J. Jance - Rattlesnake Crossing

Off to the right, sheltered behind a lush mesquite tree, Joanna caught sight of a tepee. "A tepee?" she wondered aloud. "Since when did Apaches use tepees?"

Fifty yards farther up the road, she caught sight of her first cabin, sheltered under a towering mesquite. The geodesic dome shape still remained, but it was concealed under a layer of woven ironwood and mesquite branches that gave it the look, at least, of the domed shelters the nomadic Apache had once called home. That's more like it , Joanna thought.

Up ahead, but just before a cluster of buildings that included the main house, barns, and corrals, Joanna saw a string of vehicles lining the right-hand side of the road. She pulled in and stopped directly behind Ernie Carpenter's Marquis. She had barely stepped out of the Blazer when a woman materialized in front of her.

The woman was dressed in a buckskin squaw dress and high-topped moccasins, both of which had been dyed black. Her whole body dripped with silver and turquoise, from the concha belt cinching in her narrow waist to the heavy squash-blossom necklace, the bottom of which disappeared into the shadowy crevasse of an extravagant décolletage. Her hair, black but showing telltale gray at the roots, was pulled into a heavy bun at the nape of her neck. With her tan, windblown skin and dark, smoldering eyes, the fifty-something woman might have been an Indian. Until she opened her mouth. As soon as she spoke, the accent was pure New York.

"So what's the deal here?" she demanded.

"Deal?" Joanna repeated.

"Yeah. I mean, what's going on? That guy up there…" She pointed toward a group of men that included Ernie Carpenter. "The tall one, right there. He told me the woman in the next car would tell me what was up. After all, it's my sister-in-law they found up there. I want to see Katrina. I'm one of her closest relatives. Why the hell won't somebody let me through?"

Joanna pulled out her badge and flashed it. "I'm Sheriff Brady," she said. "And your name is?"

"Crow Woman," was the reply.

Joanna had to bite her tongue to keep from repealing that as well. "Is that a first name or a last name?" she asked.

"It's my name," Crow Woman replied. "Legally. I changed it after I got my divorce. I went to court and it cost me four hundred bucks. Now tell me, Sheriff Brady, what the hell is going on?"

"I don't know," Joanna said truthfully. "As you saw, I just arrived myself, but if you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll go see what I can find out."

Leaving Crow Woman where she stood, Joanna approached the group of men congregated around the white Bronco that served as Search and Rescue's command vehicle. Detective Ernie Carpenter broke away from the others as she approached.

"The lady back there wants to know what's going on," Joanna told him. "Did Search and Rescue find a body or not?"

"Yes, they did," Ernie replied.

"Where is it?"

"About two miles west of here," Ernie said, pointing. "The boys from S and R tell me that she was on a shelf of cliff on the other side of the river. According to Mike Wilson, they've cordoned off the area and left Deputy Sandoval to guard it. Mike says there's a place where the river widens out enough that we should be able to drive across in the Blazer. If we follow him, Mike'll take us to the crime scene."

"So it is Katrina Berridge, then," Joanna said with a resigned sigh. She had hoped S and R would find the woman alive. "I guess I'll go get Crow Woman. The three of us can ride up together."

"Who's Crow Woman?" Ernie asked.

"Her," Joanna said, pointing back to the woman who 'dill stood leaning on the Blazer's fender. "That's her legal name-Crow Woman. She also happens to be the dead woman's sister-in-law."

"I don't think so," Ernie said.

"Well, of course she is," Joanna returned impatiently. "She just told me so herself. She wants to know what's going on and she wants to view the body. I know that's not standard procedure, but why not? We could just as well let her do it now as later. Since Doc Winfield is out of town, we'll be working with Fran Daly on this case as well as the one in Pomerene. The body will be up in Tucson, so it'll take a lot less time if we get the whole identification thing done now, rather than waiting until later."

"I don't think that's such a good idea-"

Impatiently, Joanna rushed on without giving Ernie a chance to finish what he was saying. "All right, then, I suppose you're right. We shouldn't drag her along to the crime scene, but when it's time to transport the body, maybe we could stop here long enough to get the job done. Once the body's in Tucson, what'll take a few minutes tonight will take all day tomorrow. Either you or Detective Carbajal will have to come all the way out here, pick up Crow Woman or Katrina's husband, take them up to Tucson for the ID, and then bring them back again. I say let's do it now and get it over with, once and-"

"It's not her," Ernie Carpenter interrupted.

Joanna stopped. "Not her? But I thought…"

Knitting his bushy eyebrows together, Ernie shifted his considerable weight back and forth. "Katrina Berridge disappeared from Rattlesnake Crossing sometime yesterday afternoon," he said. "According to Mike Wilson, the body they found today has been dead much longer than that. Several weeks, anyway."

"You're saying somebody else is dead?" Joanna asked. "Some other victim is here, one that we didn't even know about?"

Ernie nodded. ''That's right_"

Who is it, then?"

"No way to tell. No ID was found, and very little cloth lug, either. She was buried under a pile of rocks, which pretty well rules out natural causes. One of the dogs found her."

" Any idea what she died of?"

Ernie shook his head. "Not yet anyway, not without an autopsy."

Joanna tried to come to grips with the dynamics of this new situation. Someone else was dead, someone no one had even bothered to report as missing. In the meantime, the initial object of the Search and Rescue mission still hadn't been located.

"What about the Berridge woman, then?" she asked.

"'That's what I was discussing with Mike Wilson and the S and R guys just as you showed up. Finding this other body and dealing with it has pretty much put a wrench in the works. Also, the crime scene is right in the middle of the area they were searching. Between preserving evidence and the sun going down, I'd say they're pretty much out of business for tonight. Mike says they can be back here first thing in the morning and take another crack at it then."

Nodding, Joanna looked back up the road to where Crow Woman still stood waiting for an answer. "I suppose I'd holler go tell her," she said. "The news was awful enough to begin with, and this is that much worse. I'll also have Dispatch contact Fran Daly."

"You mentioned her before," Ernie said. "Who is she?"

"Dr. Fran Daly," Joanna replied. "She's Doc Winfield's pinch-hitting investigator from the Pima County ME's office. She and Jaime have spent the afternoon locked up in a collapsed crawl space back in Pomerene on another homicide. I don't believe Dr. Daly was happy to be working with us on that first case. When she finds out about this one, I doubt she'll be thrilled."

"So what?" Ernie said. "In this business, them's the breaks."

Walking back toward the Blazer, Joanna tried to think of what to say to Crow Woman. For someone who had pre-pared herself for the worst, would she regard this reprieve as a blessing or a curse?

"Well?" Crow Woman demanded impatiently.

"There's no point in your seeing her," Joanna said. "The dead woman isn't your sister-in-law."

"Not Katrina?" Crow Woman echoed faintly. "But I thought… I understood…"

"So did we all," Joanna replied grimly. "But my investigators say that the body that was found has been out in the desert far longer than your sister-in-law has been missing."