Midnight Crossing (7 page)

Josie stifled a sarcastic comment and promised to stop by the motel later that evening on her break to check in.

*   *   *

Otto drove home to his ranch on the outskirts of town and found Delores standing on the front porch when he pulled into the driveway. She appeared to be placing something on the ground. Then he saw the gray cat weaving in and out between her feet, and he realized she was setting down a bowl.

Otto opened the jeep door, hollering to Delores before his feet even hit the driveway. “No, no, no. We’ve had this discussion. No more strays. Especially cats. They’re evil animals. They leave prints on my patrol car.”

“Oh, Otto,” she said. Her tone was irritated, and she waved her arm at him dismissively. “You can’t call that old jeep a patrol car. And with all this dust on the roads, who’d notice a paw print anyway?”

“Cats multiply like rabbits. We have enough animals to feed. We don’t need another one, that will eventually turn into twenty, milling around my feet every time I walk in the barn.”

“We’ll get him fixed. You have your goat herd to take care of. I just want one cat. And he showed up looking for love. Look at him. He loves you already.”

The cat was greedily lapping up the bowl of milk Delores had given him.

“My goats serve a purpose. Cats are pointless rodents.”

“They aren’t rodents.” Delores opened the screen door and ushered Otto into the living room.

He stopped just inside the door and took a long deep breath through his nose. He closed his eyes and stood perfectly still. “Do I smell corned beef?”

“And?”

“Sauerkraut?”

“You have a nose like a chef.”

He opened his eyes and turned to face her, feeling a mix of betrayal and excitement. “Sauerkraut balls for breakfast?”

“It’s almost ten-thirty. Brunch,” she said.

“Bribing me with food. You want this cat bad, don’t you?”

“I do.”

Otto sighed, knowing he’d already lost the battle.

He followed his wife into the kitchen, where she pulled a platter of deep-fried sauerkraut balls out of the oven.

He snatched one as she carried them over to the kitchen table, and popped it into his mouth. “A perfect, mouth-sized piece of Polish goodness.”

“Since we’re having the rest of the apple dumplings for dessert, I thought we’d best just eat the kraut balls and nothing else. Josie will cut you from the department if you gain any more weight.”

“She’s got bigger problems than my midsection.”

Delores poured them both tea and sat down across from him at the table. “Fill me in.”

Otto had called Delores after they’d found the women to let her know he’d be working at least a double shift. He’d given her the basics but no details.

“Josie and Marta took the woman they found hiding on the front porch to the trauma center.”

“Was she hurt?”

“Josie said physically she’s fine, but she’s not said a word. She acts as if she doesn’t understand any English or Spanish.”

“Maybe she’s from Latin America. They speak other languages besides Spanish.”

“We can’t even get a yes or no out of her, not even a shake of the head.”

“She didn’t carry a purse or any ID?” she asked.

“Nothing. The woman who was shot in the pasture didn’t have an ID either. She was running away from the road and was shot in the back. I imagine the women were traveling together, and after her friend was shot, she hid at Josie’s.”

“I’m surprised Josie’s dog didn’t sniff out those women,” Delores said.

Otto spread horseradish sauce on another sauerkraut ball and looked at Delores like she’d said something ridiculous.

“What?” she asked, looking slightly offended. “He’s a bloodhound. Surely he knew the woman was hiding there.”

“He’s the laziest dog I’ve ever seen. He probably kept her company during the day while Josie was gone.”

“What’s going to happen to her now?”

“She’s been admitted to the trauma center for now. They’ll treat her for PTSD, I guess. We don’t have any kind of victims’ assistance here in Artemis, so we’ll have to work with one of the bigger cities to see if she can get help. See if we can find her a place to stay so we can keep tabs on her.” Otto suddenly felt irritable and realized his lack of sleep was catching up with him. “I don’t know. It’s not a good situation.”

“Let her stay here. We’ve got a spare bedroom,” she said.

He sighed and stifled a yawn. “However unlikely, she’s still a suspect in a murder investigation.”

“That’s awfully coldhearted to say, after what she’s been through.”

