Midnight Crossing (26 page)

“No one will have any idea you’re mic’d. And here’s the other thing. These guys have a successful business set up at this point. They’re no longer looking for cops around every corner. They think they beat the system. When that happens they get lazy. And that’s when we pop in.” Tammy winked and then turned serious. “You okay with this?”

“I’m good. I want to nail these bastards.”

“Excellent. That’s the plan.”

Back in the living room they found Townie on his cell phone, talking animatedly, with his hand gesturing and chopping through the air. Dell stood by the window with his hands shoved in his jeans pockets, looking like he was trying to stay out of the way.

Tammy pointed at Townie. “That’s how he is. All the time. He’s the only man I know who gestures in his sleep.”

Josie laughed at the visual.

“I am not even kidding.”

He finally hung up and slid his phone into his back pocket. “We’re ready. We’ve got four undercover females wired up in the back of a van. The van is sitting outside. A woman named Sheila will get you to the apartment address. She’s undercover narcotics and she’s a pro. Once you sign the ladies over to Big Ben, you come back out, get in the van, and drive off. Take the van directly to the police station, where I’ll be waiting for you. We’ve got another undercover minivan parked in the back of the apartment lot as backup.”

He paused and Josie nodded to indicate she was following along.

“The females get two hours inside, long enough to get the basic logistics for what happens when new females arrive. Then we’ll bust as many people as we can get. We’ll send a message with this one.”

Josie nodded. “They’re all wearing recorders?”

“Three of them are. Sheila’s wearing a ratty shirt with ugly buttons on it. One of the buttons has a tiny camera on it. That’ll give the team a visual of what they’re walking into.”

Townie handed her a manila envelope filled with fake driver’s licenses and passports. “You said the guy you referred to as Big Ben will ask for the girls’ documentation. Here you go. He’ll actually expect fake documents. That’s part of the deal—the girls get delivered with U.S. documents ready to use.”

“You move quick.”

“Like I said, we’ve been working this for a while. Your phone call? It killed me.” There were crinkles around his green eyes when he grinned. “We knew there was a labor trafficking group for some local fleabag hotels. We had the players, but not the logistics.”

“Well, I need the players. I need the name of the female who’s organizing the transportation from Guatemala,” Josie said.

“We’ll work on it for sure. We’ll make the bust this afternoon. Depending on what the undercover officers find, we’ll shut it down today. If things get touchy we’ll go in early. The code word is
stop
. We’ve got a SWAT team on standby. The plan is, exactly two hours from when they enter that building, we go in with the SWAT team and pull them out.” He paused and eyed Josie carefully. “You ready for this?”

“Absolutely. Let’s roll.”

He eyed Dell. “You want to hang out with me in the control van? I’ll just be monitoring radio traffic. I won’t be entering the crime scene. Hell of a lot better than sitting in your truck all day.”

“That’d be great.” Dell grinned like a kid. He was a loner who loved the isolation of the West Texas backcountry, but there was also a part of his character that thrived on adventure.

Townie explained where the undercover van was located in the parking lot of the brownstone and that Sheila had directions to the address Josh had provided Josie. The van was a dark blue beater that could hold twelve passengers. Josie got into the driver’s seat and turned to see the women sitting in the back. They all smiled and waved, calling hello. It was a surreal sight. They were dressed in shabby clothes, with messy hair. Josie guessed most of them hadn’t showered that day, to get ready for the undercover assignment. But their expressions were clear and bright. They all had the confident bearing of cops ready for action.

Josie introduced herself, and the women each did the same. She took the documents out of the package and matched them up with the women to get a sense of who she was working with. She asked each of the women questions about their fictional background, memorizing each woman’s name before proceeding. If Josh’s story was accurate, it would be a simple exchange, but if she was questioned she needed basic information on each of the women who had supposedly been in her care.

Josie finally said, “I think we’re ready.”

She got a thumbs-up from the other women and Sheila said, “Take a right out of the parking lot and turn left at the stoplight.”

