Minor in Possession (24 page)

“Joey's probably not the only one,” I said, inching another half step closer. Rhonda was only about four feet away now. If she pulled the trigger, I was a dead man.

“Not the only one?” she asked, her voice faltering.

“What about that kid she sent after us the other night? Probably him, too. Believe me, Joey wasn't the only one. It never works that way.”

“She's a monster. I swear, I'm going to kill her. And JoJo, too.”

“No,” I said.

Suddenly she noticed where I was. “Stop,” she commanded. “Don't come any closer. I'll shoot.”

“Let the law take care of them, Rhonda.”

She laughed, almost hysterically, and I was
afraid I was losing her. “They think they're above the law and they probably are.”

“No,” I insisted. “Not this time. How did you get in here, Rhonda?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Did you leave any fingerprints on the briefcases when you opened them?”

“I wore gloves,” she answered coldly.

“Good,” I said. “Then close them and put them back, just the way you found them.”

“Why? Why should I?”

“Because as soon as you turn Joey's notebooks over to Delcia, she'll be out here with a search warrant within forty-five minutes. They don't know you've found the diary, but if they're going to run—with all this money here, I'll bet that's the plan—they'll do it as soon as they finish with the funeral. We don't have much time.”

“I don't need a search warrant. All I have to do is wait here and shoot them when they show up.”

“But you'll go to prison. Premeditated murder.”

“It doesn't matter,” she spat back.

“That's where you're wrong, Rhonda. It matters. Guy Owens has changed his mind. He and Michelle are waiting for you at the church. You're going to be a grandmother.”

It was silent in the garage. Deathly silent for five seconds, ten, I don't know how long. Then Rhonda Attwood dropped the gun, gave a pained whimper, and fell weeping into my arms.

And as the snub-nosed .38 went skidding off under JoJo Rothman's polished silver Jaguar, I thanked God and Zeke both that it didn't go off and shoot one of us in the foot.

T
he rest was easy.

While I retrieved the gun, Rhonda closed the briefcases and put them back up in the rafters the way she had found them. Then, with all evidence of breaking and entering carefully concealed, we hurried out to the cars. We drove back out to the guard shack in the same cars we'd used to drive in, with me pausing long enough to tell the security guard that the Rothmans wanted me at the church after all.

Once out of sight of the guard shack, I stopped and waited for Rhonda, then we switched vehicles so I could use Ralph's mobile phone to begin pulling the rope tight around JoJo and Marsha Rothman's necks.

Ames had followed my instructions to the letter and had herded everyone, including a protesting Delcia, back to his house as soon as the service was over. Delcia sounded angry when I first began to explain the situation, but as soon as she grasped what was going on, she was ready to leap into the fray and assemble search warrants and
whatever local law enforcement personnel might be necessary.

“And you? What are you going to do?” she demanded, as soon as I had finished briefing her.

“I'm coming back to Ralph's house to put my feet up,” I told her. “This is Arizona, not Washington, remember?”

“I'm glad you do,” she returned.

When we reached Ralph's house, Delcia's car was long gone, but the Owenses' borrowed Buick Regal—which actually belonged to Colonel Miller—was parked out front. Driving the Fiat, Rhonda followed me into the driveway. She had driven with the windows open, so her cheeks were flushed and her hair disheveled.

She got out of the car patting her hair self-consciously. “Do I look all right?” she asked nervously.

“You look fine,” I said, taking her arm and propelling her toward the house.

No wonder she felt awkward. She had seen Michelle Owens once—Michelle, the girl who would never exactly be her daughter-in-law but who would forever be the mother of Rhonda's only grandchild.

At the time of that first encounter, the younger woman had been unconscious, lying in a drugged heap on the ground where the fleeing Monty had dropped her. So the two of them—women who had nothing in common except an inexplicable love for Joey Rothman—were about to meet for the first time.

I rang the bell, and Ames opened the door.

“Anybody home?” I asked.

He nodded. “They're in the other room,” he said.

I led Rhonda Attwood into the expansive living room. Guy Owens, sitting on the low leather couch, began to struggle with his crutches in order to rise to his feet. Michelle, sitting beside him, seemed glued to her seat. She opened her mouth as if to speak but changed her mind. Her braces caught the sunlight, reminding me once more of how very young she was and how unsure of herself.

Rhonda looked around the room and sized up the situation instantly. She motioned for Guy to sit back down. As he sank gratefully back onto the couch, she smiled warmly at Michelle.

“I'm Rhonda Attwood,” she said to the girl. “But I believe you can call me Grandma.”

D
elcia handled the arrests like the pro I knew she was. JoJo and Marsha Rothman were arrested without incident. Jennifer, poor little Jennifer, was made a ward of the court.

Late in November Ralph Ames sent me a typed copy of Joey Rothman's diary. Ralph has been busily making arrangements with a major New York publishing house for the journals to be published in book form under the title
Better Off Dead
, which was evidently taken from the lyrics of some rock song or other.

It almost made me sick to read the details, and I'm sure it will have the same effect on others, but Ralph tells me that there was another similar book published years ago, an adolescent true-life cautionary tale called
Go Ask Alice
. The publisher believes Joey's book will have much the same impact on the current crop of teenagers.

