TRIAL BY FIRE (17 page)

Sister Anselm leaned down and pawed through the contents of her large purse before emerging with two pieces of jagged-edged notebook paper.

“You mean these?” she asked, handing them over.

When Ali examined the papers, she saw that they were indeed her handwritten entries from the visitors’ log. “You pulled them?” she asked.

“Yes, I did,” Sister Anselm admitted with a smile. “I can always reinsert them later, but for right now it’s a good idea for them to disappear. As I said, Agent Robson isn’t the only person around here who’s willing to adjust the truth when it’s deemed necessary.”

For a long time, Ali said nothing.

“You’re still not convinced, are you?” Sister Anselm said.

“No,” Ali agreed. “I guess not. Not enough to try to persuade Sheriff Maxwell to go along with this.”

Sister Anselm sighed and nodded. “I suppose I’d best tell you the rest of the story then,” she said, “but that’s going to require another round of tea.” She raised her hand and caught Cynthia’s eye.

“My guest requires further convincing,” she said when Cynthia approached the table. “Hit us again, please. We’ll both have some more of your wonderful tea.”

By the time the second pots of tea came, most of the scones and sandwiches were gone.

“Have you ever heard of displaced persons?” Sister Anselm asked.

“In conjunction with World War Two, or from some other war?” Ali asked.

“World War Two,” Sister Anselm said.

“I’ve heard about them,” Ali replied. “They were people set adrift in Europe in the aftermath of the war. Often they were people whose homes and livelihoods had been destroyed. In some cases their very countries had disappeared, or if the country remained, they had no way of getting back there.”

“That’s my history in a nutshell,” Sister Anselm said with a sad smile.

“How is that possible?” Ali returned. “You’re an American, aren’t you?”

“I was born an American,” Sister Anselm said. “And I’m an American now, but that wasn’t always the case. My mother was born and raised in Milwaukee. My father was born in Germany,
but he immigrated to this country in the mid-thirties. I suppose you’ve heard of the Japanese war-relocation centers that were operated in this country during World War Two.”

“Yes,” Ali said with a nod.

“Are you aware there were German war-relocation centers as well?”

“I never heard of them,” Ali said.

“You and everybody else,” Sister Anselm said, “but they did exist. My father, Hans Becker, was a printer working for a German-language newspaper in Milwaukee when he met and became engaged to my mother, Sophia Krueger. Her parents disapproved of the match, but Hans and Sophia married anyway and had two children—my older sister, Rebecca, and me. Everything was fine for a while, but then the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

“December seventh is my birthday. On that day in 1941, Becka was twelve and I turned ten. We were supposed to have a party. Instead, officers from the INS showed up at our front door, arrested my father, and took him into custody. They led him away in handcuffs. For most of the next year he was held in an INS facility in Wisconsin.”

Ali had guessed Sister Anselm to be somewhere in her early seventies. Listening to the story, she realized that the nun was older than she had originally thought.

“So there was my mother. She was left with no husband, no income, and two children. When we could no longer afford to live in the apartment, we moved in with our grandparents. I believe they thought that by taking us in, they would have a chance to extricate their daughter from what they considered to be a disastrous marriage.

“My grandmother was not a nice woman. She was vindictive
and mean. She tried her best to turn Becka and me against our father. One day she let slip to Becka that she and our grandfather were the ones who had set the authorities on our father. My mother never spoke to her mother again.”

“Even while you were living in their house?”

“Even then,” Sister Anselm nodded. “For a long time after that, Becka and I carried notes back and forth between our grandparents and our mother. Finally we heard that Father was going to be transferred to a newly established relocation camp in Crystal City, Texas. By then he had developed TB and was desperately ill. When Mother learned there was virtually no medical care at the camp, she asked to accompany him. The Justice Department told her that the only way that would be permitted would be if she renounced her citizenship.”

“That’s what she did?” Ali asked.

“Yes,” Sister Anselm said. “As far as my mother was concerned, living with her parents was more onerous than living in a prison camp. But when she renounced her citizenship, it turned out she renounced ours as well. We packed everything we could carry into suitcases, and off we went to Texas on the train.”

