Rattlesnake Crossing

By the time she was up over the Divide, however, she had stopped thinking about Butch and was back to worrying about the case. Picking up the radio, she asked Dispatch to put her through to Detective Carbajal.

"What's happening?" she asked.

"I've been on the horn to Maricopa County," he told her. "According to the sheriff's office up there, we've got a possible."

"A case with the same MO?"

"Unfortunately, yes. It's old-from two years ago-and it's still open. A fourteen-year-old named Rebecca Flowers was found up near Lake Pleasant north of Sun City. Shot first and then… well, you know the rest."

"No leads?"

"None so tar. And my guess is nobody looked very hard. Rebecca was a street kid, a drugged-up runaway from Yuma. And since it hadn't happened again as far as anybody could tell, there wasn't any reason to take it very seriously."

"Until now," Joa

"Right," Jaime agreed hollowly. "Until now."

"You've talked to Ernie?"

"Yes, and her Highness, Dr. Daly, too," Jaime replied. "You were right. I managed to catch her between autopsies. They're both on their way right now. Depending on where you are and where they are…"

"I'm just south of Tombstone," Joa

"Then you'll probably be here within minutes of one another."

"Where are you meeting them?"

"They're coming straight here. I gave them directions. It's the same little track we took last night, the one off Pomerene Road right across from Rattlesnake Crossing. You'll come to a Y where we turned right last night. Go left this time. It'll lead you right here."

Still wearing her work clothes, Joa

"Listen, Jaime," she warned Detective Carbajal, "this is going to be a high-profile case. We're going strictly by the hook on this one. I don't want any procedures skipped or skimped. You got that?"

"Got it, Sheriff Brady," Jaime said. "I hear you loud and clear."

As she finished with Detective Carbajal, Joa

"The guy who's wife is missing?" Frank asked.

"The guy who's wife is dead," Joa

"You think they're one and the same? What gives you that idea?"

"A little bird told me," Joa

Even though it was summer, as she passed Tombstone's elementary and high schools, she slowed down some more just to be sure. Then, when she reached the Chevron station, she whipped across two lanes of traffic and pulled in, threading her way past two out-of-state minivans loaded to the gills with kids, dogs, and luggage.

Parking as close to the rest-room door as possible and leaving her lights flashing, she whipped her suitcase of freshly laundered just-in-case clothes out of the back of the Blazer. It would be far easier to change clothes in a restroom than it would be at the crime scene. Less than two minutes after ducking into the rest room, she was outside again. Dashing toward the Blazer, she almost collided with a little boy of about seven or eight who stood next to the door.

"Lady," he said, wiping an orange circle of soda onto his shirtsleeve, "how come you got those flashing lights on the front of this car? You a cop or something?"

Joa

"What does that mean?" he persisted. "Are you or aren't you.? "

"I'm a police officer," she said. "Actually, I'm the sheriff."

"No, you're not," he said. "My dad just took me to see the O.K. Corral. Wyatt Earp's the sheriff."

"Wyatt Earp was a marshal," Joa

"Darren," a shorts-clad woman called. "What are you doing? Come get in the car."

Darren studied the card and then glanced briefly in his mother's direction, but he didn't move. "A girl can't be a sheriff!" he said finally. "They grow up to be mothers and stuff, not sheriffs."

"Darren," his mother called again, "come here this minute!" Still Darren didn't move.

"You'd be surprised," Joa

That was exactly when she turned on her siren full blast-when she did it and why as well, telling herself, The devil made me do it.

Darren's obnoxious image stayed with Joa

Let's hope Darren and Je