J. Jance - Rattlesnake Crossing

"Tell me about your son," she said at last.

Ruben shrugged his shoulders. "What else do you want to know?"

"What's he like?"

In the dim light of the bowling alley parking lot, Joanna saw the pained expression that flitted across Ruben Ramos' broad features. "I wanted Frankie to grow up," he said hopelessly. "All I wanted was for him to be a man. People used to tell me how sweet he was. I didn't want him to be sweet. I didn't want my son to be a sissy, but he is."

"What about Clyde Philips?" she asked. "What did you know about him?"

"Nothing much," Ruben replied. "He owned a gun shop and he's dead. I hear he liked to party-at least he used to "a while hack. I've been told that in the last little while he had let tip on the drinking. I figured liver damage probably got to him. That's what happens to guys who hit the sauce real heavy. And the night of the wreck, Frankie claimed Clyde hadn't had all that much to drink."

"Clyde Philips didn't have liver damage," Joanna said quietly. "He had AIDS. The medical examiner called me with the autopsy results just an hour or so ago."

For a moment Ruben Ramos didn't make the connection. "You mean AIDS-the disease queers get?" he asked.

Joanna nodded. "Homosexuals, needle-using drug addicts, prostitutes." She paused, not wanting to ask the next question, but knowing she had no choice. "Is there a chance Clyde Philips and your son were lovers?"

For a second there was no reaction at all, followed by a one-word explosion. "No!" Then, after another long, heart-breaking pause, Ruben nodded. "Probably," he said in a whisper. "I wondered about that-suspected it but I didn't want to believe it. I guess I thought if I ignored it long enough, it would go away. I always thought it was my fault Frankie turned out the way he did. I wondered if it was something I said or did to him when he was little. I tried to help him, really I did."

"Chief Ramos, I-"

"He was arrested one other time," Ruben went on. "Besides that MIP thing over in Pomerene. One other time that I didn't mention. Because I was ashamed to-ashamed that a son of mine would turn out that way and do such a thing."

"What kind of thing?" Joanna asked.

"He was arrested in downtown Tucson," Ruben Ramos said. "For soliciting an act of prostitution. With a male undercover cop. I got him out of that scrape, too. But I warned him if he ever did it again, I'd kill him myself." Chief Ramos took a deep breath. "What do you want me to do?"

"I need to talk to Frankie," Joanna said. "As I told you earlier, we have reason to think that the Philips murder is linked to several others-two here and one near Phoenix. At least one of those cases includes weapons that may have been taken from Clyde's gun shop. That means the killer might be a customer of Clyde's or else an acquaintance. So far, all the paperwork is missing from the shop, right along with the guns. If Frankie worked there, he might be able to help fill in some of the blanks."

Ruben straightened his shoulders. "All right, then," he said. "Let's go talk to him. We'll wake him up. Do you want to take both cars?"

"Sure," Joanna said. "That's probably a good idea. You lead; I'll follow."

At that time of night there was very little traffic. To reach Pomerene, they had to drive from the bowling alley parking lot on the far west side of the town, through Benson, and all the way out to the other side of town. In the process, they didn't meet a single vehicle. Even the Benson patrolman Joanna had spoken to earlier seemed to have disappeared entirely.

Once in Pomerene, they drove past Rimrock, the street where Clyde Philips had lived. A quarter of a mile beyond that, Ruben Ramos' Crown Victoria turned left onto a track that was more alley than it was street. The track led back through fender-high weeds and grass until it stopped in front of a deteriorating mobile home. There were no lights on, nor were there any vehicles parked in front of it.

"That's funny," Ruben said when Joanna joined him outside his Ford. "Frankie has an old VW bus. I wonder where it is."

Watching her footing, Joanna followed Ruben onto a sagging wooden deck that had been tacked onto the front of the building. Metal columns that had once held an awning of some kind still stood upright, hut the awning itself was long gone. Ruben stomped across the porch and pounded on the metal door, "Frankie," he bellowed. "Come on out. I've got to talk to you."

There was no answer, so Ruben knocked again, harder this time. The aging structure seemed to shudder beneath the powerful blows. "Frankie, I said get your ass out here! Now!"

Joanna said, "It's all right. We can come back later with a-"

Just then Ruben grabbed the doorknob and yanked it toward him. With the hinges screeching in protest, the door came off in his hands. Ruben Ramos marched inside, switching on lights as he went. Joanna followed at his heels as he charged from room to room.

"Frankie, where the hell are you?"

The place had clearly been closed up for days, and it was an oven. A messy, moldy oven with dirty dishes and leftover food rotting on the counters and in the sink. They went through the entire place, but it was empty. Nobody was home and there were no clothes in any of the closets or drawers.

"I think he's gone," Ruben said. "Moved out." "Looks that way," Joanna agreed.

They were retracing their steps through the house, and Joanna was thinking about the possibility of returning the next day with a search warrant when a scrap of paper caught her eye. Moving it with the toe of her shoe, Joanna dragged it out from under the couch far enough to be able to read it. The paper turned out to be an invoice-from Pomerene Guns and Ammo to the City of Lordsburg-for a sniper rifle priced at forty-five hundred dollars.

Standing behind Joanna, Ruben Ramos read it over her shoulder. "Damn," he muttered finally. "It figures. You said the paperwork was missing from the gun shop, didn't you?"

Joanna nodded.

Ruben looked around the bleak living room one last time. "So whatever's happened, Frankie's probably in on.”

"That's how it looks," she said.

"Well, I'd better go, then," the chief of police said. "For one thing, I need to tell Alicia so she'll know what we're up against. Then I'll call Marv Keller."

"Who's he?"

"The roofing contractor Frankie was working for. Obviously Frankie's taken off. Marv will be able to tell us when he bailed."

The shift from father to cop was subtle, but it was there nonetheless. In a world of good guys and bad guys, Frankie Ramos had removed himself from his father's team and thrown in his lot with the opposition. That meant he was pitting himself against his father and everything Ruben Ramos stood for.

Leaving things as they found them, they left the trailer then and walked back out into the night air. While Ruben tried to reposition the door against the wall, Joanna reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. "Call Marv Keller now," she said.

The hand that took Joanna's cell phone was visibly trembling, but by the time Chief Ramos spoke, he had himself under control. "Hey, Marv," he said. "Sorry to wake you, but this is important. Have you seen Frankie? He seems to be among the missing."

Unable to hear the other side of the conversation, Joanna waited until Ruben ended the call and gave the phone back to her. "Well?" she said.

"His last day of work was Friday. Came in and didn't say anything about not coming back, but Monday morning, somebody who claimed to be a friend of Frankie's called to say that he was quitting because he'd gotten another job with a contractor in Tucson. Marv said he didn't question it, because when a guy quits, he quits, and there's nothing he can do about it. He said he mailed Frankie's last paycheck here on Monday afternoon."