J. Jance - Hand of Evil

“You’re not my mother. You can’t make me do anything if I don’t want to,” Crystal returned.

Ali was unimpressed. “Oh?” she said. “Watch me. All I have to do is call the cops and report you as a truant. Children your age are supposed to be in school, you know.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Crystal objected. “Besides, you told my dad you’d look after me.”

“I am looking after you, honey lamb,” Ali returned in a tone that brooked no further argument. “Which is why you’re getting your sorry butt out of my car right now and coming into the hospital with me. Move it!”

There was a long pause, during which Ali wondered what would happen if the confrontation turned physical and she had to reach into the car and bodily drag Crystal out of the passenger seat. Would someone see her and call the cops, reporting the incident as child abuse or an assault or both? At that point, she didn’t much care.

Finally Crystal reluctantly complied, slamming the car door behind her and flouncing off through the parking garage with Ali hurrying after her.

Ali remembered visiting St. Francis Hospital years before when she had been a little girl. Back then it had been a single stand-alone building. Now the medical center was a whole campus of buildings complete with multiple parking garages and a valet parking stand. Ali found Sandy waiting alone in the main hospital lobby. While she sat down next to Sandy, Crystal stalked off to the far side of the room, where she found a chair that allowed her to sit with her back to them.

“What’s going on?” Ali asked.

“Kip’s still in surgery,” Sandy answered. “That’s all they’ll tell me, and I guess I’m lucky to know that.” She subsided into silence and blew her nose into an already soggy tissue. “It’s not fair,” she added. “I mean, just because Kip and I aren’t married they treat me like I’m nothing. Like I have no right to know anything about what’s going on.”

The new hospital privacy rules may have been news to Sandy Mitchell, but Ali had already stubbed her toe on them on more than one occasion. Before Ali could respond, her phone rang.

“I’m still hanging fire at the courthouse here in Prescott,” Dave said. “And I still don’t know if I’m going to get called as a witness today or not, but I’ve talked to Lee Farris. You remember him, don’t you?”

Homicide Detective Farris was Coconino County’s counterpart to Yavapai County’s Detective Dave Holman. Farris had been part of the joint investigation into the death of Ali’s best friend from high school, Reenie Bernard.

“Yes,” Ali said. “I remember him.”

“Now that Kip’s case has turned into an attempted homicide, the missing persons interview Sandy did with the City of Sedona just isn’t going to cut it. Lee is on his way down to Phoenix right now. He’s coming to the hospital in hopes of reinterviewing Sandy and gleaning some additional information. I told him she’d probably be there at the hospital most of the day. I didn’t have a cell phone number for her, so I gave him yours. Hope that’s okay with you.”

“It’s fine,” Ali said.

“Lee had heard about the confrontation that happened at Basha’s the other day, the one between Kip and those kids who were hassling Sandy. He’s hoping Sandy will be able to do sketches of them. Coconino County contracts with a composite artist based in Phoenix. Lee is trying to make arrangements to have the artist meet up with Sandy there in Phoenix at the hospital rather than having her drive up to Sedona and back.”

“Okay,” Ali said. “I’ll let Sandy know.”

“And how are things with Crystal?” Dave asked.

Ali glanced warily across the room to where Crystal sat with her shoulders hunched and her back still turned to Ali and Sandy.

“We’re doing okay,” Ali said guardedly. “Not great but okay.”

“She’s not giving you any trouble, is she?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Ali told him.

When Crystal’s cell phone buzzed with the IM announcement, she almost jumped out of her skin. And she checked behind her to make sure no one was watching. When she saw Curt’s initials in the sender’s window, her heart skipped a beat. She had been scared something bad might have happened to him. She was glad to know he was safe, and she wanted to warn him about what was going on-about Kip Hogan and the fact that the cops might be looking for Curt.

“RUOK?” she typed.

“Y”

“WRU?” Where are you?

“FNX”

“CNICU?” Can I see you?

“Y”

“WN?” When?

“W8” Wait. “WN I CN” After a while, she added a plaintive request. “CNUTAKMEHOME?”

“EZ” Curt told her. “NO PROB”

Only a few minutes after Joanna was warned about the impending arrival of the composite artist, the woman herself appeared on the scene. She was stocky with short gray hair and dragging a heavy-duty roll-aboard computer case behind her. She spoke briefly to the receptionist, who nodded and then pointed in Sandy’s direction. Ali stepped forward to intercept her.

“Ms. Mitchell?” the woman asked.

“No. I’m Ali Reynolds, a friend of Sandy’s. That’s her over there.”

But the woman was focused on Ali. “Ali Reynolds? Wait a minute,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re Alison Reynolds. I remember you. Weren’t you on the news over in L.A.?”

Ali nodded.

“Madeline Havens with Composite Systems,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “I used to live there, too-in L.A. Did someone tell you I was coming?”

“They didn’t mention you by name,” Ali said, “but for some reason Madeline Havens sounds familiar. I seem to remember that I did a story on you once, but the details escape me.”

Madeline grinned. “You did do a story on me. In fact, you did several, and it’s ironic, because what happened to me isn’t all that different from what I understand happened to you a little later on. For years I was an in-house composite artist for LAPD. Then, when the new chief came along, all of a sudden and despite glowing performance reviews, they let me go and replaced me with a whole bevy of private contractors.

“So I did the same thing you did-filed suit for wrongful dismissal-and went freelance. It turns out I’m an EEOC triple threat: age-fifty-one; sexual orientation-lesbian; and race-Indian-Paiute, not East Indian. Took the bastards to court and won big-time. Now I’m a private contractor myself-I do composites for smaller jurisdictions, the ones that don’t have budgets big enough to support in-house artists. Our company has even been able to undercut the guys who replaced me at LAPD on occasion. That felt particularly good. So, what are you up to these days?”

Ali thought about that. It didn’t seem like she was doing much. “Some blogging,” she said. “And I’m trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.”

“No sense in rushing,” Madeline said. “Fifty’s the new forty, you know.”

With that, Madeline turned her attention to Sandy. Once they had been introduced, she took the seat next to her. Within minutes, armed with both a laptop computer and an old-fashioned sketchbook, Madeline had engaged Sandy in conversation and gone to work. Her computer was stocked with images of hundreds of individual physical features-eyebrows, eyes, hairlines, hairstyles, chins, noses, lips. Once Sandy selected individual features, Madeline incorporated those into a handmade sketch.

Ali found the process fascinating. With Sandy providing the details and with Madeline Havens skillfully combining them, the image of a young man gradually emerged on paper. He was in his early to mid-twenties with wide-set eyes, a long crooked nose, and a brush-cut hairstyle. In the drawing there was an odd disconnectedness in his expression that reminded Ali of photos she had seen of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber. There was something about his angry, dead-eyed expression that made Ali’s blood run cold.