Josie followed Sheila’s directions and listened to the cops’ banter in the backseat as they discussed the players they would most likely encounter once they were inside the apartment building. One of the women worked vice, and they were still catching her up to speed on the investigation.

After a ten-minute drive, Sheila directed Josie into the parking lot of a building that looked like public assistance housing gone wrong. Three dumpsters were backed up against the side of the five-story building, each one with trash overflowing onto the ground. Windows were broken and duct-taped together, and a general sense of misery pervaded the block of tenement buildings.

Josie pulled the van into a space and scouted out the parking lot. There were about ten vehicles in various states of disrepair, but all of them appeared empty. She noticed an old minivan parked in the rear of the parking lot and asked if it was the backup undercover vehicle.

Sheila laughed. “That’s our backup. Sad old piece of junk smells like mold and cat pee. The SWAT team is also ready to go on our call. We need to communicate space and size and the number of people for them to expect when they get inside.”

Josie called Townie, the project lead, who was communicating with the backup van, and asked, “Is the backup picking up my mic?”

“You’re good to go.”

“Okay.” Josie turned and faced the women in the back of the van. “Good luck.”

She received a similar chorus of voices telling her to be careful, and she left the van.

SEVENTEEN

Vie Blessings called Otto at noon. “We’re ready to release the women, but I’m not sure what to do with them. Have you heard from victims’ assistance? I’ve called and left two messages but can’t get anyone to respond. We’ve got two rooms tied up, Otto. As much as I want to help, we can’t use the trauma center for long-term care when there’s no medical issue. And, sorry to say it, no money to pay for it.”

The frustration in Vie’s voice was obvious. Aside from Isabella, the other three women weren’t suspects. They were victims. With no money. And no identification. When the van that Josh Mooney was driving was confiscated for evidence, the police found useless fake IDs and passports. Meanwhile, Otto had no idea what to do with the women, and now one of them was a prime murder suspect with no known motivation.

Josie had wanted to wait to interview Isabella Dagati, but Otto was the lead on the case, and he couldn’t afford to sit on his haunches and wait. He drove to the trauma center and convinced Vie Blessings to give up the staff lounge again so that he could speak with Isabella. Next, he called Selena Rocha and asked if she would come to the hospital for an hour to translate if language became a barrier. She had agreed to meet him there in thirty minutes. Police work was about problem-solving and often making split-second decisions that could make or break a case. But when immigration issues and cross-border crimes were at play, it complicated things immensely. There were no rule books, only best guesses.

Otto and Selena sat at the staff lunch table and waited for the nurse to escort Isabella into the lounge. She entered wearing black pants and a woman’s button-down shirt. Obviously someone in the community had provided clothing for the women. He wondered if Caroline Moss’s group was trying to find the women transportation home to Guatemala. He thought how bizarre the entire situation had become.

“How are you feeling today?” he asked.

She nodded and smiled shyly. Her hair was pulled back in a long braid behind her head and she looked rested but nervous, frequently glancing away from Otto as if not wanting to make eye contact.

“It’s time to talk about what happened the night that Renata was shot,” Otto said.

Her face clouded over and she shook her head.

“Not talking about it is no longer an option.” He paused to let his words sink in. “We found a gun in the pasture where Renata’s body was found. Your fingerprints are on that gun.”

She closed her eyes and her body slumped into the chair.

“I need the truth, Isabella.”

Otto’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he saw that it was Ernie Mays. He stood and excused himself into the hallway. What timing, he thought.

Ernie apologized for not getting to him sooner and began explaining another case he’d been working on that took precedence. Otto listened patiently, wanting to hurry him along. Ernie finally said, “I’ve got your information.”

“That’s great news. What did you find?”

“I test-fired the gun and fed it into the ATF’s database. The gun didn’t match with any other crimes. But when I checked the bullet casing against the gun, there was no match there either.”

Otto frowned. “So, you’re telling me that the bullet found inside the victim’s body did not come from the gun we found at the crime scene?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. The bullet and casing associated with the murder are .380-caliber. The gun you gave me is a nine-millimeter Luger. To the naked eye the rounds look almost identical. Under the microscope, the rounds are clearly different.”

