Rattlesnake Crossing

Lost in concentration on her grisly work, and wearing a mask over her mouth and nostrils, Dr. Daly seemed oblivious to the sheriff's approach. Joa

"What do you think?" she asked at last, after once again taming her unruly gag reflexes.

Dr. Daly looked up. "Well, Sheriff Brady," she said, "it's like this. I think we're looking for some asshole who has delusions of grandeur. Thinks of himself as some kind of Ernest Hemingway-style big-game hunter. She was shot from some distance away. Look here." Dr. Daly pointed at the woman's sliced shorts where a shallow wound cut from back to front across the victim's right thigh.

"That looks to me like a shot that nearly missed, one that just barely grazed her. The same goes for this one that nearly severed her left hand. My guess is he was aiming for a body shot each time and missed. It must have taken hills three shots or more to adjust for windage. After that first shot-the one on her thigh, most likely-she took off ru

Joa

"In a case like this, I guess dying instantly is a blessing, isn't it," Joa

Dr. Daly gave her an appraising look and nodded. "Yes," she agreed. "I suppose it is."

"Can you tell what kind of bullet?" Joa

"From the size of the exit wound, I'd say we're looking for something one notch under a ca

"Something like a fifty-caliber?"

Fran Daly frowned. "Maybe," she replied. "Why do you say that?"

"Because night before last, we had reports from this neighborhood of shots being fired. Two cattle were killed and an irrigation pump was shot to hell, all of it done with what we've pretty well ascertained must have been a fifty-caliber sniper rifle."

"That happened right here on the Triple C?" Dr. Daly asked.

Joa

"But sniper-rifle kill ranges can cover that much ground and more," Fran said. "Are you thinking maybe a killer started out shooting up machinery and livestock just for the hell of it and then moved on to her?"

"Right."

Removing her face mask, Fran lit a cigarette. "It could be," she mused. "It just could be."

With that the medical examiner fell silent. The second-hand smoke from her unfiltered Camels helped to cut some of the awful odor. Somehow ignoring the gaping wound in the dead woman's chest, Joa

"Do you think this is where she fell?" she asked.

Fran shook her head. Using her cigarette, she pointed toward where two thin dark strands of stain wandered off across the rocky terrain. "If you follow that trail out about twenty-five yards, you'll find the kill zone. It's pretty much out in the open. He dragged her in here under the trees after she was already dead."

"So if we're going to find bullets, that's where they'll be," Joa

"That's right."

Joa

Fran Daly nodded thoughtfully. "Sounds reasonable to me," she said.

Basking in the doctor's mild but still unexpected approval, Joa

"With this victim, he's more rushed, more hurried. It's as though Ashley's death was premeditated, while Katrina's wasn't. Maybe she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he came out here to shoot up the cattle and stumbled over her in the process."

When Joa

At once Joa

"Why not?" Fran Daly pressed.

"Because I never have been," Joa

"You could have fooled me," Fran Daly said. "It sounds like you've got a good head for it. Now, have you established any kind of trajectory on the shots that killed those animals?"

Surprised by this undiluted praise, Joa

"Well, we'd better make that a top priority. If we can figure out where the guy was when he started pulling the trigger, maybe we can find something that will tell us who he is and how to find him. We've got to take this animal off the streets, Sheriff Brady," she added urgently. "If we don't, you'd better believe he's going to kill again."

With that the medical examiner resumed her work. Dismissed, but feeling a sense of co

She called Mike Wilson over to her Blazer. "How are your guys doing?" she asked. "Are they ready to call it a day, or are they willing to work some more?"

"They're a gung-ho bunch, Sheriff Brady," Wilson replied. "You tell me what you want them to do, and they'll do it."

"I want somebody to go up and search those cliffs from end to end," she said. "Both the tops of the cliffs and the ledges that run underneath them. I'm worried we may have other victims up there, ones we haven't even found yet."

"We'll get right on it," Wilson said.

"There's something else. I want this whole area combed for evidence of any kind-tracks, blood, fibers, whatever. Dr. Daly can tell you where the victim was hit. That area should be cordoned off and held in reserve for the evidence techs. I'm hoping that's where we'll find the bullet that killed her. But there were other shots as well, with bullets that went astray. With any kind of luck we'll find them. I can order out deputies and have them here doing the search within a matter of an hour or so, but if your guys wouldn't mind…"