J. Jance - Trial By Fire

“Late,” she said, “but I need your help, and so does Bishop Frances Gillespie.”

“As in the local bishop?” B. asked after a pause. “Of the Phoenix Catholic diocese?”

“The very one,” Ali said.

“What does he need?”

She explained the telephone-tracing problem.

“That’s no big thing,” B. said when she finished. “As long as I have the phone numbers, it shouldn’t be that difficult to triangulate the calls and create a cluster map of where they came from and where they went. That’s the wonderful thing about phone calls. They have a point of origin and a point of destination. Knowing those two things can often tell you a whole lot. What else?”

“Can you search Maricopa County property records for a Donna Carson? I believe she owns a town house in Paradise Valley. Anything else you can give me on Donna would be terrific.”

“Do you want this to be official information, or unofficial?”

“Whatever you can find without a court order,” Ali said. “School transcripts, property ownership, motor vehicles. If this person turns out to be who I think she is, I don’t want to have done anything that might come back on the sheriff’s department and muddy the water.”

“Okay,” B. said. “I’ll do my best to keep our noses clean. By the way, I think I found your Mr. Yarnov, the Russian art collector. Mr. Vladimir Yarnov. If he’s done something bad, he won’t be easy to catch. He’s a former arms dealer who took his money and an extensive art collection and decamped to Venezuela before the Russian economy went south along with everyone else’s. I understand he lives like a king in a beachfront mansion outside La Guaira, near Caracas. It turns out his private collection is thought to contain several Paul Klees.”

“You’re right,” Ali agreed. “Sounds like Vladimir is our guy.”

“Let me see what else I can find for you. Do you want me to call later tonight, or in the morning?”

“Morning,” Ali said. “I’m running on empty.”

“Good,” he said. “I’ll work the night shift. You get some sleep.”

On the bed in the bedroom part of her suite, Ali found a Nordstrom bag that hadn’t been there before. Wrapped in tissue inside the box was a brand-new jogging suit-the same make and model as her pink one, but this one was navy blue.

A card was enclosed. “Hope this fills the bill. L.B.”

Leland Brooks rides again, Ali thought. That man is a wonder and a marvel.

She was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, and she was dead to the world until the phone on her bedside table rang at 7 a.m.

“It’s not much of a breakfast,” Edie Larson grumbled, “but your father and I are here in the lounge. The coffee is good, and there’s plenty of it.”

When Ali tried to get out of bed, she discovered that the parts of her that had gone slipping and sliding down the wall of the gully the day before were stiff and sore, and when she looked at her face in the bathroom mirror, the scar, still accentuated by the sunburn, stood out on her face. B. had told her once that he thought the scar gave her character. She did what she could to fix her face, then peeled the price tags off the new blue tracksuit and wore that upstairs to breakfast.

In the club lounge Ali discovered that the pickings weren’t nearly as grim as Edie had implied. As far as Bob and Edie were concerned, anything less than a cooked-to-order breakfast was something of a hardship. Ali helped herself to a bowl of fresh raspberries, a few slices of salmon, some cream cheese, and a bagel. Then she joined her parents at a small table, where her mother had already poured Ali a cup of coffee.

“I hope you had a better night’s sleep than we did,” Edie said. “Your father turned the air-conditioning down so low I was afraid we were going to freeze to death by morning.”

“I was hoping she’d cuddle up to get warm,” Bob said with a grin.

“I slept fine,” Ali said. Fine, but not long.

“What’s on your agenda for today?” Edie asked. “Since we’re both here, your father and I plan to check out some of the restaurant supply places. I did what you said and asked him about that big-screen TV. What he really wants is a new stove in the restaurant.”

That sounded like even less of a gift than the outdoor barbecue, but Bob Larson was nodding enthusiastically.

“Some things you can order from a catalog,” Edie continued, “but with something as important as a stove, he likes to see it up close and personal before he forks over his credit card. You can join us if you want, but I don’t know how much fun it’ll be.”

Ali was glad to know the Father’s Day question was settled. As far as her going along? Ali had gone restaurant equipment shopping with her parents on other occasions. This was an invitation that didn’t require much thought.

“I’m working,” Ali said. “I need to stop by and find out if they’ve moved Sister Anselm out of the ICU so I can see her. After that I expect to pack, check out of the hotel, and head back home.”

Ali excused herself soon after that. Down in her room, Ali turned on her computer and logged on. A few moments later, she was looking at the Web site for Winston Langley Galleries. It was interesting that even though the man was dead, his name was still a part of the company’s identity. There was a separate page for each of the several branches, and a group photo of the personnel at each. There, front and center in the photo from the Scottsdale office, was the smiling face of Donna Carson.

Ali had been upstairs with her parents when she realized that most of the time when Donna had been in the burn-unit waiting room, Sister Anselm had not. Bookmarking that page, Ali hurried down to the hotel business office and printed off a color copy. The resolution wasn’t perfect, but it was clear enough. Taking the printed photo as well as her computer, she called for her car with the full intention of showing the picture to Sister Anselm.

Her phone rang as she walked through the lobby to pick up her car. “Hey,” B. said. “I think I’ve got something for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Donna Carson bought a condo in Paradise Valley five years ago. Paid minimum down. It’s currently listed for sale for fifteen thousand less than she paid for it originally. Which means she’s trying to sell it in a hurry.

“That’s not all,” B. continued. “I’ve come up with an ELF connection. Donna’s parents got a divorce when she was a sophomore in high school. Her mother got full custody, and the father disappeared into the great beyond. Then, during Donna’s junior year, her mother hooked up with some off-the-wall people and ended up getting arrested for arson. She was part of a group of people who torched a bunch of houses that were under construction on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. They didn’t call the organization ELF back then. That name came later. The mother, Leah Lynette Carson, was sentenced to five to ten, but she never got out. She died of breast cancer while she was still in prison.”

“So maybe Donna stayed in touch with some of those folks from her mother’s past.”

“If you look at the ages, they work,” B. said. “It could be that Thomas McGregor and Donna’s mother were an item way back then. Here’s the real kicker,” he said. “I googled the location of phone calls placed to Thomas McGregor’s phone from the other one. Guess what? You can tell Bishop Gillespie for me that five of those calls originated through a cell phone tower three blocks from Donna Carson’s town house in Paradise Valley, and some of them came and went within blocks of Saint Gregory’s-when both phones were within blocks of the hospital.”

Ali felt goose bumps spring up on her leg. “We’ve got her, don’t we?”