Trial By Fire

Seconds later, the door to room 814 swung open and Sister Anselm appeared. “May I help you?” she asked.

Robson swung around to face her. “I’m here about the Camp Verde fire victim. Are you in charge of her care?”

She gave him what was clearly a reproving smile. “I doubt that,” she said. “I prefer to believe that God is in charge. What exactly do you require?”

The rest of the room fell silent as James’s relatives tuned in to the confrontation.

Agent Robson held up his identification, which Sister Anselm pointedly ignored. Instead, she kept her eyes focused on his face while placing her body squarely between him and the door to room 814.

Realizing that his attempt to bully her wasn’t working, Agent Robson tried turning on the charm. “My sentiments exactly,” he said smoothly. The words were accompanied by what was intended to be a disarming smile. “God is definitely in charge. At least that’s what my mother always taught me.”

From the bemused expression on Sister Anselm’s face, Ali understood that the nun recognized B.S. when she heard it, and she wasn’t buying any of it.

“I’m with the ATF,” Agent Robson said finally. “That’s Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives.” With that, he pocketed his ID wallet and pulled out a business card, which he passed to Sister Anselm. She slipped it into her own pocket without comment and without examining it, either.

Definitely not buying, Ali thought.

“Our agency is in charge of the investigation,” he continued pompously. “We have reason to believe this may be a case of domestic terrorism, one with possibly national implications. Since it’s likely this woman, your patient, is our only real witness, we urgently need to speak with her. If you could let me know when she’ll be available for questioning, I’d be most appreciative. I’m sure you can see this is a matter of some importance, and I trust you’ll agree that the sooner we can speak to her, the better.”

Ali noticed that Agent Robson’s account of things conveniently airbrushed Sheriff Maxwell’s department out of the picture. For a long time, Sister Anselm regarded the man with an an unsmiling, wordless gaze. Finally she turned toward the nurses’ station.

“I’ll take the logbook, please,” she said. When the charge nurse handed it over, Sister Anselm in turn offered it to Agent Robson.

“What’s that?” he asked, even though he’d already been told.

“A visitors’ log,” Sister Anselm explained. “For right now, if you’d be so good as to jot down your name and contact information-”

“I’m not here to sign someone’s guest book,” he declared. “I don’t think you understand. This is a critical investigation. I need to know when I can talk to her. In person.”

“And you don’t seem to understand this is a hospital,” Sister Anselm returned coolly. “Our job here is to care for our patients to the best of our ability, which includes protecting them from any unwanted intrusions, official or not. On this floor especially, we limit visitors to people who are directly related to the patient. No exceptions.”

“So where are her relatives, then?” Robson said. “Let me speak to one of them.”

Sister Anselm did smile at that. “I’m sure you’re entirely aware that the patient in question has yet to be identified. Until she is, we have no way of contacting her relatives. Perhaps you could assist us with that part of the equation.”

“I doubt that,” Agent Robson said. “Not without some quid pro quo.”

“Then you and I have nothing more to say to each other.” Sister Anselm returned the logbook to the nurse and turned away. Going back the way she had come, she disappeared beyond the door to room 814, which she closed firmly behind her. She didn’t bother posting a No Visitors sign. It wasn’t necessary.

For a moment, Agent Robson stared after her. Then, turning, he stalked off toward the elevator. The waiting room remained mostly quiet until the doors to the elevator slid shut. Only then did the tension in the room evaporate as James’s assembled relatives resumed their conversations. U

“Again?”

“I forgot something,” Ali said.

Taking the book back to her chair, she opened it again. On the first blank page beyond Caleb Moore’s carefully written words, Ali added the following entry:

Agent Robson of the local ATF office stopped by with the expectation of interrogating you about the events at Camp Verde. Sister Anselm refused to give him access.

When requested to do so, he declined to write in the logbook. This entry is written by Alison Reynolds, Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department.

Returning the book to the nurses’ station, Ali went back to her chair, where she sat quietly for a few moments, holding her computer on her lap. The conversation ebbed and flowed around her while she thought about what had just happened. Both Caleb Moore and Agent Robson had come to the burn unit with full confidence that the woman they were looking for was to be found there. So had the reporters who had shown up in the hospital lobby earlier that day.

Sister Anselm seemed to be concerned about locating her patient’s relatives in the hope of repairing whatever damage might have occurred in those relationships, but Ali knew that identifying those relatives would pose its own risk, because Ali understood the grim reality of homicide. In most cases, victims perish at the hands of someone they know and love-an estranged lover or partner, an angry spouse, a distraught or overwhelmed parent. From the time children are old enough to be warned about such things, everyone is on the lookout for “stranger danger.” Few people give any thought to some of the very dangerous folk who are much closer at hand.

Once the woman’s relatives arrived in the waiting room to mingle with James’s concerned family members, there was a very good possibility that her attempted killer, the person who had set the fire, would be there as well.

He or she would use a mask of concern to disappear into the background while waiting for an opportunity to finish what had been started. Since only relatives were allowed inside burn-unit rooms, that meant there was a good chance the helpless woman would end up being left alone and at the mercy of her attempted killer.

The very idea filled Ali with a sense of dread. Identifying the woman had seemed like a good idea right up until it turned deadly. Feeling sick over the apparent contradiction, Ali still tried to do what Sheriff Maxwell had asked her to do-identify the victim.

It was plain enough that Holly Mesina wasn’t going to get back to her with anything useful, so Ali attempted to search out the missing persons information on her own.

She knew from personal experience that, with some exceptions, taking missing person reports about adults is a very low priority in most law enforcement jurisdictions. Immediate reports were taken with regard to missing children and for adults who were considered to be at risk due to dementia or other medical issues. When it came to adults who weren’t at risk? Forget it. Adults were supposedly free to come and go at will. Their worried relatives were encouraged to behave like the boy in that old country tune who was advised to “take an old cold tater and wait.” They were expected to wait until enough time had passed that an official report was deemed warranted.

In the old days, concerned relatives would have had to accept that official line as the gospel. Other than going around their neighborhoods and tacking flyers and photos on telephone poles, there hadn’t been much they could do in the meantime. Ali Reynolds understood better than most that the Internet had changed that dynamic. The Internet didn’t come with a twenty-four-hour mandatory waiting period.

Ali knew that her only hope of staving off disaster was to be there first-to identify the woman and find her would-be killer before the would-be killer found them. With that in mind, Ali opened her computer again and logged on.