by J. A. Jance
There was another long silence while Jennifer waggled the toe of her scuffed baby tennis shoes. Reeboks, naturally.
"What's Mother going to do now?" she asked, breaking the silence with another totally unexpected question. I wasn't at all sure I understood what she was asking.
"What do you mean?"
More tears spilled out of Jennifer's eyes, but she maintained a surprising level of composure. "Mother always liked Joey best." She spoke the words slowly and guardedly, but with unwavering conviction. She paused and swallowed hard before she continued. "If Joey's dead, will she still love me?"
Jennifer Rothman had dragged me entirely out of my depth in the child psychology department. The Smothers Brothers may have elevated the old "Mom always liked you best" shtick to a money-making art form. The same routine coming from a mourning, grief-stricken seven-year-old child was anything but funny. Her look of utter abandonment sliced through my heart like a hot knife.
Before I could tell her I was sure she was mistaken, before I could offer the reassurance that I was sure her mother loved her just as much as she had loved Joey, the dining room door crashed open once more. Marsha Rothman, Mother herself, hurried inside.
"Mother, Mother," Jennifer wailed, letting loose a cloudburst of noisy sobs. She clambered off the couch and raced toward her mother, catching Marsha Rothman in a desperate tackle as the woman started across the room.
"Joey's dead," Jennifer whimpered, burying her face in her mother's woolen skirt. "Joey's dead."
"I know."
Marsha Rothman's usually unemotional face was distorted by her own grief. Distractedly she placed both hands on Jennifer's heaving shoulders. "Where's Daddy?" she asked.
Jennifer sobbed all the harder and didn't answer.
Feeling like an eavesdropper, I followed Jennifer across the room and stood waiting for the two of them to notice me. Melting mascara had left muddy tracks on Marsha's pallid cheeks. Her skin had the leathery look of someone who has spent years in search of the perfect tan, but now there was no trace of color in her skin. She looked pale, gaunt almost, but not a lock of her perfectly sculpted haircut was out of place.
I was only a few feet away, but she didn't see me. I didn't necessarily like the woman, but at a time like that, personal preferences don't mean much. Marsha Rothman's stepson was dead, and I would do whatever I could to help.
"I'm sorry about Joey," I said quietly, wanting to let her know I was there without startling her.
Despite my cautious tone, Marsha Rothman jumped when I spoke but regained her composure. My words of condolence seemed to strengthen her somehow. She swallowed and stiffened.
"Thank you," she answered formally. "Thank you very much. Do you have any idea where I could find my husband?"
"He went down the hall," I told her. "Probably into Louise Crenshaw's office. The detectives have been using that for a base of operations."
She nodded and then looked down at the weeping Jennifer, who still clung to her mother's waist. "I've got to go, Jennifer," Marsha said, trying to disengage herself. "Can you stay here with Mr. Beaumont?"
Jennifer shook her head and held on even more desperately. "Don't leave me, Mother. Please don't leave me. Can't I come too? Please?"
Marsha's answer was firm. "No, Jen. I have to go be with Daddy. You have to wait here."
One clutching finger at a time, Marsha pried loose Jennifer's grasping hands. There was no anger in the gesture, but nothing very motherly either, no caring, warmth, or comfort, just a practiced indifference. I caught myself wondering if maybe Jennifer was right. For whatever reason, maybe Marsha really had liked Joey Rothman best.
Sobbing and bereft, Jennifer allowed herself to be handed over to me while Marsha paused only long enough to straighten her skirt and give her hair a superficial and unnecessary pat before walking away. As she left, Marsha Rothman didn't favor Jennifer with so much as a backward glance.
I picked up the weeping child and held her, letting her bury her head against my shoulder while I rocked back and forth. I held her for some time, listening to her cry, watching the pelting rain falling outside the windows, and wondering how the hell to ease the hurt she was feeling. Suddenly, I caught sight of Shorty Rojas. Slouched under a huge yellow slicker, he rode past the ranch house on an ancient plodding gray horse. Behind him he led a wet string of bridled but unsaddled horses. It was a heaven-sent but guaranteed diversion.