“What happened to your grandparents?”

Sister Anselm shrugged. “I never saw them again. After the war, I tried to contact them. My letters were returned unopened. But that’s getting ahead of the story. We went to Texas. Our father was very ill. Mother took care of him and worked for chits at the German mercantile store. Becka and I went to school. She hated the camp. I loved it. There were lots of families whose circumstances were similar to ours—Japanese, German, and Italian. The guards did their best to keep the groups separate, but that didn’t work for the kids at school. I made
friends with all of them. My father had taught us to speak German at home, but I learned to speak Japanese and Italian, too.”

No wonder Sister Anselm is concerned about broken relationships,
Ali thought. She said, “You still haven’t told me how you became a displaced person.”

“I’m coming to that,” Sister Anselm said. “By early 1943, the prisoners at the Crystal City facility were being repatriated, but because Mother had renounced her U.S. citizenship, we were sent ‘back’ to Germany with our father, even though my mother, my sister, and I had never set foot outside the United States.

“In the dead of winter, we were shipped to New York City by train and put on the Swedish ocean liner
Gripsholm.
After a stormy crossing the ship finally docked in Marseilles. From there we were supposed to be taken first to Switzerland and then, finally, on to a prisoner exchange in Germany, but by the time we landed in Marseilles, Father was too ill to travel. He was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died a few days later.”

“So there you were, stuck in France,” Ali said.

Sister Anselm smiled. “That was bad enough. We were penniless. We had no connections there, just as we had no connections in Germany, and none of us spoke French. Not only that, by then Mother, too, had developed TB. Eventually she was moved to a sanatorium outside Paris that was operated by the Sisters of Providence.”

“What about you and your sister?” Ali asked.

“Since we had nowhere else to go and no one to look after us, we went there, too. While our mother was dying in the sanatorium, Becka and I lived in a Sisters of Providence convent adjacent to the hospital, one that housed the nuns who worked as nurses in the sanatorium.

“By the time Mother died, Becka was a rebellious teenager.
She hated the convent just like she had hated the camp in Texas. She thought she had exchanged one prison for another. She ran away, lived on the streets for a while, and was stabbed to death in an alley in Paris before she turned seventeen.”

“What about you?” Ali asked.

“I stayed on at the convent,” Sister Anselm said. “I loved the nuns, and they loved me. They took care of me and saw to my schooling. When I turned eighteen, I could have exercised my right to return to America as a citizen. Instead, the little Lutheran girl named Judith Becker from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, converted to Catholicism and became a nun. For the next twenty-five years I lived and worked mostly in France. In the seventies, I was offered the chance to come home to America, and that’s what I did.” Sister Anselm paused and smiled. “So there you have it, the real background on that whole Angel of Death thing.”

“That’s why you do what you do?” Ali asked.

“Yes, it is,” Sister Anselm answered. “Even if my mother had survived, I don’t believe the breach with her family ever would have healed. So often, the people who come under my care are in similar circumstances to what happened to us in France. They’re lost and alone, sick or hurt, and far from home. Usually they’re dirt poor, and often they don’t speak the language. Not all of that applies to the woman in room 814, but she does seem to be alone in the world. No one has reported her missing. No one seems to be looking for her.”

“Except for the person who tried to kill her.”

Sister Anselm nodded. “And you and I may be the only people standing between her and her would-be killer. That’s why I need your help.”

That was supposition on Sister Anselm’s part, but Ali happened to agree. “Doing what exactly?” she asked.

“Listening and watching,” Sister Anselm said. “If she has visitors, I want you to keep track of who they are, what they do and say, how they comport themselves.”

“I can’t do anything of the kind without checking with Sheriff Maxwell first,” Ali said. “I can’t imagine he’ll be in favor of it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Sister Anselm said with a confident smile that waved aside Ali’s objection. “It’s all in what you say and how you say it. Just be sure to let him know that if he says no, I’ll be obliged to turn to Agent Robson for help. That should fix it.” She gave Ali an appraising look. “You’re right, of course,” she said. “The killer may well have seen you in that first news conference. I think we need to change your looks a little, and also your name. For some strange reason you look like a Cecelia to me. Yes, Cecelia should do very nicely, but Cecelia what? Let’s see. How about Cecelia McCann? With a name like that, I think you’d be better off having red hair. That would certainly change your appearance.”

