Rattlesnake Crossing : A Joanna Brady Mystery (9780061766183)

by Jance, Judith A.

  “So what is it, then?” Voland asked. “Some kind of domestic?”

  “I’m not sure what it is, although I don’t think DV is too likely,” Joanna told him. “Anyway, once you settle things with Pima County, I’ll need you to do something else. Clyde has a locked gun shop out behind his house. It isn’t necessarily part of the crime scene itself, and neither is his truck. We’ll need to go through both of those in order to find out whether or not robbery is part of the motive for what happened here.”

  “You want me to stop off and pick up a warrant?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, then,” Voland replied. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Just as Joanna ended the call, Clyde Philips’ front door opened. First one and then another of the firemen emerged. For more than a minute the two stood conferring, studying the door. The old-fashioned door was narrower than expected, and working Belle Philips’ stretcher out through it was no easy task. It took several minutes of back-and-forthing before the EMTs finally managed to squeeze the heavily laden stretcher out onto the porch. As they loaded the gurney into the waiting ambulance, one of the firemen, red-faced and mopping grimy sweat from his brow, came over to where Joanna was standing. “How do you guys do it?” he demanded.

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “Stand the smell,” he replied. “Do you get used to it, or what?”

  Joanna shook her head. “I don’t think anybody ever gets used to it.”

  The fireman shuddered. “Well, give me a fire any day of the week. In fact, give me two or three.”

  Just then the ambulance started to move. With siren blaring, it made a quick U-turn and started back up Rimrock. “Where are they taking her?” Joanna asked.

  “University Medical Center in Tucson,” the fireman replied. “One of the EMTs said he thought she probably broke both her hip and her shoulder. Although I’d say broken bones are the least of her problems.”

  “What’s the matter?” Joanna asked, giving him a searching look. “You think she has internal injuries as well?”

  The fireman—the name embroidered on his shirt pocket said. “Lt. Spaulding”—shook his head. “Somebody said the dead guy was her husband, right?”

  “Ex-husband,” Joanna replied.

  “So if she’s the killer, her bones’ll be the least of her troubles.”

  Moments before, Dick Voland had instantly assumed Clyde Philips’ death had something to do with domestic violence. Now Lt. Spaulding was making the same assumption. “What makes you say that?” Joanna asked.

  Spaulding shrugged. “Isn’t that the way it usually works? Somebody gets murdered and the killer turns out to be either the wife or the husband, or the ex-wife or ex-husband.”

  Closing her eyes, Joanna recalled Belle Philips’ inane chatter as she headed into the bedroom, as well as her desperate attempts to awaken her presumably sleeping former husband. Was it conceivable that Belle Philips was that accomplished an actress? Could she possibly have murdered Clyde herself and then put on a such a flawless performance when it came to finding his body a day or so later? As far as Joanna was concerned, it didn’t seem likely, but still those preconceived notions—backed by statistics—carried a lot of weight. There could be little doubt that when it came time for a homicide investigation, Belle Philips would be a prime suspect.

  “Ex-wives do kill ex-husbands on occasion,” Joanna conceded, “but I’m not at all sure that’s what happened here.”

  Spaulding shrugged once more. “I read a lot of true crime—just for entertainment. And I watch those forensics shows on The Learning Channel. It’s kind of a hobby of mine. That’s how I know about some of this stuff. I hope we didn’t do too much damage to your crime scene, Sheriff Brady. We had a hell of a time lifting her up and out of there.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Joanna assured him.

  “I guess we’ll be on our way, then,” he said. “It looks to me as though the boys have pretty much gathered up all the equipment. I have to keep on their cases to pick up all their stuff—the bandage wrappers, plastic bags, and packaging. Otherwise they just rip ’em and leave ’em.”

  Once the firemen had taken their trucks and left, Joanna made her way back inside the house. She moved gingerly now, careful not to touch anything, even though she knew it was far too late for that. Despite her reassuring comment to Spaulding, she saw at once that damage to the crime scene was considerable.

  For one thing, the entire floor, from the bedroom out through the front door, was covered with literally dozens of grimy footprints—hers included—left behind by dirt that had come up from the crawl space on the soles of shoes and on the firemen’s heavy-duty boots. If Clyde Philips had been murdered, and if the murderer had left behind some trace evidence of a footprint, it would be gone now, obliterated by everyone else’s tracks.

  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 at 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 last 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 replied. “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 like 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.”

  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.

&
nbsp; “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, although 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 ol’ 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 think she got some kind of little insurance settlement. Pro’ly wasn’t all that much, but it was enough, and it was money that belonged to her, not him. The way I heard it, that’s what she used to open that little doughnut place of hers.