Scratchgravel Road A Mystery

EIGHT



When Josie arrived back at the station she found a packet of cheese crackers in her desk drawer, and borrowed one of Otto’s Cokes out of the refrigerator at the back of the office. She carried her lunch downstairs where she asked Lou for the evidence room keys and logged the time she entered the room on a clipboard that hung beside the door. She flipped a switch to the right of the door and the fifteen-foot-wide by forty-foot-long room slowly came to light under the flickering fluorescent bulbs. The floor was poured concrete, but the walls remained the rough red brick that covered the outside of the department and the Gun Club next door. At one time, evidence was kept upstairs, in a small locked room that was now used for the custodian’s cleaning supplies. When the amount of evidence grew too large for the small area, the alley between the two buildings was bricked up on either end and the space finished to house the growing number of objects and boxes of paperwork. The only access to the locked room was a door cut into the police station wall.

Twenty-five feet of metal shelving units were attached to the brick on the Gun Club side. Otto had made wooden signs in his workshop at home and hung them from the top of the shelving units. The years were noted on the signs to aid in locating evidence more quickly.

Josie took a deep breath. The room smelled like rock and sand and musty paper boxes. The smell seemed old and comforting, like her grandma’s cellar back in Indiana. She found a shoebox-sized cardboard box on the shelving unit labeled 2012–2014 and pulled it down and placed it on an eight-foot-long library table that sat to the right of the door. The room had no windows, so the only light was the yellow fluorescent flicker from ten feet above. She turned on two hundred-watt lamps on either end of the table and sat on a metal folding chair.

When a case was going nowhere she liked to walk through the crime, altering the variables and playing out different scenarios in her mind. With the rain, there was no chance of getting back to the crime scene, where any trace evidence that may have remained would have been washed away. All she had was a small box of objects collected from Cassidy’s car, while the majority of the evidence still sat in a hazardous material bag at the jail. Her only connection to the dead body was a young woman who Josie suspected knew something but refused to talk.

Josie laid her pad and paper on the table and opened the box. She pulled out the man’s wallet in the sealed, clear plastic bag. She knew Cowan would have wanted it quarantined so she left it sealed. The wallet was opened so she could see the inside. The leather was worn around the edges, as if the man had carried it in his back pocket. Due to the curve of the wallet, Josie was certain it had not been carried in the front of his pants, so how had Cassidy pulled the wallet from underneath the man? Had she taken it before the man died? Someone had placed the effects in her car, Josie was certain of it. But why? How had they gotten there? And why lock the car again—was the person attempting to mess with the investigation, or with Cassidy?

She had told Josie the only other person with a key to her car was Leo, and he had been in Presidio at the library, with a library receipt that showed his checkout time was two hours after the time that Josie found the car. Cassidy had told Josie that she was certain the wallet had not been in her car when she left for the desert that morning because she had removed a container of laundry soap from the backseat that she had left in the car after work the day before. Cassidy said she would have noticed if it was on the floor. Josie had a sense that Cassidy was telling the truth.

Josie examined the other items she and Otto had confiscated from the car and found nothing more of interest. She pulled her camera out of her shirt pocket and turned the power on. She clicked through the pictures slowly, examining the details. On the second time through the pictures she stopped at the picture of the dead man’s work boots. There was a close-up of the seams on the bottom of the boot, and Josie remembered that they had been resoled. The only cobbler she knew of lived out past the mudflats, north of town. Jeremiah Joplin had fixed her gun belt last year, and sewed together a belt and pair of sandals a few years prior. Now long retired, he worked out of his home. Josie figured he had to have been approaching a hundred, but he appeared thirty years younger. She frequently ran into him in town, where they always spoke, with him remembering her name and personal details about her that he would bring up in conversation. He was the kind of person who seemed to be in a perpetual good mood.

She replaced the items in the evidence room and logged out on the clipboard, then returned the key to Lou. Josie found Joplin’s number in the phone book. She called and he told her to come on over, that she would find him on the back porch.

Josie stood at the front door of the police department and unlatched her umbrella. It was late in the morning but the sky was not visible through the sheets of rain pounding the pavement.

Continuing to type at her computer, Lou said, “Not fit for man nor beast. Better wait till the rain quits.”

“I don’t think it’s going to quit.” Josie looked at her watch. Otto was due in to the office any minute to start a noon-to-eight-thirty shift. “Tell Otto I’ll be back in an hour. I’m going to talk to Jeremiah Joplin.”

