Rattlesnake Crossing

by J. A. Jance

  Standing in the doorway to the bedroom, fighting off the all-pervasive odor, Joanna was shocked to see that the hole in the floor was much larger than it had been when she left. At first she thought that maybe the firemen had used saws to enlarge the hole in order to facilitate maneuvering the stretcher through it. On closer examination of the jagged-edged break, she realized that more of the floor had given way under the combined weight of several firemen and the two EMTs. What was even more disturbing was the fact that the new breakage in the termite-infested wood had occurred at almost the same spot where Joanna herself had climbed in and out of the crawl space.

  Seeing it now, Joanna realized how very near she had come to falling. Wanting to get to the injured woman, she had crawled down after her without taking the time to call for backup or even to notify 9-1-1. Had the floor collapsed under her then, both she and Belle might have been trapped in the crawl space for hours before anyone noticed or came to help. Joanna had a cell phone, but she had left it plugged in in the Blazer when she and Belle had gone into the house.

  She was still berating herself for her stupidity when Detective Carbajal showed up behind her. "Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed, peering over her shoulder. "It looks like a war zone in here. What happened? Did somebody blow the place apart with a stick or two of dynamite?"

  "Termites, not dynamite," Joanna answered. "What you see is the case of the collapsing bed. Once it broke, it went right through the floor, taking two people along with it."

  Jaime grinned. "How old were these people?" he asked. "If the bed broke, they must have been getting it on."

  Gradually Joanna had become accustomed to crime-scene black humor. That was one of the tools homicide cops used to maintain their sanity. In spite of herself, she smiled.

  "It wasn't like that," she explained. "Clyde Philips was already dead when Belle Philips, his ex-wife, tried to get on the bed with him. She's not exactly a lightweight. Having both of them on the bed was more than the frame or the floor could handle. She went right through the floor with him and got hurt pretty bad in the process. The firemen just finished lifting her out a few minutes ago."

  "That's where all the footprints came from?" Jaime asked. "From the firemen?"

  Joanna nodded. "Mine are in there, too," she said.

  Jaime busied himself taking notes. "Where is she now?"

  "On her way to Tucson – University Medical Center."

  "And the body?"

  "As far as I know, nobody's touched it. Clyde is still down in the crawl space," Joanna said.

  "From what Dispatch said, you and the ex-wife were the ones who found him?"

  Joanna nodded again.

  "What exactly were you doing here, Sheriff Brady?" Detective Carbajal asked. "Somebody call you, or did you just happen to be in the neighborhood?"

  "No," Joanna said. "I came here on purpose to talk to Clyde Philips. There's a shop out back where he ran a gun dealership. I was hoping to find out whether he could put me in touch with some of his sniper-rifle customers."

  "Because of the Triple C case?"

  "That's right. I stopped by earlier, between two and three. His truck was here, just like it is now. When he didn't answer the door, I checked with his former wife to see if she could help me locate him. Belle and I came here together. She was sure he was sound asleep and just didn't hear my knock. Instead, it turned out he was already dead."

  "And the bed?"

  Joanna shrugged. "When she realized he was dead, she went haywire-hysterical. She piled onto the bed with him, and it broke."

  "You said Philips was a gun dealer?"

  "That's right. Registered and everything."

  "Any chance of a robbery motive?"

  "I already thought of that," she said. "Dick Voland's picking up a search warrant before he comes."

  "Good." Jaime stuffed his notebook back in his pocket and prepared to enter the bedroom. First he donned both face mask and gloves. Then he removed a camera from his pocket, taking the first crime-scene shot from the doorway of the bedroom. Knowing how vital those photographs would be, Joanna stepped aside.

  "I'll wait outside," she told him. "But remember, termites have turned most this floor into so much sawdust, so be careful."

  With apparent unconcern, the young detective lined up his camera and took another shot. "Any idea when the victim was last seen alive?"

  "None," Joanna replied. "His next-door neighbor-I don't know her name-is the one who told me he might be al his ex-wife's-at her cafe. That's why I went there looking for him. But once we found the body, I never had a chance to ask her when the last time was that she saw him."

