Rattlesnake Crossing

CHAPTER FIVE

Compared to the harsh August heat outside, the interior of Clyde Philips' fortresslike gun shop was downright cold. Consisting of two rooms, the shop had a large showroom and a back room with a door marked OFFICE. The place was lit by ceiling-mounted shop lights. The outside walls of the showroom area were lined with glass-enclosed, locking gun racks. Now all of those glass-doored cabinets stood wide open, with the slots inside them totally empty. In the middle of the room stood a series of glass-topped display-case counters, also open and empty. In the dust left behind on the glass shelving were the imprints of missing handguns and holsters as well.

Seeing the ghostly shadows of those missing weapons, Joanna felt a wave of gooseflesh spread across her body. That icy reaction owed far more to simple dread than it did to the droning presence of Clyde Philips' air-conditioning unit up on the shop's roof.

Joanna glanced away from the missing guns and caught Dick Voland staring at her with a look of undisguised longing on his face. In the months since the collapse of Dick Voland's marriage, Joanna's working relationship with her chief deputy had become more and more complicated. At this point, she would have welcomed a dose of Voland's early and outspoken opposition, rather than the puppylike (if unspoken) devotion with which he now sometimes regarded her. Clearly, the fifteen years' difference in their ages and the fact that his feelings weren't reciprocated made no difference.

Joanna had no quarrel with the man's professionalism. He had never once said anything out of bounds. In the easy give-and-take of the office, he was fine. In public, in fact, he still tended to be overbearing and patronizing on occasion. But in private, unguarded moments like this one, the man wore his heart on his sleeve. Joanna sympathized with him, but she needed a working, full-fledged chief deputy far more than she did a lovesick schoolboy suffering from an unrequited crush.

Joanna's eyes met his over the top of one of the display cases. Quickly, Dick Voland looked away. "How many guns do you figure walked out of here?" she asked.

Blushing visibly in the sallow light, he shrugged his shoulders. "No way to tell for sure," he said gruffly. "But even if the cases held only one or two guns apiece, it's way too many to have them running around loose. They would still amount to enough guns to supply a small army."

"Peachy," Joanna said. "Any sign of a break-in?"

"None whatsoever," Voland replied in a brisk, business-like fashion. "Whoever did this came in with a key to the front door and with keys to all the individual cabinets as well. None of the locks have been damaged in the slightest. Not only that, whoever did it also knew lie or she had plenty of lime. This place was cleaned out in a methodical and very thorough manner, probably in the middle of the night and probably in dead silence. Any kind of noise or breakage might have aroused suspicion."

"To say nothing of Sarah Holcomb," Joanna added.

Voland frowned. "What was that?"

"Never mind," Joanna told him. "What about paperwork or a computer, maybe? Any kind of customer lists?"

"Not so far."

"What about inventory, sales, or billing information? If we had some of those details, we'd know where to start in order to estimate what's actually missing."

"That could be a problem. Come take a look," Voland said, gesturing toward the office door. "It's a combination office/storeroom, and from the looks of things, there's not much left there, either."

Joanna walked as far as the office doorway and stopped. Inside, the drawers to the file cabinet lay scattered around the room, spilling loose papers on the floor in all directions. Other drawers still sat in place in file cabinets, but they appeared to be completely empty, as though someone had simply dumped the contents into a bag or box and carted them away.

"If there's been a conscious effort to destroy paper trails, we could be dealing with some kind of insurance fraud," Joanna suggested, musing more to herself than to anyone else.

"It could be," Voland agreed.

"We'll need to dust the whole place for prints," she added, glancing at her chief deputy.

"Right," he said. "I've already asked Patrol to send over anyone they can spare to help out with crime-scene investigation. It probably won't do much good, though. I have an idea whoever did this was probably smart enough to wear gloves."

Joanna looked around the room again. "What about letting ATF in on this? Considering the possible number of weapons involved, we probably should,"

As expected, any suggestion of involving another jurisdiction, especially a federal agency like Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, elicited an immediate frown of annoyance from Richard Voland. An old-timer with the department, the chief deputy jealously guarded all possible jurisdictional boundaries.

