Rattlesnake Crossing

"Not six or seven times. None of those blows looked like enough to kill him, but they probably rendered him unconscious. The bag and the belt were probably added later to finish the job. I'd say you'd better check both of them for prints."

"We will," Joa

"Sunday night or Monday morning. The room was cool enough that it slowed decomposition."

The call ended a few seconds later, and she switched off the phone.

"Bad news, huh?" Butch asked.

Joa

"Too bad for them," Butch observed.

After that, Butch and Joa

"Life used to be much simpler, didn't it?" Butch Dixon said at last. "Back in the old days, I mean."

"Yes," Joa

They reached the hospital parking garage a few minutes later. "Just let me out here," she said.

Are you going back up?"

Joa

"Drive carefully," Butch said.

"You, too."

"See you tomorrow, then," he added. "Maybe we can get together after work and I can show you the house." "Okay," she said. "I'd like that."

Sitting there with her fingers on the door handle, Joa

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

When Joa

Because of the Arizona Organization of Chiefs of Police, Joa

Turning off the freeway, she started down the hill into Benson. A few seconds later, she spotted a city patrol car parked off to the side of the road just beyond the bowling alley. She drove past, then reconsidered. After making a U-turn in the middle of the highway, she back up the hill to the patrol car.

"Can I help you, lady?" the officer asked, shining a flashlight in Joa

Joa

"Is this important? After all, it's the middle of the night."

"You have a dispatcher, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Have Dispatch call Chief Ramos on the phone. Tell him I have to talk to him and that I'll be glad to come by his house if need be. Tell him it's about his son."

With a shrug of his shoulders, the officer reached for his radio. After several exchanges back and forth, he returned it to its clip. "The chief says he'll come here. He wants you to wait."

That struck Joa

A minute or two later, an emergency call of some kind came in. With lights flashing, the patrol car sped off to answer it, leaving Joa

"Let's cut to the chase," he said without preamble. "What's Frankie done now?"

"I'm sure by now you've heard about Clyde Philips-"

"Look," Ramos interrupted, "when you're a cop, you raise your kids under a damn microscope, And with three of the four, it worked fine. But Frankie's something else. I just didn't want it on his record, okay? The kid's got a hard enough row to hoe without that."

"You didn't want what on his record?"

"It wasn't that big a deal," Ramos continued. "Booze only, no drugs, nothing like that. If there had been drugs there, too, well, that would have been another story. But kids have been getting adults to buy their booze ever since Prohibition went out the window. Frankie was drinking. So what? He would have had a Minor in Possession and that would have been the extent of it. And Clyde would have been charged with providing alcohol to a minor and maybe an open container. I talked to a few people," Ruben added. "And the paperwork ended up not going anywhere. Maybe it was illegal. Hell, I know it was illegal, but I don't know too many fathers who wouldn't do that for one of their kids. If they could, that is."

Taken aback, Joa

"Isn't it?"

Joa

Ruben stared at her, his eyes narrowing. "Wait a minute here, you don't think Frankie had something to do with what happened to Clyde Philips, do you? You can't be serous. It couldn't be." He looked incredulous.

"Tell me about the MIP," Joa

"Somebody put you up to this, somebody who's out to get me," Ramos muttered. "Who is it? Somebody on the City Council? I probably shouldn't even be talking to you without having an attorney present."

"Chief Ramos, I am not out to get you. I'm dealing with a series of homicides-four, to be exact, including Clyde Philips. A serial killer is loose in Cochise County. I need your help and your son's help as well."

"What kind of help?"

"You've told me yourself that Frankie had some co

Ramos shook his head. "No, it was just the two of them. They were driving back to Frankie's place and Clyde missed a turn. They went into a ditch. No damage. According to what I was told, Clyde wasn't all that drunk. It wasn't that big a deal. At least that's what Eddy said."

"Eddy?" Joa

"Come on, Sheriff Brady," Ruben Ramos said. "Don't climb Eddy's frame about all this. He and I go back a long way. He knew about some of the problems Alicia and I have had with Frankie. He was just trying to help out."

Joa