The Territory A Novel

SIXTEEN



After the latest threat from the Medrano clan, Otto convinced Josie to take an early supper break at the Hot Tamale to cool off and regroup. Border Patrol had met her and Otto at Red’s house, and they were writing up the report and processing the scene. Otto stopped to talk with a retired schoolteacher who wanted to gripe about a parking ticket while Josie ordered and found a table in the corner. If she had laid her head down on the table, she would have been asleep within minutes.

Vie Blessings sat down across from Josie, squinted her eyes, and winced. “You don’t look so good.”

Josie shrugged.

“Things calmed down any?”

Josie found that everywhere she went lately, people asked for an update, which usually translated to a request for assurance that the violence was over.

She shrugged again. “Not enough.”

Vie leaned into the table, and Josie could tell something else was on her mind. “I hate to ask this. I know how busy you all are right now, but someone has set up a camper back behind our place. Smokey told me to mind my own business, but I wondered if you couldn’t drive by sometime and check it out?”

“Is the camper on your land?”

“No. It’s on government property. You know where we live? Out behind the mudflats?”

Josie nodded.

“There’s maybe half a dozen houses back in there, but the land across from us is all federal grazing. I don’t want some squatter setting up camp for good. Now there’s a trailer set up there, too.”

“Doesn’t your land bump up against Red Goff’s place?”

Vie pursed her lips and squinted. “Sort of. There are a couple miles of federal land that separate our place from Red’s land. Smokey always said we were either the safest people in Texas, or the stupidest for living next to that guy.”

“Do you know if the person is a local?”

Vie squinted, her expression uncertain. “No clue. I’ve never actually seen the person staying back there. I don’t know if someone’s living there or just storing something.”

Otto finally walked over to the table, and Vie stood.

“You two be careful out there.”

Otto took her place at the table and reached into his shirt pocket. He pulled out a little plastic bottle of Visine and pushed it across the table. “Better take a shot,” he said.

Josie let the drops fill her eyes and sighed, wiping the tears from her face with a napkin. She filled Otto in on her conversation with Vie.

“Let’s run out there after supper and check it out,” Otto said.

She also told Otto about her visit with Kenny Winning.

“You think he might be the camper?” he asked.

“It would put him right behind his own trailer and Pegasus. He could make it through there with four-wheel drive easy. If he were walking, I’m guessing it’s a little over a mile from where Vie was talking about.”

“Why not stay at his own trailer, then?”

She shrugged. “He’s been here for a week and we didn’t know it. Sounds like a pretty good plan. There wasn’t a vehicle at the trailer today, other than Pegasus’s Eldorado. I wish I’d thought to ask him where he was staying, and where his car was, but it didn’t click with me until just now.”

After a massive burrito, coffee, Coke, and two doses of Visine, Josie felt as if she might survive the shift. The waitress cleared the plates away and Otto paid the bill while Josie started the jeep to get the air conditioner blowing cool. Otto finally got into the passenger seat carrying chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

The mudflats were located north of Sauly Magson’s property about three miles from the river. The land around Sauly’s and up into the mudflats was the greenest area in Artemis. Prairie grasses covered the ground, not just in clumps as in the rest of Artemis, but in thick swaths of green that rustled in the never-ending wind. Natural springs and mountain runoff kept the area green most of the year, a nice change of pace in the desert. Vie and Smokey’s place was located on a road that wound through the hills and the grass. A house dotted the road every half mile or so. Red’s place and Winning’s trailer were north of the mudflats by another mile, where the land turned suddenly barren and bereft of color.

Josie pulled her jeep along the edge of the road and looked across the field. Otto pointed out a camper set up a half mile away, barely noticeable down the slight embankment. Viewed from a distance, the grass was silken and feathery and moved in gentle waves in response to the breeze. But walking through the three-foot-high blades of grass left thin cuts along any exposed skin, which burned for hours. Josie knew that fact was moving through Otto’s brain at that very moment.

She pointed toward the camper. “No tire tracks. If the owner of the camper approached from this road, the grass would still be mashed down in places. He had to have come in from behind Red’s place.” Josie looked over and found Otto staring out his side window, drumming his fingers on his thighs. “Feel like taking a walk?”

“Not really.” Otto opened his car door and affixed his radio to his gun belt. “You owe me a Coke when we’re done.”

“Deal,” she said, and got out to follow him.