“Delores, you’ve been married to a cop for too many years to make comments like that. You know very well we can’t take this woman into our home right now.”

“Fine, then. If you won’t let me help this woman, then I’ll be helping out that poor starving cat.”

Otto scooted his chair back and stood. He kissed Delores on the head, thanked her for breakfast—or brunch—and headed down the hallway to drop into bed for a few hours’ sleep. People thought he was married to the sweetest lady in Arroyo County, but she was awfully bossy for someone so sweet.

FIVE

Later that afternoon, after several hours of slogging through paperwork, Josie told Lou she was headed to Marfa to meet with Jimmy Dixon, a Border Patrol Agent with the Big Bend Sector. Agents in the Big Bend Sector were responsible for the entire state of Oklahoma, as well as seventy-seven Texas counties, which included over four hundred miles of the Rio Grande border. While making the thirty minute drive to Marfa, Josie scanned the vast desert that spread out in all directions and thought about the hundreds of miles of unsecured border. Considering the incredible cartel violence in Juárez, Mexico, located just a few hours from Artemis, she marveled that the crime had primarily remained across the border. But she also wondered, as remote as the area was, how much drug smuggling and gunrunning went on completely undetected.

Dixon was standing under the shade of a massive live oak tree on the courthouse lawn talking on his cell phone. He was in his mid-forties, wearing the standard olive-green BP uniform. Jimmy was trim and well turned out: brass polished, uniform starched, and boots shiny. She liked Jimmy, and respected him as a competent officer. He’d asked her out to dinner a few times through the years, but she’d been in a relationship with Dillon Reese. With Dillon out of her life, she hoped Jimmy wouldn’t pursue it. He was attractive and a good guy, but his manic intensity wore her out. She couldn’t handle his energy more than a few hours at a time.

He saw Josie get out of her jeep and waved.

She reached him as he was slipping his phone in the holder on his belt. She held her hand out and they shook. “How’s it going, Josie?” he asked. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too, Jimmy. How’s life in Marfa?”

He motioned toward the park bench under the tree and they both sat down. She listened to his story about a two-hundred-pound load of marijuana they’d confiscated a week ago, and the ensuing chase through the river that brought down the smugglers. Josie laughed at his retelling, full of drama and mishaps.

He finally asked what she’d learned about the body that had shown up in Artemis.

“Did you hear we found the body in the pasture beside my house?” she asked.

He looked shocked. “No kidding?”

Jimmy had been part of the investigating team when the Medrano Cartel had shot up Josie’s bedroom several years ago over a cartel homicide that took place in Artemis.

“What about the other woman that survived?” he asked.

“I found her cowering on my front porch. I suspect she’d been there a day or two.”

He raised his eyebrows.

She lifted her hands. “I know. It sounds absurd. I searched outside this morning when I got home. She’d been staying in the toolshed on the side of my house. I haven’t been in there in a week or so. I don’t know what she was going to do when I finally opened the door and found her.”

“You think she ended up at your house by coincidence?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me,” she said.

Jimmy settled back against the bench and then turned slightly to face Josie without addressing her comment. “You have any leads yet?”

“Nothing. The woman who survived hasn’t spoken a word and neither woman had any identification. Marta is trying to track down the clothing brands to see if we can narrow down a country of origin, but beyond that I’m at a loss. Prints didn’t show up anywhere, and the missing persons databases haven’t matched with two females traveling together.”

“They could have been crossing the border with a larger group too. Gotten separated,” he said.

“I keep going back to the illegal immigrant idea and it just doesn’t fit.” Josie described the vehicle that had been driving by her house the two nights before they discovered the women.

Jimmy nodded as she finished describing the turn of events. “You’re thinking a coyote transporting these women across the border isn’t going to come back for them.”

Josie shrugged. “Why would they? They collect their money up front. If the women wanted to split from the group, it’s less hassle for the coyotes. Two less people to deliver.”

“Unless the women took something from them,” Jimmy said.

“They didn’t have anything on them. No money or ID, nothing.”

“Sounds more like a human trafficking case.”