  "And the ex-wife didn't give you any kind of alibi?"

  "No," Joanna said.

  Making a deliberate circle around the perimeter of the room, Jaime clicked the camera again. "Don't worry," he said. "Either Ernie'll check her out or I will."

  "Sheriff Brady?"

  She turned to find. Deputy Eduardo Sandoval standing behind her. Of all Joanna's deputies, Eddy Sandoval-a beefy man in his mid-to-late forties-was the one with whom she had the least personal contact. Because he both lived and worked in the far northwestern sector of the county, he was the most physically removed from her office. And when he came to Bisbee to drop off a prisoner or make a court appearance, Sandoval wasn't one to hang around the Cochise County Justice Complex shooting the breeze.

  "Hi, there, Eddy," Joanna said. "How long ago did you get here?"

  "Just now," he said. "Sorry it took me so long. I was up at Cascabel taking a missing-person report when this call came in. I got here as fast as I could."

  "Missing person?" Joanna asked. "What missing person?"

  "About this time yesterday afternoon, a lady wandered off from that oddball dude ranch just up the road from the Triple C," Eddy answered. "You know the place I mean-the ranch they've started calling Rattlesnake Crossing."

  Joanna frowned. "Isn't that the dude ranch where all the guests dress up like Indians and camp outside?"

  Sandoval nodded. "Right," he said. "That's the one."

  "So who's missing?" Joanna asked. ''One of the campers? The List thing we need about now is to have some tenderfoot who Thinks she's a born-again Apache go wandering off in the desert. It's the middle of August, for God's sake. Depending on where she's from, she'll die of heatstroke before we can call in Search and Rescue."

  "Her name's Katrina Berridge," Sandoval replied. "And she's not one of the guests. She's more of an employee, I guess. Employee or partner, I'm not sure which. She's the owner's sister. As I understand it, the missing woman and her husband work there at the ranch. Katrina handles paperwork-reservations, finances, payroll, that kind of thing. Her husband's the handyman-does a little of everything. According to him, his wife went out for a walk yesterday afternoon and never came back."

  "Any trouble on the home front?" Joanna asked.

  Sandoval shook his head. "Not that I could tell. At least, none that the husband happened to mention."

  "If she wasn't driving a vehicle when she left, does anyone have an idea of where she might have gone?"

  "Nobody knows for sure," Sandoval replied. "According to the husband, each afternoon Rattlesnake Crossing has sort of a free period. All the people pretty much go their separate ways for a time-a few hours. I guess they're all supposed to use that time to get back in touch with nature. Anyway, when dinnertime came around and Katrina didn't show up, people weren't too worried, because I guess she's done that before-gone out for a walk and stayed out later than the others, watching a sunset or a moonrise or something. When she still wasn't home this morning, though, her husband-his name's…" Sandoval paused long enough to consult his notes. "Dan… no, Daniel Berridge-he said he went looking for her. He claims she has some favorite hangouts up in the cliffs alongside the river. Mr. Berridge said he looked up there for her this morning, but he couldn't find any trace of her."

  "Wait a minute," Joanna said. "Aren't those cliffs just on the west side of the
river?"

  "Yes," Sandoval nodded. "They are."

  "And isn't Rattlesnake Crossing Ranch on the other side?"

  Sandoval nodded. "That's right, too."

  "The river's been running like crazy ever since that storm the day before yesterday. If Katrina Berridge was going over to play on the cliffs, how did she manage to cross the river?"

  Eddy Sandoval shrugged. "That's what I asked her husband. He said maybe she swam."

  "Or maybe she never crossed it at all," Joanna said. "Maybe, for some reason or another, he's interested in having us look in one place and not in another."

  Eddy Sandoval frowned. "You're thinking maybe the husband had something to do with whatever happened to her?"

  The irony wasn't lost on Joanna. She had been disturbed by the fact that everyone seemed fully prepared to jump to the conclusion that Belle Philips had murdered Clyde. Now here she was, jumping to the same kinds of conclusions about Daniel Berridge.

  "I'm not saying that, one way or the other," Joanna re-plied. "But if we're bringing in Search and Rescue…" She paused. "We have called them in, haven't we?"