"Why include them until we have to?" he asked.

Through working with the MJF and with Adam York of the Drug Enforcement Agency, Joanna was coming to understand that in the new world of law enforcement, cooperation was the name of the game. I wonder if anyone's ever explained that fact of life to the lady from the Pima County Medical Examiner's office, Joanna wondered wryly.

"Their guys run as much risk of going head to head with whoever took these guns as ours do," she said. "So even though reporting it may not be strictly required, we're going to tell them all the same. Out of courtesy, if nothing else."

"All right, all right," Voland agreed grudgingly. "I'll take care of it once we get back to the office. So tell me, what all's going on back at the house?"

"For one thing, Detective Carbajal is working with that lady buzz saw from Pima County, Dr. Fran Daly," Joanna said. "Incidentally, since Dr. Daly fully expected to report to you, she wasn't at all pleased to have me involved."

"I'm sorry," Voland apologized. "When I was talking to the woman on the phone, I told her as plain as day what the deal was. Where she got the idea that I was in charge, I don't'-"

Joanna cut him off in mid-apology. "II doesn't matter. What Dr. Daly did or didn't think makes no difference. Whatever her misapprehensions, we've worked them out."

Trying to change the subject, Joanna glanced around the room and said:

"It looks to me as though poor old Clyde was a far better shop owner than he was a housekeeper. The house is a pig-sty. You maybe wouldn't want to eat off the floor in here, but it's a whole lot cleaner than the house was. With the added advantage that the shop feels like it's built on a concrete slab."

At once Voland turned solicitous. "You didn't get hurt when the floor collapsed, did you? Even with an injured woman down there, you never should have climbed down there by yourself without waiting for backup."

Cops are always concerned about the well-being of other cops. Had there been someone else present, Voland's comments probably would have passed unnoticed and unremarked. Unfortunately, Joanna knew the man too well. She read the worried look of concern in his eye; heard the undiluted caring in his voice. Not wanting to make things worse, Joanna decided to treat the subject lightly.

"The only thing hurt is my pride," she said, reaching out in another futile attempt to brush some of the grime from her skirt and blazer. "Ernie Carpenter's always on my case about grunging around crime scenes in good clothes. My problem is, I just can't seem to take a hint."

"You'll catch on eventually," Voland said.

Ignoring the slight but unmistakable quaver in the man's voice, Joanna tried to turn the conversation back to business. "Speaking of catching on, how about bringing me up-to-date on what's been happening back in the office? I've been out of the department all afternoon. Anything else interesting going on?"

"We found the trucker," Voland said. "The trucker and his truck, both."

"What trucker?" Joanna asked with a frown.

"Remember that naked hitchhiker from last night, the one we didn't catch?" Joanna nodded. "Well," Voland continued, "she may have been naked, but it turns out she wasn't alone. A guy in an eighteen-wheeler picked her up and drove her as far as that rest area east of San Simon. The driver and the girl were up in the over-cab sleeper and just getting it on when the girl's accomplice burst in on them. The two of them held the driver up at gunpoint. They took all his cash and credit cards. Afterward, they hogtied him with duct tape, drove him as far as Portal, and left him there-stark naked, miles from anywhere. Then the two of them drove the poor guy's truck as far as Lordsburg, New Mexico, where they abandoned it at a truck stop."

"So the trucker's all right?"

Joanna had learned that talking cases with Dick Voland always seemed to help put the proper distance back between them. This time was no exception. The chief deputy grinned at her. "Same as you," he said. "The only thing hurt is his pride and some missing hair where the tape pulled it out. He managed to get loose and walk as far as Mabel Lofgren 's place. She keeps a collection of men's clothing around just in case somebody shows up who might need them."

"You mean, in case a passing UDA showed up and happened to need work clothes," Joanna remarked. In INS circles, the Widow Lofgren was notorious. Mabel had been cited countless times for employing undocumented aliens. No one was sure exactly how she did it, but she always somehow managed to skate free of the charges.

