Minor in possession jpb-8

by J. A. Jance

  Our food had come. I had ordered something they often call taquitos at Mexican dives in Seattle. In Phoenix they seem to be known as flautas. They were equally good if not better than the ones I'm used to halving back home. For a while we ate in silence.

  "Any idea when he put the snake in your room?" she asked.

  I shook my head. For a moment Delcia sat chewing pensively before she spoke again. "I remember what Mrs. Attwood said the other night, that the snake could have been in your room for as much as a day or two, without your being aware of it. Do you think that's possible?"

  "Beats me. It seems as though I would have heard something, noticed or sensed something, but then again, maybe not. It had been stormy for several days with lots of wind, rain, and thunder. The cabin has a tin roof and It's noisy as hell, so I could have missed it."

  "Did Jennifer tell you what day she spoke with him?"

  "No, and I didn't think to ask. The babysitter was bugging her to hurry and get off the phone."

  Delcia made another note. I was sitting there watching her write when an odd thought occurred to me, one I hadn't considered before. Maybe I had jumped to the wrong conclusion. What if Joey's leaving the snake in the room had been nothing more than an ugly practical joke? According to Rhonda, he hadn't been above that sort of thing.

  "What's going on?" Delcia asked.

  That's why I never play poker. My face always provides a dead giveaway of whatever's going on behind it.

  "Just a thought, that's all."

  "What kind of thought?" she insisted.

  "Is it possible he did it as a joke after all, to see what I would do? Remember what Rhonda told us about him turning Ringo loose in the house and her finding it a week or so later?"

  "I remember all right," Delcia said with certainty, shaking her head, "but this is no practical joke, Beau. The two incidents happening in such proximity have to be related. I can feel it in my bones. All we have to do is figure out the connection."

  "We?" I said.

  "I," she corrected.

  But her comment had made me feel better, less paranoid somehow. And it was apparent that her earlier skepticism about me and my story had been replaced by belief. During our interview in Prescott, Delcia Reyes-Gonzales had clearly doubted my veracity. Now she was on my side.

  Something had changed her doubt to trust, and I wanted to ask what, but instinct cautioned me to be wary. If I tried horning in where I wasn't welcome, I risked pushing her away. As the official investigator on the case, she needed to know about my conversation with Calvin Crenshaw, but if I told her, would she climb my frame for interfering? After all, she had just shot down my "we" and turned it into a singular "I." On reflection, though, it seemed worth the gamble.

  "I talked to Calvin Crenshaw last night," I ventured cautiously.

  "You what!" Delcia exclaimed. Her initial reaction wasn't good, but I forget on anyway. The damage was already done. What more did I have to lose?

  "I drove up to Wickenburg last night and talked to him at home. It was a personal matter, Delcia," I said reassuringly. "Louise had told my attorney that I was a permanent persona non grata at Ironwood Ranch. I wanted to get that situation straightened out."

  Delcia's face relaxed. Her sudden flash of anger dissipated. After all, my being thrown out of Ironwood Ranch wasn't her problem. "Did you come to some agreement?" she asked.

  "Not exactly, because, based on what I found out, I don't ever expect to darken their doorstep again."

  Alert and listening, she waited attentively. "And what exactly did you find out?"

  "Louise Crenshaw was screwing Joey Rothman, among others. Calvin knew all about it. It was their own kinky little joke on the world."

  Delcia Reyes-Gonzales seemed to rise in her seat by a good three inches.

  "Who told you this?"

  "Calvin," I said. "Good old Calvin Crenshaw himself. But he also warned me that if I tried to pass any of it along, he'd deny it. My word against his. No way to prove it."

  Delcia sat forward in her seat with her dark unsettling eyes drilling into mine. "Tell me precisely what he said, verbatim, as much as you can remember."

  And so I did, stumbling as witnesses sometimes do in an attempt to remember everything. Delcia seemed to hang on every word, not taking notes, but assimilating every detail. When I finished, she was nodding.

  "In that case," she said quietly, "Joey Rothman's diary could be dynamite."

