Rhonda Attwood drove with the heater turned on high and the driver's window wide open. Wind whipping through her hair, she pushed the aging Fiat like a veteran sports-car-rally driver, coaxing more speed and life out of that old beater than she should have been able to.
My left shoulder was jammed against hers. There was only one spot in the V-shaped foot well big enough to hold my feet, and they promptly went to sleep. I felt like a horse with blinders on, for all I could see was the vast darkness falling away from the side of the car and the fast-dwindling lights of Wickenburg and Congress Junction twinkling fitfully in the valley far below.
Every time Rhonda swung around a bend in the road, the Fiat clung like a bug to the white line on the far outside edge. Vainly groping for a steadying handhold, I wondered what would happen if the wheels slipped off the blacktop. How far would the car plunge down the pitch-black side of the mountain before it came to rest on solid rock? Or maybe in the branches of some scruffy desert tree.
Twice, with no warning to me, we came around hairpin curves only to have Rhonda set the car on its nose because traffic was flagged down to only one lane. Looking out the driver's window as we crept past, I caught glimpses of muddy slides where stove-sized boulders-three-man-rocks they call them in the landscape business-had broken loose from the steep embankment and washed down onto the roadway to block the inside lane.
I don't like backseat drivers, and I most particularly don't like being one, especially when I'm hitching a free ride in somebody else's vehicle. At one point I mentioned offhandedly that the Yavapai County Sheriff's Department was most likely a twenty-four-hour operation and that they'd still be there once we arrived in Prescott, no matter how long we took making the drive. Rhonda didn't acknowledge the comment one way or the other, and she didn't ease her foot off the gas pedal, either.
So I shut up and hung on for dear life, remembering all the while what my mother always used to say: Beggars can't be choosers.
CHAPTER 10
Unlike those in Wickenburg, the phones in Prescott were working. At midnight I awakened Ralph Ames out of a sound sleep. It served him right.
'What time is it?' he grumbled. 'And why are you calling me at whatever ungodly hour it is!'
'I need your help, Ralph. Come get me.'
'Come get you! You're not due to be out for another two weeks. Besides, what's the matter with the rental car? I distinctly remember asking my secretary to make arrangements for one.'
'They've impounded the rental, Ralph. I'm in Prescott, not Wickenburg. Nobody rents cars in Prescott. Not only that, Calvin Crenshaw threw me out.'
'Of Ironwood Ranch? You're kidding.' There was a pause. 'Maybe I should have enrolled you in the Dale Carnegie course first. They're the ones who teach you how to win friends and influence people.'
'This is no time for jokes, Ralph. I really need you to come get me.'
'Who said I was joking? Where are you, Whiskey Row?'
'I'm at the sheriff's department, waiting to talk to a female homicide detective named Delcia Reyes-Gonzales. They've called her at home, and she's on her way, should be here any minute. Did you get the name?'
'Detective Reyes-Gonzales,' Ralph Ames repeated. Then, with a sudden change of inflection that told I had his undivided attention, he added, 'Did you say with homicide?'
'I certainly did.'
The sound of muffled movement told me Ralph was throwing off his covers and scrambling out of bed. 'It'll take me two hours or so to get there. This sounds serious, Beau. Are you all right?'
'I am now. My roommate's dead, though. From what I can gather, I seem to be fairly high on the list of possible suspects.'
'Great,' Ralph said. 'Make that a little less than two hours. I'm on my way.'
I put down the phone and turned back to the center of the lobby where Rhonda Attwood stood waiting. Just then Detective Reyes-Gonzales appeared at the opposite end of the room. She stepped forward swiftly and was gravely shaking hands with Rhonda when I joined them in the middle of the room.
'I'm so sorry about your son, Mrs. Attwood. I understand that the deputies weren't able to reach you until late this afternoon,' Detective Reyes-Gonzales was saying.
Rhonda nodded. 'I was out working all day. They were waiting for me at the house when I came home.' Rhonda turned to me, drawing me into their conversation. 'I guess you already know Mr. Beaumont here.'
'Yes,' Detective Reyes-Gonzales said, nodding curtly in my direction. She didn't appear to be overjoyed at the prospect of seeing me again. 'We met earlier today, although I guess it's yesterday now. Would you mind stepping into my office, Mrs. Attwood?'
I'm sure the invitation was directed to Rhonda alone, but when I started to drop back, Rhonda took my arm and led me along with her. Detective Reyes-Gonzales shrugged as though it didn't much matter to her one way or the other. She conducted us through a secured door and into a compact two-desk office where she motioned Rhonda into the lone visitor chair and left me standing, making no effort to bring me the extra chair from the other desk.
Her message was clear-just because I had entered the office with Rhonda Attwood didn't necessarily mean I was welcome. Visiting detectives who might try to horn in on Detective Reyes-Gonzales' case and/or territory could damn well stand. I got the chair myself and pushed it over next to Rhonda's while the detective watched, sitting perched on the desk with her arms crossed and her head cocked to one side. As soon as I was seated, she asserted her authority by coming after me with no holds barred.
'I understand you were the subject of a number of interdepartmental communications last night, Detective Beaumont.' She said it carelessly enough, but I knew she was sniping at me, baiting me.
'Is that so?' I replied innocently, wondering if maybe Calvin Crenshaw had come to his senses after all and had decided to report the snake incident himself. 'I'm certainly relieved to hear that.'
It wasn't the answer she expected. Detective Reyes-Gonzales raised one impeccably arched eyebrow. 'You are?'
'Absolutely. If I had known Cal was going to report it, I wouldn't be here bothering you.'
She smiled, a belittling, patronizing smile. 'Report what, the snake in your room, you mean?'
Her attitude was starting to irritate me. 'Yes, the snake in my room! You're damn right! Somebody was trying to kill me.'
'I think you're overreacting, Detective Beaumont. Rattlesnake venom isn't instantly fatal, you know. I haven't yet been in direct contact with Mr. Crenshaw, but I was told to inform you, if you did by any chance happen to show up here, that the snake is safely on its way back to wherever it came from.'
'Gone back to where it came from?' I echoed. 'What does that mean? How could it? Snaked don't drive, do they?'
She threw me a quizzical look. 'Drive? What are you talking about? That snake wasn't driving anywhere. The last I heard, Shorty Rojas was supposed to take it outside and let it go. In this state it's illegal to keep snakes in captivity, unless you happen to be operating a legitimate museum. By now that snake is probably safely back in its cozy little nest or den or whatever it is snakes live in.'
Up until then, Rhonda Attwood had kept completely quiet. Before I could launch a verbal counterattack, she cut in.
'That snake hasn't lived in the wild for the past fourteen years, Detective Reyes-Gonzales,' Rhonda commented quietly. 'Ringo was my son's snake, you see. He's lived most of his life in a terrarium in Joey's bedroom.'
Frowning, the detective focused her attention fully on Rhonda. 'But Mr. Crenshaw told the sheriff-'
'I don't care what Mr. Crenshaw said or why. That snake was a pet snake-my son's pet snake-and if they've turned it loose in the desert by Wickenburg, Ringo will most likely die. Black rattlesnakes from the Mogollon Rim can't live in the low desert, you know. It's not their natural habitat. Not only that, Ringo hasn't lived in the wild since he was tiny. He's old for a snake, and he doesn't know how to hunt. Without someone to feed him regularly, he'll probably starve to death.'
