Rattlesnake Crossing (24 page)

"No," Joanna said quickly. "Not there."

"I'll figure it out, then." Butch stood up and headed for the door. "See you here at eight. No excuses."

Joanna nodded. "But where are Jeff and Marianne?"

"Jeff's in Esther's room for this hour's ten minutes' worth of visiting. He should be out any time. Marianne's at their hotel taking a nap. See you."

Butch turned and walked out, leaving Joanna still standing and holding the flowers. She wasn't exactly alone. There were at least two other clumps of people, family members commiserating in low, solemn voices. A chill ran down Joanna's spine; she knew the kinds of crises they must be enduring where the only thing they could do was to keep their long, helpless vigils—waiting, hoping, and worrying.

Jeff Daniels burst into the waiting room. "Joanna," he said. "You're here."

"How's Esther?"

"All right so far," he replied. "They're keeping her pretty well sedated."

"And Marianne? How's she?"

"She's hardly slept for days," Jeff said. "I finally convinced her to go back to the room to nap. I called and found out she'd left a wake-up call for five. I canceled it. I want her to sleep until she actually wakes up. She's been running on adrenaline for months now, ever since the girls got here. She's tough, but the strain is starting to show."

"In other words, she's a wreck," Joanna concluded.

Jeff managed a rueful grin. "We both are," he agreed.

Looking down, Joanna remembered the flowers. "These are for you," she said, handing them over. "They're for all of you. I brought them, but they were Jenny's idea."

"Thanks." Jeff put the vase down in the middle of a small conference table that sat next to the vending machines. "We're not allowed to take flowers into the ICU itself," he explained. "But if we leave them here, everyone can enjoy them. Besides, for the next day or two, we'll probably be spending more time here than anywhere else."

Stuffing his hands in his pocket, Jeff sighed. "It was nice of Butch to stop by. He and I had a good visit. Just guy stuff—cars and baseball, mostly. But I was glad to have a chance to think and talk about something else. I can only deal with this for so long before I start to lose it." He broke off and shrugged. His eyes welled with tears. "Butch is a nice guy, Joanna. A real nice guy. You're lucky he's around."

"I know," she said. That was part of the problem. Butch Dixon was a very nice guy.

The door to the ICU waiting room swung open and several people came in at once. Joanna recognized them all—people from Bisbee's Canyon United Methodist Church come to offer prayers and moral support.

"It looks like you have another whole batch of company," she told Jeff. "I'll leave you to visit with them."

"You don't have to go."

"No," she said. "There's someone else in the hospital I'm supposed to see. I'll come back a little later when I finish up with her."

After pausing long enough to say hello to the newcomers, Joanna hurried back down to the lobby and was given directions to Belle Philips' room. Since Belle was a possible homicide suspect, Joanna had briefly considered posting a guard outside her hospital room, but then, with all the confusion of dealing with multiple cases, she had forgotten about it. Seeing Belle swathed in bandages and with casts on both an arm and a leg, Joanna realized that a guard wouldn't be necessary. Belle lay like an immense beached whale on her hospital bed, gazing up at a wall-mounted television set.

She flicked her eyes away from the set as Joanna entered the room. "I can't never answer any of these questions, can you?" she asked.

Jeopardy!
was playing on the screen. "I can some of the time," Joanna replied, "but I don't watch it very often."

"I suppose not," Belle said. "You're a busy lady."

They were quiet, letting the television fill the room with low-level noise while Joanna searched for some way to start. "I'm sure this will be painful for you, Ms. Philips, but I need to talk to you about Clyde."

Belle bit her lip and nodded. "It's all right," she said. "I don't mind. What do you want to know?"

"When's the last time you saw him?"

"Saturday," she said. "He came by the restaurant and I cooked him breakfast."

"What about Sunday?" Joanna asked.

"I never saw him on Sunday," Belle said.

"But you did go by the house," Joanna pressed.

For a long time Belle Philips didn't answer. "Yes," she said finally. "I did go by, but I didn't see him."

"Did you go into the house?"

"Yes, but he must have been asleep," Belle said. "I didn't wake him up and I didn't see him, neither. I went in and came straight back out."

"If you didn't go to see him, why were you there?" Joanna asked.

