J. Jance - Trial By Fire

Settling into a chair, Ali tuned in to what James’s relatives were saying. It was more of the same. When they had first trooped into the waiting room, Ali had marveled at their apparent solidarity, their show of support and love for James, but they had also brought along a history of petty grievances.

It was shocking to see how completely what she had thought of as a united front had shattered in a few hours’ time. A woman Ali had determined to be James’s grandmother on his mother’s side was still mad that his daddy had gotten drunk and disrupted Thanksgiving dinner-two years earlier. James’s older sister, the one with the two now hungry and cranky kids in tow, was firmly aligned on her mother’s side of the grievance list, while the younger sister stuck with her dad’s group. The father’s relatives had their own list of complaints. At some point in the past, one of the father’s former brothers-in-law had borrowed a truck and wrecked it. That incident was still up for discussion, as were noisy arguments about child support and visitation.

Ali was more than a little taken aback by the casual way in which these folks dragged their private battles into the public arena, and she knew that Sister Anselm was right to place someone in the waiting room. If family members showed up to keep a vigil for the patient in 814, any fractures in their relationships were bound to show up as well.

To say nothing of ours, Ali thought ruefully.

Whatever was going on between Chris and Athena didn’t sound good.

Upon opening her computer, Ali’s first instinct was to log on and track down the Mimi Cooper missing persons information on her own, but knowing she also needed to put the Holly Mesina issue to rest, she decided to deal with that.

First things first, Ali thought.

She walked down the hall, far enough to be out of earshot, and called Holly’s extension, leaving a cheery message. “Sheriff Maxwell just called and told me there’s a missing persons report from Fountain Hills that could be relevant. I need the details. Please give me a call when you can.”

She left her number. That was enough. The message served notice to Holly that Ali was aware that she was withholding information. By invoking Sheriff Maxwell’s name, Ali was also letting Holly know that she would be called to account for not doing what she had been told to do.

Ali had closed her phone and was returning to the waiting room when the elevator door opened and a distraught man in a rumpled airline uniform rushed off and headed for the nurses’ station.

Is this the woman’s husband, Ali wondered, or is it her son? He looked to be a good twenty years younger than Ali would have expected.

“I’m here about my wife,” he said urgently to the woman behind the counter. “Her name is Mimi Cooper. I need to see her.”

“I’m afraid we have no one here by that name-” the attendant began.

“Don’t you understand?” he demanded. “That’s what I’m here for-to give you her name. It’s that woman from the fire in Camp Verde last night. She may be my wife. I came home from a trip and found out Mimi is missing. When I called the marshal’s office in Fountain Hills, the person I spoke to there suggested that I check here.”

“One moment,” the attendant said calmly. “Let me see if her attendant is available.”

“I don’t want to see her attendant,” the man insisted. “I want to see my wife, and I want to see her now.”

It was almost the same thing Agent Robson had said, but with far better reason.

Within moments, Sister Anselm emerged from room 814. When she stripped off her paper gown Ali saw that the green scrubs had been replaced by a set of floral-patterned ones.

“May I help you?” Sister Anselm asked calmly, addressing the agitated man who was pacing back and forth in front of the counter. He stopped in midstride.

“Are you Mimi’s doctor?” he demanded. “Is she going to be all right?”

“I’m Sister Anselm,” the nun responded, “and no, I’m not a physician. I’m what’s called a patient advocate. I’m assigned to care for the patient in room eight fourteen. I don’t believe I caught your name. What was it again?”

“Cooper,” he said. “Hal Cooper. My wife’s name is Mimi. Mimi is short for Madeline-Mimi Cooper.”

“What makes you think she’s here?”

“My wife is missing,” he declared. “When I talked to the cops over in Fountain Hills, one of them suggested that I come here. She had seen something on the news this morning about an unidentified victim of a fire. She wondered if the two incidents might be connected.”

“Tell me about your wife,” Sister Anselm said solicitously. She collected a pair of chairs, set them fairly close to Ali, and then guided Hal Cooper into one of them. “How long has she been gone?”

Before taking a seat next to him, Sister Anselm nodded slightly in Ali’s direction. Taking the hint, Ali understood what was expected. This was turning into an interrogation of sorts, and Ali would be transcribing it. Opening her computer screen to a new document, she began to type.

“That’s the thing,” Hal said quickly. “I don’t really know how long ago she left. I came home from a trip this afternoon and she was gone.”

“She didn’t give you any idea about where she was going, or why?”

“No,” he said with a sigh. “We had a big argument before I left. A serious argument. I thought she’d get over it, but the whole time I was out of town, she wouldn’t take my calls. I left one message after another. She never picked up, and she never called me back, either.”

“How long were you gone?” Sister Anselm asked.

“A week,” he said. “I’m a pilot for Northwest,” he added unnecessarily; his rumpled uniform made that obvious. “When I’m scheduled to do international flights I’m usually gone for about five days at a time. This time I was away for two extra days. I stopped off in Michigan to see my mother. When I came home this morning, Mimi’s car wasn’t in the garage, and she was gone. I found both her cell phone and her purse in the bedroom. That really worried me-Mimi doesn’t go anywhere without those. But other than that, there was nothing out of place, and no sign of a struggle. The painting was gone, but I didn’t notice that until later.”

“What painting?” Sister Anselm asked.

Hal shook his head. “This incredibly ugly thing that looks like somebody’s bad idea of a patchwork quilt. I never liked it. Mimi’s first husband gave it to her as an anniversary present. She’s always said it was worth a ton of money, but you couldn’t prove it by me. She’d been talking about selling it for the past year or so. I thought maybe she’d gone ahead with that, or maybe she had sent it to the gallery on consignment.”

“Does Mimi have a vehicle of her own?” Sister Anselm asked.

“She certainly does,” Hal answered. “An Infiniti G37. Like I said, it should have been parked in the garage, but it wasn’t. That’s what our fight was about. I gave her strict orders that she wasn’t allowed to drive it while I was gone.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s due to have cataract surgery ten days from now. I told her it was too dangerous for her to be out driving on her own, especially at night, when she can’t see worth a damn.

“Once I left town I even called her daughter-well, I tried calling her daughter. Serenity wasn’t in but I left a message with Donna-that’s Donna Carson, Serenity’s personal assistant. She said that Serenity would be out of town part of the week as well, but Donna assured me that between the two of them, they’d look in on Mimi and make sure she was okay.

“So the next day when I arrived in Frankfurt I called Serenity’s office. She wasn’t in-she was doing a spa week down in Tucson somewhere-but Donna said they’d both been stopping by to see Mimi. Donna said that when she was there yesterday morning, everything was fine and it didn’t look like the car had been moved. She’s the one who suggested I call the cops.”