Текст книги "Cold Betrayal"

Автор книги: J. A. Jance

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

22

With all the unexpected messing about with Joe Friday on Wednesday, Betsy had completely forgotten that she had agreed to spend most of Thursday working with the planning committee on the Women’s Retreat due to happen in early April. Had Grace Hunter, her ride for the day, not called to remind her, she would have been caught completely flat-footed. As it was, Betsy barely had time to get herself pulled together before Grace showed up in the driveway.

“I heard you had some trouble the other night and that a deputy dropped by,” Grace commented, once Betsy was belted in. “Hope it wasn’t anything too serious.”

That was the problem with living in a small town. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. Since the cops hadn’t believed Betsy’s version of events, and since Jimmy and Sandra didn’t believe her, either, Betsy decided that the less said about the gas burner issue, the better.

“Just a little misunderstanding,” she said. “It’s straightened out now.”

“And the workman? I heard someone was here most of the day yesterday. I worried that you might be having plumbing issues. There’s a lot of that going around.”

“Electrical,” Betsy muttered, resenting this whole third-degree interrogation. “And I had the guy install a new computer.”

“Why, for heaven’s sake?” Grace said. “You haven’t been online since Athena left. You’ll have to give me your new e-mail address.”

“It’s the old one,” Betsy said. “It turns out that one still works.”

The planning meeting took all morning. Betsy hated being on committees. All the wrangling back and forth drove her nuts, but if someone didn’t volunteer to handle things here and there, nothing got done. The Women’s Retreat had been going on for more than forty years, and Betsy had more experience than anyone else about putting the annual program together. She worried about who would take charge of it once she was gone, but right now, she was still the one running the show.

When the meeting was over, she and Grace stopped by the diner for lunch, so it was mid-afternoon before she got home. Exhausted by three days of seemingly nonstop activity, Betsy let Princess out and then decided a nap was in order. She and Princess went to the bedroom, curled up under her down-filled duvet, and slept for the next three hours. It wasn’t until close to six when she got up, fed the dog, and fixed a sandwich to have for supper. She couldn’t shake the idea that everything she did was visible to someone sitting at a computer monitor somewhere far away. Joe Friday had assured her that her own image wouldn’t be tracked or recorded or set off any alarms, but she wasn’t sure she believed all that.

She had assured Joe that she’d get right after the password thing, but so far she hadn’t. The day had been too busy and time had gotten away from her. Tomorrow, she’d call Marcia to come pick her up early so she could go to the bank before her hair appointment and before the fish fry. That way it would all be handled before Monday when she had her so-called evaluation.

Before she went to bed for the night, Betsy sat down at the table and forced herself to face her computer. It looked like it was on, but it wasn’t until she put her thumbprint on the mouse that she was able to access the hidden computer screen where her files and e-mail account were kept. Once there, she was surprised to find two new e-mails—one from Grace and the other from Athena.

Grace’s said only,

Welcome back to the world of e-mail. I hope you’ll sign up for Facebook, too.

Athena’s said,

Stu has my thumbprint and image. We’ll talk tomorrow.

It was only nine when Betsy shut down the hidden screen, leaving just the original begonia-covered screen saver—the fake one—still visible. Yes, she told herself as she crawled back into bed. Tomorrow will be plenty of time to talk.

23

Bringing the hospital administrator around to Sister Anselm’s way of thinking wasn’t exactly a slam dunk. While Sister Anselm worked on that, Ali ordered a pizza and then went down to the lobby to wait for it to be delivered.

She had called Leland earlier to say she wouldn’t be home for dinner, but now she called again, told him that she was downstairs waiting for a pizza, and gave him a heads-up about her probably not being home for the remainder of the night.

“I wanted to make sure someone would look after Bella.”

“Of course,” he said. “No problem there at all, but it sounds as though there’s something seriously amiss. Can I be of assistance?”

Ali laughed. She and Leland had been through too much together for her to try lying to him about it. “Yes,” she said. “There is something amiss.”

She explained the situation in an abbreviated Reader’s Digest fashion.

“I see,” Leland said when she finished. “It sounds to me as though you and Sister Anselm have served notice to some potentially bad people that the young woman they’re after—someone with possibly incriminating evidence—will be moved elsewhere, presumably out of the bad guys’ reach, tomorrow morning. Is that correct?”

