"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."
Detective Reyes-Gonzales seemed genuinely taken aback. She looked first at Rhonda and then back at me for confirmation. "My understanding was that the snake had been displaced by the flood waters."
Rhonda shook her head. "No. That's not the case here at all. I'm sure Ringo was deliberately planted in Mr. Beaumont's room, probably by Joey himself, unless I miss my guess."
Detective Reyes-Gonzales' eyes narrowed, but she was obviously intrigued by what she was hearing. So was I. Even if they know it's true, perpetrators' mothers don't generally voice those kinds of accusations to law enforcement personnel. Detective Reyes-Gonzales evidently found it as disquieting as I did.
Leaving her perch on the desk, she went around to the back of it and sat down in her chair, leaning back with her fingers crossed and regarding Rhonda Attwood intently.
"Why would your son do a thing like that, Mrs. Attwood? And how?"
Her questions were asked with disarming directness. Rhonda responded in kind.
"How is easy. My guess is that Ringo was there for several days. Snakes can be in a room without people being aware they're there."
For a moment an echo of atavistic fear lurched through me. Rhonda was right. Ringo could have been there for some time without my knowing it, just as he had been loose in Rhonda's house years before.
"As for the why," Rhonda was saying when I came back to the discussion, "Joey believed Mr. Beaumont was a narcotics agent planted at Ironwood Ranch for entrapment purposes."
I caught the sudden shadow of doubt that flitted briefly across the detective's face. She looked at me questioningly. "Were you there on assignment, Detective Beaumont?" she asked.
"No way. Joey Rothman may have thought that," I countered, "but that doesn't mean it's true."
Detective Reyes-Gonzales nodded, gravely acquiescent. "I see," she said.
There was something odd in her manner toward me, but I couldn't put my finger on it. She regarded me for a long moment, studying me, assessing my reactions, wondering. Was I fish or fowl, ally or enemy, suspect or potential witness? Her attitude was equal parts professional courtesy and professional jealously. I wasn't offended. If anything, I respected her for it. After all, it was far too early in the investigation for a careful detective to remove any names from the list of possibles-including that of a visiting fellow detective.