Josie popped her umbrella open and dashed to the jeep. By the time she got the door unlocked, slid inside, and pulled her umbrella through the door, she was soaked. She pulled a napkin out of the center compartment and wiped the water off her face, then pulled her wet hair back into a ponytail again with her fingers. Her uniform felt heavy and steamy and she thought ahead to the end of the shift: shorts, a T-shirt, and Dillon. It would be a good night.

At the stoplight on the courthouse square, she turned north, and drove toward the mudflats. Josie snaked along the road where Vie and Smokey Blessings lived, crossing sections of gravel where running water ran directly across. Smokey would be working twelve-hour shifts for days. It would take the maintenance guys weeks to get the roads back into shape after the rain finally ended. They were on a shoestring budget, like all the other county and city agencies, and could not afford to dump new rock. They would have to use the county trucks to scrape the rock back into place.

A half mile from Jeremiah’s trailer, the incline was steep enough that the rain had produced ruts running the length of the road where the gravel had been washed away. Josie put the jeep into four-wheel drive and kept her wheels on the high parts of the road. Each year, they lost cars that were carried away because people tried to drive on running water. Four-wheel drive accomplished nothing with water rushing under the wheels.

Josie turned off onto Jeremiah’s lane: it was a mudpit. She cussed herself for making the trip, but she had so few leads that it had seemed worth the risk.

She parked in front of the trailer and grabbed a clear rain poncho and black rubber boots from the backseat. Utilitarian, she thought, but effective. She scooted the driver’s seat back and struggled into the raincoat, then took her work boots off and replaced them with the knee-high rubber boots. Encased in the plastic, she felt her skin steaming in the enclosed car.

She stepped outside and trudged up to a poured concrete walkway that led around to the back of the trailer. Rain pelted her poncho and dripped off the hood in front as she walked. Jeremiah’s place was decorated like a Florida retirement home with concrete statues of rabbits and deer hidden around bushes and benches. Lacy blue curtains hung in the window and a WELCOME FRIENDS sign hung on the front door.

She found Jeremiah rocking in a lawn chair on the porch, a contented smile on his face, watching the rain fall on the patches of grass and desert scrub that covered the land for miles behind his home. He wore black shorts and no shirt. His body appeared completely hairless and deeply tanned. He looked like a sleek sea otter with his round head and leathery wrinkles that stretched across his head, neck, and abdomen. He leaned forward in his seat and shook her hand.

“Good to see you again,” she said.

He patted the chair next to him. Josie pulled her raincoat over her head, draped it across a small end table, and sat next to Jeremiah, facing the rain.

“Haven’t seen rain like this since before Grace passed. That’s going on twenty years now,” he said.

“You’ve kept the place up nice. Even in the rain it looks cheery,” she said.

“She’d be proud. Made me promise on her deathbed that I wouldn’t let her roses die. They were her pride and joy.” He pointed to a trellis-covered bench in the backyard. Splotches of white and red color showed through the rain from where the blooms covered the climbing plant. “Takes a lot to make them grow in this heat. Grace had the touch, though.”

They small-talked about the weather and the forecast before Josie settled in on the purpose for the visit.

“I’m working on an investigation, and I’m trying to make some kind of a connection to a man we found dead with no identification.”

He nodded, his eyebrows raised.

“I’m trying to find something in his personal belongings that will give me a lead to his identity.”

“Makes sense.”

Josie took her digital camera out of her shirt pocket and found the picture of the boots the man was wearing. She passed him the camera and said, “You’re the only person I know who repairs shoes.”

“Lost art,” he said. He picked up a pair of glasses off the side table and slipped them on.

“This is a picture of the boots the man was wearing. They’re good quality, but they’re definitely broken in. I thought they looked like work boots, maybe from a factory. Then I looked at the soles and saw the bright red thread where they had been resoled.”

He smiled broadly. “I know these boots.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You recognize the brand?”

“I recognize the boots.”

Josie laughed. She had expected nothing to come of the visit.

“Do you know where I worked before I retired?” he asked.

“I assumed you’d always repaired shoes. Had your own shoe store,” she said.

He stood from his chair slowly, easing his joints into an upright position. “Be right back,” he said. He disappeared through a sliding glass door and Josie got a whiff of what she assumed was a pot roast in the oven. She realized how hungry she was.

Through the downpour she could barely make out streams of water rushing down the tail end of the Chinati Mountain chain behind Jeremiah’s property. It reminded her of the mudslides that washed down the mountain a few years ago. Several of Jeremiah’s neighbors had lost their homes. She hoped he would manage to stay lucky.

A gust of wind blew a fine mist across the porch and caused goose bumps to run up her arms: a welcome relief from the heat the day before.

