Rattlesnake Crossing

Joa

"Let's get going, then," Dr. Daly said. "What are we waiting for? The sun's almost down."

"We have lights along," Joa

Fran Daly grunted in reply, climbed into Joa

The three vehicles sorted themselves into a line with Mike Wilson leading the caravan, Joa

Approaching the San Pedro, Joa

As liquefied sand filtered out of moving water, it settled to the bottom, covering the river's floor with a firm, hard-packed layer that made for relatively easy driving. The Blazer was almost across and Joa

It was only then, after they had emerged from the river and started negotiating the steep foothills on the other side, that Fran Daly spoke for the first time. "Mind if I smoke?"

With the other woman's nerves showing, Joa

"Not if you roll down the window," she said.

Moments later, after exhaling a cloud of smoke, Fran leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. She looked tired.

"What's this new deal now?" she asked. "Who is it this time? Do we have a name?"

Joa

"So you're saying the body we're going to investigate isn't hers?" Fran Daly asked. "It isn't the missing woman?"

"Right."

"How do we know that for sure?"

Joa

"We know that because Mike Wilson said so," she replied evenly.

"I see." Fran Daly shrugged. "Maybe he's right," she added, "but your people aren't exactly batting a thousand, you know."

"What do you mean by that?"

"When whoever it was called me up in Tucson…"

"Dick Voland," Joa

"Right. Mr. Voland told me that the guy in Pomerene, Clyde Philips, was a homicide victim. Where he got that idea, I don't know."

He got it from me, Joa

Fran blew another cloud of smoke. "I doubt it," she said. "I think he got himself all liquored up, put the bag over his head, cinched it shut with a belt, and then waited for the combination of booze and lack of oxygen to do the trick."

"You're saying he committed suicide. Did you find a note?" Joa

"Good as," Fran said.

"And what would that be?"

"You saw the body, didn't you?"

Joa

"Yes," Joa

"So you saw the lesions?"

Reminded now, she recalled that one detail, the series of angry red marks on the man's white skin-on his chest, belly, and thigh. She had noticed them only long enough for them to register as some kind of surface wounds, but that was just before Belle had leaped on the body, collapsing both the bed and the floor into the darkened crawl space below. In all the confusion that followed, that single detail had slipped out of Joa

"I saw something," Joa

"Not stab wounds," Fran Daly insisted. "Lesions. Whenever I've seen lesions like that before, they've been on AIDS patients. I can't be sure without blood work, of course, but I'm guessing that the autopsy will bear me out on this. Clyde Philips might still have been able to get around on his own, but he wouldn't have been able to for long. He was suffering from AIDS-full-blown AIDS. Instead of hanging around to fight it, he used the bag and his belt and took the short way out. I don't know that I blame him. If I were in his shoes, I might very well do the same thing."

"But without a note," Joa

"Guns? What guns?" Fran Daly asked.

"The guns in his shop," Joa

Fran ground out the remains of her half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray and then, before Joa

"That's what happens when people who don't know what they're doing jump to erroneous conclusions," Fran said as she slammed the ashtray back into place. "From that point on, the accuracy of the whole investigation goes right out the window."

Joa

Who knows? Maybe she's right about Clyde Philips. Maybe he really did commit suicide. And if it turns out one of today's two murder victims wasn't murdered, maybe the second one-whoever she is-wasn't, either.