Rattlesnake Crossing

by J. A. Jance

  Joanna picked up the phone and dialed the county recorder's office. She was glad when she heard Donna Littleton's cheery "May I help you?"

  Donna, verging on retirement, had worked in the recorder's office from the time she graduated from Bisbee High School. She knew more about county property parcels than anyone, and it was only a matter of minutes before Joanna had her answer. The property just across Pomerene Road from the turnoff to Rattlesnake Crossing definitely belonged to Alton Hosfield-and the Triple C.

  "Thanks, Donna," Joanna said when she had the requested information. In truth she didn't feel especially grateful. The answer she had was one she hadn't necessarily wanted.

  There were two phones on Joanna Brady's desk. She had just finished talking to Donna when the other one rang. This was the private line that came directly to Joanna's desk. Expecting this to be a call from Marianne, she snatched the handset up before the first ring ended.

  "How about lunch?" Butch Dixon asked. "You name the place and I'll be there with bells on."

  "Oh, Butch," Joanna said. "It's you."

  "Yes, it's me," he said. "Don't sound so disappointed. Now that I get thinking about it, I could even use an apology. The dogs and I had a nice evening watching the stars and the moon, but it wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

  "I'm sorry," Joanna said. "I got tied up with…" The beginning apology sounded lame, even to her, and Butch didn't give her a chance to finish.

  "I know," he said. "I picked up a copy of the Bisbee Bee this morning and read all about it. I could see from the headlines that you had your hands full yesterday. No hard feelings."

  The fact that Butch was so damned understanding about it made things that much worse. Joanna didn't remember ever being understanding about Andy standing her up. Eleanor hadn't been understanding, either-not as far as D. H. Lathrop was concerned. Could that be a trait that was hidden away somewhere in maternal DNA?

  "Where do you want to have lunch?" she asked. "And when?"

  "Seeing as how I missed breakfast, any time at all would be soon enough," Butch told her.

  Now that he mentioned it, Joanna realized she hadn't eaten any breakfast that morning, either. "What about where?"

  There was the smallest hesitation in his voice before he answered. "Daisy's."

  "All right. See you there. In what, about twenty minutes?"

  "That'll be fine."

  She put down the phone, finished racing through the few holdover items on her desk, and put that day's crop of correspondence to one side. Then she picked up the phone. "Kristin," she said, "I'm going to lunch. After that, I'll be going up to check on things in Pomerene. When I'm done there, I may end up going on to Tucson as well, so don't expect me back in the office today."

  Picking up her private phone once again, she punched in the code that would forward all the calls on that line directly to her cell phone. If Marianne and Jeff called her from the hospital, she didn't want to risk missing them.

  Joanna's corner office had a private entrance that opened directly onto her reserved spot in the parking lot. She had picked up her purse and was on her way to the door when the regular switchboard line rang once more. She hurried back to her desk and snatched the receiver up to her ear.

  "What is it, Kristin?" she asked impatiently. "I was just on my way out the door."

  "I know, Sheriff Brady," Kristin Marsten said. "But I thought you'd want to take this call. It's from Detective Carbajal."

  "Right. Put him through."

  "I think we found her," Jamie said as soon as he came on the line.

  "Found who, Katrina Berridge?"

  "That's right," he said, but there was nothing in his tone that sounded like the usual elation and pride of accomplishment that follow a successful search-and-rescue operation. Joanna heard none of the triumph searchers exhibit when they've gone into the wilderness and returned with a living, breathing, formerly missing person.

  She felt a sudden clutch of dread in her gut, a knowledge that the other shoe was about to drop. "She's dead, then?"

  Jamie sighed. "Yes, she is."

  "How did it happen? Where did you find her?"

  "The body is only half a mile south of where we were last night. If we hadn't been delayed by finding the first one yesterday, we might have found this one then as well. The victim was shot to shit with something big."

  "How big?" Joanna asked. "A fifty-caliber, maybe?"

  "Possibly."

  But there was something more in young Jaime Carbajal's voice-a pained reticence-that Joanna almost missed at first. "What else?" she demanded.

