Minor in Possession (2 page)

“You son of a bitch,” I began as I scrambled to put both feet on the floor. Halfway out of bed I stopped, looked again, and froze where I was.

The panting man standing in the open doorway with his eyes bulging and his face a mask of undiluted fury wasn't Joey Rothman at all.

“W
here the hell is he?” the man demanded savagely.

“Where is who?”

“Don't play games. Rothman, that's who!”

I recognized the man instantly as the father of Michelle, the mousey fifteen-year-old druggie. Because we had been admitted at approximately the same time, it was Michelle's family week as well as mine. I remembered the man from the family group sessions, an integral part of treatment, which are counselor-moderated discussions involving both clients and family members. I recalled that Guy Owens worked as some kind of honcho, a high-ranking officer, at one of the military installations in Arizona. His name surfaced, but the rest of the family details escaped me. During Group that week I had been far too engrossed in my own family's difficulties to pay much attention to anybody else's.

“Tell me where he is,” Owens growled.

He must have figured I was personally concealing Joey Rothman from him. He took another
menacing step into the room. Half sitting half lying on the bed, I was in no position to defend myself against attack if he chose to come after me with physical force.

“He's out,” I said curtly, “and if you're coming in, do you mind shutting the door behind you? It's cold as blue blazes.”

The timely invocation of good manners has stopped more than one unwelcome intruder in his tracks. Guy Owens was no exception. He paused uncertainly, glancing from me back over his shoulder toward the open door.

“What's the matter?” I continued, pressing the slight advantage. “Were you born in a barn?”

Without a word Guy Owens returned to the door and slammed it shut. The action gave me just enough time to get both feet firmly on the floor before he swung back around and hurried over to the open bathroom door. He went so far as to walk inside and pull back the shower curtain.

“He's not in there, either,” I said. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“I want Rothman,” he snapped. “And when I find him, I'm going to tear his balls off and stuff them down his throat.”

Too bad I hadn't thought of that myself. “Sounds like a great idea,” I said cheerfully, “but you'll have to take a number and get in line. Mind switching off the light? It's after eleven. If the night nurse sees it, she'll come riding down here on her broom and kick ass.”

Guy Owens frowned. “You want me to turn off
the light and sit here waiting for him in the dark?”

I shrugged. “Why not? That's what I'm doing. Two's company, right? Pull up a chair.”

Without further discussion, Owens did as he was told. He grabbed the wooden chair away from Joey's narrow student-style desk and pulled it along behind him as he returned to the light switch beside the door. In a moment the room was once more plunged into murky darkness. I heard him drop onto the chair with a heavy sigh.

“What do you want him for?” I asked.

There was a long stony silence in the cabin. It lasted so long that I began to wonder if maybe I had only imagined asking the question rather than really saying it aloud. Guy Owens' answer, when it came, was little more than a strangled croak.

“She's pregnant, goddamnit! Fifteen years old and pregnant. That worthless little fucker knocked her up! I'm going to kill him.”

Michelle Owens wasn't my daughter, thank God, and as far as I knew, Kelly wasn't pregnant, but I knew exactly how Guy Owens felt.

“That settles it,” I said. “As soon as he shows up, you get first crack at him.”

There was another pause, a little shorter this time. When he spoke again, the mildly jesting tone of my comment seemed to have defused the atmosphere enough to convince Guy Owens that we were both on the same side. He was a burdened man desperate to unload on someone, even a relative stranger. I was it. Possibly sitting there in
that darkened room made it easier for him to open up.

“Misha takes after her mother,” he said forlornly. “Whenever Fran got pregnant, she was always sick as a dog from the very first day. Her morning sickness lasted for a full three months all four times. I could almost set my watch by it. I should have figured it out myself when she looked so terrible all week, but I didn't.

“At lunch today one of the nurses took me aside and told me she had noticed that Misha was losing weight. She was afraid there might be some serious physical problem. The nurse set up an appointment with a G.P. in Wickenburg so I could take her there this afternoon right after Group. He called me with the results just a little while ago. ‘There's nothing wrong with your daughter,' that asshole tells me. ‘She's pregnant, that's all.'”

