Rattlesnake Crossing

In that respect, Je

"… that's okay, isn't it?"

Again Joa

"Mother!" Je

"I'm trying to, sweetie," Joa

"The Grandma and Grandpa want to take me into town tomorrow to buy school clothes. I told the Gs you wouldn't mind. Please say yes, Mom. They really do want to."

Joa

"Mom, are you all right?" Je

For a second, it seemed as if their roles were suddenly reversed-as though Je

Je

"As far as we know. I talked to Maria

"I'll bet Jeff and Maria

"What a good idea," Joa

By now the body bag had been zipped back up and the stretcher loaded into the van. Daniel Berridge straightened up and stood for a moment as if uncertain of what his next move should be. Joa

"Je

"Will you call me tonight and let me know how Esther's doing?"

"Yes, of course I will."

"And Mom?"

"What?"

"What about poor little Ruthie? What will happen to her if Esther dies or something? What if she never comes back from the hospital? Daddy didn't. They took him away and he never came back. The same thing could happen to Esther."

With death there is no "or something," Joa

"That's different," Je

"No," Joa

"I love you, too."

Ernie Carpenter was pulling open the back door to the Blazer. "We've got a positive, Sheriff Brady," he told her u

Glancing to the east, she saw columns of fat thunder-heads rising over the Chiricahuas. Quickly she folded her phone and returned it to her purse. "No problem," she said, motioning to the still ashen-faced Daniel Berridge. "I'll be glad to take you back."

The return trip to Rattlesnake Crossing was conducted in absolute silence. While a stricken Daniel Berridge stared stonily out the window, Joa

"I'm very sorry about all this, Mr. Berridge. I lost my husband, too, so I know what you're going through. It's a bitch!"

He had started to slam the door shut. But when he opened it once more and stared back across the seat at Joa

"You warned me," he said, "but I didn't know how had it would be to see her like that. I had no idea."

"We should have foreseen that. If I'd been thinking, we could have wailed and just used dental records. It might have taken a little longer, but not much, and it would have spared you-"

"No," he interrupted. "I wanted to see her. I wanted to see her the way she is now. That way I won't be able to kid myself into thinking that she's coming back."

Joa

"Andy and I fought too," she said quietly.

"Excuse me?" Berridge said.

"Andy," Joa

The combination of surprise and aching distress that flashed across the man's face told Joa

"But it is my fault," he insisted. "We had a fight, she walked out, and now she's dead. If I had just kept my mouth shut-"

"If it hadn't been Katrina," Joa

"What do you mean?"

"We're dealing with a monster here, Mr. Berridge. I believe he was out hunting, looking for someone to kill. My guess is your wife walked into his range finder and he blew her away. That same night he also shot up some of Alton Hosfield's cattle and an irrigation pump over on the other side of the cliffs but still on Triple C property. He probably gave the same amount of thought to killing your wife as he did to killing the cattle."

"But how…"

"He's a serial killer, Mr. Berridge. We're pretty sure of one other case and have tentative links to at least one more. There may be others as well, ones we don't know about yet."

"But how can this be? I had no idea there were others. If he's been operating around here, how come nobody ever heard anything about him?"

"We told your sister earlier, but it must have been after you left the lobby. Once these cases hit the media, as they probably will, either this afternoon or tomorrow morning for sure, you need to know that everything about this case is going to come under intense media scrutiny. Your years of relative anonymity here will be at an end."

"They already were," he replied.

"What do you mean?"

"A few months back, this guy showed up here at the ranch una