Minor in possession jpb-8

by J. A. Jance

  Rhonda Attwood laughed. "Run away?" she asked.

  "As in elope," Detective Reyes-Gonzales replied seriously. "When I talked to her this morning, the girl showed me a ring. She claims they were engaged." Reyes-Gonzales paused for just a moment before adding, "Michelle Owens is pregnant, Mrs. Attwood."

  For the first time in the entire interview, Rhonda Attwood looked stunned.

  "Pregnant?" she said. "Joey got a girl pregnant?"

  "Eventually you may want to confirm it with a paternity test, but for the time being, we're taking the girl's word that your son is the father."

  Rhonda sat perfectly still, her face ashen. I'm sure that, like me, Detective Reyes-Gonzales had assumed that someone else had given Rhonda the news. "I'm sorry. You mean you didn't know?"

  "No," Rhonda answered weakly, almost in a whisper. "I had no idea."

  "It's just that your husband-"

  "I don't have a husband," Rhonda cut in.

  "Excuse me, your former husband seemed to know all about it, and I thought you would too."

  "My former husband and I aren't exactly on speaking terms," Rhonda said testily. "Thank you for telling me." Abruptly, she stood up and turned to me. "Can we go now, please? I'm not feeling well."

  To my surprise, Detective Reyes-Gonzales didn't object. "Of course, Mrs. Attwood. I'll be happy to finish going over all this with you some other time."

  "Thank you," Rhonda murmured and fled from the room. Without moving, Detective Reyes-Gonzales watched the door swing slowly shut behind the departing woman.

  "So that's it?" I asked.

  "For right now," she replied. "If I have any more questions, I can ask them tomorrow."

  Being this close to the action and at the same time being totally shut out of it was driving me crazy. I decided to try a direct approach. What did I have to lose?"

  "How about your answering one for me, then?" I asked.

  "Such as?"

  "Yesterday when you were interviewing me in Louise Crenshaw's office, something happened. Somebody came to get you, and you got up and left me, just like that."

  A curtain of wariness fell across the detective's face. "What about it?"

  "What was it? Why did you leave?"

  "A lead," she answered coolly. "I'm not at liberty to say what kind."

  "Just tell me one thing. Was it something to do with Joey Rothman's murder?"

  "You're not listening, Detective Beaumont," she said, standing up. "I can't say anything more without jeopardizing my investigation. Won't," she added.

  "But you do have a suspect?" I insisted.

  I had turned the questioning tables on her suddenly enough that I caught her off guard. An affirmative answer flashed in the lucid brown eyes before she could properly mask them. Yes, she did have a suspect.

  "Who is he?" I asked, pressing my luck. By then, Detective Reyes-Gonzales was back in control. She ignored my final question as though it had never been asked.

  "I understand you're no longer staying at Ironwood Ranch." It was a statement not a question, and I didn't answer.

  "Do you have any idea where you will be staying? For the time being, I would prefer your not leaving the state of Arizona."

  I had seen that request as a distinct possibility. "I'll probably stay with my attorney, Ralph Ames. In Phoenix. His office is in Phoenix but he lives in Paradise Valley." I gave her Ralph's telephone numbers and addresses.

  "What about my car?" I added.

  "Oh, that." She shrugged. "A minor detail. Have the rental agency call us. Better yet, have them call me personally. The car is still impounded, but you won't have to pay any charges from the time we took it into custody. At least that's my understanding of how it's supposed to work."

  The detective got up and escorted me to the door. We found Rhonda Attwood pacing up and down the hallway. Pacing and seething.

  She stopped as soon as she saw us, her face still contorted with anger. The change was remarkable. This new woman barely resembled the one with whom I'd spent the past few hours.

  "I take it you spoke with my former husband at some length?" Her words were clipped and staccato, while the question itself reeked with sarcasm.

  "Why, yes, as a matter of fact, we did. We were able to reach him early on during the day, long before the deputies were able to locate you."

  "And while you were chatting with him, he didn't happen to mention when the services for Joey are scheduled, did he?"