Ali was stunned. “You want me to dye my hair?”

“Certainly not,” Sister Anselm declared. “There’s a wig shop in that new shopping center right across the street from the hospital, Biltmore Commons. That shop in particular specializes in providing wigs for cancer patients, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find what you need.”

Sister Anselm pawed in her purse again, extracted her iPhone, and fiddled with it for several long moments. “Ah, yes,” she said. “Here it is. It’s called Hair Again. If you go over there shopping, you might want to pick up some other footwear, something more comfortable. Heels aren’t good for hiking around hospitals. I’ll be changing back into my running shoes before I head back.”

Sister Anselm raised her hand and summoned Cynthia.

“Would you like to bill this to your room?” the waitress asked.

“Yes, please,” Sister Anselm said.

“You’re staying here, too?” Ali asked.

“Oh, yes. I suspect that the benefactor for this program has some connection to the hotel business. I often stay in upscale hotels, not that I spend much time in my rooms, but it’s good to have a place to go to decompress if I need to.”

“I could have bought my own tea,” Ali said as the nun signed the check and handed it back to Cynthia.

Sister Anselm smiled. “Think of it as a bribe, my dear, and there’s no reason to feel guilty. I have an idea my benefactor has deeper pockets than yours. Nevertheless, I would like you to contact Sheriff Maxwell, the man who, according to Mr. Robson, isn’t the least bit involved in this case. Please let him know that you and I both have some concerns about our patient’s safety. We should probably refer to her as Ms. Smith for the time being—Ms. Mary Smith. Ask him if he can spare someone else to come here and help make sure no one gains unauthorized access to her room. My first priority is to make certain that whoever committed this heinous crime doesn’t have a chance to finish it.”

Ali already knew that Sheriff Maxwell had no one to spare—except for a certain stray media relations consultant—but she didn’t say that aloud.

“Of course,” Ali told Sister Anselm. “I’ll get in touch with him right away, but let me call for my car. I can give you a ride back to the hospital.”

“No,” Sister Anselm said. “It’s only a few blocks. I’m more than capable of walking that far.”

“But the heat . . .”

“I’m fine, and the less the two of us are seen together, the better.”

They exchanged telephone numbers. Just then the electronic device Ali had heard before sounded again. “Ms. Smith’s vitals,” Sister Anselm said, plucking it out of her purse and studying the face of it. “She’s starting to come around again. I need to go.”

With that, Sister Anselm picked up her purse and was gone. Ali waited until she exited the lobby, heading for the bank of elevators. When that happened, Ali picked up her phone and speed-dialed Sheriff Maxwell’s number.

“He’s very busy right now,” Carol Hillyard, the sheriff’s secretary, said. “Who’s calling, please? Is this important?”

“It’s Ali Reynolds,” she said, “and yes, it’s important.”

Three long minutes later Sheriff Maxwell finally came on the line.

“Ali, glad you’re checking in. I assume you’ve heard about the missing persons report?”

“What missing persons report?”

“I asked Holly to give you a call about it. She must have been too busy, or maybe she couldn’t get through.”

I’m sure,
Ali thought. She said, “This is the first I’m hearing about it.”

“The call came in to the Fountain Hills Marshal Office a little over an hour ago. The missing woman’s name is Mimi Cooper. She’s seventy-one, about the estimated age of our victim. Her husband is a pilot for Northwest Airlines. He came home from a trip this afternoon and said that his wife has evidently been gone since sometime yesterday. Her car is missing, and so is she.”

“Any sign of a struggle?” Ali asked.

“Nope, but she didn’t leave a note, either. Dave Holman is on his way to meet with the Fountain Hills authorities and maybe, depending on what he learns, with the spouse as well. At this point we don’t know for sure that this Cooper woman is our victim. It’s really a wild guess on the husband’s part. What we do know is that so far hers is the only missing persons report statewide that fits in with our time frame as well as with the victim’s approximate age.”