"Look at all the horses," I said, pointing out the window with one hand while boosting Jennifer off my shoulder with the other. "Would you like to go outside and see them?"
It worked like a charm. Little girls and horses are like that. Jennifer's sobbing stopped instantly. "Could we? Really? Maybe I could even ride one." Then, just as suddenly, her face fell again. She ducked her chin to hide the disappointment. "It's raining outside. These are my school clothes. Mother doesn't like for me to get them wet."
Screw Mother, I thought savagely. For a moment I was stymied, but then I remembered seeing Dolores Rojas leave the ranch's kitchen to walk back to her mobile home, a stately mountain of a woman moving slowly under the shelter of an immense black umbrella.
"Hold on," I said. "I have an idea."
Carrying the child into the kitchen, I found Dolores Rojas elbow-deep in sudsy dishwater. "Could we borrow your umbrella for a little while, Dolores? This is Joey Rothman's sister. She'd like to go outside with Shorty to see the horses."
A quick look of sympathy and understanding flashed across Dolores' broad, brown face. "Sure," she answered. "It's right over there by the door."
I retrieved her umbrella from the metal milk can that served as an umbrella stand. We were about to step outside into the rain when Dolores stopped us.
"Wait," she said, drying her hands on a towel. "I may have a few old carrots around here somewhere."
Of course there was nothing wrong with the handful of carrots she pressed into Jennifer's eager hands. Dolores Rojas was another soft touch. It takes one to know one.
We caught up with Shorty just as he closed a barbed wire gate behind the last of the unsaddled horses and was remounting the gray. When I told him who Jennifer was, Shorty clicked his tongue sympathetically and then asked if she would like to help him bring the rest of the horses up from the stables to the higher pasture. In response to her delighted affirmative, he swept her out of my arms and set her in front of him on the gray's high horned saddle, wrapping her snugly in the folds of the slicker.
"I'll bring her back to the ranch house when we finish," Shorty promised. "They're going to be awhile."
I was sure Marsha Rothman wouldn't approve of the wet horsy odor that was going to permeate Jennifer's private-school pinafore, but that was just too damn bad. Helping Shorty move horses would be a whole lot better for Jennifer Rothman than sitting abandoned in the ranch house while grown-ups finished sorting out the ugly aftermath of her brother's death.
By the time I returned Dolores' umbrella to the milk can, it was time to go into afternoon Group. People were already filtering into the various meeting rooms, and I hurried to mine.
I'm not sure what was originally scheduled to happen in Group that afternoon, but it turned out to be a serious and subdued discussion of life and death. If nothing else, Joey Rothman's death had reminded all of us of our own mortality and underscored the importance of making the most of whatever time each of us had left.
Burton Joe's private meeting with Karen and the kids seemed to have had a salutary effect on both Karen and Kelly. I don't know what he told my daughter. Maybe he spilled the beans about Michelle Owens' condition. At any rate, I was back in their good graces for the time being. As we left the room for mid-afternoon break, Kelly caught up with me by the door and gave me a quick hug, one I returned gratefully.
It was still raining outside. Sunny goddamned Arizona.
We hurried to the dining room for coffee and iced tea. With a mixture of sadness and relief I noticed that Jennifer Rothman wasn't back on the couch besi
de the fireplace. With any kind of luck, her parents had taken her home.
Bringing my coffee with me, I went out on the front patio to watch the falling rain. While standing there, I glanced curiously down the trail toward my darkened cabin, trying to ascertain whether or not the Yavapai County Sheriff's department had completed its search. There was nothing to see one way or the other, no sign of life or investigative activity. The lights in the cabin were off, and no vehicles of any kind were visible in front of or behind it.
Before we could reconvene in our various groups, Calvin Crenshaw rang the dinner bell and summoned everyone back to the dining room. Once more in a time of crisis Louise Crenshaw was not in evidence, and once more Calvin was thrust into the limelight.
"We've just had a call from Yavapai County Flood Control," he said quickly, once the group was silent. "The river's expected to crest at one and a half feet over flood. We need volunteers to help sandbag the Rojases' mobile home. Otherwise it could be washed off its footings."
