'Oh,' I said. 'The one where his cousin works-the desert museum, or whatever it's called.'
Delcia nodded. 'The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum,' she corrected. 'Well, according to the keeper at the zoo here in Phoenix, Shorty was probably right to be worried-about the snake, I mean. Ringo's old-somewhere in his mid to late teens-which is pretty old for a snake. The keeper said Ringo would have died if he'd been left on his own in the wild, especially since he would have been so far outside his natural habitat.'
'He may be old for a snake,' I muttered glumly, 'but age didn't make him any less scary when he had me corned in the cabin. And it didn't slow him down enough so your guys found him when they searched my cabin, either.'
'I asked about that this morning. At the zoo. The guy told me he probably found a hole somewhere and hid out in that until he thought it was safe to come out.'
'Not a comforting thought,' I said.
'No,' Delcia agreed. 'I suppose not. Anyway, Shorty kept Ringo out of harm's was until I picked him up, and now he's being held in protective custody at the Phoenix Zoo. The Yavapai County Sheriff's Department isn't exactly equipped to take care of lives snakes in our evidence room. That's why we farmed him out to the zoo. Come to think of it, I believe it's the first time we've ever had alive deadly weapon in a felonious assault case.'
Delcia looked at me across her raised coffee cup while her dark eyes sparkled with humor.
'Somehow I don't find it nearly as entertaining as you do,' I pointed out. 'And if you ask me, that damn snake seems to be getting helluva lot more attention than yours truly, who just happened to be the intended victim.'
'Sorry,' she evenly. 'I didn't mean for it to sound that way. Believe me, Beau, nobody's treating this as a joke.'
Mollified, I backed off. 'I guess I'm a little edgy,' I admitted, disgusted with myself for trying to pick a fight with someone who was offering to be an ally at a time when allies were in short supply.
'Perfectly understandable.' Delcia nodded. 'Don't worry about it.'
I went on to tell her about the books Jennifer had said she kept for Joey, the ones he had retrieved from her along with the snake the night he came to tell her good-bye.
'From the way she talked, there must have been several volumes,' I said. 'In fact, I'm sure he was working in one like it while we were together at the ranch.'
'He was?' Delcia asked, thumbing back through her notebook, scanning several pages. 'What was it like?'
'Cloth-covered. Looked like a regular book almost, but the pages are blank inside so people can write on them.'
Delcia frowned. 'That's funny. I don't remember seeing anything like that either in his room or at the crime scene. It could be important.' She paused long enough to write another brief note in her small spiral notebook.
Our food had come. I had ordered something they often call taquitos at Mexican dives in Seattle. In Phoenix they seem to be known as flautas. They were equally good if not better than the ones I'm used to halving back home. For a while we ate in silence.
'Any idea when he put the snake in your room?' she asked.
I shook my head. For a moment Delcia sat chewing pensively before she spoke again. 'I remember what Mrs. Attwood said the other night, that the snake could have been in your room for as much as a day or two, without your being aware of it. Do you think that's possible?'
'Beats me. It seems as though I would have heard something, noticed or sensed something, but then again, maybe not. It had been stormy for several days with lots of wind, rain, and thunder. The cabin has a tin roof and It's noisy as hell, so I could have missed it.'
'Did Jennifer tell you what day she spoke with him?'
'No, and I didn't think to ask. The babysitter was bugging her to hurry and get off the phone.'
Delcia made another note. I was sitting there watching her write when an odd thought occurred to me, one I hadn't considered before. Maybe I had jumped to the wrong conclusion. What if Joey's leaving the snake in the room had been nothing more than an ugly practical joke? According to Rhonda, he hadn't been above that sort of thing.
'What's going on?' Delcia asked.
That's why I never play poker. My face always provides a dead giveaway of whatever's going on behind it.
'Just a thought, that's all.'
'What kind of thought?' she insisted.
'Is it possible he did it as a joke after all, to see what I would do? Remember what Rhonda told us about him turning Ringo loose in the house and her finding it a week or so later?'
'I remember all right,' Delcia said with certainty, shaking her head, 'but this is no practical joke, Beau. The two incidents happening in such proximity have to be related. I can feel it in my bones. All we have to do is figure out the connection.'
'We?' I said.
'I,' she corrected.
But her comment had made me feel better, less paranoid somehow. And it was apparent that her earlier skepticism about me and my story had been replaced by belief. During our interview in Prescott, Delcia Reyes- Gonzales had clearly doubted my veracity. Now she was on my side.
Something had changed her doubt to trust, and I wanted to ask what, but instinct cautioned me to be wary. If I tried horning in where I wasn't welcome, I risked pushing her away. As the official investigator on the case, she needed to know about my conversation with Calvin Crenshaw, but if I told her, would she climb my frame for interfering? After all, she had just shot down my 'we' and turned it into a singular 'I.' On reflection, though, it seemed worth the gamble.
'I talked to Calvin Crenshaw last night,' I ventured cautiously.
'You what!' Delcia exclaimed. Her initial reaction wasn't good, but I forget on anyway. The damage was already done. What more did I have to lose?
'I drove up to Wickenburg last night and talked to him at home. It was a personal matter, Delcia,' I said reassuringly. 'Louise had told my attorney that I was a permanent persona non grata at Ironwood Ranch. I wanted to get that situation straightened out.'
Delcia's face relaxed. Her sudden flash of anger dissipated. After all, my being thrown out of Ironwood Ranch wasn't her problem. 'Did you come to some agreement?' she asked.
'Not exactly, because, based on what I found out, I don't ever expect to darken their doorstep again.'
Alert and listening, she waited attentively. 'And what exactly did you find out?'
'Louise Crenshaw was screwing Joey Rothman, among others. Calvin knew all about it. It was their own kinky little joke on the world.'
Delcia Reyes-Gonzales seemed to rise in her seat by a good three inches.
'Who told you this?'
'Calvin,' I said. 'Good old Calvin Crenshaw himself. But he also warned me that if I tried to pass any of it along, he'd deny it. My word against his. No way to prove it.'
Delcia sat forward in her seat with her dark unsettling eyes drilling into mine. 'Tell me precisely what he said, verbatim, as much as you can remember.'
And so I did, stumbling as witnesses sometimes do in an attempt to remember everything. Delcia seemed to hang on every word, not taking notes, but assimilating every detail. When I finished, she was nodding.
'In that case,' she said quietly, 'Joey Rothman's diary could be dynamite.'
Before I could say anything more, she signaled for the waitress to bring the bill.
I had hoped my recitation would result in her returning the favor and letting me in on some of what she had going, but that was not to be. She reached for her purse and headed for the cashier with me trailing along behind.
'Wait a minute. Where are you going? What's going on?'
'I'm beginning to see a pattern here,' she said, stopping in front of the cashier's desk. 'One I don't like. I'm going to check it out.'
The cashier ran Delcia's credit card through the machine while I waited impatiently in the crowded vestibule, which had filled up with lunchtime diners waiting for tables.