Jeremiah appeared carrying a pair of boots that looked identical to the pair the dead man had been wearing, and he placed them in her lap.

“Where did these come from?”

“The Feed Plant.” He grinned and winked. “That’s where I worked fixing boots.”

“You worked at the nuclear weapons plant?”

“For over twenty years. That’s what brought me to Artemis. I worked here in the fifties when the plant was in full production. When the plant shut down I moved away, but came back when I heard about Drench’s project.”

Josie attempted to keep her face neutral. The place, now closed up behind barbed-wire fences, had always given her an uneasy feeling. “Didn’t it bother you working there, knowing the kinds of deadly material you were working with? Weren’t you scared you might be exposed to radiation?”

He leaned forward to pick his chair up and turned it slightly to better see Josie. His face was animated, his bald head beaded with sweat. She had touched a nerve.

“What scared me was what happened in Japan at the end of World War Two. Those bombs we dropped stopped the war. If we hadn’t dropped them, someone else would have dropped them on us. Don’t you believe otherwise.”

Josie gave him a skeptical look.

“The science was out there. We just figured it out first.”

She squinted at him, trying to understand his logic. “So, we needed to build weapons capable of killing millions? I just never understood that.”

He looked at her, wide-eyed. “One of the safest eras in American history? You don’t understand that? We were top dog during the Cold War. We were proud to call ourselves American. There wasn’t any flag burning back then. We went to work at the Feed Plant because that’s what the country needed.”

“But it turned into a race to see who could build the most bombs,” she said.

He crossed his arms over his bare chest and clamped them down. His expression had turned intense. “We knew, and the Russians knew, we were stockpiling enough weapons to blow each other to kingdom come. And neither country wanted that.” He reached over and grabbed Josie’s arm. “We were in a stalemate. Neither of us could make a move without destroying not just their country, but everyone else on earth! Every country in the world had their safety in our hands. It was science and strategy.” He frowned and leaned back in his chair. “And then it all came crumbling down. And look at us now. There’s no strategy. War today is like street fighting.”

Josie didn’t want to get into a political debate with him so she returned back to her original questions. She needed to get back to the station before the road washed out.

“So, why would a nuclear weapons plant need a cobbler?” she asked.

“Was a time we went through a lot of boots. Back in the fifties? We had two thousand people who rode the railcars into work every morning. Got dropped off in their civvies, changed into regulation uniform and boots, then changed back before they left. That helped keep the radiation inside the plant. We took good precautions.”

He picked his glasses up off the coffee table again and put a hand out for Josie to pass him the boots she held in her lap. He took them and studied the bottom. He pointed to where the leather met the sole and held them up for Josie to examine them. It looked as if the leather had been melted. “See that? That’s from what they called boil-overs. There were eight or ten stations in the factory, and each one used chemicals that did something to the uranium to make it ready for the bomb.” He glanced up at her from over the top of his glasses. “They were powerful chemicals. When they would boil over, workers would walk through the sludge on the floor and the soles of their boots would melt. Rather than throwing the boots away they hired me to resole them.”

Josie shook her head in amazement. “The workers had to walk through chemicals so hazardous they melted the rubber and leather on their boots?”

“Yep. I never saw anybody get burnt from the chemicals. Leastwise, not their feet. We were careful. We took precautions. Wouldn’t happen like that today, but back then we had a serious job to do. We were protecting our country, and we took the job serious. We did what we had to do.”

“If the plant is closed down, how would the man in the desert have a pair of the boots? Especially if the workers weren’t allowed to take the uniforms home at the end of the shift,” she said.

“I’m guessing they’re using the old leftover boots for the cleanup. From what I hear, they’re pretty lax on safety. They probably let the workers wear their uniforms home now since there’s no production. No new uranium coming in.”

Josie considered what he said for a moment. Jeremiah had worked at the plant in its glory days and he was obviously proud of the work he had done. She wondered at the validity of his comments.

“When you say ‘lax on safety,’ have you heard workers complaining about something specific?”

Jeremiah frowned and rubbed at his chin, a gesture Josie took to mean he was uncomfortable with the question.

“Just stuff I hear from people,” he said. “Makes me wonder what those workers might be carrying out on the bottoms of their shoes.”

She nodded and decided to let it go. “You ever see anyone who worked at the plant with sores on their arms?”

“What do you mean?”

“Open sores. Something that might have been caused by exposure to the chemicals or the radiation?”

He looked insulted. “No, ma’am.” He paused, and then asked, “You aren’t going to turn this into a witch hunt, are you? The media did enough of that. We don’t need the local coppers stirring things up.”