Which is how, in the last few hours of daylight on the day Joey Rothman died, I found myself, along with several other able-bodied volunteers from Ironwood Ranch's collection of misfits, slogging knee-deep through icy water and mud, filling sandbags with shovels full of wet sand, and heaving the bags in a stack along the base of Shorty and Dolores Rojas' double-wide mobile home.
It was cold, backbreaking, hard labor, but it was also exhilarating to be out in the open again, to be exerting physical effort, to be using muscles I'd forgotten I owned for a change instead of sitting around endlessly talking. When we finished the job, it was almost time for dinner. There was just enough time to grab a quick shower before rushing off to dinner and the in-town AA and Al-Anon meetings that make up Ironwood Ranch's unvaried Tuesday night and Thursday night agenda.
Hurrying back to the cabin, I paused on the porch long enough to strip off my wet shoes and make sure there was no crime scene tape that would still keep me from entering. Seeing none, I slipped inside, shedding dripping shirt and jacket as I went.
The cabin, the last one in the row, was farthest away from the main ranch house. It was also a long way from the hot water heater. Consequently, it usually took some time to coax a reluctant stream of hot water out of the shower head.
Bearing this in mind, I stepped into the bathroom long enough to turn on the faucet and begin warming the water before I went back out to empty my pockets at the dresser. I did all this without bothering to turn on a light. With my pockets empty, I stripped off my sodden pants and tossed them on the floor somewhere in the general direction of the outside door.
And that's when I heard the snake. Even over the rush of water in the shower, the chilling sound of the rattlesnake's rattle was unmistakable.
With a sinking clutch in my gut I recognized it as a sound I had learned from watching hundreds of Saturday afternoon serials and westerns as a kid, first at the old Baghdad Theater and later at the Bay in Ballard. When I threw the pants toward the door, I must have unintentionally scored a direct hit.
I froze, squinting my eyes at the murky darkness. Fortunately, the pissed-off rattlesnake continued to sound its ominous warning. I was exceedingly grateful it did so. Armed with infrared sensors, the snake knew my every movement, all the while remaining totally invisible to me. If the rattling ever stopped, I'd have no way of knowing where he was.
Waves of goose bumps surged up and down my legs. My pulse pounded in my temples. I listened desperately over the noisy rushing of my own blood, trying to pinpoint the exact location of that bone-chilling rattle.
It had to be coming from somewhere near the door. If that was the case, I was lucky as hell that I hadn't stepped on the damn thing when I came inside. But now I was trapped. And in the dark. Not only was the snake beside the door, so was the light switch.
Holding my breath, I took one cautious step backward, dreading the feeling of snake's fangs sinking deep into the naked flesh of my leg or ankle. When nothing happened, I tried another step. The rattle stopped for only for a moment, then it began again in what seemed like a slightly different position.
I took another backward step, wondering how far it could possibly be-not inches, not feet, but miles-before I reached the relative safety of the bathroom.
Two more cautious steps and I felt the welcome cool of the tiled bathroom floor beneath my feet. Sick with relief, I sprang backward and slammed the door shut. Quickly I turned on the light and then looked down at what seemed suddenly to be an immense crack beneath the door. It may have been irrational, but all the same, I plugged it with a bath towel just in case the snake might be able to squash itself flat and somehow squeeze under the door to come after me.
While I stood there shaking with relief and resting my head on the door, I watched the towel for any sign of movement. Seeing none, I finally pulled myself together enough to turn off the water and take stock of the situation. The ringing of last-call dinner bell greeted my ears. By now everyone would have gone up to the dining room except for a few flood-fighting stragglers like me who might possibly still be showering.
I tried to think. I may have been safe in the bathroom, but it was a hollow victory at best. I was still trapped. I still couldn't get out. Yelling wouldn't help. Once they left for dinner and the meetings, no other clients would be within earshot for hours. The trip into Wickenburg usually lasted until around ten, unless…
A sudden thought spilled over me like a bucket of icy water. Unless they noticed I was missing and sent someone to find me.
