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.
Chapter 10
Joanna could have left Tucson for Bisbee immediately after issuing the APB, but she didn’t. The people in the LUV may have been Mexican nationals, but they were familiar enough with Tucson to have brought Jeannine to the only working trauma unit in the city. It was possible that they knew their way around Tucson because they lived and / or worked there. Joanna wanted to wait around to see if the APB would bear fruit.
What she really craved for lunch was a hot dog from one of the vendors parked along the side of the road, but those didn’t come equipped with readily available rest rooms, and at that point in her pregnancy, rest rooms were a moment-by-moment necessity. She stopped instead at Las Cazuelitas, a Mexican food joint on South Sixth near the freeway. It was one of the mysteries of the universe that even a hint of creme brulee could give her indigestion while she could down tacos and refritos with complete impunity.
Frank called while she was stowing away the last of her lunch.
“We’re getting ready to haul Jeannine’s truck back to the Justice Center,” he said. “It’ll be easier for Dave and Casey to work on it if it’s inside the garage instead of sitting out in the open.”