J. Jance - Trial By Fire

After a moment’s reflection she knew the answer to that. The group in the lobby might well include local media people that the hospital couldn’t afford to offend. It would be far better for Jake Whitman’s next hospital fund-raising effort if someone else was the bad guy here.

Especially if the bad guy happens to be from someplace out of town, she thought.

“Most of the time I’m expected to dispense information rather than quash it,” she said, “but I’ll be glad to take care of this for you.”

“Thank you,” Whitman said with a smile. “If you manage to get rid of the reporters in the lobby, you might want to hang out in the burn-unit waiting room on the eighth floor just in case. I wouldn’t put it past some of them to try sneaking up there as well.” Standing up, he glanced at his watch. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have a meeting to go to.”

Ali took the hint. She collected her briefcase and headed for the lobby, where she found that a security guard had isolated the group of reporters by herding them into a small seating area just outside the latte stand. She walked over to them and raised her hand to get their attention.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “My name is Alison Reynolds. I’m the media relations officer with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. We have no additional information to give you at this time. The hospital administration is asking that you vacate the premises. If you’ll leave me your contact information, I’ll be sure you receive all pertinent information once it becomes available.”

“I saw the Angel of Death come in a little while ago,” one of the female reporters said. “Is she here because of the burn victim?”

“Excuse me?” Ali asked. “The what?”

“Sister Anselm,” the woman replied. “She’s a nun, a Sister of Providence. She’s often called in to minister to dying patients, especially unidentified ones. If that’s why she’s here, it’s probably bad news.”

“I’m sorry,” Ali said. “I know nothing at all about that, and I would advise against any speculation in that regard.”

That response was followed by a chorus of questions.

“What can you tell us?”

“Do you know who she is?”

“What was she doing in the house?”

“Is she suspected of being the arsonist?”

Ali held up her hand once more, silencing the questions. “I can tell you that the burn victim from the Camp Verde fires was transported here last night and is being treated here. I have no information about her identity. You’ll need to contact Sheriff Maxwell’s office up in Prescott for details about the ongoing investigation.”

“Talk about passing the buck,” one of the men groused. “I already tried that. The sheriff’s department told me to contact the local ATF office. They in turn told me to piss up a rope. ‘No comment at this time.’ ”

His words were greeted with a spate of knowing and derisive laughter from his fellow reporters. While Ali waited for the group to quiet down, she finally had an inkling of what was really going on. Sheriff Maxwell had brokered a media relations truce with Agent Donnelley, which meant that media folks from the ATF would be in charge of dispensing any and all information concerning the investigation. By sending Ali to Phoenix, they had seen to it that she was safely out of the way, not so much demoted as remoted.

The idea of sticking Sheriff Maxwell with a bill for a suite at the Ritz was sounding more appealing by the moment.

Finally Ali was able to continue. “I understand that you’re all trying to do your jobs, but right now your presence here is interfering with the workings of the hospital. Once again, leave me with your contact information, and then be on your way. If anything breaks, I’ll be in touch, or someone from the ATF will be.”

Grumbling and muttering about it, they began to comply, gathering their laptops and recording equipment. Several stopped to give Ali contact information to add to her distribution list. The last of those was Sadie Morris, the woman who had mentioned the Angel of Death.

“Tell me about Sister Anselm,” Ali said. “What’s this about her being an Angel of Death?”

“She calls herself a patient advocate,” Sadie explained. “She’s usually brought into play when hospitals have seriously injured unidentified patients. Like after some coyote’s speeding Suburban goes rolling end over end and spills undocumented aliens in every direction. Sister Anselm evidently speaks several languages, and she works with the patients by standing in for family members until authorities are able to locate next of kin. She claims that her mission is as much about healing relationships as it is about healing bodies.”

“How do you know about this?” Ali asked.

“Someone wrote a feature about her a few months ago. It appeared in the Arizona Sun, I believe. Just Google ‘Angel of Death.’ The article should pop right up.”

“I’ll do that the first chance I get,” Ali said. “Thanks.”

Once the reporters moved on, so did Ali. She made her way up to the burn unit on the eighth floor. A plaque on the wall opposite the elevator doors laid out the visitation rules. Only authorized visitors were allowed to enter patients’ rooms, where proper sanitary gear, including face masks, was to be worn at all times. Sanitary gear was to be deposited in the proper containers upon leaving patient rooms. Bottles of hand-sanitizing foam were mounted on the wall outside each door, and all visitors were exhorted to use it before entering.

Since Ali wasn’t a relative, she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by speaking to any of the nurses. If pressed for identification, Ali had no doubt that her ID, with the words Media Relations written on it, would be enough for her to be sent packing. Ali ducked past the nurses’ station and made for the burn unit’s small waiting room.

Furniture there consisted of several worn but reasonably comfortable-looking chairs, a matching couch, a somewhat battle-scarred coffee table, a pair of bedraggled fake ficus trees, and two regular round tables surrounded by several molded-plastic, not-so-comfortable chairs. One of the tables was half covered with a partially worked jigsaw puzzle.

For Ali Reynolds, the place came with an all-pervading air of hopelessness that was far too familiar. Years earlier, when Ali’s first husband, Dean Reynolds, had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, she had spent months that had seemed like a lifetime in tired little rooms just like this one. Even now she still felt the same kind of overwhelming despair leaking into her soul. She was glad there were no other people around just then.

Three of the rooms she had passed as she walked from the elevator were empty, making her hope that perhaps this was a slow season for burn victims. Right at that moment, there were no other family members or friends around, but they would show up soon enough. Ali knew she would have to steel herself in order to deal with them. She understood that hearing their stories and encountering their heartache would bring back those same feelings in her as well. Some of the time-in fact most of the time-she managed to keep Dean’s death in the distant background of her life. But hospital settings always brought those bad old days to the foreground. At least this time she was here to do a specific job, and she needed to keep that idea firmly in mind.

Trying to shake off the unwelcome memories, she chose one of the easy chairs with access to the coffee table as well as a convenient power outlet for her computer. Then, with her computer on her lap, she logged on to the Internet. Her mailbox was full of requests for current information on the investigation-information she didn’t happen to have access to at that moment.