J. Jance - Rattlesnake Crossing

"You hang tough."

As soon as the call ended, Joanna stood with the phone in her hand. She thought about calling the Copper Queen Hotel directly and telling Butch that she wouldn't be able to see him that night, but she was afraid he'd talk his way around her. Instead, feeling like a heel and a coward to boot, she hunched in the code for the sheriff's department.

"Kristin," she said as soon as her secretary came on the line, "I don't have much time. Please call the Copper Queen Hotel and leave a message for Mr. Frederick Dixon. Tell him I won't be able to join him for dinner tonight. Tell him I'm going up to Tucson to see Jeff Daniels and Marianne Maculyea."

"Got it," Kristin said. "Copper Queen, Frederick Dixon, and you can't make it for dinner. How're Jeff and Marianne doing, by the way? I had lunch with my mother. She was telling me about the transplant. I don't know who told her."

I can guess, Joanna thought. And her initials are Marliss Shackleford.

"They're okay," she said. "At least they're doing as well as can be expected."

Finished with the call, she tried to reassure herself that she had handled the Butch Dixon situation in a kind and reasonable fashion. He might be disappointed, but at least she hadn't just left him hanging for a change. Still, though

Her thoughts were interrupted by an excited shout from one of the S and R guys a good quarter of a mile away.

"Sheriff Brady," Mike Wilson yelled, relaying the message. "Come take a look at this."

With Dick Voland and Frank Montoya both trailing be-hind her, Joanna hurried over to where Mike was standing. Several of the other S and R guys were already converging on the spot. Ernie Carpenter and Jaime Carbajal weren't far behind.

"What is it?" Joanna demanded when she finally reached Mike.

He pointed toward the ground. "Look," he said.

There, nestled between a pair of rocks and winking back the brilliant late-summer sunlight, was a watch-a gold-and-silver Omega. On the watch's pearlescent face behind the remains of a shattered crystal, the two hands stood stopped at 10:26. That was the time Sonja Hosfield had told her she remembered hearing shots. Around ten-thirty.

Looking around, Joanna saw the blood spatters and knew this was the killing ground-the place Katrina Berridge had fallen to earth. She looked up and caught Ernie's eye. "Have you found any bullets?" she asked.

"Not yet," he said. "But we're looking."

"Hey, Mike." Terry Gregovich's voice shrilled out of the speaker on a small walkie-talkie fastened to the collar of Mike Wilson's orange hunting vest. "I think we may have found something up here."

All eyes turned from the watch and the blood-spattered ground around it to the majestic cliffs rising from the valley floor. There, barely visible and clambering over the rock face like so many orange-bodied ants, were the other members of the Search and Rescue team.

"What have you got, Terry?" Mike Wilson asked.

"No shells or anything like that," Terry Gregovich replied. "But I've got some funny little marks here in the dirt. Looks like they might have come from someone setting up a tripod. And some footprints, too. A couple of them might even be good enough to cast."

Joanna closed her eyes. Now we're making progress, she thought. "Great," she said to Mike. "Grab one of the evidence techs from the burial mound and get him over to Terry to make plaster casts. On the double. We lucked out that it didn't rain here yesterday, but that's not to say a storm won't blow through today."

Joanna knew enough to be thankful. Considering the amount of space involved, it was more than luck that some-one had stumbled across the possible footprints on top of the cliffs and recognized their importance. It also crossed her mind that Terry Gregovich's skills and talents might be underutilized by his being permanently sidelined in Search and Rescue.

"Hey, Mike," she said, "do your guys carry binoculars?"

"We all do."

"Ask Terry to look off the other side of the cliffs and see if he can see the ranch house at the Triple C."

A few moments later, Terry replied in the affirmative.

"Now look off to the left of that," Joanna continued. "To the north. There's a well with a big pump on it with two dead cattle nearby. Can he see those from, there?"

This time the search took a little longer, but eventually it paid off. "I can see them clear as a bell," Terry said.

"That's it, then," Joanna said. "That must have been where he was when he started shooting. Good work, Terry. Great work, in fact. This may be exactly the kind of break we need."

"So what should I do now?" Terry Gregovich asked.

"Don't touch a thing," Joanna told him. "Stay right where you are until the evidence guys show up with their plaster. And when you get down off the mountain, make an appointment to see Chief Deputy Montoya."

"What for?" Terry asked.

"To put in for a promotion," Joanna said. "You've earned it. You can tell him I said to find a spot for you in Patrol with the possibility of working into Investigations."

Ernie Carpenter bagged the blood-spattered watch and Jaime Carbajal logged it. While they worked the actual crime scene, the S and R team continued to range over the river bottom and rising hillsides in search of evidence as well as the ugly, if unspoken, possibility of finding other victims. Within half an hour, Joanna's two detectives were joined by investigators from Pima County, Detectives Lazier and Hemming.

Hot, bored, and unable to make any real contribution to the task at hand, Joanna finally took Ernie aside. "I think somebody should go to Rattlesnake Crossing and let them know what we've found. I'd hate for either Crow Woman or Danny Berridge to hear the news on the radio or from some enterprising reporter before we deliver the notification in person."

"We've got three detectives working here now," Ernie said. "So if you'd like me to go along with you…"

Next-of-kin notifications always left Joanna with a hole in the pit of her stomach. Telling someone of the death of a loved one, regardless of whether that news was expected or not, often took as much of a toll on the messenger as it did on the recipient. Whoever brought the word was automatically lowed into the role of front-row spectator as someone else's entire existence imploded around him. Still, it had to be done, and this one would be worse than most.

"I'd appreciate that, Ernie," she told him gratefully. "I'd appreciate it more than you know."

Leaving the on-going crime-scene investigations under the overall direction of Dick Voland, Joanna took Ernie Carpenter along with her in the Blazer for the drive to Rattle-snake Crossing. Bumping up the rough, dusty road toward the main ranch buildings, Joanna had the sense that she was traveling through some kind of deserted movie set. No people were visible, anywhere, but she did notice for the first time that all the ersatz tepees and hogans had air-conditioning units attached to discreetly camouflaged platforms placed at the rear of each pseudo-Indian dwelling.

"If these guys want to pay good money to turn themselves into real Indians for two weeks at a time, you'd think they'd be tough enough to put up with real Arizona weather."

Ernie ignored the wry humor in her comment. "The scalping's real enough," he said grimly. "Whoever's doing this made damned sure he got that part right."

Joanna glanced in Ernie's direction. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. "I never have."

"Since it's likely the killer's using a sniper rifle, is it possible all of this is connected to what happened to Clyde Philips?"

Ernie thought about that for a moment. "It could be, I suppose," he said finally. "The fact that a fifty-caliber may have been used in this latest case does point in that direct ion. We know from what Frank told us that Clyde was trying to demo a fifty caliber, so he must have had one or more in stock.”