Josie assured him that was not her intent. “You did an important job for the country. I respect you for that.”

His face softened a bit and he nodded at her peace offering.

Josie thanked him for his time and pulled her poncho back on to wade back out through the mud.

On the slow drive back to town she replayed her conversation with Jeremiah in her mind. Artemis had been ready for war the year she moved to town and took her job as a city officer. As in the Erin Brockovich case, the town was convinced there was groundwater contamination, although instead of chemicals leaching into the groundwater from a gas company, they were leaking from a nonoperational nuclear weapons facility. Artemis received national media attention when a group of local mothers staged a sit-in around the courthouse, protesting the high rates of cancer in the youth living in Arroyo County. A small group of citizens signed with a law firm who specialized in environmental disasters. As a result of the lawsuit the government hired a research company who finally revealed two years later that the rates of certain types of cancer were slightly elevated in and around Artemis. The court ruled against the citizen group in the first trial, citing insufficient evidence due to the small sampling size from the small number of people living in Artemis and Arroyo County. The group appealed and the case returned to court.

During the same time period, the Environmental Protection Agency came to town to survey and evaluate the Feed Plant and discovered abysmal conditions: hundreds of rusted barrels containing nuclear waste, cracked concrete silos filled with radioactive gasses, contaminated soil and water, equipment used in the production of uranium sitting unprotected and unmonitored. The EPA put the plant on a fast track for cleanup and a private company, Beacon Pathways, was hired for undisclosed millions to clean the plant up over a period of ten years. The media coverage died down after the citizens’ case was lost on appeal, and Beacon’s ten-year cleanup contract was extended an additional ten years. Other than occasional grumblings in the local paper about the abuse of taxpayer money, it was a one-time sensational issue that most residents preferred not to think about. For others, Beacon paid well during troubling economic times and those workers hoped the cleanup would be around for decades. Josie wondered if the extensions would ever end.

* * *

Josie pulled her jeep in front of the police department, anxious to tell Otto what she had discovered. She ran through the rain and into the building, forgoing her umbrella. The bell above the door dinged and Lou, who was pulling folders out of the filing cabinet, turned around, an irritable look on her face.

“Better tread lightly,” Lou said.

“What’s the problem?”

“You heard about Teresa?” Lou scowled and looked behind her as if scouting for spies. She loved gossip. Josie thought the world of Lou, but she had a mean streak a mile wide and she looked ready to use it.

Josie shook her head, and Lou motioned Josie back to her desk.

“That girl did it this time. Teresa took her savings account money and posted bail for Enrico Gomez!”

Josie looked confused. “I just saw him this morning.”

“Sheriff must have got him right after you left. Sheriff Martínez just got off the phone with Marta. He told her that Teresa was at the bail bondsman’s before the ink dried on the paperwork.”

“Damn that kid. What were the charges?”

“Possession. Couple grams of coke. Teresa paid standard bond fees and he was out within two hours.”

“Who arrested him?” Josie asked.

“Sheriff’s deputy. Pulled him over for speeding, driving toward Marfa. Deputy found the drugs in the glove compartment. Boy wasn’t even smart enough to throw it out the window.”

Josie sighed heavily. “How did Teresa find out about Enrico getting arrested?”

“Supposedly the jailer allowed him two phone calls. He placed two collect calls, one to his grandpa, who didn’t answer. Then he called Teresa.”

“How can a kid with so much potential be so hell-bent on destroying her life?”

“Teresa claims he was framed. He’s the love of her life and all that garbage. Marta’s ready to rip her kid’s eyes out over it.”

* * *

Josie shook her head and walked toward the stairs in the back of the office. Gossip, especially accurate gossip, was torture in a small town. Marta would be living in her own private circle of hell when word got out on the streets that her daughter had bailed out a drug dealer.

Josie saw Otto leaning against the office doorway when she reached the top of the stairs, his expression grim. “Lou filled you in, I have no doubt.”

Josie nodded.

Marta was sitting at her desk talking loudly into the phone.

“Who’s she talking to?” Josie asked.

“Wee Wetzel.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

Otto poured them both a cup of coffee, placed Josie’s on her desk, and carried his back to his chair. “Marta wants to know how a bail bondsman could let a minor bail out a convicted felon,” he said in a loud whisper. “Wetzel said Marta’s daughter paid cash, and she had picture identification. Nothing he could do about it. Marta is threatening to sue him and throw his butt in jail.”

“Where’s Teresa?” Josie asked.