The temperature had dropped into the eighties, and while Josie thought the light breeze and temperature were ideal, she knew Otto would be sweating. The sunset to their right was still high, but the reds and oranges were already spreading out like spilled paint.

After a five-minute walk through a field, they came upon a campsite with a ten-foot pop-up camper facing toward them. The camper was fully extended, its closed door facing a small fire pit with a coffeepot lying on the ground beside it. A ten-foot pull-behind U-Haul trailer, most likely hauled by a pickup truck or SUV, was to the right of the camper. Otto pointed out the bumper sticker on the back of it that identified a local rental company. Josie pulled her cell phone out and dialed the number.

“Loan to Own. This is Cammie speaking.”

“Hi, Cammie. This is Chief Josie Gray with the Artemis Police. How are you today?”

The young girl was chirpy and helpful. Last year, Josie had stopped her three times for a blown headlight and finally followed her to a local auto parts store, where she helped the girl change the broken light. Cammie recognized Josie and thanked her again for helping her with the light, then said she would be happy to look up the plate number.

After several minutes of waiting on hold, Cammie came back on the line and said she’d found the number Josie gave her from the back of the storage unit. Josie wrote down the specific rental information, then thanked her and asked her to keep the information confidential.

“Dr. Fallow,” she told Otto after she’d hung up.

Otto raised his eyebrows. “Why would Paul Fallow need to set up a camper, rent a trailer, and then hide them both out here?”

Josie smiled. “Here’s the kicker. He rented the trailer the same day Red Goff was killed.”

Otto pointed a finger at her. “The same day Red’s guns were stolen.” He shook his head. “That little bastard.”

Otto approached the trailer door, and Josie called him back. “I don’t trust this guy. He may have traps set. We need to get back and cook up a warrant and open this trailer up.”

They walked around the perimeter of the campsite, looking for something else that might tie the area to Fallow but without finding anything useful. Once back in the jeep on the side of the road, Josie stared out the window, thinking through the day.

“Why is Medrano spending so much time here? Coming in person? Pegasus saw the car at Red’s place several days ago. They know there’s nothing in Red’s house. They know the guns are gone.”

“Unless there’s something there we didn’t discover.”

“We’ve been through that house, thoroughly, three different times. Marta went out again and walked the property and searched the garage. Nothing.”

“What’s the draw, then, if it’s not Red’s place?”

“What if it’s Fallow?” she asked. “Maybe Medrano came to meet with him today, and I got in his way. Maybe Medrano wasn’t going to Red’s place at all. Maybe he was headed back the lane to meet up with Fallow.”

“He’s buying the guns Fallow stole from Red’s place.” Otto smoothed the flyaway hair down on his head. “That guy’s got more gumption than I gave him credit for.”

“Fallow is taking over Red’s business. Could be that Medrano was here for a lot more than Red’s guns.” She pointed past the camper toward the direction of Red’s house.

“You think Fallow could have killed Red, manipulated Bloster?” Otto asked.

Josie pulled out onto the gravel road with no answer, but she was positive they were getting close. She called the Loan to Own office and asked Cammie to notify her immediately if Fallow tried to return the storage unit.

* * *

The shift from 4:30 P.M. to 1:00 A.M. was Josie’s favorite time to work. Life did not really begin until the nine-to-five workday ended. It was when people fought and made up. After sunset, people let their guard down and said things that were not appropriate during the day. The dark gave people something to hide behind. Even as a kid, she had liked nighttime. Her mom would take off for whatever scheme she had cooked up, and Josie would have the house to herself—a relief from the tension of living with her mother’s mood swings.

She walked to the back of the office and pushed open the large windows to allow a warm, fresh breeze into the office. Otto would complain later that she had let out all the cool air, but it was worth his grumbling. She could hear the faint street sounds from below, the occasional laugh or yell from a kid riding by on a bicycle. Even with the past week’s hell, she would not trade her small town for the big city. She had lived in Indianapolis for two years and worked as a patrol officer in the downtown division. Too many people in too small an area.

Otto had been called out on a domestic dispute, and Josie had stayed back to catch up on the stacks of paperwork and phone messages that had gone unanswered the past few days. She had made the warrant request from the judge for the storage trailer and then settled in to wait for the response. She hoped to have an answer within an hour. She sat at her desk and sorted the stacks of paper into a top-ten to-do list for the night and felt her anxiety over the pileup begin to subside.