"In this case, though, it was probably a good thing that she had those extra clothes and shoes. I sent Deputy Hollicker out to interview both her and the trucker. According to Dave, by the time the guy could get to a phone and call his bank, the bandits had already used his ATM card to lift a chunk of money out of his account. And they were going through his credit cards like a dose of salts."

"Any other incidents reported with the same kind of MO?" Joanna asked.

Voland nodded. "I'm afraid there are. Sheriff Trotter, over in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, claims this is the third one his department has seen this month. So far no one's been hurt, but with handguns involved…"

"It's only a matter of time," Joanna finished.

"That's right," Voland said.

"Do we have a description?"

"Yes. Since the other two incidents both happened on Trotter's watch, he's talking about having Identi-Kit sketches done for all three. He said he'll pass them along to us."

"Good," Joanna said. "When he does, I'll have Frank Montoya make sure those pictures are posted at every truck stop and rest area in Cochise County. Pima County, too, for that matter."

"Good idea."

"And what about the missing woman up at Rattlesnake Crossing? Have you heard anything from Search and Rescue?"

Voland shook his head. "Not so far," he said. "One of us should probably go up there as soon as possible to see how things are progressing."

"I will," Joanna volunteered. "That was where I was headed to begin with. With everything that's happened this afternoon, I still haven't had a chance to talk to either Alton Hosfield or Martin Scorsby."

"Better you than me," Dick Voland said. "If those two are going to start taking potshots at one another, I'm likely to try knocking some sense into them first and asking questions later. Actually, if you want to head over there now, I can stay here and supervise the crime-scene guys."

Joanna thought about it, but not for long. "You can also oversee Fran Daly," she added with a smile. "Compared to dealing with her, Scorsby and Hosfield should be duck soup."

The sun was dropping behind the Little Rincons as Joanna headed north from Pomerene along the San Pedro. The angle of the setting sun exaggerated the jutting angles and deep crevices in the black-shadowed cliffs to the west of the river. She remembered her instructor in a college-level class in Arizona Geology explaining how three different periods of down cutting had dug three separate levels of terraces along both sides of the San Pedro, creating two matching sets of steep canyon walls. At some time in the distant past-a time of supermonsoons when llamas and turtles had populated a far wetter Arizona landscape-a massive flood had washed away the entire eastern side of the canyon. Left behind, the cliffs to the west still thrust skyward, but their rugged outline was nothing more than a muted echo of the same natural forces that had carved the monumental Grand Canyon.

The rough brown cliffs stood out that much more due to the striking contrast between them and the unaccustomed greenery on the steep flanks of hillside beneath them. Water had been so plentiful that summer that even in the high heat of mid-August, the hillsides were dressed in lush green robes of grass and waist-high weeds.

As Joanna drove north, she turned her thoughts from one case to the other. In Cochise County, crimes involving gunshot livestock were fairly commonplace. Ordinary murders-the kind of crime where people kill people-usually occurred among folks who were known to one another. Killers and victims often turned out to be relatives, lovers or ex-lovers, former partners, or former friends. When it came to the unauthorized slaughter of livestock, Joanna had learned that was generally a stranger-to-stranger kind of crime. That was especially true during hunting season when good-old-boy city-slickers came down from Phoenix and Tucson to shoot up everything on four legs and occasionally a few things on two legs as well.

Losing a few head of cattle meant a financial loss, but to a farmer or rancher of Alton Hosfield's standing, the loss of two cows would be little more than an annoyance. The loss of an irrigation pump, however, especially at this time of year, could very well mean financial disaster. Any other year but this one, Joanna thought. So why bother shooting up the pump now? What's the point?

Joanna remembered a long-ago case in which her father, then Sheriff D. H. Lathrop, had dealt with a similar situation. A pump dealer from Willcox had lost patience with a melon farmer who had fallen behind in making payments. Two weeks before melons were due to be harvested, the pump dealer had gone to the melon farm to repossess his equipment. His wife, armed with a high-powered rifle, had ridden shotgun on that ill-fated trip. Once at the farm, the well dealer had hooked a come-along around the pump and was preparing to pull it out of the well when the farmer showed up with his own gun. The incident had ended with the farmer and the pump dealer's wife both dead of gunshot wounds and the pump dealer shipped off to the state penitentiary in Florence on two charges of second-degree murder.