  Detective Reyes-Gonzales frowned. "That depends on the autopsy, but I believe he said something about Monday. Somewhere in Paradise Valley, I believe, but I can't remember where or what time. When you talk to him-"

  "I won't be speaking to JoJo Rothman," Rhonda said icily. "I haven't spoken to him since before the divorce, and I see no need to change that now." With that, she turned and stalked away down the hallway. I started after her, but Detective Reyes-Gonazales stopped me.

  "What's going on with her? Are you two involved in some way?"

  "You mean romantically? No."

  "But you came here with her. She brought you along into my office like you were an advisor or a close personal friend."

  "I never met her before tonight. She offered me a ride out of Wickenburg, that's all. The road is closed going the other way, remember?"

  "And that's all?"

  "Of course that's all," I answered, exasperation creeping into my voice.

  Detective Delcia Reyes-Gonzales smiled, but there was no humor in it. "Let me remind you, Detective Beaumont, that you are now in Arizona, not Washington. Yavapai County, not the City of Seattle."

  "In other words, butt out and mind my own business."

  "I couldn't have said it better myself."

  The course of the interview had taken so many sudden twists and turns that I had almost lost sight of my initial reason for wanting to talk to her. I had come to report an attempt on my own life, but that original intention kept getting buried under other issues. Resentment boiled to the surface.

  "And let me remind you, Detective Reyes-Gonzales, that no matter what you were told by the sheriff or Crenshaw or anybody else, somebody, most likely Joey, tried to kill me with that snake yesterday afternoon. I'm not going to let up until I know for sure."

  The detective flashed me a winning smile. "If I were you…" she began.

  "You're not me," I reminded her, and strode away.

  Rhonda Attwood was waiting in the lobby with a night clerk hovering in attendance when I came out of the office area. She seemed to have gotten herself under control.

  "There's a message for you," she said.

  I turned to the clerk. "For me? For J. P. Beaumont?"

  "Yes. Mr. Ames said to tell you that he's chartered a helicopter and that he expects to be in Prescott within the hour. He said for you to wait right here. We've sent a cab out to the airport to meet him."

  "Who's Ames?" Rhonda asked, showing some interest.

  "Ralph Ames. My attorney. He's coming up from Phoenix."

  "By chartered helicopter?" she asked.

  "He thought I was in some kind of trouble," I answered lamely. "So did I."

  "I'll wait with you until he gets here," Rhonda said.

  I thanked the clerk for the message then led Rhonda over to some chairs by a blind-covered window.

  "Tell me about her," Rhonda said.

  "The detective? What's to tell?"

  "Not her, the girlfriend. Joey's girlfriend…the pregnant one."

  "Her name's Michelle, Michelle Owens."

  "Where's she from?"

  "Ironwood Ranch."

  "You mean she lives there?"

  "No, she was a client, same as everybody else. They met there. Like the detective said, she's only fifteen, a mousey little girl. The last time I saw her she looked like she was scared to death."

  "I don't care what she looks like. Where does she live?"

  "With her family, her father anyway. He's in the service, a lieutenant colonel in the army, I believe."
>
  "From here in Arizona?"

  "I think so, but I can't remember where exactly. Fort something. It seems like the name starts with a W."

  Rhonda thought about that for a moment. "Fort Huachuca, maybe?"

  "That's it. I told you it starts with a W."

  "It starts with an H," she corrected. "It's Spanish."

  "You could have fooled me," I said.

  Suddenly, a light came on in my head. Detective Reyes-Gonzales had mentioned a suspect. She hadn't said so in so many words, but her manner had hinted that I wasn't it. I was off the hook and somebody else was on, and I wondered if that somebody was Lieutenant Colonel Guy Owens.

  "I'm going to talk to her," Rhonda said determinedly.

  Absorbed in my own thoughts, I hadn't been listening. "Talk to who?" I asked.

  "Michelle, and her father, too."

  The mention of Guy Owens made me feel as though Rhonda had somehow been peering into my brain. Talking with Guy and Michelle Owens was the last thing Rhonda should do, especially if the lieutenant colonel really was Detective Reyes-Gonzales' prime suspect.

