J. Jance: Minor in possession

"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 anger-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?"