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 When she stripped off her paper gown Ali saw that the green scrubs had been replaced by a set of floral-patterned ones.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.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, of course I did, but the guy I talked to wasn’t very sympathetic. He kept hinting around that maybe Mimi had left on her own because I was some kind of heavy-handed bozo. Stuff like, was it possible that Mimi had taken off because I was giving her too hard a time? He made it sound like maybe she was the victim of domestic violence or something. That made me mad as hell. I finally hung up on the guy. After I got off the phone with him, I started calling hospitals-every single hospital here in the Valley, including this one, but they all told me the same thing. None of them had a patient named Mimi Cooper.
“Making those calls took the better part of an hour. About the time I finished was when I finally noticed that the painting was gone. I doubt it was stolen because, as far as I can tell, nothing else is missing. Still, I thought I should call the cops back and let them know about it, just in case it had been stolen.”
“Did you?” Sister Anselm asked.
“Yes, but that time the jerk detective I had spoken to earlier was busy or on a break or something. I ended up talking to someone else, a woman. She took down the information about the painting. She also seemed to really listen to everything I said. She’s the one who mentioned the incident in Camp Verde last night. Once I heard that an unidentified, critically injured woman had been brought here from the fire, it was like an alarm went off in my heart. I’m sure it’s Mimi. It has to be.”
“Does your wife have any connection to Camp Verde?” Sister Anselm asked.
“None at all,” Hal answered decisively. “As far as I know she’s never set foot in the place, and why on earth would she go there at night? She hates going out at night, even when I’m driving, because the glare from the headlights bothers her eyes. Even so, I have a feeling this has to be her. Now please let me see her.”
Sister Anselm leaned over and placed a quieting hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re anxious and upset right now, and I don’t blame you. This woman may well turn out to be your wife, but she’s asleep right now. You can’t see her.”
“Couldn’t I look in on her even if she’s asleep?” Hal argued. “I promise I won’t be a bother. If it’s not Mimi, I’ll just walk away, and if it is…”
His voice faded into silence. He sat there shaking his head as he contemplated two appalling alternatives.
Patiently Sister Anselm explained the realities of the HIPAA regulations, including the fact that only visitors expressly authorized by the patient would be allowed access. These rules were clearly news to Hal Cooper, and,