Belle sighed. "I needed money," she said. "To pay my utilities. So I did that sometimes, when I was short. Went by aid helped myself to a dollar or two. He always had money in his wallet. And he never seemed to miss it. Least-wise, he never complained about it. But I never killed him, Sheriff Brady. I never did nothin' to hurt the man. You're not sayin' I did, are you?"

"No," Joanna responded, "I didn't say you did. I'm just trying to understand what all was going on in Clyde's life the last few days before he died. We don't have autopsy results yet, but Dr. Daly—the investigator for the medical examiner's office—thinks Clyde may have committed suicide. What do you think?"

"He never," Belle said flatly. "Clyde never would of done that, not less'n he got a whole lot sicker than he was already."

"You knew he was sick, then?" Joanna asked.

Belle shrugged. "I guess."

"With what?"

"Who knows? All I know is, the last few months he was always tired. Just dragging. Like he could barely stand to put one foot in front of another. Losing weight no matter how much food I stuffed into him. But Clyde wasn't one to go to doctors much. Didn't believe in 'em."

Joanna stared. Dr. Daly had taken one look at Clyde Philips' body and suspected that the man was suffering from AIDS. If Clyde didn't go to doctors, was it possible that he himself hadn't known what was wrong with him? Or was his former wife the one who didn't know?

"So as far as you know, Clyde didn't have a personal physician?"

"If he did, he never told me. And what's the point? Even if he was sick when he died, once he's dead, can't see how it matters."

It matters, all right,
Joanna thought,
to anyone else who's ever been with the man. It matters to you.
She said, "So after you moved out, Ms. Philips, did you maintain any kind of relationship with your former husband?"

"I cooked for him," Belle admitted. "Did his wash. Cleaned for him when the house got so filthy that I couldn't stand to see it. He paid me for it, too, for doing all those things, but I probably would of kept right on doin' even if he hadn't had no money to pay me."

"But you and he weren't . . . well . . . intimate."

Belle's laugh was hollow. "We weren't hardly ever what you call intimate when we was married, so why would we be after we was divorced? He told me real early on that I wasn't his type. That I wasn't no good in the bedroom department. So I put as good a face on things as I could and acted like we was just like any other normal married couple. You know, complainin' about it sometimes the way women do, about their husband all the time wantin' 'em to come across. That kind of thing. 'Cept in our family, it was me all the time doin' the wantin' and him sayin' he had a headache."

And that's probably a good thing for you, Joanna thought.

For a few minutes the television set droned on overhead while Joanna considered her next question. "Pomerene's a small town," she said finally. "It's the kind of place where people know things even though they may not necessarily want to. So do you have any idea who any of Clyde's partners were after you left?"

For the first time, Belle Philips' eyes strayed from the flickering television screen. "Sex partners you mean? I can't rightly say I do. And even if I did, I don't know that 1'd say. Since Clyde's dead, what people say about him now really don't matter. But I draw the line at spreadin' gossip about the livin'. Gossipin' ain't my style."

"What made you divorce him, then? Did you leave be-cause he was getting sick?"

Belle sighed. "Clyde was sick a long time before I divorced him, and not with nothin' catchin', neither. I just always kept thinkin' I could make him better. 'Fix him, like. They're all the unit tellin' folks that at church, sayin' that the unbelievin' spouse can be saved by the believin' one if'n they just pray hard enough. 1 prayed. Lord knows, 1 prayed for years, but it wasn't never enough."

"What do you mean he was sick then?"

"Sheriff Brady, the man is dead. Can't we just let sleepin' dogs lie?"

"No, we can't, Belle," Joanna returned. "You just told me yourself that you don't believe Clyde committed suicide. If that's the case, then he was murdered. Somebody else did it—some unidentified person put that bag over his head and closed it up tight. In order to find out who that person is, we need to know everything we can about Clyde himself. Everything. Good and bad."

"But he's already dead," Belle objected stubbornly. "What does it matter?"

Joanna took a deep breath. Maybe Dr. Daly was right and Clyde Philips had committed suicide. Even so, someone who knew him—someone who might have discovered the body before Belle had—could have stolen the guns. And Joanna was convinced that person with the guns was responsible for what had happened at the Triple C. One way or the other, Sheriff Brady needed Belle Philips' cooperation.