Before Otto could answer, Marta slammed the phone down, stood from her desk, and planted her hands on her hips. “I will have his ass in jail by nightfall. I don’t care if I arrest him for loitering or jaywalking or peeing on a tire, he will break a law by sundown.” She was breathing heavily and her voice was low and measured.

“Hold on. Let’s think this through,” Josie said.

“How could Wetzel allow a sixteen-year-old girl to implicate herself with a sleazy bastard like Gomez? Why didn’t he call me first? No professional courtesy?”

Josie stood and shut the door to the office and pointed to the conference table. The three sat down and allowed Marta to rant against the bail bondsman for several minutes.

Josie finally cut her off. “Wetzel is scum. He has no concept of professionalism or courtesy. Don’t waste your time trying to figure someone like that out. You can’t do it.” She leaned forward in her seat, watching Marta closely. “You know we’re behind you on this, one hundred percent, but my advice is to slow down.”

“She had to sign a contract—a legally binding contract—to bail him out of jail. You can’t tell me a sixteen-year-old can legally do that!”

Otto cleared his throat. “The worst thing you can do is go after him and have it backfire. You need to make sure you can wrap him up tight before you do anything.”

Josie nodded agreement. “I’ll call the county attorney and ask his opinion first. We need to make sure the law backs you up. Then we’ll take care of Wetzel.”

Marta blew air out as if a balloon deflated in her chest. “That girl is going to kill me. She will literally be my death.”

“She’s just being a kid,” Josie said.

Marta closed her eyes. “Please. Do not make excuses for my daughter’s behavior. She’s gone too far this time.” She ran her hands back through her hair several times, blinking her eyes, trying to keep the tears from coming. “I appreciate you both, more than you can imagine.” She took a deep breath and looked away from Josie, her voice softer. “I hope this doesn’t cause problems for you.”

“You let me deal with that. Your conduct isn’t at issue,” Josie said. She imagined the notion had been weighing on Marta since the sheriff had called her with the news.

Marta’s expression lightened and she nodded slowly as if forcing herself to move on. “I’m okay then. Tell me where we are with the body.”

Josie smiled. “This’ll take your mind off Teresa. I think I know where our dead man worked.” She was pleased at their startled expressions. “The old Feed Plant.”

“The dead guy was on the cleanup crew?” Otto asked.

“It’s a good possibility.” She watched Otto’s expression turn to dread.

“Is that where the sores came from? He was exposed to radiation? And we were exposed. You better call Cowan ASAP.”

She tilted her head and held a hand up. “Don’t panic yet. The old cobbler—Jeremiah Joplin? He worked there for years during full production. He said he never saw anyone with sores like what we saw. If anyone in the community had seen wounds like that they would have exposed it when the big cancer scare took place.”

Otto shook his head. “This is bad.”

“Sauly worked at the plant when they first started cleanup. He worked there for years,” Marta said. “I’m sure he’d talk to you.”

“I’ll go visit him tomorrow.” Sauly Magson was one of Josie’s favorite local characters. He was an old hippy who lived by his own set of standards and was one of the most content and happy people she had ever met.

“Have you talked with the manager at the Feed Plant yet?” Otto asked.

“No. Can you call and schedule an appointment for us to meet with him tomorrow? We could meet in the morning if you can work an earlier schedule.”

“Will do.”

Lou buzzed the intercom and her voice came through the speaker on Josie’s desk phone.

“Chief?”

“Yes.”

“National Weather Service announced a severe thunderstorm warning for West Texas. Stretches from El Paso down to Presidio. Six inches tonight. They expect the Rio to flood Presidio before dawn. They’ve started evacuations down by the river. They’re moving families out into a temporary shelter they set up at the elementary school in Presidio.”

“All right. Thanks, Lou.”

“Mayor wants everyone sandbagging tomorrow in shifts. I signed you and Otto up for a two-hour shift. Seven to nine in the morning.”

“Thanks, Lou,” Josie said.

They looked out of the large windows in back of the PD. Fast-moving gray clouds stretched as far as they could see in all directions.

“What an ugly sight,” Marta said.

Otto looked grim. “This is supposed to keep up for the next week.”

Josie looked at her watch. It was almost five o’clock. “Otto, can you call Cowan and fill him in?”

He nodded. “Will do.”

“Just have him call my cell if he has any questions,” she said. “Marta, we’ll call the county attorney when I get done at the Feed Plant in the morning. Find out where we stand.” She stood and grabbed her keys off the desk. “For now, let’s pay a quick visit to Mr. Wetzel. Rattle his cage a little.”

