Cold Betrayal (19 page)

“Things are moving,” he said. “Joe Friday is on the job, and his state-of-the-art monitoring system is being installed as we speak.”

“Good,” Ali said. “Athena will be relieved to hear that.” Stuart went on to say something else, but Ali had stopped listening. Instead, she was watching a man and woman walk past her SUV, heading for the hospital’s main entrance. The man, dressed in a sheepskin jacket, jeans, and boots, strode ahead of a pregnant woman who followed him at a distance of several paces. She wore an ankle-length checked print skirt over a pair of worn oxfords as well as a light cloth jacket. Her purse was a cloth drawstring pouch. But what Ali noticed most was her fading blond hair. Shot with gray, it was braided and then fastened into a crown that encircled the top of her head.

Ali’s first thought was that these were Jane Doe’s parents, come to check on their daughter.

“Sorry, Stu,” Ali said quickly. “I’ve gotta run.”

By the time she made it into the lobby, the couple stood in front of the reception desk.

“My name’s Gordon Tower,” the man announced in a booming voice that echoed off the polished granite floor. “I understand you’ve got my wife and my baby in here—Enid and baby Sarah. We’ve come to take them home.”

His voice was loud and his manner brusque enough that there wasn’t a person in the lobby who didn’t turn to look in his direction. Ali looked, too. The man’s gray hair and weathered face hinted that he was probably somewhere in his sixties. The woman’s age was more difficult to pin down. Her graying hair and sunken cheeks, the product of many missing teeth, hinted that she was the same age as the man, although her pregnancy suggested that she couldn’t be more than forty. In truth, Ali realized, she might even be far younger than that.

Seeming to sense the weight of Ali’s gaze, the man spun around and glared at her. “What the hell are you staring at, woman?” he demanded. Before Ali could frame a suitable response, he had already turned his fury back on the hapless clerk.

“I’m sorry,” she was saying, “we have no patients listed under those names.”

He slammed the palm of his hand down onto the counter with such force that the clerk flinched from him.

“The hell you don’t!” he growled. “They were brought here by ambulance late last night, and they shouldn’t have been. The Family doesn’t condone the kinds of black magic medicine that goes on in places like this. I’m here to take them both home. If you don’t tell me where they are right now, I’ll take this place apart brick by brick.”

A uniformed but unarmed security guard materialized out of nowhere, most likely summoned by a panic button located somewhere on the receptionist’s desk.

“What seems to be the problem here?” he asked.

“The problem is you people have my wife and baby,” Tower growled. “I want them back.”

“I was trying to explain to Mr. Tower here that we don’t have any patients answering to the names he gave me,” the clerk said. “Even if we did, we’re not authorized to give out information . . .”

“Did you hear what I said?” Tower demanded. “You’ve got my wife and my daughter imprisoned somewhere in this hospital. Now, are you going to turn them over to me, or am I going to go away and come back with an attorney and sue the socks off this place?”

“Please calm down,” the guard said, attempting to defuse the situation. “I’m sure this is all just some kind of misunderstanding. If you and the missus here would just have a seat . . .”

“I won’t have a seat and I won’t calm down. I want to talk to whoever’s in charge, not some self-important pretend cop.”

With Tower’s attention focused entirely on the security guard, Ali took advantage of his momentary distraction to make for the elevator, dialing Sister Anselm’s phone as she went. Naturally her call went to voice mail. When the elevator doors swished open, Ali bounded out into the waiting room. Several people were gathered there, but Sister Anselm wasn’t one of them. A moment later, however, Ali caught sight of the nun emerging from a room down the hall. Sister Anselm looked at Ali in alarm.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“There’s a guy downstairs hassling the front desk. He says his name is Gordon Tower, and he’s come to take his wife and baby home, by force if necessary.”

“Put the floor on lockdown, Nurse Mandy,” Sister Anselm called to a woman seated at the nurses’ station. Ali was surprised to see a metal shutter glide silently down over the inside of the nursery window. At the same time Ali heard the distinctive click of a door lock.

“Hey,” one of the new fathers in the room said. “I’m here trying to look at my baby. What’s going on?”

“Is the elevator disabled?” Sister Anselm asked.

Nurse Mandy nodded. “Done.”