  He nodded. "That's right. They should be on their way."

  "Good," she said. "When Search and Rescue gets here, or when Dick Voland does, tell whoever's in charge of the search that I want them to look on both sides of the San Pedro. You got that?"

  "Got it."

  "Where are you meeting them?"

  "I told Dispatch I was coming here and that Search and Rescue should catch up with me here. In the meantime, is there anything else you need me to do, Sheriff Brady? I'll be glad to help out."

  "As a matter of fact, there is," Joanna told him. "You stand right here in this doorway and watch Detective Carbajal Iike a hawk. That floor he's walking on is made of so much Swiss cheese. If it caves in under him, I want to know about it right away. Now, I'm going to go outside and start talking to the neighbors. We need to find out where and when's the last time someone saw Clyde Philips alive."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Joanna soon discovered that when it came to Clyde Philips' neighbors, there weren't all that many for her to talk to. There were three other houses on the short, unpaved block, but two of them were empty. The only other one that was occupied belonged to Sarah Holcomb, the cane-wielding lady who had directed Joanna to Belle's restaurant.

  Minutes after leaving Eddy Sandoval to watch over Jaime, Joanna found herself in Mrs. Holcomb's old-fashioned living room, seated on an overstuffed sofa in front of a doily-covered coffee table. It turned out that getting Sarah Holcomb to talk was easy; separating important details from the old woman's meandering conversation was considerably more difficult.

  "I never saw a thing out of line," Sarah declared in answer to one of Joanna's questions. "Course, I was gone a good part of the weekend. Went up to Tucson to see the doctor and visit my daughter and son-in-law," she said. "I left about midmorning on Sunday and didn't come back until just a little while before you showed up this afternoon. My doctor's appointment was yesterday. Anymore, seeing a doctor just takes the starch right out of me. I don't like to make that drive on the same day as my appointment, not at my age. I'm eighty-three, by the way, and still driving," she added. "And I'm proud to tell you that I've never had an accident or a ticket, either one."

  "When's the last time you saw Clyde, then?" Joanna asked.

  Sarah frowned. "Musta been last week sometime, al-though I don't rightly remember when. He wasn't the best neighbor I ever had. A real ornery cuss, if you ask me. When Belle finally up and left him a few years back, I thought it was high time. Belle, now, she's all wool and a yard wide-maybe even more than a yard wide, come to think of it." Sarah grinned at the joke. When Joanna didn't respond, the woman resumed her story.

  "Anyways, what went on between them was none of my business, although I always did think Clyde took terrible advantage of the poor woman. Belle never was much of a looker, and of Clyde always acted like he done her a great big favor by marryin' her. I can tell you that the man never lifted a finger around the place long as he had her to do all the cookin' and cleanin'. You'da thought she signed up to be his slave 'stead of his wife. Poor Belle'd spend all week workin'-she used to cook up three meals a day over to that rest home in Benson. You know which one I mean-the one that had that electrical fire and burned to the ground a few years back. That's where Belle worked, right up until the place burned down. As I remember it, she got burned in that fire, too, somehow. When all was said and done, I h i n k she got some kind of little insurance settlement. I'ro'ly wasn't all that much, but it was enough, and it was money dim belonged to her, not him. The way I heard it, that's what she used to open that little doughnut place of hers.

  "Anyways, gettin' back to how things were afore that. Here she was working five or six days a week. But still, come Sunday afternoon, she'd be out there in the yard push-in' that big old mower around, while Clyde'd be sittin' there on his backside on that porch of his like King Tut hisself, tellin' her what part she mighta missed and where she maybe needed to go over it again. If he'da been my husband, I think I woulda found a way to drive that mower right smack over his big toe. Maybe that woulda shut him up.

  "About the last time you saw Clyde…" Joanna urged.

