Rattlesnake Crossing

Joa

Just then Ruben grabbed the doorknob and yanked it toward him. With the hinges screeching in protest, the door came off in his hands. Ruben Ramos marched inside, switching on lights as he went. Joa

"Frankie, where the hell are you?"

The place had clearly been closed up for days, and it was an oven. A messy, moldy oven with dirty dishes and leftover food rotting on the counters and in the sink. They went through the entire place, but it was empty. Nobody was home and there were no clothes in any of the closets or drawers.

"I think he's gone," Ruben said. "Moved out." "Looks that way," Joa

They were retracing their steps through the house, and Joa

Standing behind Joa

Joa

Ruben looked around the bleak living room one last time. "So whatever's happened, Frankie's probably in on.”

"That's how it looks," she said.

"Well, I'd better go, then," the chief of police said. "For one thing, I need to tell Alicia so she'll know what we're up against. Then I'll call Marv Keller."

"Who's he?"

"The roofing contractor Frankie was working for. Obviously Frankie's taken off. Marv will be able to tell us when he bailed."

The shift from father to cop was subtle, but it was there nonetheless. In a world of good guys and bad guys, Frankie Ramos had removed himself from his father's team and thrown in his lot with the opposition. That meant he was pitting himself against his father and everything Ruben Ramos stood for.

Leaving things as they found them, they left the trailer then and walked back out into the night air. While Ruben tried to reposition the door against the wall, Joa

The hand that took Joa

Unable to hear the other side of the conversation, Joa

"His last day of work was Friday. Came in and didn't say anything about not coming back, but Monday morning, somebody who claimed to be a friend of Frankie's called to say that he was quitting because he'd gotten another job with a contractor in Tucson. Marv said he didn't question it, because when a guy quits, he quits, and there's nothing he can do about it. He said he mailed Frankie's last paycheck here on Monday afternoon."

Joa

"My detectives will get a search warrant and be here first thing in the morning," she said.

Ruben looked at her questioningly. "What about the door?" he asked.

And there was Joa

"The way I remember it," she said, "the door was al-ready off its hinges when we got here."

"Thanks," Ruben Ramos said. "I'd better go."

Joa

"Chief Ramos," Joa

"What?"

"Did your son ever spend much time around Phoenix?"

"Not that I know of," he said. "Tucson's easy to get to from Benson. Phoenix isn't. Why?"

"Just wondering," she told him.

He drove out of the weed-choked yard. Feeling the weight of the man's heartbreak, Joa

Why is it people want to have kids? she wondered as she drove. Parenthood sure as hell isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Joa

Right now, coming home in the middle of the night was fine-Je

When she had first been elected sheriff, there were a few none-too-subtle puns about her being the "titular" head of the department. The only way to stifle those criticisms and to prove her detractors wrong had been to do the job and do it well. She had pulled the long shifts when necessary and had worked her heart out, making sure her officers had the equipment and support they needed to do their jobs.

In the process, Joa

According to Ruben, three of his four kids were fine. Frankie, the youngest, was the joker in the deck, the loser. Had Ruben failed Frankie as a father because of his job? Because he had been so focused on moving up the ladder in the Benson Police Department? The other three kids were evidently older. Maybe they'd had the advantage of a less distracted, less work-involved father. Maybe that was why they were upstanding, productive citizens, while their baby brother was a suspect in a serial murder case.

But what were the implications in all that for Joa

And so that night, as Joa