“So you haven’t reported her missing.”
“We really don’t have any right,” Brent said. “She isn’t a relative, and this is an RV park, not a jail. Our guests come and go. So many of them have two vehicles—their motor home and then something smaller so they can get around more easily and take short trips without having to move their big rigs. Not that Irma would move hers. Her husband parked it. Once he died, Irma said she wasn’t driving that thing another foot.”
“Her husband died?”
Brent Hardy nodded. “Last December. About three weeks after they arrived. They turned up the last week in November. Originally they planned to stay through the middle of March. But then, when Kurt—that’s Irma’s husband—died of a massive heart attack, Irma asked Tom and me if she could stay on permanently. She said Kurt had sold their farm in South Dakota to buy that ‘damned motor home,’ as she put it. She said he was the one who was supposed to drive it and she didn’t have anyplace else she wanted to go. I guess their son lives somewhere around here, but I’m not sure where.
“This son,” Joanna said. “Have you ever met him? Do you know his name?”
Brent Hardy shook his head. “I’ve never seen him. She talked about going to see him a time or two, but I don’t know it she did or not. As far as I know, he never came here.”
Brent paused and looked from Joanna to Frank. “It’s hot as blue blazes today,” he said. “I need something to drink after working on that pool. Could I get you something?” he asked. “Iced tea, lemonade, sodas?”
“Iced tea would be wonderful,” Joanna said. “No sugar, but lemon if you have it.”
“I’ll have the same,” Frank said.
Brent disappeared into the house. “I think we’ve found our Alice Miller,” Frank said.
Joanna nodded, but before she could say anything more, a late-model Cadillac drove into the yard and stopped next to Frank Montoya’s Crown Victoria. A silver-haired man in his early to mid-sixties stepped out of the car. He hurried up the walkway and onto the porch.
“That’s a police car out there,” he announced. “Is something wrong? Has something happened to Brent?”
“Brent’s fine,” Joanna said, standing up. “He went inside to get something to drink. I’m Sheriff Joanna Brady, and this is my chief deputy, Frank Montoya. We’re here asking some questions about a woman who may be a guest here. Who are you?”
“Tom Lowrey,” the man returned. “My partner and I own this place. What guest?” he added. “And what’s going on?”
Just then Brent came out through the front door carrying a wooden tray on which was a hastily assembled collection of glasses and spoons, a plateful of lemon slices, and a full pitcher of iced tea.
“Tom,” he said upon seeing the new arrival. “I’m glad you’re back. These officers are here asking about Irma. Do you know her son’s name?”
Tom Lowrey shook his head. “All I know is that whenever she talked about him she called him Bobby.”
“Bobby Sorenson?”
“No. I think Sorenson was Irma’s name, but not his,” Tom Lowrey replied. “As I understand it, Bobby was from her first marriage. In talking to her, I’ve gathered Kurt and the son didn’t get along very well. In fact, after the funeral, I remember Irma’s feelings were hurt because her son didn’t bother to come to the service.
“That was held here in Bowie?” Joanna asked.
Lowrey shook his head. “Oh, no. The funeral was in South Dakota. I forget the name of the town. We took Irma into Tucson so she could fly home for the funeral. When she came back, we picked her up and brought her home. That’s when she asked if she could stay on permanently. That’s not as uncommon as you might think. The men buy the big RVs so they can see the USA. Then, when they croak out, the women are left with three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of something they’re scared to death to drive, but they can’t get their money back, either. That’s hers over there, by the way,” he added, pointing. “The big bronze-and-black Marathon jobby. I didn’t blame Irma in the least for not wanting to drive it herself, so we told her she could stay.”
“What about the other rigs?” Joanna asked. “Are they occupied, too?”
Brent Hardy shook his head. “The owners decided to leave them parked rather than drive them back and forth. Irma’s our only guest in residence at the moment.”
“And you have no idea where her son lives or works?” Both men shook their heads.
“So she has the motor home. Is that her only vehicle?” Joanna asked.
“No, she also drives a Nissan Sentra,” ‘limn said. “Light pink. Irma told us she won it as a prize for selling Mary Kay cosmetics.”
“A pink Nissan Sentra,” Joanna said, writing it down. “With South Dakota plates?”
“No,” Tom answered. He pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket, extracted one, lit it, and blew a plume of smoke into the air. “Her plates expired sometime in the last month or two. Since she was staying on here, she got Arizona plates.”
“I know exactly when it was,” Brent offered. “April fifteenth, remember? She was bent out of shape because everything came due at the same time. She had to get new plates, get her new driver’s license, and pay off Uncle Sam all on the same day.”
Tom Lowrey laughed. “If I was her, I would have kept the South Dakota plates and license. That way, at least, she wouldn’t have to pay Arizona income tax. But she said, no, she was starting her new life. She wanted all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. There’s just no fixing some people.”
Frank Montoya got to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go check with the Department of Motor Vehicles and see if the son is listed on the licensing records as her next of kin.”
Joanna nodded, and he hurried off the porch. “You said Irma’s husband died?”
“Kurt. It was totally unexpected,” Brent Hardy offered. “The guy looked like he was in fine shape. He wasn’t overweight or any thing like that. He’d been a farmer and had worked hard all his life. One night they were sitting watching TV—they have one of thou little satellite dishes. He fell asleep in front of the set. When the news was over, Irma tried waking hint up and couldn’t. She came running up here, screaming for help. We called the volunteer lire department, and we tried CPR until the EMTs got here, but there was nothing they could do. She wanted them to airlift him into Tucson, but they told her it was no use—that she should save her money.”
“You said he died in December, but you still haven’t seen her son?”
Brent shook his head. “Not much of a son, right? But Tom and I are looking after her. We make sure her water and propane tanks get filled regularly, and we make sure her waste-water tanks get emptied as well.” He grinned. “And then there was the skunk that took up residence under her RV. We had to hire a guy to come in and trap him and take him away. I guess we’re a little more full-service than we planned to be, but Irma’s a nice lady and I don’t mind keeping an eye on her.”
There was a pause in the conversation, and Joanna wasn’t sure what to ask next. “This is a nice place you’ve got here,” she said, changing the subject slightly. “And I’m sure Irma Sorenson appreciates your full-service service. How long have you had it, by the way—Quartzite East, that is?”
Brent Hardy shrugged. “The farm itself has been in my family for years. My mother left it to me when she died three years ago. Tom and I sold our place in Santa Cruz and came here to retire, but we didn’t much like being retired, and neither one of us was any good at farming, either. So we decided to do something else. This is the end of our second year. Some of our clients are straight, of course, like Kurt and Irma. But a lot of them aren’t. We keep the welcome mat out for both.”