Skeleton Canyon (32 page)

“Isn’t it terrible about their daughter?” Babe said at once. “It’s bad enough to lose a husband, but a child? I hear the funeral mass is going to be on Thursday afternoon. I’m planning on taking half a day off so I can attend.”

“Yes, it is terrible,” Joanna replied, “but I’m not calling about that at the moment. I wanted to ask you about the mission work Katherine does. I have a friend who’s interested in doing some medical mission work as well, but this doesn’t seem to be the right time to ask the O’Briens about it.”

Joanna’s story was a bold-faced lie, but it worked. “Oh, of course not,” Babe Sheridan agreed at once. “They shouldn’t he bothered at a time like this. Now, let me see. I don’t quite remember the details or even the name of the organization. It’s not Doctors Without Borders, but it’s something like that. I’m terrible with names. Whatever it is, it operates out of Minneapolis. I could probably find out for you if you want me to,”

“No,” Joanna said quickly. “I’ll give nay friend the information and let her do her own searching. If she’s that interested in going, she should do her own research, don
^’
t you think?”

“I suppose so,” Babe replied. “But still, if you need me to help out ...”

“You’ve been a help already,” Joanna assured her. “I’ll let my friend take it from here.”

When she finished that call, she considered for only a moment before dialing Doc Winfield’s office. Since he was from Minnesota and also a doctor, Joanna thought he might know something about such an organization. When his voice mail message announced he was out of the office until five, Joanna looked up the area code for Minneapolis and dialed the number for information, asking the directory assistance operator for the number of the Minneapolis public library. It took several minutes before she was put through to a reference librarian who was willing to help.

“I’ve never heard of any such organization,” the librarian said once Joanna finished explaining what was needed. “The medical association might know about it, though, and if it’s possibly church-related, the diocese might know as well.”

For the next half hour, Joanna followed one blind lead after another. If a medical mission operation was working out of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, someone was doing a terrific job of keeping it a total secret—something that didn’t seem the least bit likely. An organization setting out to save the world would want everyone to know about it—for fund-raising purposes if nothing else. Of course, the simplest thing to do would have been to call Katherine O’Brien herself and ask for the name and number, but Joanna knew better than that.

Instead, she called Phoenix information. After receiving yet another number, she dialed Good Samaritan Hospital and asked to be put through to the director of nursing. While waiting for someone to answer, Joanna tried to piece together a timetable. Brianna O’Brien had been eighteen years old when she died. Joanna remembered Katherine’s saying that she and David O’Brien hadn’t married until five years after she stopped working at Good Sam. That meant that the records Joanna needed would be twenty-three to twenty-five years old, if they still existed at all. She didn’t hold out much hope.

Moments later a woman’s voice came on the line. “This is Barbara Calderone, the director of nursing,” she said. “How can I help you?”

“My name is Joanna Brady. I’m the sheriff of Cochise County. We’re trying to learn something about a nurse who worked at Good Sam a number of years ago. I was wondering—”

“How many years ago?” Barbara Calderone interrupted.

“More than twenty.”

“It’s highly unlikely that we’d still have records from that long ago. We’re computerized now. It’s much easier to keep t
^r
ack of the nurses who come and go. The problem is, few of our records go back that far unless there was some kind of special circumstance. What was her name? In those days, of course, I’m assuming the nurse was a woman.”

“Ross,” Joanna said. “Katherine V. Ross.”

“One moment.”

Over the phone line came the familiar sound of a clicking keyboard as Barbara Calderone typed something into a computer. “That’s odd,” she said. “Is her birthday March 4, 1942?”

“Yes,” Joanna replied, fighting to contain the excitement in her voice.

Barbara Calderone sounded mystified. “I don’t know why, but the name’s still here, even after all this time, along with a DNH designation. There’s a notation that indicates all inquiries ore to be directed to the legal department.”

“DNH?” Joanna asked.

