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.”