  "This one's the same as the other one," he said.

  "What other one?”

  "The victim we found last night. Like I said, she was shot. That's probably what killed her, but afterward…"

  There was a part of Sheriff Joanna Brady that didn't want hire to go on, didn't want to hear what he had to say. But there was another part that already knew what was coming.

  "Afterward, what?" Joanna demanded. "Was she scalped?"

  "You got it," Detective Carbajal replied bleakly. "From the middle of her forehead to the back of her neck, there's nothing left but bare bone. Nothing at all."

  Stunned, half sick, Joanna allowed her body to sink back into her chair. For the space of a few seconds she said nothing, letting the awful realization penetrate her being. Joanna's department had started out to investigate reports of someone shooting up local livestock. Instead, her investigators had stumbled into the deranged leavings of someone who was obviously a serial killer.

  "Have you called Ernie?" she asked finally.

  "Not yet, but I will."

  "Do it right away. I talked to him just a little while ago from the Pima County Medical Examiner's office. If we're lucky, you may be able to catch him and Dr. Daly before she starts on the second autopsy. Where are you now?"

  "Still at the scene. The S and R guys are roping it off. Evidence techs are up working on the ledge. There's no sense in bringing them here until after the ME does what she needs to do."

  "All right," Joanna said. "Finish up as soon as you can, then meet me at Pomerene Road and Rattlesnake Crossing. I want to be with you when you go to notify Katrina Berridge's husband and sister-in-law. In the meantime, get on the horn to the FBI and see whether or not this is an MO they've seen before."

  "Will do," Jamie replied. "How soon do you expect to be here, Sheriff Brady?"

  "Soon," Joanna answered. "I'm on my way."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As soon as she turned the key in the ignition, Joanna remembered Butch. She also realized that if she went straight to Rattlesnake Crossing without either breakfast or lunch, her body would run out of fuel long before she finished what she'd have to do that day. Not only that, she didn't know when there'd be another chance to eat. Pulling her cell phone out of her purse, she punched in the number of Daisy's Cafe. Not surprisingly, Daisy herself answered the phone.

  "Sheriff Brady," she said, "your gentleman friend is already here. I've got him stowed in a booth and drinking coffee."

  "Good," Joanna said. "And that's why I'm calling. Something's come up. I'm going to have to go on a call, but I thought I'd try to eat and run. Put in my order for chorizo and scrambled eggs and then go ahead and pour my coffee. I'll be there in three minutes or less."

  "What about O.J.?" Daisy asked.

  "I'll have some of that, too."

  "Good enough," Daisy said. "It'll be on the table by the time you get here."

  When Joanna pulled into the parking lot, the first vehicle she saw was Butch's Goldwing. That struck her as odd, because she dearly remembered him saying that he wouldn't be Goldwing-ing it when he came to take her to dinner. Oh well, she thought, he must have changed his mind.

  She climbed out of the Blazer and slammed the door. That was when she saw a little white Nissan Sentra sedan with the Bisbee Bee logo on the door and a windshield sun-screen with the word PRESS printed on the outside. Joanna recognized the v
ehicle at once. It was one usually driven by Marliss Shackleford, whose tell-all column, "Bisbee Buzzings," kept the Bee's circulation humming with local gossip. Ever since Joanna's election to sheriff, she had often found herself chewed up and spit out as part of Marliss' journalistic fodder. The fact that the sheriff and the columnist were both parishioners of Canyon United Methodist Church had done nothing to blunt the difficulties between them.

  In the small-town world of Bisbee and of Cochise County, Joanna Brady was regarded as a public person. What she did or didn't do was thought to be of interest to everyone-at least that was how Marliss seemed to view the situation. Unhappy with the constant scrutiny, Joanna had learned to dodge the woman whenever possible. In small towns and even smaller churches, that wasn't always possible. Just as it wouldn't be now, when Joanna would be seen having breakfast with an out-of-town visitor-a male out-of-town visitor.