He paused, waiting for me to say something, but I couldn't think of a damn thing. I was too busy being grateful as hell that Michelle was his daughter instead of mine.

“Pregnant, that's all,” he repeated bleakly. “Jesus!”

We sat there again until the silence was as thick as the darkness. Eventually, Owens heaved his ghostly figure out of the chair and stumbled to the window where he stood staring back up the path, his arrow-straight silhouette backlit by cloud-shrouded moonlight.

“Why isn't he here?” he asked plaintively.

The menace had leaked out of his voice as an
ger-fueled adrenaline dissipated. “I thought everybody was supposed to be back in their cabins by lights-out. That's what the damn brochure says. You know, that full color one full of happy horseshit they send out to all the families.”

“That may be the official rule, but Joey Rothman doesn't much concern himself with the rules,” I offered quietly. “Anybody's rules.”

We were silent again until once more Owens felt compelled to speak, his voice husky with suppressed emotion. “It must have happened right after she got here. The doctor says she's about three weeks along, and she's only been here four weeks.”

“I know.”

I remembered all too clearly my own first two fitful nights in the detox wing. The endless nighttime hours had been haunted by the distressing sound of Michelle Owens in the room just up the hall where she whimpered endlessly into her pillow. I hadn't felt terribly sorry for her at the time. I had been too busy feeling sorry for myself. I did now.

“Your daughter and I were in the detox wing at the same time,” I said.

In the darkness I saw the whitish blob that was Guy Owens' face turn from the window to face me. “That's right,” he said, “you're the one who's a cop, aren't you? Misha mentioned you in one of her letters. She never talked about Rothman, though, not once.”

“You're sure it was Joey?”

“After I talked to the doctor, I went to her cabin and demanded that she tell me. I just came from there.”

“And what did she say?”

“What the hell do you think she said? That it was him—Rothman. She said she was sure he'd marry her. Like hell!” Owens' hard-edged outburst ended with a snort. I couldn't tell if the sound was part of a laugh or a sob, and I had the good grace not to ask.

For another several minutes we stayed as we were, him standing by the window staring out and me sitting on the edge of the bed, each lost in our own thoughts.

“What are you pissed at him about?” Owens asked finally, as though it had just then penetrated that Joey Rothman was on my shit list too.

“The same reason you are,” I replied evenly. “He was nosing around my daughter after dinner tonight. I'm waiting up to let him know she's off limits.”

“You mean beat hell out of him, don't you?”

“If that's what it takes. Some people learn slower than others. With some it takes remedial training.”

“And Misha thinks that sorry jerk is going to marry her? For Chrissake, how dumb can she be?”

“She's how old? Fifteen? How smart were you at fifteen?”

“Smarter than that,” he snapped. “You can damn well count on that.”

He turned back to the window and looked out.
“Wait a minute. There's a light on in one of the other cabins.”

I scrambled out of bed, hurried over to the window myself, and looked up the path. A moment later the first light went out only to be followed by the light coming on in the cabin next door.

“Oh, oh,” I said. “You'd better get the hell out of here fast. Lucy Washington must be doing a bed check. It'll be bad enough if she comes in here and finds out Joey's gone. If she also finds an unauthorized visitor…”

Owens didn't need a second urging. He was already pushing the chair back across the room.

“I'll go,” he whispered urgently, “but do me a favor. When that SOB comes in, don't tell him I was here. I want to blindside that little cock-sucker.”

“Believe me,” I told him, “I wouldn't want to spoil your surprise.”

Guy Owens left then, quickly, disappearing around the far side of the cabin away from the path. I heard him strike off up the hill, crashing blindly toward the tennis courts. I hoped Santa Lucia, Ironwood Ranch's tough-talking night nurse, was still far enough away that she wouldn't be able to hear him.

Fumbling with buttons and zipper, I stripped out of my clothes, shoved them in a wad under the bed, and slipped between my mangled covers. By the time the door opened and the overhead light was switched on, I was ready with an Emmy Award-winning performance of someone being'
rudely awakened out of a sound sleep.

