anyone else. “That way I would have known what was going on with her. I know why it happened. Mimi spent thirty-five years being bossed around by her first husband. When I told her not to drive, she went ballistic. In a way I don’t blame her, but what will I do if the last memory I have of the two of us together is of standing in the middle of the kitchen yelling at each other?”
With that he buried his face in his hands and began to sob. Just then the elevator door opened and Dave Holman stepped into the waiting room. He stood for a second surveying the room. Then, without so much as a glance in Ali’s direction, he stepped up to Hal Cooper and opened his ID wallet.
“Mr. Cooper?” he asked when Hal finally removed his hands from his face long enough to notice the pair of shoes standing in front of him. “I’m Detective Dave Holman with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. I’m here about your missing persons report. Could I have a word?”
Hal Cooper looked up at him gratefully. “I’m glad to know that someone else is worried about it, too-that I’m not the only one. Of course you can have a word.”
Dave looked around the room. Again his eyes passed over Ali with no sign of recognition. The rest of the people in the room had fallen silent as all of them paid attention to this new arrival.
“Maybe we could go down the hall to someplace a little more private,” Dave suggested.
Hal immediately nixed that idea. “I’m not leaving here,” he said. “Not until I know for sure if my wife is in that room down the hall.”
“For privacy’s sake-”
“I don’t need privacy,” Hal declared. “I need to know that my wife is okay. If you want to talk with me, talk here. Otherwise, go away and leave me alone.”
Shaking his head, Dave pocketed his ID, then pulled up a chair and sat down.
She fought her way back through the flames. Even in the dream, she knew if she could get back somehow, the room would be there waiting for her with the odd but reassuring steady beep of all those machines that told her she wasn’t dead.
She was grateful to know she was still alive, and she hoped that the nun would be there, too. The nun with the magic finger that could press the button and take away the pain, the pain that was even now howling at her. Screaming at her. And she would have been screaming, too, if it hadn’t been for the ventilator. That’s what it was called, she realized. The thing in her throat that made it so she couldn’t speak was a ventilator.
But where was the nun? The woman with a face that was stern and calm and kind. Maybe this time, Sister Anselm wouldn’t be here. Maybe this time she wasn’t aware that her help was needed, but it was. The pain was roaring back, overwhelming her.
Just then Sister Anselm’s steadying face reappeared over the bed, filling the patient with a sense of wonder. Was she an answer to a prayer? How did she know she was needed? What made her come into view at just the right time? Maybe she didn’t go away at all. Maybe she was there in the room the whole time, close but somewhere out of sight.
This time, though, Sister Anselm didn’t push the button, not right away.
“Does the name Mimi Cooper mean anything to you?” she asked urgently. “Blink once for yes and twice for no.”
She tried to gather her thoughts. She tried to concentrate on the name. Mimi Cooper. Was that who she was? Was it possible she was that woman? But the name didn’t seem familiar to her. Not at all. There was no part of the name Mimi that resonated in her head. Shouldn’t your name go with you no matter what? Isn’t that the one thing about yourself that you would always know and remember? Well, maybe not if you had that disease, that old people’s disease-what was it called again? She couldn’t remember the name of that, either, even though it was right on the tip of-well, not on the tip of her tongue. Because she couldn’t talk.
“Blink once for yes and twice for no,” Sister Anselm commanded.
She blinked twice. The name Mimi meant nothing to her. She couldn’t be a Mimi. That sounded like a silly name. A stupid name. Surely that wasn’t hers.
Sister Anselm was speaking again. “There’s a man outside,” she said. “A man who thinks he know you. He says his name is Hal Cooper. Do you know him? Blink once for yes. Twice for no.”
I’m not stupid! she wanted to shout. I know the code. You don’t have to keep telling me over and over.
“Do you know him?” Sister Anselm insisted.
I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe that name sounds familiar even if Mimi doesn’t, but I’m not sure. How can I be sure?
She blinked several times in rapid succession. That was part of the code, too. Many blinks for “I have no idea.”
“He would like to see you,” Sister Anselm said. “So he can know for sure, but I’ll only allow him to come into your room if you want to see him. You don’t have to. You’re under no obligation.”
Someone wants to see me? Someone who thinks he knows me? What do I look like? I must look awful. I know I look awful. My hair isn’t combed. Do I even have hair? She would have touched her head to check, but of course she couldn’t move her hands.
“Blink once for yes, twice for no,” Sister Anselm commanded.
She thought about that while trying to hold the pain at bay. She wanted to beg the nun to push the button and send her back into oblivion, but another part of her wanted to know.
If this man knows who I am, if he can give me back my name, I need to know that, too.
It took an extraordinary effort on her part. She had to battle back at the pain and concentrate long and hard before she was finally able to blink. Once only.
Once for yes.
CHAPTER 11
Dave pulled a waiting room chair close to Hal. Then he removed a tiny tape recorder from his pocket, switched it on, and placed it on a nearby table.
“I’ll need to ask you a few questions,” he said. “In case the woman down the hall does turn out to be your wife.”
“Sure,” Hal said. “I’ll answer any questions you want. Whatever you need.”
The teenagers seated nearby were transfixed by this process, but Ali knew what was going on. As long as Hal hadn’t been identified as an official suspect, Dave was free to ask him anything he wanted without having to read the man his rights. That would change if, at a later time, Hal Cooper was moved onto the list of declared suspects. At that point, he would be read his rights, and any statements made in the course of any “official” interview would be checked for consistency with this first, presumably “unofficial” one.
Ali understood that was the basic premise behind all interrogations. Crooks lie, and catching them in a small lie often leads to catching them in bigger ones. Damning ones.
For her part, Ali continued to listen in on the conversation, all the while tapping away on her keyboard, taking notes for her own benefit as well as for Sister Anselm’s.
Initially, during their first few minutes together, the information Hal Cooper gave Dave was much the same as he had given Sister Anselm earlier. He did, however, add a few embellishments, including the fact that, at age fifty-six, he was fifteen years younger than his wife.
That detail caught Ali’s attention. He’s as much younger than Mimi as B. is younger than I am, she thought.
“You want to hear something funny? It’s how Mimi and I met,” Hal admitted. “She bought me at an auction.”
“Excuse me?” Dave asked.
“It was a charity bachelor auction to benefit the symphony two years ago last spring,” Hal explained. “It was a big, splashy event. Mimi was one of the cochairs. It was her first big social venture out after her first husband died.
