“I haven’t talked to the woman much, but she’s begging us to change her tire and let her drive on into Tucson,” Matt Raymond said. “She claims she’s got a deal to sell the Marathon, but she has to deliver it to the dealer by one o’clock this afternoon. Otherwise, he rescinds his offer to buy.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Joanna said. “She’s under arrest for murder. She’s not in any position to be selling a motor home.”
“I tried to tell her that myself,” Matt said. “I don’t think she was listening.”
Joanna looked up as a speeding eighteen-wheeler blew past in a burst of hot air, followed by a long, unbroken line of other vehicles. “We need to get this mess off the road. It’s not safe for any of us. Is this thing drivable, or are we going to need a tow truck?” she asked, looking down at the mangled flat.
“All we have to do is change the tire,” Matt Raymond replied.
Joanna walked over to the idling Bronco that was Matt Raymond’s marked patrol car. There Irma Sorenson, a white-haired unassuming lady with a pair of thick glasses perched on her nose, sat handcuffed in the backseat. She looked like somebody’s grand-mother, not a cold-blooded killer.
“Mrs. Sorenson?” Joanna said. “I’m Sheriff Brady. Having all these vehicles parked on the shoulder of the freeway is causing a hazard. We need to move them. Would it be all right if one of my deputies changed that tire?”
“Please,” Irma said. “I don’t know where the jack and spare are. I’m sure they’re in one of those locked compartments. The keys are still in the ignition.”
“So you don’t mind if my officers enter your vehicle? We don’t have a search warrant.”
“You don’t need a search warrant,” Irma said. “I’m giving you permission to enter. If you need me to sign something, give it to me and I’ll sign. And if you’ll just let me take it on up to Tucson, I’ll tell you whatever you need to know. But I have to sell this thing, and I have to sell it today.”
“Because it contains evidence?” Joanna asked.
“No. Because I need the money. I’m going to need a lawyer.”
Joanna closed the car door and walked back to where her deputies stood waiting. “She says the keys are in the ignition. You have permission to get the keys and change the flat tire, but whatever you do, don’t touch anything else. You got that?”
Raymond and Lindsey nodded. Together they set about finding the keys, locating the jack and spare, and changing the tire.
“Frank, do you happen to have that miniature tape recorder of yours in your pocket?”
“Sure do, why?”
“Bring it,” Joanna said. “I want you to Mirandize Mrs. Sorenson. And I want that recorded as well.”
“You don’t think she’s going to confess, do you?”
“Yes, I do.” Feeling half-guilty about what she was about to do, Joanna led the way back to the car. “Mrs. Sorenson, you told me a minute ago that it we let you keep your appointment with the RV dealer in Tucson, that you would tell us everything we want to know. Is that true?”
Irma Sorenson nodded.
“We’ll have to record your answers.”
“That’s all right. It doesn’t matter.”
“This is my chief deputy, Frank Montoya. I’d like him to switch on his recorder and read you your rights.”
“Sure,” Irma said. “Go ahead.”
Frank and Joanna sat in the front seat of the Bronco. Irma remained in the back.
“So what happened?” Joanna asked, once the legal formalities had been handled.
“I killed him,” Irma said simply and without blinking. “I shot my son in the middle of the forehead.”
“Why?”
“Because he was going to kill me,” Irma replied. “I know he was. I knew too much about what he had done. He just didn’t know I had the gun.”
“What gun?” Joanna asked sharply. “Where did you get it?”
“From the car,” Irma said. “From that blue Lincoln Rob had me drive to the airport for him. I knew something dead had been in that car. I could smell it, and given Robby’s past . . .” Irma paused then and gulped to suppress a sob. “Given that, I knew what it had to be. I knew it had started all over again, with hint doing what he used to do. The only thing I could think of was to let someone know about the car.”
“But what about the gun?” Joanna prodded.
“That’s what I’m telling you. I knew I had to have a reason tier someone to look at it—at the car, I mean. I couldn’t just call up and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I need someone to go check out a car that’s sitting in the lot at Tucson International because I think maybe someone’s been killed in it.’ No, if an old lady calls in and says that, they’ll probably think she’s a complete wacko and pay no attention. But I thought if I said, `Hey, there’s a car at the airport with blood on it. Somebody needs to go check it out,’ maybe they would. But for that I needed some real blood, so I cut my hand. And it was when I was looking around on the floor of the car for something to use to cut my hand with that I found the gun. It must have belonged to the person Robby killed, the one whose car it was. Anyway, I found the gun on the floor along with an old Bible that was full of hundred-dollar bills. I put them both in my purse. I know it was wrong to take the money. It didn’t belong to me, and I should have left it where it was. But I took the gun just in case I needed it, you see. When you’re dealing with someone like Robby—someone that unpredictable—you just never can tell.”
“And where is it right now?”
“The gun? It’s still in my purse,” Irma said. “Inside the RV.”
“Getting back to your son,” Joanna said. “You’re saying you wanted him to be caught?” Irma nodded. “Then why didn’t you go ahead and call the Tucson Police Department? You could have turned him in right then instead of going through the ruse of making a phony phone call and pretending to be someone you weren’t.”
“He was my son,” Irma said as though that explained every-thing. “I couldn’t just turn him in. My heart wouldn’t let me do that.”
“But if you shot him, your heart evidently let you kill him.”
“That was self-defense,” Irma declared.
“You mean Rob Whipple had a weapon, too? He was holding a knife on you or a gun?”
“No. But he was going to kill me all the same. I knew too much. I had driven that car to the airport for him, and I had spent two days cleaning up the blood that was spattered all over that filthy cabin of his. I pretended to believe him when he told me he had hit a deer with his pickup and killed it. He claimed he had cleaned it inside the cabin so the forest rangers wouldn’t see it and nail him for hunting out of season. That’s the thing that really galls me. That he thought I was that stupid. But I knew it was no deer that had died there—it was a woman. It had to be.”
“Why do you say that?” Joanna asked.
Irma shrugged. “That’s who he always went after—women.”
“Did you talk about her with your son?” Joanna asked. “Did you talk about the dead woman?”
“Are you kidding?” Irma asked. “We were both too busy pretending she didn’t exist. Of course we didn’t talk about her. But I knew that as soon as the mess in the cabin was cleaned up and as soon as I had collected the money from selling the RV, Robby would have to get rid of me, too.”
“So he was the one who wanted you to sell the RV?” Joanna asked.
Irma nodded. “It was his idea, and he’s the one who made the deal. We spent all day Sunday and a big part of Sunday evening looking for a dealer who would make me a good enough offer.”
“Wait a minute,” Joanna said, thinking of Dora Matthews. “You and Robby were together on Sunday?”
“All day, and all night, too. I stayed with him out at the cabin.”
“And he was with you the whole time?”
“The whole time. Until he had to go back to work on Monday. Yesterday, I went back to Tucson and rented a locker at one of those self-storage places where I can store my stuff for the time being. They sell boxes there, too. I brought some of those home and spent most of last night taping them together and throwing junk into them. All we have to do is drop them off at the storage unit on the way to the dealer—they’re both on Twenty-second Street—and they’ll all be there waiting when I get out.”