  "Don't," I said. "Leave them alone. Don't go messing around with things you don't know about."

  "What I don't know about!" Rhonda repeated venomously. "After all, he was my son."

  "What I mean is…"

  Rhonda didn't wait for me to finish. She got up from the chair and bolted toward the door, where she ran headlong into Ralph Ames. He stopped abruptly, grabbed her elbow to keep her from falling, apologized, and then looked around the room frowning until he caught sight of me.

  "There you are," he said. "How are things?"

  "Fine."

  "I don't see any handcuffs. Does that mean you're free to go?"

  "As near as I can tell."

  "Are you telling me this whole thing was a false alarm?"

  "There's nothing false about it, Ralph. My roommate's still dead. This is his mother." standing quietly beside him, Rhonda Attwood hadn't moved during the course of Ralph's and my exchange. He looked down at her and seemed to see her for the first time.

  "Excuse me," he said politely, releasing her arm and then holding out his hand. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Ralph Ames, Mr. Beaumont's attorney. His roommate was your son? I'm so sorry."

  She took his proffered hand and shook it. "Thank you," she said. "My name is Rhonda Attwood."

  While a look of total consternation passed over his face, Ralph Ames did a complete double take. He stepped back a step, a full step.

  "The water-colorist!" Ralph evidently knew the lady. If not personally, at least by reputation.

  Rhonda inclined her head gracefully. "Yes," she said.

  "But your son's name…"

  "Attwood was my maiden name," she explained.

  "Of course," Ralph said, nodding. "If there's anything I can do to be of service…"

  "I'll let you know," Rhonda said, completing his sentence. "And since you're here to pick up Mr. Beaumont, I'll be heading back to Sedona."

  She started away then stopped and turned to me. "I heard you tell the detective inside that you will be staying with Mr. Ames here. Is that where I could get in touch with you if I needed to?"

  Ralph groped in his pocket and extracted a card. He handed it to her. "Both my office and home numbers are on there," he said. "Feel free to call any time. If we're not in, be sure to leave a message."

  Rhonda nodded her thanks and walked away.

  "Who the hell is that?" I asked.

  "You should know. You were with her."

  "But you acted like you knew her."

  "You mean you don't?"

  "No, dammit. All I know is her son was my roommate and he got himself killed. When they shut down the bridge in Wickenburg tonight, she gave me a ride here to Prescott. Let me tell you, she may be a nice lady, but as a driver she's scary as hell."

  Ralph Ames looked at me and shook his head sadly. "She's developing quite a reputation throughout the state as one of the most up-and-coming young water-colorists. As far as I'm concerned, she's still terribly underpaid, but she's also very, very talented. She does such marvelous work and yet here you are complaining about her driving?"

  "Somehow water-coloring didn't come up in the course of conversation. Survival takes precedence over aesthetics. Now shut up and take me home, Ralph. I'm dead on my feet."

  CHAPTER 11

  When I woke up it was two o'clock in the afternoon. I lay there for a while on the huge bed in Ralph Ames' guest room, looking out the window and across a pristine backyard swimming pool at the huge mass of ocher sandstone that forms the hump of Phoenix's famed Camelback Mountain.

  There was a discreet tap on the door. "Come in."

  Ames entered wearing a three-piece suit but playing butler. He handed me a snazzy cordless phone. "Telephone for the birthday boy," he announced.

  Birthday? Was today my birthday? Somehow the arrival of my birthday had gotten lost in the frenetic shuffle of the past few days.

  "Hello?"

  "Dad? Is that you? Are you all right?"

  It was Scott. His voice sounded tight and worried. "Of course I'm all right, Scotty. Where are you?"

  "Home," he said. "In California. We all drove home to Cucamonga last night. I don't know what you said to Mom. She was furious. I've never seen her that mad. I don't think Dave had ever seen her like that, either."

  "She thought I was out drinking."

  He hesitated. "Were you?"

  "No. It was all a big misunderstanding. Your mother saw me in a bar and jumped to the wrong conclusion."

  "That's what Dave tried to tell her," Scott said ruefully, "all the way home, but she wouldn't listen. Anyway, I just called to wish you a happy birthday."