“Pretty much.”

“Which means you’ve given them a deadline. If you’ll pardon my saying so, this seems especially foolhardy, even for the two of you. What about the other patients and employees at the hospital? What are the chances your actions might endanger them? And if there’s some kind of criminal activity occurring in that place where the young woman is from, then you need to let the proper authorities know about it and let them handle it.”

She hadn’t mentioned to Leland that Deputy Sellers, the man she had just spoken to and who had blatantly lied to her, was someone who should have been considered a “proper authority.” Not in this case. And there was no way to begin explaining to Leland what happened at Short Creek, now known as Colorado City, all those years earlier.

“We’ll be careful, especially when it comes to other patients,” she said. “Sister Anselm is in the process of emptying the floor, even as we speak. Chances are no one will show up. If they do, they won’t be expecting to find two women who can rightly be considered armed and dangerous.”

“No,” Leland agreed. “I suppose not.”

After ending the call, Ali sat for a time in silent contemplation. What if she was right? What if there was some kind of criminal activity going on within The Family? If she and Sister Anselm did somehow bring it to light, would anyone be willing to do something about it? And what about all those women and children? She remembered how Edith Tower had ducked out of the way of Gordon Tower’s fist. Edith might have some control over what went on inside the home, but Gordon would always be the final arbiter of what happened and what didn’t.

In the world of The Family, women apparently didn’t count for much. But if the guys in charge went to jail for something illegal, what happened to the families once they were gone? If the women had literally been kept down on the farm in something close to involuntary servitude, what would become of them and their children if they were turned loose in the world? As single mothers, would they have any marketable skills? Would they even be able to read and write?

Cami had said The Family was made up of twenty-five to thirty separate households. If every husband had more than one wife and only the first one of those was a licensed driver, that meant there might be around a hundred women with young kids who wouldn’t have cars or be able to drive. They’d be turned out of the only homes they had ever known and driven out into a world about which they knew next to nothing. If most of the men or even some of them were held accountable for some wrongdoing and went to prison, the cult might be dismantled. What happened to the women and children then? For the first time, Ali understood the magnitude of the problem and the real reason officialdom had turned a blind eye. Taking The Family down would mean turning the women and children who lived there into refugees—or perhaps into something worse.

Short Creek had been bad enough—an instance of law enforcement overreach where everyone, children included, had been taken into custody and families torn apart forever. Ali remembered seeing more recent coverage of unaccompanied migrant children being warehoused in inadequate facilities where they, too, were treated like little more than prisoners.

Even worse, Ali had distant but still vivid memories of what might prove to be a hauntingly similar situation—Waco. She had been sitting on the news-anchor desk in L.A. when the siege at Waco came to its horrific end. She had watched the awful videos as flames had engulfed the place. The fire, allegedly started by some nut job who refused to surrender, had burned the compound to the ground, killing seventy-six people in the process.

Up to now, the fact that The Family held women and children in what amounted to bondage hadn’t seemed to register with law enforcement agencies or merited any official response, but what if all that changed? What if Ali’s involvement unearthed evidence of criminal wrongdoing? What if the menfolk who appeared to be running the show were held to account and put in jail? In that case, Ali might be responsible for divesting those same women of everything familiar and driving them homeless into the world. What would become of them then? Who would help them?

Suddenly Ali Reynolds found herself in the same spot Governor Pyle had been in all those years earlier, dealing with a situation no one else had been willing to tackle ever since. Did she keep poking her nose into the problem or did she let it go? Do something about it or turn away? And was she prepared to deal with the consequences of both taking action and not taking action?

She picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts list until she found the numbers belonging to Andrea Rogers, the executive director of Irene’s Place. It was late enough in the day that Ali didn’t bother with the work number. She called Andrea’s cell instead.

“Sorry to bother you at home,” Ali said.

“What makes you think I’m at home? You should know that running a shelter has never been a nine-to-five job. What’s up?”

“Have you ever heard of The Family from up near Colorado City?”

There was a long pause. “It sounds vaguely familiar,” Andrea said at last. “Wait, yes. Now I remember. Irene mentioned it, but obviously that was years ago.”

“Were there clients who came from there?”

