“Please, Sheriff Brady,” Isabel insisted. “Tell me how old she is.”
“How old? Early thirties.”
“Anglo?”
“Yes, but I’m not releasing the name, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“I just came from University Medical Center,” Isabel Duarte replied. “About three o’clock this morning, an unconscious Anglo female-badly beaten-was dropped off at the entrance to the Trauma Unit. Two men in a pickup truck went running into the hospital, screaming for help. Neither of them spoke any English. The clerk I talked to said she was sure they were illegals. They claimed that they didn’t know the woman; that they had found her lying naked along the side of the road and brought her to the hospital because they were afraid she was going to die. They had transported her, wrapped in blankets, in a camper shell on the back of a pickup. A third man was in the camper with her. When the attendants took the woman inside, the three guys in the pickup took off.”
Was it possible that the unidentified woman was actually Jeannine Phillips? “Early thirties?” Joanna asked. “Anglo?”
Isabel nodded. “Stocky build. She was in surgery when I left. The hospital was giving out information in hopes of identifying her.”
“Do you have the phone number?” Joanna asked.
In answer, Isabel simply opened her cell phone, punched it a couple of times, and then handed it over. Moments later, Joanna was speaking to UMC’s information officer. “This is Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady. One of my female officers has gone missing, and I’m wondering if the woman who was dropped off there earlier…”
In the course of the next minute and a half, with Isabel Duarte looking on, Joanna was passed from one staff member to another. Finally she found herself speaking to Dr. Grant Waller.
“I’m given to understand you may be acquainted with our unidentified patient?” he asked.
“That’s right,” Joanna said. “One of my ACOs disappeared after the close of her shift last night. I was wondering if…”
“The woman who was brought here early this morning has come through surgery,” Dr. Waller replied. “She’s currently in grave but stable condition.”
“Is she going to be all right?” Joanna asked.
The doctor’s tone shifted and became more distant. “Due to privacy constraints,” he said, “I’m unable to tell you any more about the severity of the patient’s injuries, but I will say that if she had arrived at our emergency room even twenty minutes later than she did, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Joanna had been holding her breath. Now she let it out.
“It would be helpful, however,” Dr. Waller continued, “if we knew who she is. The emergency surgery had to go forward when it did, signed authorization or no, in order to save her life. But in order to treat her other injuries… Would it be possible for you to stop by to see if you can identify her?”
Joanna was already striding in the direction of her team of investigators, with Isabel Duarte hurrying along behind her. “I’m on the far side of Benson right now,” she said. “With any luck, I can be at the hospital in a little more than half an hour.”
“Good,” Dr. Waller said. “Just check in at the desk in the lobby. I’ll send someone right down to bring you to ICU.”
Joanna closed the phone and handed it back to Isabel. For the first time in her life, she felt like hugging a member of the media. “Thank you,” she said. “Give me your card. I’ll see that you get an exclusive on this.”
“You won’t have to worry about finding us,” Isabel Duarte declared. “Larry and I will be right on your heels.”
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.”