  Before I could say anything more, she signaled for the waitress to bring the bill.

  I had hoped my recitation would result in her returning the favor and letting me in on some of what she had going, but that was not to be. She reached for her purse and headed for the cashier with me trailing along behind.

  "Wait a minute. Where are you going? What's going on?"

  "I'm beginning to see a pattern here," she said, stopping in front of the cashier's desk. "One I don't like. I'm going to check it out."

  The cashier ran Delcia's credit card through the machine while I waited impatiently in the crowded vestibule, which had filled up with lunchtime diners waiting for tables.

  "But can't you tell me what it is?" I pleaded when we were alone outside, standing in front of her car.

  "No," she said simply.

  "You seem to be forgetting something, Beau," Delcia Reyes-Gonzales returned sweetly, favoring me with a dazzling smile.

  "What's that?"

  "That is Arizona, not Washington, remember? Keep in touch."

  With that, she got in her car and drove away, leaving me fuming in the parking lot.

  An old drinking buddy of mine once told me that when it come to women, men don't know shit.

  He sure as hell got that right.

  CHAPTER 15

  The way Delcia Reyes-Gonzales wheeled out of the asphalt parking lot leaving strips of rubber in her wake told me that she was a woman with a definite purpose in mind, a lady with a fire lit under her slender butt. I must have said something that jibed with information she already knew or suspected, something important enough to merit her immediate attention. It pissed me off that she hadn't bothered to tell me what that something was.

  Frustrated, I got in my rented Subaru and drove home to Ralph Ames' house, intent on finishing the laundry. At the very least, sorting and folding clean clothes was a job with some resolution to it, with a tangible beginning and end, both of which were firmly under my power and control. That was whole lot different from the people and circumstances surrounding Joey Rothman.

  There were two messages on Ames' answering machine, both from Rhonda Attwood, both anxiously trying to reach Ralph, and both saying she'd call back later. Hearing her voice made me crabby as hell. It reinforced my suspicions that she was up to no good and made me wonder what kind of subterfuge she was going to use to sucker Ames into helping her. I was sorely tempted to erase the messages entirely, but I didn't. My mother taught me to be a better houseguest than that.

  MYOB, Beaumont, I told myself firmly. MYOB.

  I had completed the only crossword puzzle in the house and was just folding the last load of wash, the once-muddy sandbagging clothes, when the doorbell rang. I saw the green Fiat through the sidelight windows. What the hell is Rhonda Attwood doing here? I thought as I opened the door.

  She smiled up at me. "Is Ralph back from the golf tournament yet?"

  "No," I answered with some vexation. Again I was odd-man-out. Ralph hadn't told me about being in a golf tournament, but he had told Rhonda.

  "He said he thought he'd be done by three-thirty or four," Rhonda continued easily. "Mind if I come in and wait?"

  "No," I said. "Come on in."

  Someone else might have noticed my annoyance, but Rhonda didn't. She followed me into the spacious living room, where I motioned her toward the long white leather couch. Once again, Rhonda didn't take the hint. Instead of sitting down, she prowled around the room, examining the various pieces of artwork on the walls and tables, frowning at some and nodding in app
reciation at others.

  Finally she turned and looked at me. "Ralph certainly has the eye of a connoisseur, doesn't he," she said.

  "I wouldn't know about that," I answered brusquely. I thought she had a hell of a lot of nerve to meander uninvited around Ralph's living room, treating it like a goddamned museum.

  "Would you like a drink?" I asked, attempting halfheartedly to assume the role of stand-in host.

  She glanced at her watch before she answered. "A Crown Royal if you've got it, Neat."

  I made my way to Ralph's well-stocked wet bar. The Crown Royal was there. So was a bottle of MacNaughton's. I poured the Crown Royal and left the MacNaughton's alone. There was a tiny refrigerator-cum-ice-machine under the bar. I threw some ice cubes in a glass and poured a can of Sprite into it for me.

  When I gave her the Crown Royal, she looked me straight in the eye.

  "Most men find me attractive," she said, "but I get the feeling you don't like me much."

