Ashes to Dust (Las Vegas Mystery)

Road, it was already over ninety degrees.
    Alice and Snow climbed out of the Sonata and stood next to it scanning the barren landscape. Instead of a business suit, Alice wore a pair of brown cotton slacks with a white blouse. She slung her purse over her shoulder, clamping a file folder full of crime scene photos under her arm, and walked around the front of the car to the edge of the pavement.
    “There’s a lot of nothing out here,” Snow said, squinting against the sunlight. “I can see why the perp picked this area. This road serves no purpose. Other than a place for young Johnny to run the family car through the quarter on Sunday afternoons.”
    “It looks like they planned for a subdivision to be built here during the housing boom,” Alice said. “All they built were the roads.”
    They turned and looked at the blackened section of flat ground, sixty feet from the road, where the body had burned. It was all that remained. The crime scene had been abandoned, the yellow tape removed and discarded.
    Alice and Snow split up, fanning out on both sides of the burned area. They walked along the perimeter checking the ground for anything that might have been overlooked, working their way inward. There was nothing to see, only portions of footprints assumed to be left by investigators and crime scene analysts. The ground was hard, with little dust covering it. Nearing the slight trail left by the dragged corpse, Snow came upon a small patch of dirt a couple of feet in diameter.
    He squatted down and examined it. It appeared to be the same color and texture as the ground around it, but it looked as though it had been shaken out of a container and smoothed over.
    Snow stood up and looked at Alice. Twenty feet closer to the burned spot on the other side of the trail, she stood bent over at the waist, staring down at the ground.
    “Alice,” Snow said, “I think I found something here. It looks like some dirt was dumped here and spread out to make it look like it’s part of the landscape. I think one of the footprints might have been left here. It looks as though someone came along and evened it out with a stick or something.”
    Alice straightened up. “I’ve got the same thing here.” She opened the file folder, slipped the three footprint photos out, and looked through them. She put one on top of the stack and examined it, comparing it to the patch of dirt in front of her.
    “This is it,” she said. “It’s obvious from the arrangement of the rocks and the shape of the sagebrush next to it. The footprint was right in the middle of the dirt. You can’t see it from the photos, but you’re right. Somebody shook some dirt out here and stuck their foot into it. It was obviously staged. It’s three feet from the trail. Why would they even step over here? If you’re dragging a body out here, you’re going to be in front of it, and the body will cover your tracks. Except when you’re walking back to the car. Or more likely, running back.”
    “Not only that,” Snow said, “but this ground is too hard. It’s not conducive to yielding clear footprints. You can’t see much of anything here.”
    They continued walking together on either side of the trail toward the burn area. Fifteen feet from it, Alice stopped, looking down.
    “Here’s the third one,” she said. “Same thing. A patch of dirt sprinkled out in a circular area. This is definitely where it was, and now it’s been graded flat. The footprint is gone.”
    Snow put his hands on his hips and shifted his gaze to Alice. “Why would somebody do that? Go to the trouble of putting dirt down to stage some footprints, and then come along later and remove them?”
    “I don’t know,” Alice said. “Maybe the perp changed her mind and got nervous about the prints being traced to the shoes.”
    “I think you’re right,” Snow said. “This was clearly a woman who did this. She put on a pair of men’s shoes and left distinct prints of the soles in dirt that she brought here with her. She planned this out pretty good.”
    “Where’d she get the men’s shoes?” Alice said.
    Snow considered this for a moment. “She bought them. If this was a crime of passion, which it probably was, after the murder she drove to a department store and bought a pair of men’s work boots. That’s why she went to the trouble of bringing the body out here instead of just burning the house down. She could make it look like a man killed her.”
    “Plus, she