  Marliss had already been introduced to Butch Dixon once-on the occasion of Joanna's mother's wedding reception after her marriage to Dr. George Winfield. If Marliss saw Joanna and Butch having breakfast together in Bisbee, no telling what conclusions she would jump to or how those would play out in her next column.

  For two cents Joanna would have climbed back into the Blazer and driven away. But she couldn't do that. It wouldn't have been fair to Butch or to Daisy, either one. Squaring her shoulders, Joanna marched into the restaurant. Walking inside, she clung to the faint hope that she and Butch would be seated close enough to the door so she could slip in and out without being noticed. Unfortunately, Butch waved to her from the far corner booth, two tables beyond where Marliss sat chatting with her boss, Ken Dawson, the publisher and editor in chief of the Bisbee Bee.

  Because Daisy was already carrying a pair of loaded plates toward the booth where Butch was sitting, Joanna gave Marliss a wave and hurried past almost before the woman saw her and without pausing long enough to ex-change any pleasantries.

  "Good morning, sunshine," Butch said with a grin, toasting her with his newly filled coffee cup. "I understand this is going to be wham, bam, thank you ma'am. I'm glad you could squeeze me in, although you're probably here more for the chorizo and eggs than you are for me."

  "I'm sorry to do this to you twice in a row," Joanna said, "but Search and Rescue just now found another body up by Pomerene."

  The grin disappeared from Butch's face. "The woman who was missing?"

  "You know about that?" Joanna asked.

  Butch held up a copy of that morning's Bee. "I'd say the coverage was pretty thorough. I always wondered what happened to the guy."

  "What happened to what guy?"

  "To Danny Berridge."

  "You mean you know him?"

  "I don't know him per se, but I know of him. He’s a former Indy driver. He won several races. Placed second or maybe third at Indy one year. Was named Rookie of the Year. The next year during the Indy 500, he wiped out one of the rack people-one of the safety workers. He walked away from the wreck and the track. That was the last I ever heard of him until I read about him in this morning's paper. At least I'm assuming it's the same guy. How many Daniel Berridges could there be?"

  “The article didn't actually identify him as the same guy?”

  "No, but 1 just assumed. He's evidently had a hell of a life, and now with his wife turning up dead…"

  Joanna covered her lips with a finger. "We probably shouldn't talk about this right now. We don't have a positive ID and nobody's notified the next of kin. That's where I'm going right now-to meet up with the detectives and then go talk to the husband."

  "I can see why you're in a hurry," Butch said, picking up his fork. "You'd better go ahead and eat before it gets cold. You need to keep up your strength."

  Joanna's heaping platter of scrambled eggs mixed with hot, spicy chorizo came with a helping of cheese-smothered refried beans, a dish of Daisy's eye-watering salsa, and a tortilla warmer stacked full of tiny, homemade flour tortillas fresh from the grill in the kitchen. Butch helped himself to one, slathered it with butter, and took a bite. As soon as he did, a beatific smile spread across his features.

  "I didn't know it was possible to find a place that still served homemade tortillas."

  Joanna took one herself. "You have to go pretty far out into the boondocks before that happens," she said. For several moments they ate in silence. "If it wasn't in the paper, how did you know all this about Daniel Berridge?" she asked.

  "Didn't I tell you?" Butch returned. "I'm a big race-car fan.”

  No, Joanna thought, you didn't tell me. There were obviously any number of things she didn't know about Frederick "Butch" Dixon. Even so, she knew that she still owed him an apology.

  "Look," she said, "I really am sorry about standing you up last night. As soon as the call came in and I knew it was going to be a problem, I tried calling, but your phone-"

  "Good morning, Joanna," Marliss Shackleford said, sauntering up to the table, coffee cup in hand. "I hope you'll excuse the interruption, but I had to know if you've heard anything about Esther's surgery."

  Joanna had no intention of pardoning the interruption, but there was no way of ignoring it, either. Butch Dixon looked up quickly and caught her eye. "Jeff and Marianne's little girl?" he asked.

