I knew that a strange voice asking questions over the phone wasn’t going to work. Jeanie Wilson would insist on conferring with Dr. Masterson first, and that would end the matter. It is, however, a little more difficult to refuse someone who unexpectedly appears in the flesh at your door, expecially if this individual introduces herself as the chief medical examiner and has a badge to prove it.
Jeanie Sample Wilson didn’t look a day over thirty in her jeans and red pullover sweater. She was a perky brunette with friendly eyes and a smattering of freckles over her nose, her long hair tied back in a ponytail. In the living room beyond the open door, two small boys were sitting on the carpet, watching cartoons on television.
“How long have you been working at Valhalla?” I asked.
She hesitated. “Uh, about twelve years.”
I was so relieved I almost sighed out loud. Jeanie Wilson would have been employed there not only when Jim Barnes was fired nine years ago, but also when Al Hunt was a patient two years before that.
She was planted squarely in the doorway. There was one car in the drive, in addition to mine. It appeared her husband had gone out. Good.
“I’m investigating the homicides of Beryl Madison and Gary Harper,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “What do you want from me? I didn’t know them–”
“May I come inside?”
“Of course. I’m sorry. Please.”
We sat inside her small kitchen of linoleum and white Formica and pine cabinets. It was impeccably clean, with boxes of cereal neatly lined on top of the refrigerator, and counters arranged with big glass jars filled with cookies, rice and pasta. The dishwasher was running, and I could smell a cake baking in the oven.
I intended to beat down any lingering resistance with bluntness. “Mrs. Wilson, Al Hunt was a patient at Valhalla eleven years ago, and for a while was a suspect in the cases in question. He was acquainted with Beryl Madison.”
“Al Hunt?” She looked bewildered.
“Do you remember him?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“And you say you’ve worked at Valhalla twelve years?”
“Eleven and a half, actually.”
“Al Hunt was a patient there eleven years ago, as I’ve already said.”
“The name isn’t familiar …”
“He committed suicide last week,” I said.
Now she was very bewildered.
“I talked to him shortly before his death, Mrs. Wilson. His social worker died in a motor vehicle accident nine years ago. Jim Barnes. I need to ask you about him.”
A flush was creeping up her neck. “Are you thinking his suicide was related, had something to do with Jim?”
It was a question impossible to answer. “Apparently, Jim Barnes was fired from Valhalla just hours before his death,” I went on. “Your name — or at least your maiden name — is listed on the medical examiner’s report, Mrs. Wilson.”
“There was– Well, there was some question,” she stammered. “You know, whether it was a suicide or an accident. I was questioned. A doctor, coroner, I don’t remember. But some man called me.”
“Dr. Brown?”
“I don’t remember his name,” she said.
“Why did he want to talk to you, Mrs. Wilson?”
“I suppose because I was one of the last people to see Jim alive. I guess the doctor called the front desk, and Betty referred him to me.”
“Betty?”
“She was the receptionist back then.”
“I need you to tell me everything you can remember about Jim Barnes’s being fired,” I said as she got up to check on the cake.
When she returned, she was a little more composed. She no longer looked unnerved. Instead, she looked angry.
She said, “Maybe it’s not right to say bad things about the dead, Dr. Scarpetta, but Jim was not a nice person. He was a very big problem at Valhalla, and he should have been fired long before he was.”
“Exactly how was he a problem?”
“Patients say a lot of things. They’re often not very, well, credible. It’s hard to know what’s true and what isn’t. Dr. Masterson, other therapists, would get complaints from time to time, but nothing
could be proven until there was a witnessed event one morning, the morning of that day. The day Jim was fired and had the accident.”