“There may have been. At least that’s the context in which it was mentioned. I don’t remember any names or details, though. It’s too long ago.”

“Do you have records going back that far?”

“I’m not sure. Now everything is computerized,” Andrea said. “We haven’t had the time or money to go back and digitize those earlier records—the ones from when Irene was in charge. They’re downstairs in the archives.”

“Can you see if you can find anything?” Ali asked.

“I’ll try,” Andrea said, “but those old files are a mess, so don’t expect miracles. Anything else?”

“Well, yes,” Ali said. “There is one other question. What would happen if The Family got broken up and the women and children who lived there were left homeless. Would you be able to help them?”

“How many people are we talking about?”

“That’s not clear. We estimate there are twenty-five to thirty families involved, but each of those families most likely includes more than one wife and probably several minor children as well.”

“So seventy-five to a hundred women and maybe twice again that for the children?”

“That would be my guess.”

Andrea took a deep breath. “Well, obviously we couldn’t handle them all here, but we do have contingency plans with other shelters and agencies. What do you know of these folks’ situations?”

“The girls aren’t allowed to leave home or vote or learn to drive. Fifteen– and sixteen-year-olds are forced into arranged marriages and turn up pregnant.”

“That sounds like a form of domestic abuse to me,” Andrea said. “Of course we’d find a way to help them. Is this going to happen anytime soon?”

“I’m not sure it’s going to happen at all,” Ali answered. “But just in case, if I were you, I’d make a few calls and have your ducks in a row.”

“I will,” Andrea said. “And as soon as I hang up with you, I’m heading for the basement.”

Reassured by Andrea’s quiet strength, Ali turned to the next piece of the puzzle—how to find out what was really keeping The Family afloat. The first and most obvious source of easy cash would be some kind of involvement in the drug trade. A steady cash crop of marijuana could be worth millions, especially if there was no need to smuggle it across the border. Using those isolated buildings as grow houses suddenly made all kinds of sense. So did the airstrip. The problem was, all this was nothing more than conjecture on Ali’s part.

Sheriff Danny Alvarado might be her best buddy as far as reopening that long-cold Kingman Jane Doe case was concerned, but without that missing evidence box, it would take compelling evidence to provide enough probable cause for Alvarado to stick his small department’s finger into The Family’s mess. Neither would the feds, up to and including the DEA, want to get involved without real evidence of wrongdoing. But if law enforcement’s hands were tied, what about private citizens? If Ali drove up there to scope out the place, the worst she could be charged with would be trespassing. Entering from the BLM side would reduce the risk of being seen . . .

She stopped short because, in that very moment, she came up with an answer. Picking up the phone, she dialed Stu.

“What do you know about drones?” she asked.

Ali’s own experience with drones had come about several years earlier when she had stumbled across someone who, under contract to dismantle military drones, had instead been rehabbing and repurposing them as vehicles to smuggle drugs into the United States. Compared to current technology, those models would all be completely out of date by now.

“Not a whole lot,” Stu answered. “Don’t fly ’em myself, but I know people who do. Why?”

“Did you happen to take a look at the satellite images Cami found of The Family’s compound outside Colorado City?”

“Not yet. I’ve been pretty busy with Bemidji all day,” he said. “I’m researching Betsy’s son’s and daughter’s financials. As for Betsy? Her system is completely operational now. In fact Athena came by earlier to give me her thumbprint and 3-D image, so that’s all out of the way, too. What do you need?”

“I’d like you to examine the images Cami sent me. Pay close attention to the structures that look like greenhouses at the northernmost section of the property. I’d like to have a better idea of what those are. The group is supposed to be fairly self-sufficient, so the greenhouses may be nothing more than a way of growing vegetables during the winter, unless, of course, they aren’t.”

“Is that why you’re asking about drones?” Stu wondered. “You’re looking for a drone operator who can fly in and out and take a look-see without anyone being the wiser?”

“That’s it.”

“Let me work on it and get back to you,” Stu said. “Where are you?”

“In Flagstaff, with Sister Anselm,” she answered. Giving Stu more detailed information than that risked having him pass it along to B. She fully intended to tell her husband what was going on, of course, but in her own good time. B. wouldn’t be any happier on the course of action she and Sister Anselm had decided on than Leland Brooks was.