After reading it, I've had to reassess my opinion of Joey Rothman. I know now that years of abuse at the hands of his stepmother made him the way he was. There's the widespread belief that only
girl children are sexually abused. Certainly it is more common with girls, but when it happens to boys, it's every bit as devastating.

Until he met Michelle, I don't believe Joey was conscious that it was possible to love another human being openly, without selfishness, without demanding something in return. Until Michelle, sex for him was nothing but a bartering chip, a weapon to be used to manipulate other people. And even after he knew Michelle, old habits died hard, hence his abortive attempt to blackmail Louise Crenshaw and to glean information about me from Kelly.

From reading the last month's entries, I could tell that knowing Michelle had a profound effect on him. Had he lived, maybe he would have grown away from her and the magic would have gone out of their relationship, but that didn't happen. There wasn't enough time. Joey Rothman died still believing that his newfound love would save him, and Michelle is left with the same kind of loss and mixed emotions that I feel about Anne Corley. What Anne and I had together, what Joey and Michelle had, was wonderful, but it was not enough. It will never be enough.

Being with Michelle did change Joey Rothman. The scales fell away from his eyes and he was finally able to see Marsha and JoJo Rothman for the scum they really were. And he was able to see his mother as well. What Rhonda had wished for all those years, the chance of getting him back,
almost came true. But of course it didn't. There wasn't enough time for that, either.

The place in the diary that really choked me up was the next-to-last entry, the one he wrote after he had gone to Carefree to collect Ringo and the diaries. In that one, he worried about what would happen to Jennifer after he was gone. And in that, he wasn't alone.

I worried about her too. I knew it was her innocent revelations to me that had led to the collapse of the Rothman drug-dealing/money-laundering empire. Knowing she was languishing in a foster home someplace, hearing echoes of news reports on her parents' progress through the criminal justice system, sickened me.

The last entry was written the morning of the day Joey Rothman died. He told how he had filched a briefcase full of money from his parents' stash thinking it wouldn't be noticed, but he worried that it might be. He hoped that the threat of exposing the drug empire would be enough to ensure his safety. Taking precautions, though, he gave the snake, the money, and the diaries to Michelle for safekeeping, telling her to send the diaries to Rhonda if anything ever happened to him.

He was scheduled to graduate from the program on Friday of that week, and when he left Ironwood Ranch for good, he planned to take the snake, the diaries, and the money and disappear, expecting to send for Michelle later when he
found a place to live. He had hoped to go back to school and study writing.

But something must have alerted Marsha. I have no idea what, and I don't know how she managed to lure her stepson to the flood-swollen banks of the Hassayampa River, but she did. She met him there with one of her henchmen—the same punk who followed Rhonda and me from La Posada—and the two of them murdered Joey Rothman in cold blood.

Ringo, that poor old ancient snake, now a permanent resident at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, is a nice guy compared to Marsha Rothman.

When killing Joey failed to turn up either the diaries or the money, Marsha called for reinforcements, using Monty and some of her other Cocaine Alley drug connections from southern Arizona. She sent them after Michelle, and the outcome of that would have been entirely different if on a sunny October Sunday morning Rhonda Attwood hadn't insisted on going to Sierra Vista to talk to Guy Owens.

It's lucky for all concerned that Rhonda Attwood is an uncommonly stubborn woman.

Reading
Better Off Dead
is no picnic. I found myself close to tears at times as I read the last few entries and realized that Joey had not been able to live to see the fruition of some of the potential he was showing, both as a writer and as a human being.

No matter how the book is received by the pub
lic, though, Ralph Ames has managed to come up with a financial arrangement that will probably pay for Michelle Owens' education and maybe more besides.

Ralph also tells me that the Crenshaws have sold out their interest in Ironwood Ranch. I don't know where Louise and Calvin have gone, but the ranch itself has been purchased by a consortium that includes Burton Joe as the temporary executive director.

I've been in touch with Delcia. Criminal charges have been filed against the prosecutor in Maricopa County on the MIP plea-bargaining case. So far, though, Sheriff Heagerty seems to have escaped unscathed. He used his influence to keep Ironwood Ranch from getting any adverse publicity, but so far Delcia hasn't uncovered anything illegal. One can only hope, however, that the next time there's an election, the voters will speak and this cloud will come back to haunt him.

So the Crenshaws have gone to ground. They may be truly screwy people, but the program at Ironwood Ranch isn't all bad. Flawed people can still do good work. As I sit here tonight, drinking coffee instead of my former drink of choice, I know that wouldn't be happening without my having gone there. I know too that if I'm going to stay sober, it's up to me and nobody else.

Ralph asked me if I wanted to invest in the consortium, but I told him I thought I'd pass. Ironwood Ranch is fine, but I don't want to have anything more to do with it. Ever.

So it would seem as though everything was coming up roses, but as I've walked around here in Seattle this past month, working again and trying to stitch my life back together one day at a time, there's been a lingering hurt, one continuing fly in my ointment, and that is Jennifer Rothman.

I've had some late-night arguments with God about her, demanding to know how come the innocent have to suffer right along with the guilty.

This morning I got my answer.

A package was delivered to me down at the department. Inside I found two things, one a matted painting—a handsome watercolor portrait of me painted from that rough sketch Rhonda did and signed by the artist herself. Ralph tells me it'll probably be valuable someday, so I'd better frame it and take care of it.

The other was a note: