"Ex-wives do kill ex-husbands on occasion," Joanna conceded, "but I'm not at all sure that's what happened here."
Spaulding shrugged once more. "I read a lot of true crime-just for entertainment. And I watch those forensics shows on The Learning Channel. It's kind of a hobby of mine. That's how I know about some of this stuff. I hope we didn't do too much damage to your crime scene, Sheriff Brady. We had a hell of a time lifting her up and out of there."
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Joanna assured him.
"I guess we'll be on our way, then," he said. "It looks to me as though the boys have pretty much gathered up all the equipment. I have to keep on their cases to pick up all their stuff-the bandage wrappers, plastic bags, and packaging. Otherwise they just rip 'em and leave 'em.”
Once the firemen had taken their trucks and left, Joanna made her way back inside the house. She moved gingerly now, careful not to touch anything, even though she knew it was far too late for that. Despite her reassuring comment to Spaulding, she saw at once that damage to the crime scene was considerable.
For one thing, the entire floor, from the bedroom out through the front door, was covered with literally dozens of grimy footprints-hers included-left behind by dirt that had come up from the crawl space on the soles of shoes and on the firemen's heavy-duty boots. If Clyde Philips had been murdered, and if the murderer had left behind some trace evidence of a footprint, it would be gone now, obliterated by everyone else's tracks.
Standing in the doorway to the bedroom, fighting off the all-pervasive odor, Joanna was shocked to see that the hole in the floor was much larger than it had been when she left. At first she thought that maybe the firemen had used saws to enlarge the hole in order to facilitate maneuvering the stretcher through it. On closer examination of the jagged-edged break, she realized that more of the floor had given way under the combined weight of several firemen and the two EMTs. What was even more disturbing was the fact that the new breakage in the termite-infested wood had occurred at almost the same spot where Joanna herself had climbed in and out of the crawl space.
Seeing it now, Joanna realized how very near she had come to falling. Wanting to get to the injured woman, she had crawled down after her without taking the time to call for backup or even to notify 9-1-1. Had the floor collapsed under her then, both she and Belle might have been trapped in the crawl space for hours before anyone noticed or came to help. Joanna had a cell phone, but she had left it plugged in in the Blazer when she and Belle had gone into the house.
She was still berating herself for her stupidity when Detective Carbajal showed up behind her. "Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed, peering over her shoulder. "It looks like a war zone in here. What happened? Did somebody blow the place apart with a stick or two of dynamite?"
"Termites, not dynamite," Joanna answered. "What you see is the case of the collapsing bed. Once it broke, it went right through the floor, taking two people along with it."
Jaime grinned. "How old were these people?" he asked. "If the bed broke, they must have been getting it on."
Gradually Joanna had become accustomed to crime-scene black humor. That was one of the tools homicide cops used to maintain their sanity. In spite of herself, she smiled.
"It wasn't like that," she explained. "Clyde Philips was already dead when Belle Philips, his ex-wife, tried to get on the bed with him. She's not exactly a lightweight. Having both of them on the bed was more than the frame or the floor could handle. She went right through the floor with him and got hurt pretty bad in the process. The firemen just finished lifting her out a few minutes ago."
"That's where all the footprints came from?" Jaime asked. "From the firemen?"
Joanna nodded. "Mine are in there, too," she said.
Jaime busied himself taking notes. "Where is she now?"
"On her way to Tucson – University Medical Center."
"And the body?"
"As far as I know, nobody's touched it. Clyde is still down in the crawl space," Joanna said.
"From what Dispatch said, you and the ex-wife were the ones who found him?"
Joanna nodded again.
"What exactly were you doing here, Sheriff Brady?" Detective Carbajal asked. "Somebody call you, or did you just happen to be in the neighborhood?"
"No," Joanna said. "I came here on purpose to talk to Clyde Philips. There's a shop out back where he ran a gun dealership. I was hoping to find out whether he could put me in touch with some of his sniper-rifle customers."
"Because of the Triple C case?"
"That's right. I stopped by earlier, between two and three. His truck was here, just like it is now. When he didn't answer the door, I checked with his former wife to see if she could help me locate him. Belle and I came here together. She was sure he was sound asleep and just didn't hear my knock. Instead, it turned out he was already dead."
"And the bed?"
Joanna shrugged. "When she realized he was dead, she went haywire-hysterical. She piled onto the bed with him, and it broke."
"You said Philips was a gun dealer?"
"That's right. Registered and everything."
"Any chance of a robbery motive?"
"I already thought of that," she said. "Dick Voland's picking up a search warrant before he comes."
"Good." Jaime stuffed his notebook back in his pocket and prepared to enter the bedroom. First he donned both face mask and gloves. Then he removed a camera from his pocket, taking the first crime-scene shot from the doorway of the bedroom. Knowing how vital those photographs would be, Joanna stepped aside.
"I'll wait outside," she told him. "But remember, termites have turned most this floor into so much sawdust, so be careful."
With apparent unconcern, the young detective lined up his camera and took another shot. "Any idea when the victim was last seen alive?"
"None," Joanna replied. "His next-door neighbor-I don't know her name-is the one who told me he might be al his ex-wife's-at her cafe. That's why I went there looking for him. But once we found the body, I never had a chance to ask her when the last time was that she saw him."
"And the ex-wife didn't give you any kind of alibi?"
"No," Joanna said.
Making a deliberate circle around the perimeter of the room, Jaime clicked the camera again. "Don't worry," he said. "Either Ernie'll check her out or I will."
"Sheriff Brady?"
She turned to find. Deputy Eduardo Sandoval standing behind her. Of all Joanna's deputies, Eddy Sandoval-a beefy man in his mid-to-late forties-was the one with whom she had the least personal contact. Because he both lived and worked in the far northwestern sector of the county, he was the most physically removed from her office. And when he came to Bisbee to drop off a prisoner or make a court appearance, Sandoval wasn't one to hang around the Cochise County Justice Complex shooting the breeze.
"Hi, there, Eddy," Joanna said. "How long ago did you get here?"
"Just now," he said. "Sorry it took me so long. I was up at Cascabel taking a missing-person report when this call came in. I got here as fast as I could."
"Missing person?" Joanna asked. "What missing person?"
"About this time yesterday afternoon, a lady wandered off from that oddball dude ranch just up the road from the Triple C," Eddy answered. "You know the place I mean-the ranch they've started calling Rattlesnake Crossing."
Joanna frowned. "Isn't that the dude ranch where all the guests dress up like Indians and camp outside?"
Sandoval nodded. "Right," he said. "That's the one."
"So who's missing?" Joanna asked. ''One of the campers? The List thing we need about now is to have some tenderfoot who Thinks she's a born-again Apache go wandering off in the desert. It's the middle of August, for God's sake. Depending on where she's from, she'll die of heatstroke before we can call in Search and Rescue."