  Ignoring Joanna's polite hint, Sarah continued her tirade. "On the other hand, I always say it takes two to tango. Much as I'd like to, I can't lay the whole thing at Clyde 's door. Not all of it. I figure if'n a woman sets out to spoil a man like that, she pretty much deserves what she gets. You can't hardly blame the man for takin' advantage. And Belle's no fast learner. Matter of fact, believe it or not, even after all these years, she's still doin' Clyde 's wash. Up till a few months ago, every once in a while he'd fill that camper shell of his plumb full up with dirty clothes and drag the whole mess over to her place. Next thing you know, he'd be comin' back with it all washed, ironed, and folded neat as you please. Lately, though, Belle's been pickin' it up and bringin' it back. Some people never do learn."

  Joanna remembered what Belle had said about not allowing Clyde to run a tab for his meals. Maybe the woman had turned doing her ex-husband's laundry into a money-making enterprise as well. Considering the dirty clothing scattered all over the dead man's house, Clyde must have been closing in on another laundry trip when he died.”

  "Mrs. Holcomb," Joanna urged again, "about List week. Did you see any strange comings or goings?"

  "Well, Clyde always did have people in and out at odd times of day, although that's slowed down quite a bit lately. It wasn't like he ran a store with reg'lar hours or anythin' like that. And then sometimes he'd go on the road and be gone for a week or more. I always tried to keep an eye on things whilst he was gone that way-on his house, I mean-not 'cause I liked the man so much, but just 'cause it was a neighborly sort of thing to do."

  "Could you give me the names of any of the people who might have dropped by?" Joanna asked.

  "His customers, you mean?"

  Joanna nodded. "We're going to need to speak to as many of them as possible."

  "Why's that?"

  Joanna sighed. "Solving a homicide is a lot like unraveling a knot of yarn. You have to take each single strand and follow it all the way to the end. As far as an investigation is concerned, all the people who knew the victim are separate strands of yarn. We'll be talking to all of them-friends, neighbors, customers-the same way I'm talking to you."

  "I see." Sarah became thoughtful. "When is it that you think old Clyde croaked out?" she asked.

  "Sometime over the weekend," Joanna replied. "We won't have more detailed information until after the autopsy. That's one of the reasons I'm trying to learn when you last saw him alive."

  "You mean he didn't just die last night or this morning?" "I'm not sure. Why?"

  Sarah grimaced and pursed her wrinkled lips. "I pro'ly shouldn't even say this," she said, "but Belle was here bright and early Sunday morning when I was getting ready to leave for Tucson. I was mighty surprised she come
by at that hour. Clyde was one of them night owls and a real late sleeper as a consequence. Right after Belle moved out on him, that just got worse and worse. Like he got his days and nights all turned around. He partied a lot back then. When he wasn't workin', he'd stay up most of the night, drinkin' and carryin' on; then he wouldn't never show his face much before early afternoon. The partyin's pretty much dropped off the last year or two, but he still slept real late. Them kind of habits is tough to break."

  "Do you remember what time it was when Belle came by?" Joanna asked.

  "Not exactly," Sarah returned. "But it musta been right around nine o'clock or so. I remember I was out gettin' my clothes in off the line. I got up early to wash up a few things to take along to Tucson. I musta put 'em out on the line about seven-I put 'em in as soon as I woke up. I wake up at six-thirty on the dot. Always have, and I put on the coffee and turned on the clothes washer about that same time. The clothes had been out long enough to dry, and I wanted to get 'em packed and in the car so I could hit the road before the sun got much hotter. That's one of the bad things about gettin' old. Just can't take the heat the way I used to. It must have been about eight-thirty then. Maybe a quarter to nine. I'da thought she'd be on her way to church by then."

  "What was Belle doing when you saw her?" Joanna asked. "Anything out of the ordinary?"

  "Nope. She drove up and parked that big of Cadillac of hers right there behind Clyde 's truck. Belle's car is so big that I'm always surprised it makes it through that narrow little gate. Once it's inside, it takes up half the driveway. Anyway, Belle couldn't have been inside the house more than a minute or two, because I was just rollin' my clothes basket back into the house when she came tearin' out of the house and took off again."

  "You didn't talk to her?"

  "No," Sarah said. "And that wasn't like her-not stop-ping off long enough to say hello or chew the fat. Didn't give much thought to it, though. Figured maybe she was on her way somewhere or had her mind on somethin' else and didn't even see me standin' out there in-"