that you may have found our long-lost daughter, but she may be dying. In fact, by the time you got here to the house, she might have already been dead. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Fox said. “Maybe you’re not like the other guys. Since you’re not demanding money, maybe your heart’s in the right place, but I’m not going to jump in the car and head for Tucson. Tomorrow I’ll get in touch with the Buckeye Police Department and have someone look into this.”

“Don’t you want to tell your wife?” Al asked.

“No, I don’t. Haven’t you been listening? Every time somebody shows up saying they knew where Rose is, Connie gets her hopes up. And every time, when it turns out that they’re lying or deluded or just plain wrong, it breaks her heart all over again. If and when the cops can verify this, I’ll tell her. Not before. Even if the girl you’re talking about is Rose, what would be the point of finding her and having her die anyway? Now get the hell out of here before my wife gets home. Please.”

Clearly, the conversation was over. Al turned and started away.

“You got a business card on you?” Fox asked. “I’ll pass your name along to the local guys.”

The business cards in Al Gutierrez’s wallet were all Border Patrol cards. At that point, however, it didn’t seem to make much difference. Al took one of them out, walked back to Fox, and handed it over.

“Thanks,” James Fox said, slipping it into his shirt pocket.

“You’re welcome,” Al told him.

As he drove away, Fox was standing in front of the house, watching him go. Al was surprised by the man’s lack of urgency. If it had been his kid or his wife’s kid, he was sure he would already have been in the car and on his way to Tucson.

The two-and-a-half-hour return trip seemed to take less time because Al now knew the way. He spent the whole trip beating himself up for being a fool and for not minding his own business. He had tried to do the right thing. It had blown up in his face. He had expected that Rose’s parents would be thrilled to hear the news and they would come rushing to see their daughter. Instead, he had gotten the brush-off. The stepfather had said he’d contact the Buckeye Police Department. Somehow Al doubted it, but that wasn’t his problem. If Rose Ventana’s family didn’t care whether she was alive or dead, why should he? What Al Gutierrez needed to do was go back to work on Tuesday and forget all about it.

But he couldn’t. He had saved her life, and as he’d said, nobody else seemed to give a damn. Not her family. Not Kevin Dobbs. No one.

When Al reached the intersection of Grant and the freeway, he had a decision to make. Keep going east and go home, or turn off and go to the hospital. He turned off.