Midnight Crossing (13 page)

Otto nodded.

Dan frowned. “From Guatemala to West Texas?”

“The surviving woman told someone who was providing her help, as well as one of our officers, that they were from Guatemala. I can’t imagine why she would lie about that,” Otto said.

“Here’s my issue. We have known groups coming up out of that country. No doubt. But it doesn’t make sense that they’d come to this part of West Texas first.”

Otto shrugged, not sure what he was getting at.

Dan took out his cell phone. “Let me pull up a map and you’ll see.”

A moment later Dan handed his phone to Otto with a route map drawn from Guatemala in Central America, up the eastern coast of Mexico, to Houston and San Antonio. Artemis, in West Texas, was hundreds of miles to the west. He nodded, instantly understanding.

“It’s a sixteen-hundred-mile trip from Guatemala to San Antonio. Even farther to Houston,” Dan said. “I can’t see them driving another six hours to West Texas, only to turn around and head back toward San Antonio.”

Otto was taken aback. “Why would you automatically assume traffickers would head to San Antonio?”

“I just don’t have much intel about this area. Houston, San Antonio, and occasionally El Paso, sure. But not Artemis, out in the middle of nowhere.”

Otto passed a card across the table. “Make sure you give me a call if you hear anything that might help us out.”

Dan nodded and stuffed the card in a wallet packed full of business cards. He was a typical cop, Otto thought—his wallet packed with more work-related notes than payment options.

*   *   *

Josie found Lou at her computer, her arms crossed at her chest. “You will not believe this.” It was two o’clock and Lou had just buzzed her desk and said to come down.

“Did you track down the caller?”

“I did.”

Josie waved her hand for Lou to get on with it.

“Josh Mooney.”

Josie pulled back at the name, smiling like she’d heard wrong. “Seriously?”

“Josh Mooney wanted to know your schedule for the week. Told me he was a law officer. And we have it on tape.”

“You are a saint.”

*   *   *

Back in the office, she called Otto and explained Lou’s findings.

“That’s the creep that hangs out with his sister all the time?” he asked.

“That’s him. Macey is his sister’s name. We busted them for meth about three years ago.”

Otto laughed. “Oh, hell. I remember that bust. We found both of them in a house trailer. With an afternoon soap opera blaring on the TV.”

“While they were cooking up a batch of meth in the kitchen,” she said.

“Matching Mickey Mouse pajamas.”

“I was afraid to touch anything, even with gloves on. A hazmat suit was in order.”

“How much time they serve?” Otto asked. “Two years?”

“Probably half that.”

He shook his head, obviously disgusted. “You headed to Mooney’s house now?”

“Can you meet me?”

“Yep.”

“I checked the address. They’re renting from Cici Gomez. They’re living above the pawnshop.”

“Well, there’s a shocker. See you there in ten minutes.”

*   *   *

Josie drove two blocks to the San Salbo Pawn Shop, located next to the Family Value Store. The pawnshop was owned by Cici Gomez, a longtime drug dealer with multiple arrests on his record for a variety of offenses. Josie had arrested him several years ago for abusing his elderly grandfather, a sweet old Navajo with a heart too tender for his own good. He had refused to press charges against his grandson because of an intense family loyalty that Josie had found maddening. Regardless, she thought Cici was a piece of crap; he’d been out of jail for less than six months and was most likely already up to no good. She wasn’t surprised to hear he had a brother/sister meth duo living above his shop. There were people who were literally too stupid to deserve a place on the planet. She’d probably fry in hell for thinking that way, but it’s how she felt when she had to deal with people like the Mooneys.

The San Salbo Pawn Shop looked like a cheap version of an old western movie set from the fifties, including a fence out front to tie the horses to and a wooden porch with rocking chairs.

But Cici’s good-ole-boy image was nothing more than that. Cici knew the game; he knew how to move in and out of places without being seen. When she thought about Cici, the line in the old
Scarface
movie with Al Pacino came to mind, the scene when he calls someone a cock-a-roach. That’s how she imagined Cici, crawling along the floorboards in the dirt.

