'Not his stepmother,' Shorty answered. 'His real mother.'
'Where did she come from?' I asked.
I knew vaguely that Joey Rothman's mother existed, but she had been conspicuously absent during Joey's family week.
'She drove down from Sedona this afternoon. She just got in a little while ago.'
'Where's Sedona?'
'North of here, a hundred miles give or take. She tried coming down the Black Canyon Highway, but she had to backtrack and come around the other way because of the river.'
Karen had told me about the kinds of pressure Ironwood Ranch personnel had exerted on her in order to get her and my kids to drive over from Cucamonga. If Joey's mother lived only a hundred miles away, how had she managed to resist the hard sell and stay away from Joey Rothman's family week?
'Where is she now?' I asked.
'I left her back at your motel and told her I'd come find you.'
'Why?'
'Didn't figure she'd be able to pick you out in this crowd.'
'But what does she want with me?'
Shorty shrugged. 'Beats me. I just follow orders. Lucy told me to bring her to you, and that's what I'm doing.'
A decrepit-looking, dark-colored Fiat 128 was parked in front of my unit at the Joshua Tree Motel. Shorty's looming pickup stood guard behind it.
'That's her,' he said. 'I'll leave you two alone to talk. I've got to get back home.'
He hurried into the Ford and it turned over with its customary roar. Tentatively, I approached the Fiat and knocked on the driver's window. There was a lone woman sitting inside the car. She opened the window a crack.
'Are you Joey's roommate?' she asked.
'Yes,' I answered. 'My name's Beaumont. J. P. Beaumont.'
'And you're the cop, right?'
'Yes.'
'Will you help me?' I assumed she meant would I help her get out of the car. I reached for the door handle but the door was locked. She made no move to unlatch it.
'We can talk in my room if you want to, Mrs. Rothman.'
'My name is Attwood,' she corrected. 'Rhonda Attwood. I took back my maiden name when I divorced Joey's father. But before I get out of the car, I want your answer, yes or no. Will you help me find the man who killed my son?'
'That's a police matter, ma'am,' I said politely. 'This isn't my jurisdiction. It's not my case.'
'That's not what I heard.'
She was peering up at me through the open crack of window with a look that was almost conspiratorial while the glow of the halogen streetlight behind her made a lavender halo of her lush blonde hair.
'Maybe you'd better tell me what you heard,' I said guardedly. 'This is all news to me.'
'Joey said he thought you were a plant, a narc working undercover. I'm sure that's why he tried to kill you.'
Women drive me crazy. They're forever trying to tell you things while leaving out vital details, those critical specifics that make what they're saying understandable.
'Why who tried to kill me? Lady, you're talking in circles.'
'Joey, of course. My son. Who did you think? Ringo belonged to him, you know.'
'I don't know anything of the kind,' I responded irritably. 'Besides, who the hell is Ringo?'
'The snake. Joey's rattlesnake. I ought to know. I lived in the same house with that damned thing long enough that I'd recognize Ringo anywhere, even in somebody else's glass jar a hundred miles from home.'
Understanding dawned. Joey's snake.
'You're right,' I said. 'You'd better come inside. We need to talk.'
'But will you help me?' she insisted. 'I'm not getting out of the car unless I have your word of honor.'
At that point, I would have agreed to almost anything. 'Yes,' I told her. 'You have my word.'
I reached down to take hold of the door handle, but Rhonda Attwood didn't wait long enough for me to prove myself a gentleman. She had already unlocked the door, opened it herself, and was getting out.
She straightened up and looked around uncertainly. She was a medium-sized woman, five-five or so, with a dynamite figure.
'Which is your room?' she asked.
'Right here. The one with the burned-out porch light.'
She started toward the door. If she felt any concern about entering a strange man's motel room alone at night, it certainly didn't show. She paused on the unlit doorstep and waited for me.
I closed the car door behind her, first checking to be sure both doors were properly locked. They weren't, and so I locked them. After all, I'm from the big city.
She laughed at my precautions. 'Thanks, but I'm sure the car would have been fine,' Rhonda Attwood said, as I opened the door to let her in. 'Nobody's going to bother stealing a broken-down old wreck like that.'
Considering Ringo's unannounced presence in my room at Ironwood Ranch earlier in the day, potential car thieves were the least of my worries.
'Better safe than sorry,' I murmured.
I glanced around the room nervously, trying not to appear too obvious about it, but checking for snakes just the same. Right about then I felt a certain kinship with the little old ladies in this world who are forever checking in their closets and under beds, searching for prowlers.
Maybe I was being paranoid, but I wanted nothing more at that moment than to be out of Arizona and back home in Seattle, where the rattlesnake population is exceedingly low.
And where Karen Moffit Beaumont Livingston can't make unscheduled surprise appearances.
CHAPTER 9
In terms of quality, the Joshua Tree Motel is a long way from, say, the Westin Bayshore, and I was embarrassed to show anyone, especially an unknown lady, into that dingy hovel of a room, but Rhonda Attwood appeared to be totally unaffected by the bleak surroundings. Without waiting to be invited, she settled herself at the spindly-legged kitchen table with its chipped and mottled gray Formica top.
Seeing her out of the car and in the light, I was startled by her uncanny resemblance to Marsha Rothman. At forty-one or so, Rhonda was a good ten years older than her husband's second wife, but they were both uncommonly attractive women-small-boned, narrow-shouldered, blue-eyed blondes with similarly delicate facial features and classic profiles. Both wore their hair in below-the-ear bobs, but Marsha's flawless honey blonde was courtesy of Lady Clairol herself. No hair dared wiggle out of place in Marsha Rothman's chiseled, precision cut. Rhonda's seemed more nonchalant, breezy, and genuine. The ash blonde was highlighted by marauding streaks of premature silver from Mother Nature's own paintbrush.
'What's the matter?' she asked, settling back against the ragged plastic-covered chair and regarding me curiously. 'You look like you've seen a ghost.'
'It's just that you're so much alike,' I mumbled in confusion.
Her lips curled into a tight smile with just a hint of rancor. 'You mean Marsha and me? You're not the first to mention it, and I don't suppose you'll be the last. JoJo Rothman never drew a faithful breath in his life, but he's certainly true to type.'
'JoJo?' I asked.
'He goes by James now. He got rid of JoJo when he got rid of me. He always picks blue-eyed blondes, but I've got some bad news for Marsha Rothman. She's going to lose her gravy train. JoJo ditched me around the time I hit thirty. She'll reach that soon enough herself. He'll give her the slip then, too. Women age, you see. JoJo
