filled with a sense of foreboding to want to sit alone any longer in the depressing oak-lined cell that was Louise Crenshaw's office.
As people filed into the dining room, they were strangely silent, as though somehow word had spread through the general Ironwood Ranch population that something was dreadfully wrong. As yet, nobody seemed to know exactly what it was, but all were equally affected by it. There was no playful banter in the serving line, no joking or calling back and forth as people headed for tables. At the far end of the room, Calvin Crenshaw paced nervously back and forth in front of the huge fireplace. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, and he stared fixedly at the floor as he walked.
Ed Sample sidled up to me in line. 'What the hell's going on?' he demanded. 'Everybody's acting as though their best friend died or something.'
I glanced at him quickly, trying to assess if his comment was merely an innocent coincidence or if he had some inside knowledge of what had happened. Despite my questioning look, Sample steadfastly met my gaze, his countenance blandly open and indifferent, his smooth features the picture of a man with nothing to hide. Had I been the detective on the case, I would have paid attention to his comment and done some discreet digging into Ed Sample's personal life to see if there was a connection between him and that miserable dead excuse for a human being, Joey Rothman.
You're not the detective, I reminded myself silently. Go have some lunch and stay out of it.
'Beats me,' I said aloud, and hurried over to Dolores Rojas' serving window. I collected a plate filled with her version of corned-beef hash along with a generous portion of steamed fresh vegetables. I glanced around the room and found that Karen and the kids were already settled at a table. Scott had saved a chair for me. I hurried over to it, wanting to be there as a buffer when Calvin Crenshaw made his inevitable announcement.
As I walked across the dining room carrying my plate, that's when the inconsistency struck me full force. Why was Calvin Crenshaw making the announcement? Why not Louise? For someone who was always front and center, for someone who had insisted that she be the one to notify the authorities of any irregularities, this sudden reticence seemed totally out of character. Understated elegance wasn't Louise Crenshaw's style.
Karen looked at me questioningly as I walked up. Kelly feigned an engrossing conversation with the person next to her so she wouldn't have to see me. I took the chair Scott offered, sat down, and glanced around the room, making a quick mental roll call.
Cal was still pacing in front of the fireplace. Louise was nowhere to be seen. Michelle and Guy Owens weren't seated at any of the tables, nor were they standing in line waiting to be served. That was just as well. Their absence confirmed my suspicion that they must have been the first to be notified of Joey Rothman's death when Nina Davis had pulled them out of the room before the beginning of our early morning session.
When the last straggler left the serving window, Cal cleared his throat with a tentative cough that carried throughout the room. The already subdued crowd hushed expectantly.
'I regret to inform you,' Cal began slowly and deliberately. 'I regret to inform you that something tragic has happened here today. Joey Rothman was found in the river early this morning.'
Calvin stopped speaking. There people in the room looked uncertainly at one another. 'What I'm trying to tell you,' Calvin Crenshaw continued, 'is that Joey Rothman is dead.'
There was a moment of stark silence followed by a shocked, betrayed shriek. Sobbing, Kelly leaped from her chair and stumbled blindly from the room.
It was going to be one of those days. All day long.
CHAPTER 6
Karen shoved back her chair and went after Kelly while Scott caught my eye. 'Geez, Dad,' he said. 'What's going on here?'
I didn't have much of an answer.
Once lunch was over, the dining room cleared out as though someone had pulled a plug. People wanted to talk about Joey Rothman's sudden death, and they wanted to do it in relative privacy. Ignoring the rain and taking their family members with them, they quickly dispersed to individual cabins rather than hanging around the main dining room as they usually did to linger over cigarettes and coffee.
Because of the murder investigation, I was forbidden to return to my own cabin. Adding insult to injury, Burton Joe corralled Karen and the kids and vanished with them into his private office for some kind of confidential powwow. Within minutes I found myself alone in the dining room, stewing in my own juices. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to do it with. Willing to settle for a much-needed nap as a dubious consolation prize, I settled down by the fireplace to wait out the remainder of the lunch break.
I had barely closed my eyes when the front door banged open. James Rothman, Joey's father, strode into the room with Jennifer, his seven-year-old, blonde-haired daughter, trailing forlornly along in his wake. He paused briefly at the entrance to the hallway leading to the administrative wing of the building and looked down at his daughter. Stopping and kneeling beside her, he spoke briefly, motioning for her to return to the dining room and wait for him there, then he hurried on down the hallway.
The child, alone and hesitant, stood looking longingly after him, hoping he'd relent and let her accompany him. He didn't. Down the hall and well out of sight, a door slammed shut, giving voice to James Rothman's final answer. Dejected, Jennifer turned her back to the closed door and surveyed the long dining room with its empty tables and chairs.
Uncertain of my reception with her, I waved tentatively across the deserted tables. As soon as she saw me, her desolate elfin features brightened. In a day of sudden upheaval, I was someone vaguely familiar, someone she recognized. After all, I had been her brother's roommate.
Dubiously, she waved back.
'Would you like to come sit here with me?' I called.
Jennifer Rothman had come to Ironwood Ranch the previous week as part of her brother's family week experience. In my book, she was the proverbial sweet-tempered petunia trapped in an onion patch full of schmucks. She was a beautiful child-fair-skinned with straight long blonde hair and deep blue eyes. When Joey had initially introduced us, I fully expected her to be a brat. After all, chronic phoniness seemed to run in the family.
Her half-brother was an out-and-out jackass. Jennifer's parents, unrepentant yuppies, showed up at every group session dressed in matching sets of Fila sweats. Daddy was a loud, obnoxious blowhard-Joey came by his boorishness honestly-and Marsha, his stepmother, moved in a cloud of resentment that belied the skin-deep show of marital harmony suggested by their matching outfits. I figured Jennifer would make it four for four.
But she fooled me. Jennifer Rothman turned out to be well-behaved and cheerful to a fault. Wide-eyed and innocent, she faced the world with an unfailingly sunny disposition-a latter-day Pollyanna. Her only apparent defect was what I regarded as an incredibly misplaced case of hero worship which she lavished on her no-good half- brother. During family week she had spent every free moment dogging Joey's footsteps like some adoring but ignored puppy, waiting patiently for him to pay her the slightest bit of attention or to toss her the smallest morsel of kindness.
That's how I had gotten to know her. She would come down to the cabin at mealtimes and hang around while Joey finished showering and dressing so she could have the dubious honor of escorting him back up to the dining room. He had carelessly accepted her unstinting devotion, shrugging it off as though it was no more than his just due, all the while making jokes about it behind her back. His callousness toward the child had made my blood boil.
Now, nodding wordlessly, Jennifer Rothman threaded her way through the scattered tables and chairs, stumbling toward me while her cornflower eyes brimmed with tears. I half expected her to throw herself into my arms and fall sobbing against my chest. Instead, she checked herself a few feet away.
She stopped short and with well-bred reticence climbed up onto the far end of the couch where I was sitting, discreetly distancing herself from me. Someone had drilled impeccable manners into Jennifer Rothman. Daintily she crossed her legs at the ankle and then smoothed the skirt of her plaid pinafore before she looked up at me and spoke.
'Joey's dead,' she observed quietly, glancing at me surreptitiously under tear-dampened eyelashes, curious to