“All right, then,” Sister Anselm said, taking Ali by the arm and guiding her toward the stairwell. “If there’s going to be some kind of confrontation, it won’t happen here on the maternity floor.”

Sister Anselm sprinted down four flights of stairs in a way that left Ali far behind. When Ali opened the door at the bottom of the last flight, she heard raised voices coming from the lobby. Hurrying out of the stairwell on Sister Anselm’s heels, Ali saw that the crowd in the lobby had grown. Several new innocent bystanders had shown up and were gawping. Five people stood outside the elevator door, pushing impatiently on the Up button and waiting for an elevator car Ali knew wasn’t going to come.

Sister Anselm made it to the clamoring group in front of the reception desk at the same time two uniformed Flagstaff PD officers rushed in through the front entrance. The cops were there; the security guard was there; a man in a suit who, Ali discovered later, turned out to be the hospital’s chief administrator was there; but it was Sister Anselm who waded into the melee and took charge.

“What seems to be the problem?” she demanded, her voice cutting through the uproar.

Gordon Tower rounded on her. “Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Sister Anselm,” she replied calmly. “I may be able to be of some assistance, but first I expect you to stop shouting.”

A look of consternation crossed the belligerent man’s face. He was not someone who was used to being spoken to in that fashion, and certainly not, Ali surmised, by a woman. The other men in the room were more than happy to step back and let the nun take over.

“My name is Gordon Tower,” he snapped at her.

Sister Anselm turned to the woman cowering behind the man. “And you are?”

The woman seemed perplexed at being expected to join in the conversation. She glanced at the man and waited for his nod of assent before she answered.

“Edith,” she said. “Edith Tower.”

“And your relationship to the woman you claim we’re concealing here?”

“I already told these people,” Gordon interjected. “I’m Enid’s husband.”

Again, Sister Anselm focused her sharp blue eyes on the woman. “I asked about your relationship to Enid?” the nun insisted.

Again Tower answered for her. “Edith’s relationship to Enid is of no consequence in the matter at hand. Now, are you going to give me back my wife and baby or not?”

“Enid was brought in by ambulance and wasn’t carrying any identification at the time she was admitted to the hospital,” Sister Anselm said calmly, withdrawing her iPad from the pocket of her smock. “We need to have a few details, starting with her date of birth and her full name.”

Tower sighed and ground his teeth. “Enid Ann Tower. No E on Ann.”

“Her date of birth?”

Sister Anselm stood with her finger poised above the keyboard, while an exasperated Gordon turned to Edith. “Well?” he demanded impatiently. “When’s her birthday?”

“July,” Edith offered timidly. “It’s sometime in July.”

Ali was astonished. She remembered the month, day, year, and hour when Christopher was born. How could a mother not know that?

Sister Anselm exhibited no surprise whatsoever. “How old will Enid be this coming July?”

“Seventeen,” Edith answered.

“Which means she’s sixteen now. And where was she born? Perhaps we can ascertain her exact birth date through hospital records.”

“Don’t you understand anything?” Tower grumbled. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you people all along. We believe in God. We do not believe in doctors and hospitals. Enid wasn’t born in a hospital. She was born at home—in the birthing room.”

“You’re raising your voice again, Mr. Tower,” Sister Anselm admonished. “Now tell me, where exactly is this”—she hesitated—“ . . . birthing room?”

“Colorado City,” Tower growled. “On The Family’s private property outside Colorado City, a place we call The Encampment.”

“Mother’s maiden name?”

“Why on earth do you need to know that?”

“It’s part of the identification process,” Sister Anselm said, aiming a questioning look at Edith. “It’s part of the information we need to have.”

“Her mother’s name was Anne,” Edith said softly. “Anne Lowell. With an E.”

One of the people from the growing crowd by the elevator came over to raise an objection. “Is someone going to call about the elevator? People are stuck in it. I can hear them pounding.”

“One moment, sir,” Sister Anselm said. “There’s a problem here.”

“You’re damned right there’s a problem,” Tower agreed.

“Now then,” Sister Anselm said, turning to him with a beaming smile. “I’ll need your full name.”

“Why?’

“Assuming our patient turns out to be Enid, then I expect you’ll be the one responsible for all her charges. To that end, I need your name, your Social Security number, and the name and number of your insurance carrier.”

