"What have you got, Terry?" Mike Wilson asked.
"No shells or anything like that," Terry Gregovich replied. "But I've got some funny little marks here in the dirt. Looks like they might have come from someone setting up a tripod. And some footprints, too. A couple of them might even be good enough to cast."
Joanna closed her eyes. Now we're making progress, she thought. "Great," she said to Mike. "Grab one of the evidence techs from the burial mound and get him over to Terry to make plaster casts. On the double. We lucked out that it didn't rain here yesterday, but that's not to say a storm won't blow through today."
Joanna knew enough to be thankful. Considering the amount of space involved, it was more than luck that some-one had stumbled across the possible footprints on top of the cliffs and recognized their importance. It also crossed her mind that Terry Gregovich's skills and talents might be underutilized by his being permanently sidelined in Search and Rescue.
"Hey, Mike," she said, "do your guys carry binoculars?"
"We all do."
"Ask Terry to look off the other side of the cliffs and see if he can see the ranch house at the Triple C."
A few moments later, Terry replied in the affirmative.
"Now look off to the left of that," Joanna continued. "To the north. There's a well with a big pump on it with two dead cattle nearby. Can he see those from, there?"
This time the search took a little longer, but eventually it paid off. "I can see them clear as a bell," Terry said.
"That's it, then," Joanna said. "That must have been where he was when he started shooting. Good work, Terry. Great work, in fact. This may be exactly the kind of break we need."
"So what should I do now?" Terry Gregovich asked.
"Don't touch a thing," Joanna told him. "Stay right where you are until the evidence guys show up with their plaster. And when you get down off the mountain, make an appointment to see Chief Deputy Montoya."
"What for?" Terry asked.
"To put in for a promotion," Joanna said. "You've earned it. You can tell him I said to find a spot for you in Patrol with the possibility of working into Investigations."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ernie Carpenter bagged the blood-spattered watch and Jaime Carbajal logged it. While they worked the actual crime scene, the S and R team continued to range over the river bottom and rising hillsides in search of evidence as well as the ugly, if unspoken, possibility of finding other victims. Within half an hour, Joanna's two detectives were joined by investigators from Pima County, Detectives Lazier and Hemming.
Hot, bored, and unable to make any real contribution to the task at hand, Joanna finally took Ernie aside. "I think somebody should go to Rattlesnake Crossing and let them know what we've found. I'd hate for either Crow Woman or Danny Berridge to hear the news on the radio or from some enterprising reporter before we deliver the notification in person."
"We've got three detectives working here now," Ernie said. "So if you'd like me to go along with you…"
Next-of-kin notifications always left Joanna with a hole in the pit of her stomach. Telling someone of the death of a loved one, regardless of whether that news was expected or not, often took as much of a toll on the messenger as it did on the recipient. Whoever brought the word was automatically lowed into the role of front-row spectator as someone else's entire existence imploded around him. Still, it had to be done, and this one would be worse than most.
"I'd appreciate that, Ernie," she told him gratefully. "I'd appreciate it more than you know."
Leaving the on-going crime-scene investigations under the overall direction of Dick Voland, Joanna took Ernie Carpenter along with her in the Blazer for the drive to Rattle-snake Crossing. Bumping up the rough, dusty road toward the main ranch buildings, Joanna had the sense that she was traveling through some kind of deserted movie set. No people were visible, anywhere, but she did notice for the first time that all the ersatz tepees and hogans had air-conditioning units attached to discreetly camouflaged platforms placed at the rear of each pseudo-Indian dwelling.
"If these guys want to pay good money to turn themselves into real Indians for two weeks at a time, you'd think they'd be tough enough to put up with real Arizona weather."
Ernie ignored the wry humor in her comment. "The scalping's real enough," he said grimly. "Whoever's doing this made damned sure he got that part right."
Joanna glanced in Ernie's direction. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" she asked.
"No," he admitted. "I never have."
"Since it's likely the killer's using a sniper rifle, is it possible all of this is connected to what happened to Clyde Philips?"
Ernie thought about that for a moment. "It could be, I suppose," he said finally. "The fact that a fifty-caliber may have been used in this latest case does point in that direct ion. We know from what Frank told us that Clyde was trying to demo a fifty caliber, so he must have had one or more in stock.”
"Frank told me this morning that Clyde claimed to have three different models available for immediate delivery."
"So he did have some, then," Ernie mused. "But which ones? And how do we know the killer's rifle is one of them? Without any serial numbers…"
"Wait a minute." Joanna reached for the radio clip. "Frank," she said once she had been put through to Chief Deputy Montoya, "how many companies manufacture fifty-calibers?"
"Not that many," he replied. "More than five but probably less than twenty nationwide."
"As soon as you get back to the department, and when you're not busy dodging reporters, I want you to call all those companies. ATF should be able to help out in locating manufacturers. Once you have them on the phone, find out if any of them were doing business with Clyde Philips in Pomerene. They should be able to come up with lists of serial numbers."
"Will do," Frank returned. "I'll get to it as soon as possible, although it may be a while. The first wad of reporters just drove up and they're clamoring for information. I told them to go to the Quarter Horse in Benson and wait for me there. How are you doing on the next-of-kin notification?"
"We're about to pull into the yard at Rattlesnake Crossing. We'll check in with you as soon as it's done."
Joanna stopped the Blazer in front of a sprawling ranch house built of bulging gray river rock and gnarled, rough-hewn eight-inch timbers. She and Ernie stepped onto a spacious covered porch with flagstone flooring and a scattering of cushion-covered wooden rocking chairs. At the door, Joanna turned and took in the view. The house was built on a low rise. Anyone who had been seated on one of the porch chairs would have looked off across the San Pedro to the ridge of cliffs behind it.
"If a person had a strong enough scope," she observed, "he could have sat right here and seen the whole thing."
"That's a pretty big if," Detective Carpenter replied.
Nailed to the doorjamb was a wooden notice that said, PLEASE ENTER. Since there was no sign of either a bell or a knocker, Joanna and Ernie did as they were told. Driving from the crime scene to Rattlesnake Crossing, Joanna had used the Blazer's air-conditioning, but the two officers had been out in the unrelenting heat for so long that they were still overheated when they entered the ranch house and found it to be surprisingly cool. The room was spacious and decorated with the kind of over-stuffed furniture most often seen in old-time hotel lobbies. Directly across from the officers was what looked like an unmanned hotel check-in counter, complete with a silver bell and directions to PLEASE RING FOR ASSISTANCE.
Ernie picked up the small silver bell and gave it a shake. For a long time after that, nothing happened. While they waited, Joanna plucked an expensive-looking, all-color brochure off the counter. It was filled with tourist-grabbing photos of the ranch house, some of the tepees, and what looked like an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The pictures included one of a beautiful, raven-haired young woman wearing a squaw dress and weaving a green and white bear grass/yucca basket. Another shot showed a war-painted young man wearing little more than a loincloth and sitting bareback astride a pinto pony. Behind rider and pony was a vivid, saguaro-punctuated sunset.