J. Jance - Fire and Ice

“I’ll be a lot better than fine,” she added, “once we locate Philippa Brinson.”

By the time Mel and I finally left Black Diamond and headed back to downtown Seattle, it was much later. Traffic was no longer an issue, but believe me, we were a long way from those Pecos Pit sandwiches we’d had many hours earlier. It was almost ten. Late-night dining choices in downtown Seattle aren’t what they used to be, but we stopped by the 13 Coins to grab a quick dinner. I had the steak salad. Mel had the buttermilk chicken salad.

“If she hadn’t won that lottery, she’d be dead by now,” Mel said thoughtfully as she cut into a chunk of crispy fried chicken. “Medicine can keep people alive, but not if they can’t afford it.”

“Yes,” I said. “Mama Rose is a remarkable woman.”

“A survivor,” Mel added. “And I notice you liked the idea that she put what’s essentially a homeless shelter where they didn’t want a homeless shelter.”

That made me grin. “I always like it when somebody manages to pull a fast one on over-reaching bureaucrats.”

“Most people see us as bureaucrats, too,” Mel reminded me.

“Yes,” I said. “But we’re the good guys.”

“Mama Rose is a good guy,” Mel added. “She’s not helping people because she’s naive. She knows these people-really knows them. She cares about them because she’s been there.”

I nodded. That had become clear the moment we mentioned the name Marina Aguirre. A troubled look had crossed Mama Rose’s face and she sighed.

“Oh,” she said. “That one. Marina really disappointed me. Most of the time I don’t have unreasonable expectations, but Marina had that special something-the spark; the determination. I thought she was going to be a star.”

“You remember her then?” Mel had asked.

Mama Rose laughed. “Who could forget her? For one thing, she still had her looks. Most people go to the consignment store or St. Vincent de Paul and come away looking like drudges. Marina came out looking like a rodeo queen, boots and all.”

Mel and I exchanged looks. I had told her about that single singed boot I had seen in Ellensburg.

“She was smart,” Mama Rose continued. “And she was determined. She told me she wanted her son back.”

“How did she lose him?” Mel asked. “A custody fight?”

Mama Rose shrugged. “Could be. She didn’t give any details. She was pretty closemouthed about where she came from, but that goes with the territory. Most of the girls don’t want to let on to the folks back home that they’re working the streets. When Marina walked out on Silver Pines, I assumed she’d decided she wanted to be back in the game and didn’t want to tell me to my face. In a way, I don’t blame her. Waiting tables at Denny’s is very hard work, and it doesn’t pay very well-not compared to what she was used to earning. I’m sure she could have done something else eventually, but to do that, she would have had to go back to school and get some training.”

It crossed my mind that Marina might not have wanted to change jobs because she was using some long-dead girl’s name and Social Security number. I didn’t mention any of that to Mama Rose. Instead, I asked, “When Marina disappeared, who cleaned out her unit?”

Tom Wojeck raised his hand. “That would be me. It’s pretty tough for Mama Rose to get around much these days. That means I’m the one stuck with doing the dirty work.” He smiled fondly at Mama Rose when he said it, as though it was a point of regular teasing between them.

“Did you find anything?”

Tom shrugged. “As I recall, the place was a mess. Worse than usual, especially considering she’d only been in the mobile for a matter of months. But we brought in our cleaning crew, mucked it out, and had it rented again within a matter of days.”

“Who’s on the cleaning crew?” Mel asked. “Some of the residents?”

Tom nodded. “But as far as I know, nothing of value was found.”

“And nothing that would have told you who she was or where she was from?”

“No,” he answered.

“What about her vehicle?”

“A 4-Runner, I think. I remember it had Arizona plates. I told her that once she had a job she would need to reregister it and get Washington plates. I don’t think she ever got around to doing it.”

“After she left, did you do any skip-chasing?” I asked.

“Look,” Tom said. “She had paid her rent up until the middle of November. When she wasn’t there to pay up on the fifteenth, we packed up her junk and got rid of it. It’s not like she owed months of back rent. She was gone, her rent wasn’t being paid, we moved her stuff out, and moved someone else in. End of story.”

“Her fiance, a guy by the name of Mason Waters, filed a missing persons report,” I said. “I don’t think the local cop shop expended much effort on the case.”

“Waters,” Mama Rose said. “Isn’t that the name of the guy whose private eye came around asking questions about Marina a couple of months ago?”

Tom Wojeck nodded. “I think that’s the right name, but by the time the detective showed up at Silver Pines, Marina’s stuff was long gone.”

And so was she, I thought.

With me mentally going over that previous conversation, Mel and I had been silent for quite some time. Finally I noticed that she was only picking at her chicken, which meant she was probably doing the same thing.

“What?” I asked.

Mel shook her head. “So chances are, the young woman in the morgue over in Ellensburg is the woman who claimed to be Marina Aguirre, but we have no idea who she really was. I wonder if we’ll ever figure it out.”

I wondered that myself.

“And what about Tom Wojeck and Mama Rose?” Mel asked. “They weren’t wearing rings.”

Being a man, I had somehow missed that small detail altogether.

“I wonder how long they’ve been together,” Mel continued. “I don’t think they’re married, but they seem to have a good working relationship.”

“They’re probably as close to being married as you can get,” I told her, “especially when one member of the team is HIV-positive.”

“Wake up,” Butch said. He sat down on the edge of the bed and bounced up and down until Joanna opened her eyes. “Here’s some coffee. Time to rise and shine.”

“What time is it?” Joanna mumbled groggily.

“Ten to eight,” Butch answered. “I already called in and told Kristin you’d be late.”

Joanna took a sip of the coffee. “Thank you. But it was a great night. We were working a missing persons case. An old lady named Philippa Brinson walked away from an Alzheimer’s home out in Palominas.”

“Did you find her?” Butch asked.

“We certainly did,” Joanna answered. “They took her to the Copper Queen Hospital for observation, but I think she’s okay. Her niece was coming down from Phoenix. Once Ms. Brinson is released from the hospital here, she’ll go to Phoenix with her grandniece.”

“How about you tell me the rest of it over breakfast,” Butch said. “Otherwise you’re going to be even later.”

Showered and dressed, Joanna went out to the kitchen, where she had to weave her way through a scatter of boy, toys, and dogs to make it to the kitchen table. Dennis, as at home with the three dogs as he was with people, lay contentedly on the floor with his head propped on Lucky’s back while he chewed on the ear of a teddy bear that had originally been a dog toy.

While Butch whipped out two eggs over easy with bacon and toast, Joanna told him about the previous evening’s adventures. She edited out some parts of the story, focusing less on the appallingly filthy conditions inside Caring Friends. She failed to mention that on Alma DeLong’s watch, residents there were treated more like prisoners than patients, or how vulnerable and frail people had been left unsupervised and helpless for hours on end. Instead, Joanna told Butch about how they had successfully tracked down Philippa Brinson.