“Who said I’d be responsible? Who said I had insurance?”

“Don’t you?”

“Why would I need insurance? We don’t use hospitals.”

“You’re using one now,” Sister Anselm countered. “And if the patient upstairs turns out to be your wife, she’s already had two rounds of lifesaving surgery with more in the offing. Surgery costs money, Mr. Tower. Surgeons cost money.”

“And you expect me to pay for all of it? Why should I? I didn’t ask to have her brought here. I don’t want her to be here. You can’t make me pay for treatment I don’t believe in and never wanted.”

“Just because someone is brought here by ambulance doesn’t mean their family is allowed to skate on their obligation to pay the bill. Once we determine who the responsible party is, we expect him or her to do just that—to take responsibility and pay the expenses.”

“I am not paying!” Tower declared. Anger distorted his face as he shook his finger in Sister Anselm’s face. “What I am going to do is go upstairs, one damned stairwell at a time if I have to. I’m going to find my wife and my daughter, bring them back downstairs with me, and take them home. Is that clear?”

Instead of backing off, Sister Anselm stepped into his space. “What is clear, Mr. Tower,” she said quietly, “is that you are a bully and an ass!”

Goaded into unreasoning fury, Gordon Tower’s reaction was as instinctive as it was predictable. The powerful slap that landed on Sister Anselm’s cheek crackled through the room. She swayed briefly and then stepped away from her attacker. Ali was about to weigh into the fray when she realized that Sister Anselm was smiling.

“Officers,” she said, “I believe that constitutes an assault. Considering the circumstances, I’m under no obligation to turn the other cheek.”

The two uniformed cops stepped up as if shot out of cannons. Within a matter of seconds, Tower’s arms were handcuffed behind his back and he was being led away while someone read him his rights.

In the meantime, Sister Anselm turned to Edith, who had backed away from the confrontation, sinking down onto the nearest chair. “Are you all right?” the nun asked.

Edith nodded numbly. “When will he get out?”

Sister Anselm looked at her watch and shrugged. “The courthouse is closed now, so probably not until tomorrow morning. Will you be able to get home?”

“He took the car key.”

Sister Anselm dispatched the still hovering security guard to retrieve the car key before Tower could be hustled into a waiting patrol car.

“When is your baby due.”

“Two months.”

“It’s a long trip from here back to Colorado City,” Sister Anselm observed. “You might be better off staying in town. If you don’t have enough money for a room . . .”

“We’re not allowed to stay Outside,” Edith said. “We might fall into evil ways.”

The security guard returned with the car keys followed by a burly man in a sheepskin jacket very much like the one Gordon Tower had worn. He hustled straight over to Edith.

“Are you all right?” he demanded. “What’s going on? Is Gordon really under arrest?”

Edith nodded wearily and handed the car keys to the new arrival. “I’m going to need you to drive me home,” she told him.

Without another word being exchanged, the man took her arm and led her away.

Ali walked up to Sister Anselm and saw that the vivid imprint of Gordon Tower’s hand still marred the skin on the nun’s pale cheek.

“Are you all right?” Ali asked. “He hurt you.”

“I’m fine. He certainly didn’t hurt me nearly as badly as he’s hurt Enid,” Sister Anselm replied. “And he’ll hurt her a lot worse if he gets his hands on her again. We may have won this battle, Ali. Now we need to win the war.”

16

B
ack on the maternity floor, things were getting back to normal. The metal shutters on the nursery windows had been raised. The doors were no longer locked. Nurses buzzed around the ward, reassuring both anxious patients and visitors that the crisis had passed. While Sister Anselm, ice pack on hand, hurried off to check on her charges, Ali took a seat in the waiting room and turned to her iPad.

A few moments after putting the words “Colorado City” into her browser, Ali found herself reading about the “Short Creek Raid.” Seeing those words in print, she remembered that was what Evangeline Begay, the Indian woman Ali had talked to earlier on the phone, had called the place—Short Creek.

In the summer of 1953, Howard Pyle, then governor of Arizona, had called out the National Guard and ordered a raid on the polygamous group of fundamentalist Mormons who lived there. In the course of the raid, the entire community had been taken into custody. Of the 400 arrested, 263 were minor children, some of whom were put into foster care and never returned to their biological parents.