What if they sent Kelly or Scott? I thought with my heart sinking. What if one of my own unsuspecting kids walked directly into the snake? I wouldn't be able to see them coming in time, wouldn't be able to warn them.
I had to get out! Somehow I had to do it, but I'd be damned if I was going to open that bathroom door.
I looked at the shower. A combination tub and shower. Five feet above the bottom of the tub was a window, a discreet frosted jalousie window. Small, and tough to get to, but maybe I could make it work.
Adrenaline is wonderful. It surged through me, giving me a strength I didn't know I had. I'm reminded of the five-foot-two grandmother from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who single-handedly lifted a 327-cubic-inch GMC engine off her husband's legs when it fell on him in their garage. That dame didn't have anything on me.
Wrapping my hands in towels, I opened the window and managed to punch out the three tiers of glass. Then, amazed that I was able to do it, I pried the window frame loose from its moorings. I tried yelling for help through the open window, but as I had expected, it was useless. By then every last straggler had gone to the dining room. The Rojas mobile home was much closer at hand than the ranch house, but yelling for Shorty wouldn't work either. The roaring of the bloated river blanked out every other sound.
Standing there with my escape hatch open, I realized suddenly that I had another serious problem-I was buck naked. All my clothes were in the other room along with the snake.
Public opinion and shards of broken glass were nothing compared to my dread of the snake, which I imagined was lying in wait, lurking there just outside the bathroom door.
Casting my fate to the winds, I gathered one more towel, tossed it out the window in front of me in hopes it would protect my bare feet from the broken glass. Then, standing on tiptoe on the edge of the tub, I clambered up the wall and wiggled my bare butt out the window.
Thank God I didn't get stuck.
CHAPTER 7
Shorty Rojas seemed a little surprised when I turned up on his doorstep wearing nothing but a towel and an off-the-shoulder smile. Unperturbed by my tale of the snake, he gave me a bathrobe and a pair of rubber thongs. The robe, a shocking pink chenille, evidently belonged to Dolores and came close to wrapping around me twice. The thongs, blue rubber dime store jobs, were definitely Shorty's. They were wide enough for my feet, but my heels hung off the back end by a good inch and a half.
I wanted him to exhibit some visible reaction when I told him about
the snake. I wanted him to act like it was something out of the ordinary, for him to be more upset, but Shorty Rojas wasn't the excitable type.
"Happens every time we have a flood," he said with a shrug. "Them snakes hole up in the bank along the river. When high water gets to 'em, they go looking for someplace warm and dry. What'd you do, leave your door open? Hang on a minute. I'll go get my snake stick and a burlap bag."
He pulled a much-used Stetson down from a hook on the wall near the door and shoved it on his head.
"You mean this kind of thing happens often?" I asked.
Shorty didn't answer. When he returned to the door, instead of packing a gun, which was what I wanted and expected, he was carrying a gunnysack and a stick the size of a cane with a leather noose hanging off the bottom end.
"What the hell are you going to do with that thing?" I demanded.
Shorty looked down at the stick. A leather thong ran up one side of the stick. He slipped it up and down, tightening and loosening the noose. "I'm gonna catch me a snake," he said impassively. "Take it back outside where it belongs and let it loose."
"You mean you're not going to kill it?"
"No, I'm not going to kill it." He sounded offended, not only by the question but by the implied stupidity behind it. "If every snake in this danged world disappeared off the face of the earth tomorrow, we'd all be overrun with varmints in two shakes of a lamb's tail."
With a derisive snort and a shake of his head, Shorty Rojas headed up the trail. Chastened, I followed meekly behind.
"Where is it?" he asked over his shoulder as we trudged along.
"I never turned on the lights so I didn't actually see it," I admitted, "but it's somewhere right near the door. At least that's what it sounded like when I left."
"If the snake's by the door, how'd you get out without getting bit?"
"I climbed out the bathroom window."
He stopped in the glow of a yard light and looked up at me, consternation written on his face. "Out the window, no shit? Musta been a tight fit."