  She had me dead to rights. "You worry me," I said.

  "Why?"

  "Women who do vendettas scare hell out of me, that's all. You know, the female of the species is deadlier than the male and all that jazz. You asked me to help you track down the people responsible for your son's death, remember? And now you're trying to get Ralph Ames to do the same thing."

  "So that's it," she said, taking a sip of her drink.

  "Of course that's it," I replied impatiently. "Ralph Ames happens to be a super-nice guy, and he's a good friend of mine. I don't want to see him bamboozled into your wild-haired scheme. He's a lawyer, goddamnit, and a good one. If he messes around in an ongoing homicide investigation, you could end up getting him disbarred."

  Rhonda Attwood regarded me levelly over the rim of her glass. "It's not what you think," she said. "When I asked you to help me, I didn't know about the baby."

  "Baby?" I asked.

  "Joey's baby, my grandchild. You're right, when I first talked to you, I didn't care what happened. The only thing I could think of was evening the score. I'd lost him years ago, but I'd always had a secret hope of getting him back. I can't do that now, but I have something else, a grandchild, something of my son that will go on from here. That's why I want to see Ralph, to ask him to help me set up a trust fund for the baby, and the mother too, of course."

  "When you change your mind, you do a complete one-eighty, don't you?"

  Rhonda smiled and nodded. "So I've been told."

  I sat there for a moment and let her words sink in. She was talking as confidently about that baby as though her grandchild were already a living, breathing entity. All I could think about was Michelle Owens' hollow-eyed misery and Guy Owens' despairing pronouncement: "Fifteen and pregnant."

  I hated to burst her bubble, but somebody had to do it.

  "You'll never see that baby, Rhonda. Michelle is only fifteen. She's still wearing braces. Her father will never let her carry that baby to term. Even if he did, he wouldn't let her keep it."

  Instantly two angry splotches of color appeared on Rhonda's cheeks. "It's a baby, Mr. Beaumont, not a stray puppy. Of course she'll keep it. I'll help her. Michelle can come live with me if she wants to. If she has to. Thanks to Ralph, I've just sold five paintings to Vincent at five thousand dollars apiece. That's what I want to use to start the trust fund."

  "You're not listening, Rhonda. Twenty-five thousand is only a drop in the bucket of what it would take. We're talking about an adolescent here, a druggie with no education, no prospects, and no husband. What kind of life would that be for her or the baby, either one?"

  Rhonda's glass, spewing Crown Royal all the way, sailed past my ear and shattered against the wall behind my head. At the same time, she launched herself from the couch, springing toward me like an outraged, unleashed tiger. I scrambled out of the way, slopping my own drink in my lap, jumping up and catching her wrists just in time to keep her sharpened fingernails from raking my face.

  She screamed unintelligible words at me and fought to get loose with surprising strength, but I kept her wrists firmly imprisoned. I don't know how long we struggled like that, but finally I felt the fight ebb out of her. She sagged against my chest, sobbing, as the dam she had built across her emotions broke free.

  I let her cry, knowing she was weeping for two babies, not one, for her lost son and for the grandchild she was afraid of losing, for herself and for Michelle Owens as well. I patted her shoulder, murmuring what comforting words of consolation I could think of. They sounded empty and inept. Useless.

  At last she gave a shuddering sigh and moved to disengage herself. When I let her go, she crouched near where the glass had smashed and began picking up the jagged pieces.

  "Here," I said gruffly, "I'll do that."

  She bit her lip. "I'm used to cleaning up my own messes," she said.

  Together we cleaned up the splatters of Crown Royal that clung to the wall and the sticky Sprite that dappled the tile floor. Luckily, most of the mess had missed the mint-green oriental rug.

  "I really would help her," Rhonda said as she scrubbed the wall. "If she kept the baby, I mean."

  "It's not that simple," I returned.

  I felt her turn and look at me, sensed the resurgence of anger. "What would you know about it?"

  I bridled at the female arrogance that automatically assumes all men are unfeeling, insensitive clods. I wanted to lash out at her and put her in her place, but memories of my own mother's struggles raising an illegitimate son in Seattle in the forties and fifties tempered the fight in me as well.