“Do not hire,
^”
Barbara Calderone explained.
^“
In this business, before we hire someone, we run his or her name, Social Security number, and date of birth through the computer just to be sure we’re not rehiring someone who’s already created some kind of difficulty for us, which this Katherine Ross certainly must have done. I have to say, this is one of the oldest DNH designations I’ve ever seen. Most of the time, records that n up that way are for people who’ve developed inappropriate relationships with their patients. Or else ones who have developed difficulties with prescription medications—particularly other people’s prescription medications,” she added meaningfully. “But then, I suppose you know all about that.”

“Right,” Joanna responded. She was surprised that she had made it this far with Barbara Calderone without some demand as to Joanna’s legal right to make such inquiries. Still, she wasn’t about to turn down the information.

“Could you connect me with the legal department, then?”

“Sure,” Barbara Calderone replied. “Hold on. I’ll transfer you.”

The man Joanna spoke to there, a Mr. Armando Kentera, wasn’t nearly as loquacious as Barbara Calderone had been. “We do have a file on Ms. Ross,” he conceded, “but, without a properly documented court order, that’s all I can tell you. We’re dealing with privacy issues here, Sheriff Brady. I can’t give out any further information than that.”

From the tone of Mr. Kentera’s voice, Joanna knew there was no sense arguing. Thanking him, she ended the call and then dialed the Copper Queen Hospital, asking to be put through to Ignacio Ybarra. He answered after the second ring.

“This is Sheriff Brady,” Joanna told him. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he answered. “It’s nothing serious. Dr. Lee says I just got overheated. They’re letting me out. One of my cousins is coming to pick me up. Detective Carbajal wanted to take me up to the Peloncillos this afternoon to look at the campsite. I tried to get back to him, but the office said he had been called away to something else.”

“That’s right,” Joanna said.

“Tell him if he wants to go tomorrow, he should give me a call.”

“Right,” Joanna said. “I will. Tomorrow will probably be plenty of time, but in the meantime, Ignacio, I could use your help with something else.”

“What?”

“It’s about Bree’s journals.”

“What about them?”

“I read the final entry in one of them,” Joanna said. “The one volume we were able to find. The words were ‘My mother is a liar.’ Do you know anything about that?”

“I guess so. Her mother was always leaving home. About twice a year she’d go away for two weeks or so, sometimes even longer. She told Bree she was doing some kind of mission work, but Bree found out that wasn’t true.”

“You mean Katherine wasn’t off doing medical mission work when she told Brianna that’s what she was doing?”

“Right.”

“Where was she, then?”

“I don’t know,” Ignacio replied. “If Bree ever found out, she never told me.”

Joanna recognized the wary reluctance in Ignacio’s voice. “She did find out something, though, didn’t she?” Joanna prodded. “What?”

“That her mother couldn’t have gone off on any medical missions. She wasn’t a nurse anymore. She didn’t have a license.” “Thank you, Ignacio,” Joanna told him. “That’s all I need to know.”

Minutes after talking to Ignacio Ybarra, Joanna had Kristin Marsten fax an official inquiry to the Arizona State Department of Licensing. The reply returned with an alacrity that Joanna found astonishing. Katherine V. Ross had lost her right to be a nurse at the request of her former employer—Good Samaritan Hospital. Her license had been permanently revoked.

She had been implicated in the wrongful death of a patient—one Ricardo Montano Diaz—who had died as a result of an accidental overdose of medication. The hospital had settled the resultant legal suit by making a sizable monetary payment to the dead man’s family. There was no mention of criminal charges being brought against the nurse. However, as her part of the settlement with the Diaz family, she had agreed to give up the practice of nursing. Just to make sure, however, the hospital had gone to the extraordinary measure of making sure her license was revoked.

Having gleaned that much information from the first page of the multipage fax, Joanna almost put it aside without glancing at any of the subsequent pages. Halfway down the second page, though, the words
dust storm
leaped off the page.

Mr. Diaz, it turned out, had been critically burned in a fiery, dust storm—related accident on Interstate 10 when the loaded semi he was driving had plowed into another vehicle, trapping and killing a woman and two children. David O’Brien’s first wife and his first two children.