  "How did you know I was here?"

  "I didn't. I called Mr. Ames to see if he could tell me where you'd gone, and he said you were right there in his house, that you were still asleep." He paused. "Is it true that you found a rattlesnake in your cabin and that's why you left?"

  "Yes, it is."

  "You didn't drop out of the program because of us, did you? Decide not to finish because of anything else that happened, I mean, like with Kelly or anything?"

  "Somebody tried to kill me, Scott, and the people at Ironwood Ranch weren't the least bit interested in finding out who that person was. Calvin Crenshaw threw me out rather than call the sheriff and report it."

  "Oh," Scott said. He sounded relieved.

  "And I'm planning to go back," I added with considerably more conviction that I felt. "As soon as all this business gets straightened out, I'm going to make them take me back into the fold. You just wait and see."

  "Good. I'll tell Kelly. She was afraid you wouldn't go back. Oh, and one other thing."

  "What's that?"

  "Yesterday, when we were in that private conference with Burton Joe, he told us all about that other girl, Michelle, about her being pregnant and everything. It seemed like he really was on your side. He told Kelly she was being unreasonable. Anyway, Kelly wants you to know that she's not mad at you anymore."

  "Good. Tell her I'm not mad at her, either."

  There was something else I wanted to say, a question I wanted to ask, but I hesitated. In the past few days, Scotty had more than demonstrated his loyalty. I didn't want to push him away again, but I needed information. Despite the strictures against tattling, he was the only person I could turn to.

  "Did Kelly say anything about what went on?"

  "What do you mean, Dad?"

  "Between her and Joey."

  "Like did they go to bed together or something?"

  His answer was far more blunt than my question. "No, that's not what I meant," I backpedaled. "I was wondering if he might have said something to her that would be helpful in the investigation. Is Kelly there? Can you put her on the phone?"

  "Sorry, she's not here. I'm back at school."

  "When you talk to her, tell her to give me a call, would you?"

  "Sure
thing, but I don't know when I'll talk to her again. You could call her at the house."

  I thought about the way Karen had looked at me in the Silver Spur Saloon. I didn't want to have to fight my way through a verbal war zone without having a guarantee of actually speaking to Kelly on the phone.

  "No, I don't think so," I told Scott. "Give her this number. I'll wait for her to call me."

  "Kelly's not bad for a girl," Scott said as a brotherly afterthought. "She just has terrible taste in men."

  They were words to chill the cockles of a father's heart. "I noticed," I said bleakly.

  "Come on, Dad," Scott said. "It's your birthday. Cheer up. She'll probably grow out of it."

  As I hung up the phone, I was feeling better. After all, Scott had given me a very real gift for my forty-fourth birthday-himself. I felt closer to him, in fact, closer to both my kids, than I had in years.

  I was still holding the phone in my hand when Ralph Ames returned to my room carrying a tray laden with a coffeepot, cups and saucers, and two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice.

  "What exactly did you do to Louise Crenshaw?" he asked pointedly, pouring me a cup of coffee in a handsome cup and saucer with geometric borders designed to look like some brand of Indian pottery.

  "I never did anything to her.

  Ralph Ames shook his head. "You're on the lady's list, Beau, and I'm not talking Christmas cards here."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I called Ironwood Ranch this morning to see what we'd have to do to get you readmitted. You'll have to go back, you know. If you don't complete the program, the insurance won't pay, which isn't all that big a deal, but it could cause trouble with the Seattle P.D. since you're down here on sick leave. When I talked to her, though, Louise Crenshaw said not only ‘No' but ‘Hell no.' She doesn't want you back up there, period. As far as she's concerned, it's all your fault."

  "What's all my fault?"

  "Everything. The whole mess."

  "How can that be? I didn't do anything. I was supposed to be a second victim, remember? Somebody planted a rattlesnake in my room."

  "Mediawise, all hell is breaking loose, and as far as the Crenshaws are concerned, you're a convenient scapegoat. If only you'd turned in your handgun…If only you'd taken care to secure your car keys…If only you'd reported Joey Rothman's curfew violations…"