  "More than you know," I answered wearily. "Way more than you know."

  For several minutes we worked on in silence. "But couldn't Ralph work out some kind of custody agreement? I could raise the baby myself. Michelle wouldn't have to be responsible."

  "The chances for that are pretty slim."

  She looked at me for a long time, but finally she nodded in defeat. "I guess you're right." Rhonda glanced at her watch. It was after five, close to five-thirty. "Damn," she said.

  "What's wrong now?"

  "No matter what I do with the money, I still have to get those paintings over to Vincent. He's already paid for them, and I promised to deliver them this afternoon. The problem is, they won't fit in my car. They're too big. I was hoping I could get Ralph to take me in his, since he's the one who put the whole deal together."

  "Where are they?"

  "At the Renthrow Gallery, on Main Street in Scottsdale. They close at six."

  "I could take you," I offered, "if you think they'll fit in the Subaru."

  "Would you mind?"

  "Not at all. I'll just leave a note for Ralph so he'll know where to find us."

  She looked down at the amber stain on her blouse left by spilled Crown Royal. "I should stop by the hotel and change. It'll only take a minute."

  "Sure," I said. "Lead the way."

  In the gathering twilight I followed the Fiat out of Ames' driveway and back to MacDonald Drive, where we turned right and made our way to Lincoln Drive to the Red Lion's La Posada. We turned in by the main entrance and went past the huge pool with its immense waterfall. Rhonda led me through a maze of crowded parking lots to the hotel's farthest wing. She parked the Fiat in the only available spot then came up to me in the Subaru.

  "Wait here," she said. "It'll only take me a minute to change."

  When it comes to changing clothes, women's minutes and men's minutes are often quite different. She was back in less than one, still wearing the same clothes. "Let's go," she said, climbing into the car and slamming the door behind her.

  "I thought you were going to change."

  "Never mind that. Can't we go now, please?"

  Something was seriously wrong, but she wasn't ready to tell me what it was, so I swung the Subaru in a tight circle and wheeled back toward the nearest exit on Lincoln.

  "What happened in there?" I asked. "What's the matter?"

  "Somebody's been in my room," she said.

&
nbsp; "Who? The maid? Room service?"

  "No, I mean somebody broke into my room. They've torn the place apart."

  I stepped on the brake. "Are they still in there?"

  Rhonda shook her head. "No. I don't think so."

  "You don't think so? Jesus Christ, woman, you mean you don't know for sure?"

  "As soon as I saw it, I didn't even go inside. I came straight back to the car."

  I turned the wheel savagely and almost ran over a golf cart ferrying guests to their rooms.

  "Where are you going?" Rhonda demanded.

  "To the desk. We need to report this."

  "No."

  "No?" I echoed. "What the hell do you mean, ‘No'?"

  "Just what I said. Reporting it could take hours. I want to deliver those pictures first."

  God keep me from stubborn women!

  Exasperated, I started to argue and then thought better of it. After all, if she didn't feel an urgency to report it right away, why the hell should I?

  "Which way do we go?" I asked.

  "Right on Lincoln," she said. "Then south on Invergordon."

  Following directions, I turned back onto Lincoln eastbound. I was only a block or so away when I saw a set of headlights come up fast behind us. He had his high beams on, so I noticed him right away. At first I didn't think that much about it. I could tell it was one of those big four-wheel-drive jobs driven by somebody with the typical four-by-four attitude-the-world-is-my-ashtray mentality. I expected him to race around us, and he almost did. But then suddenly, for no apparent reason, he dropped back behind us and stayed there.

  That worried me. When yahoos like that don't pass, they've got to have a reason. I glanced in the rearview mirror, trying to get a better look at the vehicle, but the bright lights blinded me.

  It was early evening on an October Saturday, and traffic was fairly light. I tried speeding up, so did he, maintaining the same distance between the two vehicles.

  "What's wrong?" Rhonda asked anxiously.

  "Don't look back, but I think we've got a tail. Where do we turn?"