I took the gun just in case I needed it, you see. When you’re dealing with someone like Robby—someone that unpredictable—you just never can tell.”
“And where is it right now?”
“The gun? It’s still in my purse,” Irma said. “Inside the RV.”
“Getting back to your son,” Joanna said. “You’re saying you wanted him to be caught?” Irma nodded. “Then why didn’t you go ahead and call the Tucson Police Department? You could have turned him in right then instead of going through the ruse of making a phony phone call and pretending to be someone you weren’t.”
“He was my son,” Irma said as though that explained every-thing. “I couldn’t just turn him in. My heart wouldn’t let me do that.”
“But if you shot him, your heart evidently let you kill him.”
“That was self-defense,” Irma declared.
“You mean Rob Whipple had a weapon, too? He was holding a knife on you or a gun?”
“No. But he was going to kill me all the same. I knew too much. I had driven that car to the airport for him, and I had spent two days cleaning up the blood that was spattered all over that filthy cabin of his. I pretended to believe him when he told me he had hit a deer with his pickup and killed it. He claimed he had cleaned it inside the cabin so the forest rangers wouldn’t see it and nail him for hunting out of season. That’s the thing that really galls me. That he thought I was that stupid. But I knew it was no deer that had died there—it was a woman. It had to be.”
“Why do you say that?” Joanna asked.
Irma shrugged. “That’s who he always went after—women.”
“Did you talk about her with your son?” Joanna asked. “Did you talk about the dead woman?”
“Are you kidding?” Irma asked. “We were both too busy pretending she didn’t exist. Of course we didn’t talk about her. But I knew that as soon as the mess in the cabin was cleaned up and as soon as I had collected the money from selling the RV, Robby would have to get rid of me, too.”
“So he was the one who wanted you to sell the RV?” Joanna asked.
Irma nodded. “It was his idea, and he’s the one who made the deal. We spent all day Sunday and a big part of Sunday evening looking for a dealer who would make me a good enough offer.”
“Wait a minute,” Joanna said, thinking of Dora Matthews. “You and Robby were together on Sunday?”
“All day, and all night, too. I stayed with him out at the cabin.”
“And he was with you the whole time?”
“The whole time. Until he had to go back to work on Monday. Yesterday, I went back to Tucson and rented a locker at one of those self-storage places where I can store my stuff for the time being. They sell boxes there, too. I brought some of those home and spent most of last night taping them together and throwing junk into them. All we have to do is drop them off at the storage unit on the way to the dealer—they’re both on Twenty-second Street—and they’ll all be there waiting when I get out.”
“Out of where?”
“Jail, of course,” Irma replied. “What else would I be talking about? I knew once Robby had me sign over the title, that would be it. Once I had the money in my hand, he wouldn’t need me anymore. So I got to Robby before he had a chance to get to me,” Irma continued without even pausing for breath. “He came home from work that night all upset, saying he’d been fired. I was scared of him. I told him I was going to go back to my place for the evening, back to the RV. He got in the car with me. I think he was going to try to stop me. When I pulled the gun out of my purse, you should have seen the surprised look on his face. He just couldn’t believe it. He laughed at me and said, ‘Come on, Mom. Put that thing away. You’re never going to use it.’ But I did. Then I belted him into the car—that’s the law, you know. Passengers have to have their seat belts fastened. Then I drove him off the cliff. In the movies, cars always burst into flame when they go over cliffs. That was what I was hoping this one would do, but it didn’t. It just made a big whanging sound and then a huge cloud of dust rose in the air. That’s all there was to it.”
“And this was when?”