Such a tragic outcome was exactly what D. H. Lathrop's daughter was trying to prevent. The Hosfields and the Scorsbys weren't exactly the Hatfields and the McCoys, but with unknown persons running around armed with a fifty-caliber sniper rifle, they were close enough.

Twenty minutes later, just north of Sierra Blanca Canyon, Joanna pulled off onto the washboarded private dirt lane that led to Martin Scorsby's Pecan Plantation. The road snaked between two fields planted with lush, leafy, twentyfoot-tall trees. Winding up into the low foothills of the Winchester Mountains, Joanna found the roadway teeth-jarringly rough.

At the end of the primitive track, however, Joanna discovered a modern white stucco building with a red-tiled roof nestled inside a grove of towering cottonwoods. Seeing the house for the first time, as well as the manicured grounds surrounding it, Joanna was amazed to discover a California-style mansion plunked down in the middle of the Arizona desert. It always surprised her to find someone going to all the trouble and expense of living in the lap of luxury in the dead middle of nowhere at the far end of an almost impassable dirt road. Since there weren't any nearby neighbors to impress, what was the point of all that conspicuous consumption? Joanna's own modest home on High Lonesome Ranch had a lot more to do with old-fashioned, hard-scrabble farming and ranching than it did with some insurance company's overly generous golden handshake to a departing executive.

Martin Scorsby himself came to the gate of his well-manicured yard to greet her. Dressed in white shorts, socks, and shoes and with a cockily brimmed hat perched on his head, Scorsby looked as though he had just stepped off a tennis court. His spotless attire made Joanna painfully aware of the gray crawl-space grime on her own clothing.

"What can I do for you?" Scorsby asked.

"I'm Sheriff Brady," Joanna said, stepping out of the marked Blazer and showing him her badge. "Do you have a minute?"

Scorsby glanced at his watch. "Not much more than that," he said, standing just inside the gate to the yard and making no move to open it. "What do you want?"

Without having had anything to drink since her iced tea at Daisy's hours earlier, Joanna would have welcomed an invitation to come inside and have something to drink-iced tea or even water. If anyone had attempted to teach this boorish, newly transplanted Californian the rudiments of Arizona-style hospitality, the lessons had not yet taken root.

"I came to talk to you about what went on over at the Triple C last night-"

"I already talked to your deputy," Scorsby interrupted brusquely. "Sandoval or Sanchez or whatever the hell his name is. I told him I had nothing whatsoever to do with that incident. I also told him that any further discussion of same would have to be conducted through my attorney."

Martin Scorsby may have expected Joanna to retreat in the face of that first volley, but she did not. "I'm here to help rather than make any kind of accusations," she said evenly. "And to listen," she added. "If I'm not mistaken, this isn't the first time we've had similar problems in this particular neighborhood."

Taking off the little white hat, Scorsby glowered at her while running a handkerchief across his perspiring brow. "Yes, yes, yes. I know I said that I'd shoot Hosfield's damn cattle if they ever came near my trees again. I said it and I meant it, too. But they haven't-come within a hundred yards of my orchard, that is. The electric fence I installed around the place is doing wonders at keeping the cattle out. Deer, too, for that matter."

In the eighteen-eighties, a pioneer rancher named Henry Looker had run huge herds of cattle on a thirty-square-mile spread that had started somewhere near the current boundaries of Martin Scorsby's Pecan Plantation. To an old-timer like Henry Hooker, someone who had specialized in moving his livestock on and off federal land at will, the idea of barbed-wire fencing would have been anathema. Joanna smiled, thinking he probably wouldn't have liked electric fencing, either.

"Mr. Scorsby," Joanna said patiently, "I'm not implying that you're in any way responsible for what happened at the Triple C. What I am saying, however, is that right now, with feelings running so high, it's important to keep things in perspective."