  Joanna nodded. "Esther's been on a transplant waiting list almost as long as she's been here. Because of her ethnic background, the doctors hadn't held out much hope of finding a tissue match, but now they have one. The hospital called last night and told them a heart just became available. The surgeons are expecting to do the transplant sometime today. This morning, most likely."

  "So who's taking care of poor little Ruth?" Marliss asked.

  "Angie Kellogg," Joanna said.

  Marliss Shackleford's face twisted into a disapproving frown. "Not that girl who-"

  Joanna cut Marliss off in mid-sentence. "Angie is a friend of Marianne's, and she's also a friend of mine. She also happens to be a very capable baby-sitter. Ruth adores her."

  Marliss wasn't easily dissuaded. "You'd think that, as a minister and in a situation like this, Marianne would call on someone…" The steely-eyed look Joanna leveled in her direction caused Marliss to pause and rethink what she was about to soy. "Well, on someone from church, for example. I’m sure any number of the ladies from the church would have been willing"

  "The call come through in the middle of the night," Joanna told her. "I'm sure most of the ladies from church-you included -were all sound asleep in your neat little beds. Angie, on the other hand, was still at work and wide awake."

  Dismissing Marliss, Joanna turned her attention to her plate, stabbing her fork deep into the steaming mound of scrambled eggs and sausage. Rather than taking the hint and leaving, Marliss stood her ground and cast around for a more rewarding topic of discussion. In the process, her eyes settled greedily on Butch Dixon's smoothly clean-shaven head. "You're not someone from around town, are you?" she said to him. "But I seem to remember that we've met before."

  "That's right," Butch agreed mildly, putting down his fork and holding out his hand. "You're a newspaper reporter, I believe. Frederick Dixon's the name, and yes, we did meet before. At Joanna's mother's wedding reception."

  "Of course." Marliss summoned her sweetest smile. "That's right. You're Joanna's friend. Down from Phoenix, are you?"

  "Peoria, actually. But Phoenix is close enough. All those towns seem to run together."

  "What brings you down our way?"

  Over another forkful of egg, Joanna sought Butch's eyes. 'There was no way to say aloud what was going through her mind. This woman is a malevolent witch. Anything you say to her is going to wind up in print.

  Unspoken or not, Butch must somehow have gotten the message. He gave Marliss an engaging grin. "Just passing through," he said. "My business is up in the Valley of the Sun, and we have a little too much of that this time of year-sun, not business. So it's a good time for me to get out of town for some well deserved R and R."

  "I see," Marli
ss said. "What kind of business are you in?"

  Joanna groaned inwardly. Oh, great, she thought. Next he's going to tell her he owns a bar up there. Just wait until the ladies from church get wind of all the latest. An ex-prostitute is baby-sitting Ruth Maculyea-Daniels and Sheriff Joanna Brady is hanging out with a guy who rides a motorcycle and owns a bar!

  "Hospitality," Butch replied blandly.

  Joanna almost choked with relief. Meanwhile, Marliss sidled closer to Butch's side of the table. "Really. So are you down here checking out how Bisbee does in that department?" The question was asked with one eyebrow arched meaningfully in Joanna's direction. "Hospitality, I mean."

  "It's great," he said. "I'm staying up at the Copper Queen this time. It seems to be quite satisfactory."

  Visibly disappointed, Marliss turned back to Joanna. "Any inside scoops about what's going on up in Pomerene?"

  Sure, Marliss. We've just figured out that we've got a serial killer loose in Cochise County, and I'm going to give you an exclusive on it.

  "Not at this time," Joanna said. She finished the last morsel of chorizo and eggs. Something was making her nose run, and she wasn't sure if the heat came from the sausage or from the salsa. Taking one remaining tortilla from the warmer, she buttered it and then waved down Daisy.

  "Any chance of getting a cup of coffee to go?"

  "Coming right up."

  “And the bill, please, too."

  "Don’t bother with that," Butch said. "I'm buying."

  "Well," Marliss said, finally accepting the fact that the conversation was over, "I guess I'll be going." She headed back to hex own table.

  And not a moment too soon, Joanna thought, watching her go.