In the middle of replying to an e-mail from Jimmy Dixon from Border Patrol, Lou buzzed her on the intercom and said Sheriff Martínez was on his way up to see her. Josie felt sick. She had dreaded talking with him since the arrest of Bloster at the jail, and she had put off calling him despite her resolutions. She had no idea how Martínez might view the events that took place in his own jail.

Martínez walked into the office in uniform, looking pale and tired. He was a large-framed man who typically carried himself at his full height. He walked in the room slump shouldered, his black hair unkempt.

Josie stood from her desk and pulled out two chairs at the big wooden conference table. “Can I get you coffee?” she asked, hoping to gauge his mood.

He shook his head and sat, crossed a leg, and gave her his complete attention. “I came to apologize. Hack Bloster should never have treated you the way he did and got away with it. You were dead right with him, and if I’d responded correctly, some of what happened this past week would have been avoided.”

She was surprised at the apology. “I hope you understood my position. I hated to call Escobedo, not because of Moss, but because of you. I just didn’t know where else to turn.”

“You should have been able to turn to me, but I had my head stuck up my back end.”

She started to speak, and Martínez interrupted her with a hand.

“Dillon brought the paperwork to me this morning. I appreciate him bringing it directly to me. He sat down and explained everything. Bloster scammed close to twenty thousand dollars over the past six months right under my nose. Our budget can’t take that kind of hit. I just finished a meeting with the mayor. I gave him everything.”

Josie winced. “What was his response?”

“Typical Moss. His first instinct was cover it up, keep it from the voters, what’s done is done. I asked him, How do you cover up sewage? Bloster’s already in jail. What’s the point in covering up at this point? You could see his shifty little eyes calculate. Pretty soon he’d flipped. He decided he was the one who ferreted out the dirty cop and closed the connection with the cartels. Saved our town from anarchy. No doubt, you’ll see the headlines in the paper this week.”

Josie’s jaw dropped before she laughed, the first good laugh she’d had all day. “Our hero.”

“At this point, I’d let about anyone take the credit.”

“Have you talked to Bloster since his arrest?”

“Briefly. I had some questions for my own piece of mind. I couldn’t figure out why Red, a guy who hates Mexicans, goes into business selling them guns.”

“You don’t think Red would sell his principles for a profit?”

“Bloster claims he sold the cartels guns so they’d kill each other off. So, yeah, his so-called principles were a joke.”

“What happens now?”

He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his thumb and forefinger. The silence stretched for some time before he finally looked up, his cheeks sagging and eyes bloodshot. “It won’t matter what happens. Hack Bloster has ruined my standing in this community. There will be people who can’t wait to see me fired, guilty or not.”

“Come on, Martínez, buck up. You don’t let those people get to you on a normal day. Why now? There’s always buzzards waiting for the carnage. Just like there are people that support you every day.” She paused and reached across the table to tap him on the forearm. “We’ll still support you. The people who hated you before will hate you still.”

“Except now I’ve given them reason.”

Josie banged a fist on the table. “Listen to yourself! You sound like one of those women who won’t accuse a rapist because she thinks it’s her fault somehow! Bloster scammed the system. He scammed you, the commissioners, the mayor, the whole town for his own selfish gain.”

“If the sheriff can’t control his own department, how can he control the town? That’s the question people will ask.”

She lowered her voice. “You aren’t the criminal,” she said. “You’re trying to run a twenty-bed jail and the department on your own. You need help.”

He tipped his head to concede the point. “You’re in no better spot either. We can’t keep this pace up. We’re both undermanned by fifty percent.”

“We need a reserve force,” she said. “We need people on the border with guns to hold the line. At least for the next few months. We have good people in this town who can help us. We don’t need to do this alone.”

The phone on her desk buzzed and Martínez stood to leave. He waved and thanked her for listening and walked out of the office. Josie buzzed Lou back. She said Judge Lewis was on the line.

“Chief Gray?”

“Yes, Judge. Thank you for getting back with me so quickly this evening.”

“From everything I’ve heard, you people are doing an excellent job down there, considering what you’re up against. You’re fighting the good fight. Just keep that in mind.”

“Yes, sir. I appreciate that.”

Lewis had been a judge in Arroyo County for thirty years. He was a gray-haired, stooped man who pulled no punches with anyone. She appreciated his faith in her.

“Paul Fallow is trespassing on federal property. No need for a warrant from me. His belongings can be seized immediately.”