And now Josh and Macey Mooney were running game above Cici’s shop. Parked in front of the store was a banged-up eighties-era orange Chevy Camaro that she recognized as Josh’s drugmobile.

Otto pulled up beside Josie and she got out of her jeep. She felt for the latex gloves in her back pocket, a precaution against whatever nastiness the Mooneys might have inside their apartment.

“Any good news from Dan?” she asked.

“News, yes. Not sure if it’s good yet.” He explained the geography of the transport from Guatemala to West Texas.

“Remember, that’s what Selena said too. She said there wouldn’t be any reason to bring trafficked victims here. And the BP says there’s no reason to even drive through here.”

“So why would the transporters bring the two women on a five-hundred-mile detour from the major cities in Texas to travel through this part of Texas? This doesn’t work as an efficient route,” he said.

“I don’t know. Let’s go jack up Josh and Macey. See why Josh wanted my work schedule.”

“You don’t think they’re out working? At two-thirty on a bright sunny afternoon in the middle of the week?”

“Your sarcasm is getting worse, Otto.”

“Hazard of the job. It’s sarcasm or wild women. I have to get rid of the stress somehow, and you know Delores wouldn’t put up with wild women.”

*   *   *

The narrow wooden door facing the street was located between the Family Value and the San Salbo. Josie entered first, then Otto, and they walked up a dimly lit stairwell that led to two apartments at the top of the landing. Josie knocked on the door with the number two painted in black on it. There was no peephole. The trick was getting them to open the door and allow entrance.

Josie knocked a second time, louder and faster, and a few moments later she saw a thin strip of Josh Mooney’s face appear in the crack of the door.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Josh, this is Chief of Police Josie Gray. I’m here with Officer Otto Podowski. We’d like a minute of your time.”

The door remained cracked and the eyeball unblinking.

“No trouble for you. Just a couple questions and we’ll be on our way,” she said.

“About what?”

“It would be a lot easier to talk about this if we weren’t out here where your neighbors can hear everything that’s said.”

The eyeball flitted away for a moment, probably glancing around the room for paraphernalia, and then focused on her for another few seconds.

“Hang on. I have to get dressed.”

Otto shuddered.

Several minutes later a wide-eyed and panting Josh Mooney again opened the door a crack to look at them and then shut it. Josie and Otto looked at each other as they listened to voices from inside the apartment growing louder. They finally heard the fortunate sound of a chain being pulled against the latch, and the door swung open. Josh stepped back and Josie and Otto entered to find Macey standing closely beside Josh, their arms touching. Macey was clearly out of breath as well, probably from hiding their stash. She clutched her hands in front of her and pressed her lips together in a thin line.

Josh and Macey reminded Josie of the Who characters in the Grinch movie. They both stood about five feet tall, with big blue eyes and yellow hair and a perpetually shocked look in their eyes. Although they all clearly knew each other, Otto went through the formality of introductions while Josie scanned the apartment.

She’d been here less than two years ago when the former tenant had been murdered. The man was Mexican, working in the U.S. to send money back to his family. The apartment had been almost bare. Now every square inch appeared filled: photos, piles of magazines and mail, shoe boxes filled with who knew what stacked ten high in the corners of the room, bookshelves filled with knickknacks against the wall. The bookshelf to her right, just inside the entryway, was filled with snow globes and dozens of ceramic ashtrays. It smelled musty, with the underlying odor of stale pot smoke.

Macey wore a short dress with combat boots, and her hair was in pigtails.

“We’re reorganizing. That’s why it looks so bad,” she said, without any introduction. “We just need another week.”

“We’re not here about your apartment,” Josie said. She glanced at the couch and had no desire to sit on the cushions. She then saw that even though the kitchen table was piled high with papers, its chairs were empty. “Can we sit in your kitchen for a few minutes and talk?”

“Sure. We can do that,” Macey said. “We’re organizing. Gonna have a garage sale. Make some money. Give some to Mom. That kind of thing.” She spoke with a clipped manic rhythm to her words.