The entrance doors swished open and the aroma of pizza wafted into the lobby. Two people rose and stepped forward to intercept the delivery boy. That meant Ali wasn’t the only hospital visitor ordering pizza for dinner that night.

“Gotta go, Stu,” she said. “Our pizza just arrived.”

“Mine, too,” he told her. “Bon appétit.”

“So you picked up a bit of French lingo on your trip to Paris?” she asked.

“A little,” he admitted. “But good pizza isn’t easy to find there.”

24

Ali was still giggling about that as she went up to the reception desk to collect the pizza. As the delivery guy accepted the tip, he apologized. “Sorry for the delay. We kept yours hot, but when we ended up with two other deliveries coming here to the hospital, my manager decided to make it just one trip.”

Ali was turning away with the pizza in hand when the entrance door opened again and two men walked into the lobby—a uniformed cop and a man in civilian clothing. The man in civvies—a suit and tie—was a complete stranger, but after a moment Ali recognized the second one. He hadn’t been in uniform at the time, but he had been part of Gordon Tower’s entourage during both hospital confrontations. He had said nothing but had stood in the background watching the proceedings. He had also offered to drive Edith Tower home. Ali knew his name even before he walked up to the receptionist and pulled out his badge.

“I’m Deputy Sellers,” he announced, “and this is Richard Lowell. We’re here to see a patient named Enid Tower. What room is she in?”

Goose bumps prickled the back of Ali’s neck. The tale Ali had spun about Enid being moved to another facility had worked. Deputy Sellers’s presence made it clear that someone inside The Family didn’t want Enid moved anywhere out of reach. Knowing which house was his, Ali had an idea about who Richard Lowell was and why he was here. Enid represented a dangerous leak. He was there to plug it.

Ali glanced at her watch. Almost an hour had passed since she had come down to the lobby. Had that been enough time for Sister Anselm to clear the maternity floor?

“Ms. Tower isn’t being allowed visitors at the moment,” the receptionist replied primly after typing in the name and checking her screen.

“I’m not a visitor,” Sellers replied. “I’m a police officer investigating a traffic incident. This man is Enid’s father. Now, are you going to give me the room number or not?”

Richard Lowell was Enid’s father? That was news.

Hoping not to attract any attention, Ali took her pizza in hand and bailed. She slipped across the lobby and into the elevator, then held her breath in hopes that the two men wouldn’t follow her fast enough to join her in the elevator car.

When the door opened onto the maternity floor, Ali darted off. Sister Anselm was seated on a love seat. The coffee table in front of her held two cups of vending machine coffee, paper plates, plastic silverware, and a supply of paper napkins.

“Are we clear?” Ali demanded.

Sister Anselm looked startled. “Yes,” she said. “Everyone’s gone. Why? What’s wrong?”

“Turns out the wait isn’t nearly what we expected. Deputy Sellers is downstairs with someone who claims to be Enid’s father. He’s asking to see her. The cop is someone we’ve seen before, by the way. He was here earlier with Gordon Tower—both times. He just wasn’t in uniform at the time. The other guy, the one claiming to be Enid’s father, is Richard Lowell. From what Cami told me, I’m guessing he’s The Family’s head honcho.”

“How interesting,” Sister Anselm said. “Okay, have a seat. You dish up the pizza while I send a message.” Picking up her iPad, Sister Anselm dictated into the machine. “Lockdown on the surgical floor, please. Now. And extra security to the lobby.”

“Not here?”

“No,” Sister Anselm said. “Let’s see what they have to say for themselves. But just for argument’s sake, turn on your iPhone’s recorder.”

By the time the elevator door opened again, both women were comfortably seated with plates loaded with pizza in front of them. Ali hoped that they looked as though they didn’t have a care in the world.

The two men stepped off the elevator together. Deputy Sellers stopped short when he saw them. “That’s her,” he said, pointing in Sister Anselm’s direction.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Sister Anselm said, putting down her plate. “May I help you?”

Richard Lowell stepped forward. “I’m here to see my daughter,” he said. “Her name is Enid.”

As if anticipating that someone might ask for documentation, he handed her a white leather-covered Bible. “This is our family Bible. You’ll find Enid listed on page four, the third line down.”