* * *

Josie left a phone message for the county attorney and then she and Marta made a dash out the front door to Josie’s car. Dripping wet and cursing the rain, they drove to Wee Wetzel’s bail bondsman’s shop, one of three ranch-style homes located directly across the street from the Arroyo County Jail. His CERTIFIED BAIL BONDSMAN sign hung from a chain off the TV antenna that climbed the front of his house.

“I asked Teresa how she knew about Wetzel and she said Enrico told her. He promised to pay her back after he got out and proved his innocence,” Marta said. She opened her door and spoke to Josie over the top of the car. “How could she fall for such trash?”

Josie thought about Javier, Marta’s ex-husband, an abusive alcoholic, but she said nothing.

They walked under umbrellas across the front yard, a twenty-foot-wide patch of sand, and Josie knocked on an aluminum screen door that hung crooked in its frame. The mesh screen had apparently been shredded by the dog that they could hear yipping and growling on the other side of the scarred wooden door.

A woman in a neon-colored velour track suit opened the door and stuck her head out. Her hair had been dyed a burnt orange and teased up around her head. Josie showed her badge and Marta stayed behind her.

“You here for Wee?” she called out, raising her voice just above the dog’s.

Josie nodded and the woman put a finger up and slammed the door. Several minutes later a man opened the door just a few inches. A red veined nose and thick fleshy lips appeared in the crack of the door.

“Yeah?”

“We need to have a talk,” Josie said.

“What do you want with me?”

“I’m here to ask you some questions. Mind if I come in a minute?”

Wetzel huffed and opened the door. He wore a pair of mechanic’s navy work pants and a V-neck T-shirt with yellow underarm stains. The small dog had stopped barking but growled and hunkered down in a corner as Josie entered with Marta following behind her.

A noisy window air conditioner recirculated lukewarm air that smelled of cigars into a small living room space that had been converted into an office. The space included a desk, filing cabinets, and piles of file folders, loose papers, and brimming ashtrays. A neat stack of People magazines lay on the floor and Josie figured the woman spent at least some time in the office. She wondered at the idea that Wee could have found a woman desperate enough to live with him.

Marta stood with her legs slightly apart and her arms crossed across her chest, her expression grim. “You make it a practice to allow kids to make bail for convicted felons?”

“I ain’t breaking any laws.” Wetzel sniffed deeply as if he might spit onto the floor.

“That’s not what I asked,” she said. “She’s sixteen years old. She’s using her babysitting money to bail out a meth user. A person with any conscience would at least have called the minor’s parent.”

He smiled widely. “I think you owe me an apology, Officer Cruz.” He turned and walked back to his desk. He dug around on his desk, muttering to himself. He finally held a paper up in triumph, his smile revealing teeth stained the same yellow as his underarms.

“Take a look at this. That wasn’t no kid that signed those papers. That was a twenty-one-year-old woman. I got a Xerox copy of her license to prove it.”

Marta took the paper from him and examined the photocopy. Josie looked over her shoulder. The license was a good forgery. It looked clean on the copy. Marta was quiet for a time, staring at the page, obviously not prepared for this new revelation.

“You knew that was my daughter. You can’t tell me you thought she was twenty-one years old. She’s a baby!”

Wee laughed a low and seedy chuckle. “That wasn’t no baby that came in here in that tight pair of jeans and skintight T-shirt.”

“You nasty son of a—”

Marta took a quick step across the room toward Wee. Josie had no doubt she aimed to punch, and no doubt about her ability to do damage, and in spite of a strong desire to watch it all unfold, she grabbed Marta by the arm and took the paper out of her hand.

“We’re not wasting any more time,” Josie said, and pulled Marta to the door.

“Give me that paper back! That’s my document! I don’t got another copy!”

“I’m seizing this as evidence,” Josie said.

They walked out the door and Josie folded the sheet and put it in her shirt pocket as they approached the car.

Marta turned to face Wee as she opened the passenger-side door of Josie’s jeep. “Listen to me closely, Wee. You are scum. And when scumbags start messing with kids I take a personal interest. And when it’s my own kid I get vicious. I’ll figure out a way to nail you for this. Next time I’ll have you in cuffs.”

“You and what army, sweetheart?” he yelled, and let the door bang shut.

* * *

Josie arrived home that evening and found Chester lying on the front porch, his head atop his crossed paws and long bloodhound ears splayed out on either side. He looked mopey.

“You’re as tired of this rain as I am, aren’t you?” Josie reached down and scratched the top of his head and behind his ears. Appearing thoroughly exhausted, he struggled one leg at a time to a standing position, but he still managed to push himself through the door first.

