The drive to Sky Harbor in Ames' Lincoln was thorny. When I tried to recap some of what Rhonda had told me the night before, Ralph listened politely enough. When I finished, he brushed aside my concerns, telling me I was completely off base, out of my head. When I hinted that he might be losing his objectivity in regard to Rhonda Attwood, he came as close as Ralph Ames ever comes to losing his cool.
'Look,' he said finally, sounding somewhat annoyed. 'I appreciate your concern, Beau, but give me a little more credit than that. Right now Rhonda Attwood is a woman beset by numerous legal difficulties. She also happens to be a gifted artist whose work I've admired for some time. Certainly I jumped at the chance to be of service, but just because I've decided to help her, don't assume there's a whole underlying agenda for either one of us, because there isn't.'
'So you're not interested in her personally?'
'Professionally, not personally.'
'And you're not worried that she might try to draw you into the fray?'
'I don't believe there's going to be any ‘fray,' as you put it, but I'll take your warning under advisement.'
That was the best I could do.
At the Alamo office near the airport, Ames started to park and come inside with me, but I told him not to bother, that wouldn't be necessary. Promising to see him at home, I trudged into the office prepared to face down the folks at the rental desk. They treated me with an air of less than cordial distrust, regarding me as an auto- renting leper who, however inadvertently, had managed to involve one of their precious Grand AMs in a homicide investigation.
A supervisor, not the same one I had talked to earlier on the phone, was summoned from a back room. She subjected me to a lengthy and public lecture on my general automotive character and deportment. The lecture concluded with a recitation of rental agreement no-nos, the strongest of which was a forcefully worded prohibition against taking my Subaru anywhere into the wilds of Old Mexico. I received my keys only after promising, cross my heart, that I had no such evil intention.
Relieved to escape the office, I retreated to the welcome solitude of the Subaru, even though, compared to the luxury of Ames' Lincoln with its car phone and liquid-crystal dashboard instrumentation or to my own Porsche, the modest four-wheel-drive station wagon represented a big step downward. It seemed gangly and awkward, but it still beat walking.
As I left the airport area, my first inclination was to drive directly back to Ralph's place, but by the second stoplight, I rethought that plan. I had slept away most of the day, and it was far too early for bed. I certainly didn't want to resume my non-conversation with Ralph Ames regarding Rhonda Attwood's questionable intentions.
My second inclination was to turn in at the very next HAPPY HOUR sign on the right-hand side of the street and buy myself a drink, a double, but the place turned out to be a topless joint in an exceedingly marginal neighborhood. Repelled, I kept on driving. Besides, did I really want to stop there with the dust of Ironwood Ranch still sticking to the heels of my shoes? That thought brought me abruptly back to the business with Calvin and Louise Crenshaw.
According to Ames, Louise herself was spreading the story that the snake in my cabin had somehow wandered in from the wild. She was, was she? Maybe it was time to see about that.
I glanced at my watch and saw that it was only nine o'clock, still plenty of time to drive the seventy miles or so to Wickenburg and beard the lions in their cozy ranch-style den. With any kind of luck, I'd manage to see both of them at once. I turned left at the next intersection and headed west on McDowell, a major east-west arterial, figuring correctly that eventually I'd run into Interstate 17 headed north.
By ten-fifteen, I was parked in front of the Crenshaws' one-level rambler, where both the porch light and several interior lights were on. The flickering glow of a television set told me someone was home. I rang the bell.
Calvin, clad in a bathrobe and floppy slippers and wearing a sleepy yellow tabby cat draped across one shoulder, came to the door. He opened it and frowned when he saw who I was. 'What are you doing here?'
'I came to talk. Can I come in?'
He hesitated for a moment before stepping away from the door and holding it open. 'I suppose.' It was hardly an engraved invitation. 'What do you want?'
'To talk,' I repeated. 'With both you and Louise.'
'She isn't here,' he said.
'When will she be back?'
He shook his head. 'Who knows? We don't keep very close tabs on one another.'
He shut the front door and padded back into the living room, moving carefully so as not to disturb the cat. I followed a few paces behind him. Calvin settled comfortably into a high-backed chair that made me homesick for my own leather recliner back home in Seattle.
'Have a seat,' he said, motioning me onto the couch.
The cat raised its head, blinked once or twice, then stood and stretched before climbing languorously down from its shoulder perch. In Calvin's ample lap, it circled several times and then settled contentedly into a compact gold-and-orange-striped ball. The cat's noisy purring could be heard all the way across the room.
Calvin scratched the cat's chin affectionately. 'His name is Hobbes,' he said to me. 'You know, like in the comics?'
I didn't know someone named Hobbes from a hole in the ground. 'I don't read the comics,' I explained. 'I don't read newspapers at all.'
Calvin Crenshaw looked at me with one raised eyebrow and then he nodded. 'I see,' he said. 'So what is it you came here to talk about?'
'The snake. Ringo. Joey Rothman's pet rattlesnake. Why is Louise insisting that the snake I found in my cabin was a wild snake that wandered in out of the rain? Rhonda Attwood saw it and positively identified it when Lucy Washington pawned her off on Shorty to come find me. Rhonda told me right then that it was Joey's snake, that he'd had it for almost fourteen years.'
Calvin sighed. 'It's gone. I told Louise that was a mistake, but by then she'd already ordered Shorty to get rid of it. It's useless to try to cover up that kind of thing, you know, but Louise was all upset at the time and not thinking very straight. She was in no condition to listen to advice from anybody, me included.'
'You mean you already knew about the snake?'
'Shorty told me about Mrs. Attwood's identification. I knew right away that it was only a matter of time, but I try to let Louise handle things her own way. I thought a day or two might give her a chance to pull herself together. This has really been hard on her, you know.'
'Hard on Louise!' I exclaimed. 'How about me? Covering up an attempted homicide is a crime-obstruction of justice. I should think that detective from Prescott would have pointed that out to you by now.'
'I've talked to her,' Calvin said, 'and straightened things out. It was unfortunate that the snake disappeared in all the confusion. The detective told me she'll be down tomorrow morning to take Shorty's statement.'
It was some small consolation, but not much.
'I take it, then, that now you do finally believe that somebody tried to kill me?'
Calvin Crenshaw nodded reluctantly. 'I suppose so.'
'You wouldn't happen to have any idea who, would you?'
He laughed. 'You're asking me?'
'That's right. You and your wife seem to have gone to a good deal of trouble to conceal what really happened. I'm wondering why.'
'You're barking up the wrong tree, Mr. Beaumont. Murder, attempted or otherwise, isn't my bailiwick.'
'Unless you were covering up for your wife.'
That single blunt statement was a calculated attack, a ploy I had been planning on the drive up from Phoenix. I waited quietly, watching Calvin Crenshaw's reaction.
He blinked in what seemed like genuine astonishment. 'Covering up for Louise? You've got to be kidding. Certainly you don't think she's the one who tried to kill you, do you?'
'Her behavior as far as I'm concerned has been totally irrational since the very first day I set foot on Ironwood Ranch.'
'Oh, that,' Calvin said, sounding immensely relieved, as if it had all suddenly become clear to him. 'Of course. I can see how you could misread it.'