The four of them sat around the table, and Josie looked at Josh. “I hear you’ve been asking about me at the police department.”

His unbelievably big eyes opened farther and he peered at Josie over the stacks of junk mail. “What?”

“You called the police department, asking about me. Why’d you do that?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Josie saw Josh glance at Otto, who was shaking his head as if disappointed in his answer.

“Here’s the deal. You just lied to me. Strike one. You tried to impersonate a police officer when you called to ask about my schedule. Strike two. You know what strike three is?”

He shook his head.

“We have your impersonation of a police officer all on tape. Strike three.”

He leaned back against his chair and looked to his sister as if she might know what to say.

“Why did you want to know my schedule?” Josie asked again.

“I was going to come talk to you.”

“About what?”

He shrugged. “I forget now.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do!”

Josie looked at Otto. “I don’t have patience for this.”

Otto tipped his head toward Josh. “Let’s take him in. Arrest him for impersonating an officer. Give him some jail time so he can remember what he wanted to talk to you about.”

“I am not going back to jail! That place is a hellhole filled with a bunch of gagbags.”

Macey seemed as if she was going to start crying.

“Why did you tell the dispatcher you were a police officer?”

He considered her for a second, like he wasn’t sure if the truth was a good idea or not. “I didn’t think she’d tell me your schedule if I said I was me.”

“You needed to talk to me so bad that you pretended to be a cop, and now you can’t remember why?”

“That was a long time ago.”

Josie started to nod her head slowly and gave him the knowing look of someone who just caught on to the game. “I know what it was. I bet you wanted to talk to me about the two women you transported from Guatemala. Was that it?”

“No! We had nothing to do with that!”

“Macey, help us out here,” Otto said. “We know about the trafficking. We just need some information from you.”

Again, wide-eyed innocence.

“Tell us about those two women. How did they end up here in Artemis?” he said.

“It wasn’t our fault!” she said. Her voice was a high-pitched whine. “You need to go talk to Ryan Needleman. He’s the man you need. Not us.”

“How do you know him?” Otto asked.

“We know him from around town,” Macey said.

“What does he have to do with the women from Guatemala?” he said.

“We just heard he was driving some people up. He asked us to help but we didn’t want to get involved.”

“You mean, you didn’t want to get involved with the woman’s murder?” Otto asked.

“With none of it,” Macey said.

Her facial expression didn’t change at the word
murder
. Josie had no doubt the two were involved.

Otto stood, moved behind his chair, and gripped the back of it. He scowled angrily at both of them. Josie was always surprised when Otto took this role in an interview. He was such a kind, generous man; to see him turn dark and angry was unsettling.

He stared at one, and then the other, finally landing on Josh. “Let me tell you something.” His voice dropped an octave and landed into a quiet threatening zone. “We found a young woman, shot in the back and left to die. Her friend slept in Chief Gray’s shed for days and is terrified now. I will catch who did this. So you can either stay out of a lot of trouble now and come clean with us, or you can wait and pay full price with jail time later.”

Josh cleared his throat and Macey looked at him in a panic.

“We’ll think about—”

Macey cut him off. “We got nothing to say because we did nothing wrong.”

Josie stood and laid her business card on top of a piece of mail. “You think it over. Our deal stands until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. After that? You’re on your own.”

*   *   *

Back outside, Josie motioned for Otto to climb into her jeep instead of taking his own vehicle.

Otto slammed the door and said, “I wish we had something more recent on him. I’d love to take that kid to jail.”

“You know Ryan Needleman?”

“The name’s familiar,” he said.

“He just graduated high school last year. Played sports. He was a hothead, got into trouble for fighting. His dad told me he got thrown out of college the first week of school for beating up some kid in the dorm. Still hard to figure how he’d go from college in August to transporting women from Guatemala to Artemis two months later.”

“How would the Mooneys connect with him?” he asked.

“He probably bought dope off them. Now he’s their scapegoat.”

“You got something in mind?”

“Let’s get to him before somebody tips him off. His dad told me he’s working over at the landscape place,” she said. “Maybe he can give us something on the Mooneys.”