"What 'things' do you mean?" Scorsby asked.

The Ten Commandments, Joanna thought. Starting with "Love thy neighbor." She said, "I don't want this to escalate into a range war."

"A range war!" Scorsby exclaimed. "Are you kidding? Didn't those go out with High Noon?"

"Unfortunately, no," Joanna said. "As sheriff of Cochise County, I can tell you that as long as weapons-particularly high-powered weapons-are involved, people can still die."

"When it comes to weapons, I don't have anything much stronger than a cue stick," Scorsby said. "That's what I shoot mostly-pool. Guns aren't my style."

"But you said-"

"I said guns aren't my style," Scorsby insisted. "And if you're still determined that I had something to do with what went on, I can assure you that I was right here in the house all night long. If you don't believe me, ask my wife. We were never apart for even a moment, except for maybe the time I was in the bathroom. She wasn't with me then. Would you like me to call her?"

Joanna might have missed the snide put-down in the comment had not Scorsby's tone of voice made his superior attitude blatantly clear.

"No, thanks," Joanna replied, matching her tone to his. "That won't be necessary. Not just now, anyway. Let me suggest, however, that in the meantime, until we clear up this matter, you stay away from the Triple C."

"Believe me," Scorsby told her, "that'll be my pleasure. The last thing I need to do is to get into some kind of' beef with Alton Hosfield or one of his hired thugs-excuse me, I mean one of his hired hands."

Turning, Joanna stepped back into her Blazer.

"And Sheriff Brady?" Scorsby added.

Closing the car door behind her, Joanna opened the window. "Yes?"

"As I said to Deputy… What's his name again?"

"Deputy Sandoval," Joanna answered.

"As I told Deputy Sandoval earlier, if this matter requires any further discussion, my attorney is Maximilian Gailbrathe with Gailbrathe, Winters and Goldman in Tucson."

"Of course, Mr. Scorsby," she said sweetly. She gave the window control button a forceful jab. "Like hell," she added to herself once the window was safely closed, shutting him out of earshot.

If it turned out that Martin Scorsby had indeed had something to do with Alton Hosfield's dead cattle and wrecked irrigation pump, Scorsby's attorney would be doing a whole lot more than simply handling "incident" discussions.

Plea bargains would be a lot more like it, Joanna thought. With that she threw the Blazer into gear. In the process of driving away from Scorsby's yard, she caused the speeding Blazer to leave behind a rooster tail of fine red dust that powdered the man's spotless white tennis outfit. The last glimpse she had of him in the mirror was of his arms flailing in a futile attempt to brush himself clean.

"Pardon my dust," Joanna muttered to herself.

Despite that little bit of deliberate revenge, she was still seething from the encounter with Scorsby some twenty minutes later when she drove up the entrance to Alton Hosfield's Triple C Ranch. She stopped long enough to read an almost billboard-sized sign that had been erected next to the cattle guard marking the boundary line.

PRIVATE PROPERTY, the sign announced in no uncertain terms. ENTRANCE IS PERMITTED TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC, BUT THAT PERMISSION MAY BE WITHDRAWN AT ANY TIME. NO SMOKING. NO HUNTING. NO FISHING. NO TRESPASSING IS ALLOWED FOR EMPLOYEES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, SUBCONTRACTORS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, OR ANYONE GIVING INFORMATION TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. NO EXCEPTIONS.

At the last meeting of the Arizona Sheriffs' Association, several of the law enforcement officers gathered there had spoken of hairy encounters with their own particular jurisdiction's version of the tax-and-government-protesting Free-men Movement. Most of the run-ins with Randy Weaver wannabes had ended peacefully, but that wasn't always the case. Especially not when the protestors had weapons readily available.

At the time of the meeting, Joanna had been only too happy to have nothing to report in that regard. Now, though, seeing the sign, and in light of all the weapons missing from Clyde Philips' gun shop, she wondered how much longer that would be the case.

She reread the sign once more, paying particular attention to the places where it referred to the federal government. Maybe Dick Voland was right, she thought. Maybe the best thing for all concerned is to leave the ATF out of this.