Outside her window, a long fork of lightning streaked across the darkening sky, followed immediately by the crack and rumble of nearby thunder. Joanna barely noticed. She turned loose the pages of the fax and let them flutter onto her desk.

“My mother is a liar,”
she said to herself.
And probably much worse
besides.

The words
wrongful death
could conceal a multitude of everything from involuntary manslaughter to aggravated first-degree murder.
How had this death happened?
Joanna wondered.
And who was ultimately responsible?

The hospital had paid the claim, or at least the hospital insurer had. Katherine O’Brien, nee Ross, had lost her nursing license as a result of what had happened, so presumably she had been held primarily accountable. Had she acted alone? What about David O’Brien, her future husband, who most likely had been a patient in the same hospital at the time of Mr. Diaz’s death?

While Joanna stared off into space, her mind kept posing questions. What if, after all these years, while trying to figure out where to send her mother’s birthday card, Brianna O’Brien had somehow stumbled across the same information? What if she had confronted her parents about the roles they had both played in the other man’s death?

With a storm in her heart that very nearly matched the one blowing up outside her window, Joanna sat at her desk and considered. To everyone who knew them, Katherine and David O’Brien appeared to be a fine, upstanding couple. Supposing Bree, having discovered bits and pieces of their darker past, had threatened to expose them. Would they have killed their own daughter to keep that secret from becoming public knowledge?

After all, if the simple disobedient gesture of wearing a forbidden pair of earrings had merited a slap in the face, how would David O’Brien have responded to something much more serious?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sitting there thinking the unthinkable and wondering whether or not the O’Briens were capable of murdering their own daughter, Joanna was startled out of her terrible reverie a few minutes later when the intercom buzzed once more. “Detective Capenter is on the line,” Kristin announced.

“What gives?” Joanna asked, picking up the phone. “Are you bringing Nettleton in?”

“Sending him,” Carpenter replied. “Nettleton, that is. Detective Carbajal picked him up for transport just a while ago. We arrested him on suspicion of possession of stolen property.”

“Stolen property?” Joanna echoed.

“That’s right. We found a ‘92 Honda that was reported stolen two days ago in Tucson. It was hidden in a shed at the very back of his lot. It hadn’t quite made it through his on-prem chop shop. Once we get around to tracking VINs on some of the other pieces of vehicles we found out on Sam’s back forty, there may be more besides.”

“Wait a minute,” Joanna interrupted. “You’re talking Vehicle Identification Numbers? I thought this was about Freon. What’s going on, Ernie? Why is Jaime bringing in the suspect instead of you?”

“Because I’m on my way to Willcox,” Ernie answered. “Along with the boys from DEA. Adam York is going to meet us there.”

“Willcox?”

“The DEA guys put the fear of God in Nettleton. He gave us a name,” Ernie explained. “Aaron Meadows.”

“Who’s he?” Joanna asked.

“He’s the guy who’s supposedly selling the stuff to Nettleton. He’s an ex-con lately out of Florence. He grew up just outside Willcox. You probably don’t remember this. It’s before your time, but his grandparents once ran a combination gas station/cattle rest east of there.”

“What’s Meadows’s connection to all this?”

“He went to prison for smuggling years ago. Drugs back then. Chances are, that’s what he’s doing again—smuggling, only now the payload is Freon rather than drugs. I’m in the process of having Dick Voland issue an APB. Meadows drives an ‘89 Suburban. With any luck, he shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Joanna considered for a moment. With Ernie Carpenter to-tally focused on the Freon situation, it seemed like a bad time to bring up anything more about the O’Briens. Mentioning an almost-twenty-year old wrongful death case in Phoenix would simply muddy the waters for an officer who was already neck-deep in a complicated joint operation. There would be plenty of time to discuss the Diaz case with Ernie once the dust had settled and the damned Freon situation had finally come to a head.

“Keep me posted,” Joanna said at last. “What about deputies? Will you need more?”

“That’s handled. Dick Voland’s already put out the word for all uncommitted deputies to head for Willcox. With them and the guys from the DEA we should have a full contingent.”

“Be careful,” Joanna warned. “You’re wearing body armor?”