9 Albert Anderson wasted no time instructing the Van Horn switchboard operator to connect him with his fellow sheriffs in the adjoining counties. TheoperatorfirstputhimthroughtoReevesCountysheriff LouisRobertson at Pecos, whose office was investigating the abandoned car. Robertson also had the grim responsibility of notifying the Atlas Powder entourage at a local motel, to give Pop Frome the worst possible news about his wife and daughter. Sheriff Chris P. Fox of El Paso County was next on the list, since the women had been stranded in El Paso for several days while their car was being repaired. They had left El Paso the previous Wednesday but had not been missed until Friday, after the abandoned car found in Reeves County was determined to belong to them. After alerting the others, Anderson rousted his small force of three deputies and the reserve, nonpaid deputies—his reliable posse of local businessmen and ranchers who could be counted on in a community crisis . He ordered them out to the crime scene, primarily to assist in crowd control. There would be crowds, too. He was sure that when the telephone operator finished her assigned chores, she would call everyone in town and the surrounding ranches with news of the horrific discovery. The efficiency of the rural grapevine would take care of the rest. To be on the safe side, Anderson placed a call to Austin to inform the night desk at Texas Ranger headquarters that the bodies of two prominent California women had been discovered in his county. This was not just another killing of a migrant worker, or even a local citizen. The status of the victims would likely make this a hotter news event than a local sheriff could handle. With that in mind, Anderson phoned an El Paso reporter who had recently covered his last election and written a couple of favorable pieces about him. Then he called Justice of the Peace L. L. Morrow, who served as the county coroner in murder cases. Morrow, in turn, called a local phy- murder in the desert 47 sician, Dr. John Wright of Van Horn, who worked as a part-time medical examiner for Culberson County.46 Finally, Anderson called the El Paso office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation , since the Justice Department was initially involved in the case as a possible kidnapping. Under provisions of the Lindbergh Act passed less than four years earlier, the feds gained jurisdiction in local cases, under the presumption that missing persons had been kidnapped and possibly carried across state borders. Otherwise, local and state lawmen jealously guarded their turf whenever crimes occurred in their areas. As expected, by the time Sheriff Anderson had finished all the official and expedient notifications and arrived back at the scene less than an hour later, the shoulder of US 80 was lined with cars and pickup trucks. There was even a wagon with its horse team tethered to the bumper of an old Ford. Unfortunately, it was Sunday evening and everybody in town was off work. Such an event would bring out every male in two counties who heard about it. It was almost an unwritten part of the job description for the town switchboard operators to dispense gossip, and no amount of scolding would prevent eavesdropping on private or official conversations. Still, when he observed mayhem at his spoiled crime scene, Anderson wished the bodies had not been discovered until the next morning, when most men would have been at work, and the womenfolk and children left at home, with no access to transportation. Few families in that part of the country could afford a second car. The bright glow of a dozen kerosene lanterns and what looked like a small sea of cowboy hats created bobbing shadows on the hardpan desert floor, a half mile south of the roadway. The sheriff had told Milam and Schneiderjusttowatchthebodies.Hecouldnotexpectuntrainedcivilians to control the curious crowds racing to the grizzly scene. BythetimeAndersonreturned,millinggawkersfromalloverHudspeth and Culberson Counties had trampled the area around the corpses. The denim-clad men and a few teenage boys were already collecting souvenir rocks and whispering that the women were likely raped, because most of their clothing was torn off. Anderson also noticed girls and women in the crowd, some carrying infants. The code of the times in West Texas allowed that a murder scene like this was no fit place for females to visit, but the spectacle was already too great for such niceties to be observed. [3.141.47...