Sister Anselm paged open the book, ran her index finger down the page, and then handed it back. “I don’t see any mention of her mother’s name.”

“Her mother is deceased,” Richard Lowell said firmly.

“What was her name?” Sister Anselm asked. “Someone seems to have used Wite-Out to remove it. Is that customary where you come from?”

“It doesn’t matter what’s customary and what’s not,” Lowell growled. “The only thing that matters is that I’m Enid’s father, and I demand to see her. I’ve been told that you intend to move her somewhere else in the morning. She’s still a juvenile. As her father, I absolutely forbid it.”

“I have no idea where you came up with the notion that Enid is about to be transported to some other facility. She’s in no condition to be moved, and neither is her baby.”

Lowell glowered at Amos, holding him responsible for passing along the erroneous information Ali had fed him.

“As for the rest? Your daughter happens to be a juvenile who is married and also who just gave birth to a baby,” Sister Anselm observed. “According to this, she won’t be seventeen for several months. So presumably you would have given your consent and signed off on it in order for her to obtain an underage marriage license.”

“None of that is any of your business,” Lowell insisted, “but of course I gave my permission.”

“Good,” Sister Anselm said, “because, unless Gordon can produce a valid marriage certificate, he may well be brought up on charges of statutory rape.”

Richard Lowell visibly blanched at that. Like Gordon Tower, he was unaccustomed to being challenged in public, and most especially by a woman.

“Be that as it may,” he said, “I want to see my daughter. Now. And, as soon as she’s well enough, I fully intend to take her home.”

“No,” Sister Anselm said.

“What do you mean no?” he asked.

“I mean no, to both. You can’t see her, and you can’t take her home.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I’m afraid I can. I’m Enid’s patient advocate. She has given plain instructions that she has no intention of going back home or of letting her baby go back there, either.”

“You’ve spoken to her, then?” Lowell demanded.

Sister Anselm gave him a grim smile. “What do you think, Mr. Lowell?”

Lowell turned to Sellers. “She’s here someplace,” he muttered. “Find her. If she’s well enough to talk, she’s well enough to travel. We’ll take her home by force if necessary.”

Tensing, Ali prepared to spring into action, but before Deputy Sellers could do as he’d been told, the elevator door slid open and Leland Brooks came into view. Ali was astonished to see him. When she had spoken to him on the phone from the lobby earlier, she was sure he had been at home in Sedona. She hated to think how fast he must have driven to make it all the way to Flagstaff in that amount of time.

Dapperly dressed and apparently unconcerned about his breakneck driving, he emerged from the elevator leaning heavily on the gnarled hickory cane he had purchased a few weeks earlier when he had slipped and twisted his ankle during a visit to the Petrified Forest. Limping into the maternity-floor lobby, he looked for all the world like a helpless doddering old man, but Ali knew appearances could be deceiving. Armed with that cane, he was every bit as dangerous as Sister Anselm was with her Taser and Ali with her Glock. Ali estimated that, in the scheme of things, Leland’s presence more than balanced out Deputy Sellers’s sidearm and whatever else he or Richard Lowell might be carrying.

Leland glanced from face to face as if assessing the situation, then he grinned at Sister Anselm. “Oh good,” he said. “I see I’m not too late for pizza, and I’m not the last to arrive, either. How soon do you expect the others?”

Sister Anselm immediately followed Leland’s lead. “They should be here any moment,” she said, peering at her watch. “I expected them half an hour ago.”

Deputy Sellers sent a questioning glance in Richard Lowell’s direction. He was rewarded with the tiniest of head shakes. Whatever the pair had intended to do wasn’t going to work with a crowd of witnesses present.

“Let’s go,” Lowell said.

He turned and headed for the elevator with Deputy Sellers trotting at his heels. As the elevator door closed, Sister Anselm picked up her iPad and dictated another message. “Two coming down,” she said. “Make sure security escorts them from the premises, and they are not to be allowed back inside.”

“Well,” Leland said, beaming at Sister Anselm after she sent the message and set her iPad aside. “It appears to me that reinforcements arrived just in the nick of time.”

“I’m quite sure we could have handled them on our own,” she said. “Bullies are the same the world over—they always back down, but thank you all the same, Mr. Brooks. Now let me go find another plate, and you can join us for pizza.”