Josie hung her gun belt in the kitchen pantry and got Chester a snack before starting the shower. She turned the water on hot and laid her uniform on the bed so she could change over to a fresh one for the next day. She’d have to polish the brass and switch the badge, nameplate, and medals over before morning. She’d always thought undercover work would be preferable for the sole reason that she would not have to change a uniform over.

She laid a pair of khaki shorts and a lacy pink sleeveless blouse on her bed. After her shower she swiped concealer on to hide the dark circles under her eyes and then brushed her brown hair out and pulled it behind her head in a clip. She looked in the mirror and thought about Dillon’s pretty secretary, the classy Christina Handley, and dug through the vanity drawer to find mascara and lip gloss. She applied both and flashed a smile into the mirror, feeling a bit ridiculous, but satisfied with the final effect.

Josie was generally comfortable in her role as a thirty-something-year-old tomboy. But Christina caused Josie to picture herself as Dillon might, or even as a complete stranger might, and it made her uncomfortable. Christina accessorized. She wore heels and makeup and had her hair done in a salon, not the Quick Clips across the street from the courthouse that Josie frequented. It wasn’t that Josie couldn’t choose appealing clothes and shoes to match; she just didn’t want to. The process was tiresome and she preferred to spend her time doing other things. And until Dillon had hired Christina as his secretary, Josie hadn’t given her wardrobe a second thought.

As she walked into the kitchen, considering her need to go clothes shopping, she saw a sporty white BMW approach the house, with a long, sleek hood and short tail-end. Dillon was a car snob. For such a practical man, Josie thought his obsession with luxury cars was out of character. She wanted dependable and good gas mileage in a car; Dillon wanted style and panache.

He pulled in front of her house and unfolded his long, lanky body from the sports car and smiled wide when he saw her and Chester standing at the door waiting on him. He wore navy pants and a starched blue shirt with thin yellow stripes, and a yellow tie. He walked quickly toward the house, dodging the puddles. His dark hair was cut short, neck shaved, face sleek, teeth bright. Josie smiled and felt her stomach flip. He stepped inside the door and pulled her in to him. He had sad, downturned eyes that melted her heart. He kissed her lightly, then pulled back and looked at her carefully, smiling.

She smiled back at his expression. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He laughed and drew her in to his chest, squeezing her tightly. He pulled her back again and looked into her eyes. “Because I missed your quizzical looks.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re always trying to figure me out, and I have no secrets. There’s no mystery to me. You know exactly how I feel about you.”

Dillon leaned down and kissed her, a slow welcome-home kiss that made her body tingle and the world around her fade to black. His hands ran the length of her back and chills ran up her spine. She trailed a string of kisses down his neck and forgot all about dinner, until the dog broke the moment, nudging his nose between them.

Dillon followed Chester onto the back porch to watch him sniff around in the rain while Josie went into the kitchen to fix their dinner. She opened a can of fruit cocktail and split the contents into two bowls for their dessert. She poured water into the coffeepot to heat it up for brewing iced tea. Next, she opened two packages of Ramen and started water to boil for the soup. It was one of her favorite meals.

While standing at the stove she felt Dillon approach her from behind, felt his hands slip around her stomach and his body press into her back.

“I’m kind of busy,” she said, breaking up the noodles into the boiling water, and smiling at his touch.

“It’s the cooking.”

“What is it with you and cooking?”

“It makes me crazy,” he said.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think I’m a Betty Crocker girl.”

“It’s not what you cook. It’s just seeing you there, standing over the stove, your hands occupied.” He kissed her neck. “I’m going to come up with a combination apron-negligee. We could sell it and make a million.”

Josie laughed. She turned the knob on the burner to zero and slipped around in his arms to face him. “Let’s save the cooking for later. I think I’d like to keep my hands occupied elsewhere.”

* * *

Cassidy Harper parked in her driveway, turned the engine off, and then gripped the steering wheel again. She looked at her cell phone lying on top of her purse. Her dad had left her several voice messages, practically begging her to call. If she called, she would be in tears in seconds, with the whole sordid story spewing out of her like a volcano erupting. She looked up at the living room window where a slit of light came through the closed curtains. It was 9:12 P.M. and Leo was waiting for her, knowing to the minute how long it took her to drive home after her shift ended. He pulled back one of the drapes and stood staring out at her. The light from a table lamp illuminated his face and she watched his lips turn down into a frown.

She choked back a sob and picked up her phone and purse off the passenger seat. As she closed the car door, Leo walked out onto the front step, the screen door slamming behind him.

