J. Jance - Rattlesnake Crossing

"One and the same," Joanna replied.

"How did you find that out?"

"I just lucked into it."

"But is it confirmed?"

"Yes. Frank Montoya already checked it out. So that means we not only have a serial murderer on our hands, we also have a case that's going to arouse a good deal of national interest. With the other cases and other counties involved, it would be bad enough to just have the Tucson and Phoenix media breathing down our necks. This one will probably draw reporters from all over."

"Great," Ernie grumbled. After a moment he brightened. "Get thinking about it, this thing could have an upside."

"What's that?" Joanna asked.

"My mother-in-law loves the National Enquirer," he re-plied. "Phylis is always asking me when one of my cases is going to appear in her paper. If the Indy driver turns out to be our killer, maybe this is it."

"Don't even think such a thing," Joanna told him.

While Ernie and Jaime set off to join the S and R team in the ground search, Joanna stared up the road, wondering how long it would take for Dick Voland and Frank Montoya to arrive on the scene. It was early afternoon in the middle of August. As the desert heat bore down on her, she rummaged in the back of the Blazer for a bottle of water. She had finally succeeded in locating what was evidently her last one when the phone in her purse rang.

Joanna's cell phone had come complete with an option that allowed her to adjust and personalize the ringer. In order to differentiate her phone from others, she had chosen the ringer option that sounded for all the world like the early-morning crow of an enthusiastic rooster.

"Hello," she said, after finally pawing the instrument (nit of the depths of her purse.

"They're done," Marianne Maculyea said. "Esther's out of surgery and in the transplant intensive care unit."

Joanna breathed a relieved sigh. "Thank God," she said. "How are you and Jeff doing?"

"We're both pretty ragged," Marianne admitted. "Jeff's at a phone down the hall calling his folks. I decided to call you."

Joanna heard the unspoken subtext in that simple statement. Jeff Daniels could call his parents and tell them the news. Marianne couldn't. Marianne's parents had never recovered from their daughter's public defection from the Catholic Church and becoming a Methodist minister. Over the years, Marianne had given Joanna helpful hints about resolving the mother/daughter rifts between Joanna and Eleanor Lathrop. That didn't mean, however, that she had ever been able to heal the long-standing feud with her own mother.

"Thanks for letting me know," Joanna said, not commenting on the unspoken part of the message. "Angie called early this morning to let me know what was happening. I decided that it was better for me to wait for you to call me rather than the other way around. Are you staying in Tucson?"

"For tonight anyway," Marianne replied. "We've booked a room at the Plaza at Speedway and Campbell. Once Jeff gets off the phone, he'll probably head over there to catch a nap. He'll come back later and spell me. I don't know about tomorrow. One or the other of us will go home to be with Ruth, or maybe Angie or somebody can bring her up here for a little while during the day."

There was a pause. "You don't necessarily sound all that hot yourself, Joanna. What's going on with you?"

Jeff and Marianne were enmeshed in the all-consuming cocoon of their own little crisis, and justifiably so. Joanna could see no reason to trouble Marianne Maculyea with any of the grim details of what was happening right then on the Triple C.

"I'm overseeing a search right now," Joanna answered carefully. "And then I have some interviews, but I thought I'd try dropping by the hospital later on this afternoon if that's all right with you."

"Please," Marianne said. "That would be great. I'd really like to see you. So would Jeff."

Something in Marianne's tone bothered Joanna-something she couldn't quite put her finger on. "Esther is all right, isn't she?" she asked.

"Yes," Marianne replied, her voice cracking. "At least I think so."

"What's wrong, then?"

"That's just it. I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired. We were here all night long. Neither one of us has had any sleep…"

"No, Mari," Joanna countered. "It's more than that." A long silence filled the phone. "What is it?" she urged. "Tell me."

Marianne took a deep breath. "You remember that night Andy was here in the hospital?" she said at last.

Joanna remembered every bit of it. Too well. "Yes," she said.

"Remember when you told me you were trying to pray, but you couldn't remember the words?"

That moment was still crystal clear in Joanna's heart and memory, as if it had happened mere minutes ago. She squeezed her eyes shut against a sudden film of tears that threatened to blind her.

“You told me that it didn't matter," Joanna said. "You told me that trying to remember the words was good enough because God knew what I meant. And then you offered to pray for me."

"I shouldn't have," Marianne said now. The black hopelessness in her friend's words wrung Joanna's heart, made her want to weep.

"What do you mean, you shouldn't have?"

"I had no right," Marianne said. "I didn't know what I was talking about."

"Of course you did. What are you saying, Marianne? What's wrong?"

"I've been here all night trying to pray myself, but I can't, Joanna. And it's not just the words that I've lost, either. It's more than that. Far more. How could God do something like this to us and to Esther? How could He make Esther so sick that the only way to save her is for some other mother's baby to die? That's not right. It's not fair."

Marianne lapsed into a series of stricken sobs. For several seconds Joanna listened and said nothing. There was nothing she could think of to say. How could she go about comforting someone who was a steadfast friend and pillar of strength to everyone else?

"You'll get through this," Joanna said finally.

"Yes," Marianne choked, "maybe I will. But how will I ever be able to stand up at the pulpit and preach about faith when my own is so totally lacking? How can I teach about a loving God when I'm so pissed off at Him I can barely stand it?"

Joanna smiled in spite of herself. Marianne Maculyea, the rock-throwing firebrand rebel she had known in junior high at Lowell School, was a firebrand still.

"If you're so totally lacking in faith," Joanna pointed out, "you wouldn't even acknowledge God, much less be pissed at Him. Now, have you had any asleep?"

Even as she asked the question, Joanna reminded herself of her mother-in-law. For Eva Lou Brady, a crisis of the soul was almost always rooted in some physical reality.

"No," Marianne admitted.

"What about having something to eat?"

"Jeff brought me a tray from the cafeteria a little while ago, but I couldn't eat it. I wasn't hungry."

"Is the food still there?"

"The tray is."

"Eat some of it," Joanna urged. "Even if it tastes like sawdust when you try to choke it down. You're going to need your strength, Marianne. If you don't eat or sleep, you're not going to be worth a plugged nickel when you'll want to be at your best. If you're strung out because of lack of food or rest, you won't have anything to offer Esther when she finally comes out from under the anesthetic. She's going to need you then, and you'd better be ready."

There was another stretch of silence and Marianne seemed to consider what she'd been told. "I'll try," she said at last.

Joanna saw two vehicles pulling up behind the Blazer-Dick Voland's Bronco and Frank Montoya's Crown Victoria. "Good," Joanna said. "You do that. And remember, I'll be there either later this afternoon or else this evening. All right?"

"All right."