“Okay, Mr. Beaumont. Where's Mr. Rothman?”

I've no idea how she got her nickname. That story had become lost in Ironwood Ranch's group memory. Her real name was Lucy Washington, and as near as I could tell, this huge, implacable black woman wasn't particularly saintly. She was also totally devoid of anything resembling a sense of humor.

I blinked my eyes several times, holding both hands over my face to shield my eyes from the glare. “You mean he's not here?” I asked innocently.

“You know damn good and well he's not here. Look for yourself. Does that bed look like it's been slept in? So where is he?”

“Believe me, Mrs. Washington, I have no idea. If I did, you can bet I'd be the first to tell you.”

“Mr. Beaumont, I've been hearing all kinds of wild rumors about your roomie Mr. Rothman tonight, tales about him being out and around and doing things he shouldn't be doing. You wouldn't know anything about that, now would you?”

“Not a thing,” I said.

Lucy Washington stared at me impassively. She didn't believe me, not for a moment, but at least she didn't call me a liar to my face.

“I see,” she said finally, giving up. “I tell you what. When he shows up, you let him know he'd better drag his white ass down to the office and see me. On the double. Understand?”

“Got it,” I said.

She switched off the light, turned, and stepped outside, banging the door shut behind her. I waited long enough for her to be well away from the cabin before I got up and looked out the window. I could see the wobbling beam of the flashlight as she trudged back up the hill toward the main ranch house.

“Damn,” I said, under my breath.

I knew my not blowing the whistle on Joey's truancies would be yet another black mark that would go against J. P. Beaumont in the annals of Ironwood Ranch, and that my transgression, however minor, would be duly reported to Louise Crenshaw, the final arbiter of client affairs.

Louise Crenshaw had made it clear during my admission interview that since I hadn't come in as a destitute, homeless bum, I hadn't yet hit bottom in her book. As a consequence, I was nowhere near ready to get better. She missed no opportunity to throw juicy tidbits about my alleged misdeeds to the group, items she regarded as ongoing proof of my lack of serious intent as far as recovery was concerned. This incident would provide more grist for her mill, and it gave me one more bone to pick with Joey Rothman, once I managed to lay hands on him.

I stood there in my skivvies and tried to calculate my cabin's Grand-Central-Station potential for the remainder of the night. I figured chances were pretty close to one hundred percent that when Joey Rothman came to the surface, he would return home with Ironwood Ranch's version of a
police escort. Without turning the light back on, I dragged my clothes out from under the bed and got dressed. Then, wrapping two blankets around me, I bundled up in the cabin's only comfortable chair and settled down to wait. I wanted him to
know
that I was waiting up for him, and I didn't think it would take long.

But that's where I was wrong. I woke up cold as hell and with a stiff neck and both feet sound asleep at four o'clock in the morning. Joey Rothman's bed was still empty. It was raining again, and the cabin was downright frigid. The heating system for each cabin consisted of an old-fashioned, wall-mounted gas heater that required a match each time it needed to be lit.

When the circulation returned to my feet, I hobbled over to my desk in the dark, still wary that turning on the light would summon Santa Lucia's immediate return. I pulled open the drawer and groped blindly inside, expecting to lay hands on one of several books of matches I had left in the front right-hand corner of the drawer. They weren't there. Throwing caution to the winds, I turned on the desk lamp.

As soon as I did, I could see that someone had hastily rummaged through the drawer. I'm not so fastidious that I know where each and every item is in a drawer, but I certainly knew the general layout, and the items in the drawer were definitely not as I'd left them. With a growing annoyance, I pulled the drawer wide open and examined it closely.

It's always tough to discover what isn't there. The things that
are
there are perfectly obvious. What's missing is a lot harder to see. It took several minutes, but finally I figured it out.

My keys. That's what was gone, the keys to the rented Grand AM. Unlike some other treatment centers I've heard about, Ironwood Ranch prides itself on the fact that people come there and stay voluntarily. Instead of daily bed checks, we had intermittent ones. At patient check-in we were allowed the privilege of keeping our keys and personal property under what Louise Crenshaw described as Ironwood Ranch's atypical honor system.