"It's not just Clyde," Joanna said. "It could be that other people are in danger as well. Someone wiped out Clyde's gun shop."

"Wiped it out? What does that mean?"

"I mean all of Clyde's guns are gone, Belle. A whole shop full of guns is empty. And all the paperwork that went along with them is missing. If Clyde didn't sell those guns, then someone stole them—probably the same person who killed him. Not only that, there's a very good chance that one of those weapons was used to murder someone up on the Triple C night before last."

220

RATTLESNAKE CROSSING

"Someone else? Who?"

"A lady from Rattlesnake Crossing. Her name's Katrina Berridge. So far, we have possible links from that case to two others, not even counting what happened to Clyde. His death would make it four. We have to find out who's doing this, Belle. Find him and stop him. Whatever you can tell us about Clyde may help lead us to the person or persons responsible."

Again there was a long silence. "Boys," Belle said at last.

"Boys?" Joanna echoed.

Belle nodded sadly. "Clyde liked boys. If he had been messing around with other women, maybe I could of handled it. But boys was somethin' else. It just beat all."

"You're saying Clyde Philips was a pedophile?"

"That's a pretty highfalutin-soundin' word, Sheriff Brady. I don't know exactly what it means, but if it means someone who likes to screw boys instead of women, then that's right. Clyde was one of them. I didn't catch on to it for a long time. I s'pose you think I'm just stupid or some-thin'. And maybe I am. I thought he just liked havin' all those young folks around on account of us not havin' any kids of our own. And then when I finally did figure it out, my pastor kept telling me to love the sinner and hate the sin. So that's what I did. For as long as I could stand it. But he kept goin' up to Phoenix and hangin' out with them boy prostitutes. Finally I just gave up. Gave up and got out, especially seein’ as how I'd come into a little bit of money to help me get set up on my own."

Belle lapsed into silence once more, and Joanna had the good sense to realize that her questions were plumbing the depths of an open wound. "Do you know any of their names?" she asked.

Belle blinked. "Only one," she said.

"Who's that?"

"Talk to Ruben Ramos," Belle replied.

"Ruben Ramos? You mean Chief Ramos over in Benson? You're saying the Benson police chief is one of Clyde's friends?"

Belle shot her head slightly. "The chief's son. Ask him about his son. Ask him about Frankie."

That was what Joanna had come to Belle's room looking for—a single name that would put her inside Clyde Philips' circle of intimates. Now that Joanna had one, she rose to go.

"Before you take off, Sheriff Brady, tell me what I'm s'posed to do."

"About what?"

"About a funeral. I ain't Clyde's wife no more, but there ain't nobody left but me to plan a service. That's pretty hard to do with me lyin' here flat on my back."

"The body's been transported to the morgue here in Tucson," Joanna told her. "It's over at the Pima County Medical Examiner's office. Dr. Fran Daly is the investigator who'll be doing the autopsy. When that's done, she can release the remains to whatever funeral home you choose. You'll have to let her know which one."

"I ain't worried about no funeral home," Belle said. "It's what comes later's got me spooked."

"Later? What do you mean?" Joanna asked.

"The funeral part is what bothers me. What do I do? Go ahead and have a regular one in church with a casket and all that? Or what?"

"That's up to you, of course. You said something earlier about your pastor. Ask him. I'm sure he'll be happy to ad-vise you, and he could probably conduct an appropriate service for you as well."

"You mean in the church?"

"Why not?"

"Clyde never went to church. Never so much as set foot inside one, not even when we got married. A justice of the peace did that."

"Check with your pastor," Joanna urged. "I don't think Clyde's attendance will matter. Besides, funerals are for the living. Have the kind of service that will give you the most comfort. And remember, the last I heard, churches were supposed to welcome sinners."

"That's true," Belle Philips said. "But only up to a point. My pastor talks a good game," she added. "But when it comes to livin' it, he sometimes falls a little short."

Don't we all, Joanna thought. Just ask Marianne Maculyea.

After leaving Belle's room, Joanna walked as far as the elevator before turning around and walking back to the nurses' station, where a young man stood perusing a chart. His name badge read "Tony Morris, R.N." Finally seeming to sense Joanna's presence, he looked up. "May I help you?"