Josie nodded. “Traffickers would have a lot more at stake if two girls escaped.”

“You bet. They get money from the girls to transport them into the U.S. Then they get a second payment when they deliver the girls to whoever is paying for the service,” Jimmy said. “And it fits that the girls had no money or passports. The transporters take everything from them, knowing they’re less likely to leave if they don’t have any ID or way to get back home.”

Josie frowned and watched a young woman with two small kids enter the PD across the street. “What kind of person takes someone’s desperation and turns it into profit?”

“It’s a pretty sound moneymaker,” he said. “The girls get dropped off to a pimp or a labor broker in Houston or San Antonio. They don’t speak English. They have no money, no ID, no passport, and they’re here illegally. They work sixteen-hour days for enough money for only food and board in a crappy motel room they share with half a dozen other people. Then the room and board is deducted from their paycheck, and they get nothing.”

“Indentured servants,” she said.

“That’s it. They’ll work for years in those conditions. And the labor broker moves the maids or factory workers around so they can’t form friendships or figure out ways to partner up and break free.”

“Have you heard of traffickers working in this area?” she asked.

“No, but we’re so overwhelmed with illegal entry—so that’s not a current target for this area,” he said. “I’ll get back to the office and pull together the intelligence we have. I know there was a ring running out of Guatemala last year that got busted. They were coming through Juárez and into El Paso. Sex-trade workers.”

“When these girls leave home do they know that’s where they’re headed?”

Jimmy scowled. “Hell, no. They’re fed stories about how rich they’ll be in the U.S. Their families scrape together thousands to send them here. They count on the girls getting high-paying jobs and mailing home the cash. Then the girls just disappear.”

Josie didn’t respond for a while. She watched the woman come back out of the police station, smiling, holding both her kids’ hands. Josie turned to look at Jimmy. “You ever wonder when you’ll hit the wall? When you’ll get up one morning and think,
I just can’t do this job anymore. I can’t deal with one more piece of scum today
.”

“Some days, by the time I get home, I can almost feel the dirt on my skin. You know? I worry all that bad we’re surrounded by is rubbing off on me.” Jimmy paused and pointed to the lady strapping her kids into car seats in the back of a minivan. “And then I think, some people can’t do this job. But I can. And if people like you and me give up, then what?”

*   *   *

Josie caught up with Otto in the office and described her conversation with Jimmy about human trafficking.

Otto gave her a half grin. “A few months ago Delores came home from the beauty shop complaining about a new hair-cutting place downtown. The one that offers massages?”

Josie nodded in recognition. “Selena’s Cuts. She called herself a massage therapist and sent the Holy Water Church into spasms.”

“That’s the one. The women at Delores’s old lady’s beauty shop claimed she went beyond the basic massage.”

“I talked to Selena and Marta looked into it, but nothing ever materialized,” Josie said. “I think it was a young woman wearing short skirts giving back rubs to men that had the old…” Josie paused, realizing she was about to refer to Otto’s wife.

He smiled at her discomfort. “That had the old women in a frenzy?”

She tilted her head. “Something like that.”

“Still might be worth a look. She came here from somewhere in South America, and there were rumors about how she came into the country,” Otto said. “Want me to talk to her?”

“Why don’t you let me talk to her, and you check in with Cowan on the autopsy. See if he found any matches on the woman’s fingerprints.” Josie turned to her desk to find Marta’s notes from her shift. She typically left Josie a brief summary and listed anything that needed follow-up the next day. Josie read through Marta’s notes, repeating key pieces for Otto. “Regarding the clothing the women were wearing, she says the brands were all too global to narrow down, except for the dead woman’s cowboy boots, which were tooled in Petrolina, Brazil.”

Otto jotted down a note and considered Josie for a second. “Delores and I talked about languages in South America this morning. Portuguese is the main language in Brazil. Maybe that’s the language barrier.”

“Except I think Brazilian Portuguese is fairly close to Spanish. I think the woman would recognize the basic questions we’ve been asking in Spanish.”

“All right. I’ll check missing persons in Brazil,” he said, “but a pair of boots is hardly a lead.”