“I’ll be damned. Ernie, get your appetite ready. I’ll be up to deliver on that steak dinner soon.”

Ernie laughed. “If everybody had delivered on all their steak dinners through the years, I’d be a well-fed man.”

*   *   *

Otto entered the lounge again and found Isabella crying. Investigations with the roller-coaster effect irritated him: up and down; one minute things were coming together, the next falling apart.

He sat down across from the young woman and hoped to get her side of the story without first telling her the information about the casing and the gun. He lightened his tone. “Just tell me what happened,” he said. “Help us understand so that we can help you.”

After several false starts and more tears and hand-wringing, she finally gave in and told Otto the story.

Isabella and Renata escaped from the motel in Piedra Labrada, just like Isabella had told Marta. But as they left the motel, Isabella took the gun that she knew Josh hid in his shoe each night when he went to bed. She hid it under her sweatshirt, tucked into the back waistband of her jeans. They found a Catholic church a few blocks away and learned about Señora Molina. They hiked out to the river to find her, and after staying with her for a night, they crossed the Rio Grande in search of Josie’s house. They found it one afternoon while Josie was at work. They made a place to sleep in her toolshed, gathering courage to approach Josie one evening after she came home from work.

Meanwhile, they heard a vehicle driving slowly by the house their second night there and feared the people in the vehicle were searching for them. On the third night, Josie wasn’t home yet and a car pulled into the driveway with its headlights on and stopped. Isabella figured it was somewhere between nine and eleven o’clock. It was much earlier than the other nights the car drove by. They heard someone get out of the car. They could see through knotholes in the toolshed that someone was prowling around outside. Isabella grabbed the gun and they snuck out of the toolshed without being heard. They had reached the back of the house, ready to run down the lane toward Dell’s house, when Renata tripped over something and a man shouted both their names. Isabella couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t think it was Josh or Ryan’s voice.

The women took off running into the pasture, parallel with the road. A man followed them, yelling their names. There was enough starlight to see to walk carefully, but they were terrified and confused and desperate to get away. Then they noticed headlights moving slowly down the road from behind them. They changed course and turned to run toward the mountain range, directly behind Josie’s house.

A short time later, Isabella said she heard a gunshot from behind her and she flung her arm around and pulled the trigger on the gun, not having any idea if she was going to hit the person, but wanting to scare him. She heard two more gunshots and turned to look behind her and saw Renata stumble and drop into the dirt.

Isabella’s voice turned to a whisper. “I thought Renata was running next to me. I don’t know if it was me that shot her. I don’t know. I thought she was right beside me, and then I turned to see where the shooter was, and there was Renata, stumbling forward, and then she hit the ground, and I turned and moved as fast as I could, tripping over rocks and cactus. It all happened so fast I couldn’t make sense of any of it.” She took a deep breath, obviously forcing herself to continue. “I hid behind rocks at the bottom of the mountain until I was sure they were gone and I went to check on her but she was dead. I threw the gun into the pasture and went back to hide in the toolshed until I could figure out what to do next.”

“It wasn’t you that killed her,” Otto said, feeling a rush of compassion for this young woman. “Renata was shot in the back. If you turned and fired behind you, the bullet would have entered her chest. And we have the bullet that killed Renata. It didn’t come from your gun.”

Her mouth opened and she looked stunned.

“The phone call I just took was from the police lab. Someone else shot Renata. It wasn’t you.”

*   *   *

A bullet had pierced the shatterproof glass of the entrance door to the apartment building, leaving a spiderweb of chipped glass. Josie pushed the door open and the smell of backed-up sewage made her wince. Flickering fluorescent lights cast a yellow glow across the stained carpet. The lobby was no more than a hallway that led to an elevator that clearly hadn’t worked in years, a bank of mailboxes that appeared as if someone had taken a baseball bat to them, a stairwell leading both upstairs and down, and at the end of the hallway, a door with the word
OFFICE
painted in black.