“You planning on coming inside tonight?” he asked.

“I’m coming.”

“What are you doing sitting in the car?”

She tried to judge his mood by his facial expression, but it was too dark outside. “I was just looking through my purse for something.” She looked at the ground, trying to dodge the pools of water covering the walkway up to the porch.

She walked by his body without touching him and went inside the house. He followed her into the kitchen where she laid her purse on the table and opened the refrigerator for a snack. She had absolutely no appetite but she needed to stall, to think of something to talk about.

“The cop stop by to see you today?” he asked.

Her heart pounded in her chest and she kept her head in the refrigerator to avoid looking at him. “Yeah. She just stopped by to make sure I was okay.”

“Really. She didn’t question you?”

Cassidy grabbed the gallon of milk and found a glass in the cabinet. “Not really. Nothing really to say.”

“That’s funny, because she came here. Questioned me like I was a criminal.”

Cassidy said nothing. She faced the sink and drank the milk. She placed the glass on the counter and he grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around.

“I’m tired of the games. Tell me what the hell is going on!”

Tears appeared instantly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What the hell were you doing out by Scratchgravel Road? You hate it outside! Never once have I seen you go outside to take a walk.”

She jerked her arm away from him, furious suddenly at everyone’s accusations. It was as if she had done something wrong. She stared at him, seething with anger, and wanted to confront him about the phone call. He was the reason she went hiking on Scratchgravel Road, and she wanted to tell him that. She wanted to tell him that she was protecting him from the police, that she was ruining her relationship with her family, and that she hated everything about him. Nothing in her life made sense anymore. But she had no idea what his reaction might be. He had always taken the dominant role in everything, and she had been fine with it. It kept her from having to make decisions. But now what? She had no idea how to take control.

“How would you know what I like or don’t like to do? You don’t pay any attention to me. The only time you talk to me is to complain about something I did. This whole thing is pointless.”

He stood motionless, staring at her.

“I’m moving back with my parents,” she said, forcing herself to look at him, shocked at herself.

He hesitated then came to her as if consoling a child. “Cassidy, come on. You don’t mean that.” He cupped her face in his hands and searched her eyes. “Can’t you see how stressed out I am? This job thing is messing with me. I don’t mean to take it out on you. I love you. It would kill me if you left right now.”

Leo wrapped his arms around her and she laid her cheek against his chest because it was expected. She felt nothing. Her limbs felt like lead weights, as if she had lost her sense of touch. She wanted to ask the question: How did you know the location of the dead man? But she was certain the answer would require something from her, and she didn’t think she had anything to give.

* * *

When Teresa Cruz heard her mom pull into the driveway she was curled up on the couch, physically ill with shame, thinking about her mother, Enrico, and her father in Mexico. The engine stopped and the car door slammed hard. Teresa closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, praying for an answer to the mess she was in. Her mom walked into the living room wearing her uniform, one hand propped on the nightstick hanging from her belt, the other hand held out as if she was going to shake a hand, except her fingers were rigid, her hand directed at Teresa.

Teresa sat up and her mother stood in front of her, the rage in her eyes unfocused. She accused Teresa of throwing her life away on a drug-addicted convict, of bringing shame into their home, of heading down the same path her father had, of making a mockery of everything she stood for, of ruining her good reputation in the community. She yelled and paced around the living room, finally coming back to point at her again. When she noticed the blank look on Teresa’s face, her mother stopped as if slapped and began to cry. She turned and left without another word. Teresa sat numbly on the couch and listened to the squeal of tires as her mother backed out of the driveway.

Teresa had no tears left. She couldn’t cry, she couldn’t explain any of it to her mother. She’d called Enrico countless times but he wouldn’t answer his cell phone. She walked to the front window, pulled the curtains open to the gray night, and listened as the rain pelted the roof. She thought about the sound the dead body had made as it hit the ground. The man had rolled it out of the pickup truck like a sack of garbage. She looked down at the phone sitting on the end table and made the only decision that made any sense. She called her best friend, Angela, who had her own car, and asked her for a ride to the bus stop in Presidio. She walked into her bedroom and opened her dresser, pulled several outfits out of the drawer, and stuffed them into her school soccer bag.

When Enrico had called that morning and said he’d been arrested, framed by one of his friends for drug possession, he had been desperate. He said he loved her, that he would make it up to her, all of it. And it wasn’t that she believed him; she knew it was a story to get him out of trouble. But he was the only person who knew what she had done, who knew the kind of person she was, and yet he still loved her.