The Territory A Novel

TWO



The Artemis Police Department faced the courthouse square from across the street, couched between the City Office and the Gun Club. The brick buildings surrounding the square were a mixture of one- and two-story flat-roofed structures, most with plate glass windows on either side of a glass entrance door. Several buildings sat empty while others were in need of a fresh coat of paint or a good scrub. Josie had noticed that downtown had begun to suffer over the past few years. The economy was tough, jobs were scarce, and people had bigger issues to deal with than keeping up appearances.

Josie walked into the PD and felt the welcome blast of stale cold air.

Dispatcher Lou Hagerty sat behind the dispatcher’s desk and slammed her phone down. She scooted her rolling chair back to get Josie’s full attention. “You’d think the gates of hell just opened into Artemis. The phone’s ringing off the hook!” After forty years of Marlboro Lights, Lou’s strained voice came out in a raspy whisper, but her irritation carried with no effort. “I’ve had half of Artemis on the phone today. Old Man Collier called and said Armageddon was on us. I believed him for a while there.” She handed Josie a stack of pink papers with phone messages written in Lou’s scrawling hand. “Jim Hankins, over at Big Bend Sentinel, wants a phone call ASAP. He’s got the paper going to print, and he wants an update.”

Josie stood at the front counter and sorted through her messages, asking Lou to clarify some of her notes. She passed several slips back to Lou and asked her to make follow-up phone calls, and then she called Jim. The Sentinel newspaper was located in Marfa, but it supplied news for several border towns, including Artemis. Jim provided a good pulse on local border issues, and his reporting was fair and accurate. He was a slight man with a ponytail and a limp earned during the Vietnam War. She gave him a brief explanation of what she knew as fact: Hector Medrano, the leader of the Medrano cartel, had been shot by a member of the La Bestia drug cartel during surgery in the Artemis Trauma Center. Gunfights took place in Piedra Labrada throughout the night, and thirteen people were confirmed dead. Jim thanked her and promised to keep her informed if he heard any local scuttlebutt on the cartels.

Josie hung up with Jim and grabbed a stack of file folders from Lou and walked toward the back of the office. The dispatcher and intake computer were located downstairs behind the front lobby area. The officers’ desks were upstairs in a large shared space with a long oak conference table used for interviews. Beyond the table were three metal desks used by Josie, Otto, and Marta Cruz. Marta was the third-shift officer for the city police department and had been out of town during the shooting at the Trauma Center.

Before Josie could reach the stairs, the bell on the front door rang and she turned back to see a tall woman who looked to be in her early thirties. She wore a spaghetti strap tank top, cut-off jean shorts that revealed long tanned legs, and flip-flops. Long brown hair hung in tangles around her shoulders as if she had just been riding a motorcycle with no helmet.

“Can I help you?” Josie asked.

“There’s a dead man on my couch.”

Josie stifled a sigh. “Any special reason he’s dead on your couch as opposed to someone else’s?”

“Is that cop humor?”

“No. I’d like an answer.”

“None to give. All I know is he’s left a hell of a stain on the couch. Isn’t even mine.”

“The couch?”

“Not the couch or the trailer.”

“Why didn’t you call 911?” Josie asked.

The woman glanced at her watch. “I got ten minutes before I’m late to work. Six to midnight. If I called from the trailer, you guys would have kept me there for hours. I need my paycheck.” She held up a set of house keys. “Make yourself at home.”

Josie ignored the keys. “Do you know the dead man?”

“Red Goff.”

Josie shook her head in shock. The woman smirked.

“How did he die?” Josie asked.

“Gunshot. In the forehead.”

Josie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re telling me Red Goff was shot in the head inside your trailer?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“Do you know who shot him?” Josie asked.

“I have no idea.” She held her keys up again. “I have to get to work. Can I pick my keys up here when I get off?”

“You have a dead man on your couch, and you can’t tell me why?” Josie let the question hang for a beat, but the woman didn’t respond. “Where do you work?”

“Value Gas.”

“Call your boss. Tell her you won’t be in tonight.”

“You guarantee I won’t get fired after I miss work?”

Josie felt a tension headache starting at the base of her skull. “Is Leona still a manager?” she asked.

The woman nodded.

“I’ll call Leona. She owes me one.”

She sighed loudly and slipped her keys into her shorts pocket.

“I’ll have to take your statement.” Josie gestured for the woman to enter through the swinging half door that led behind the front counter. The counter extended across the front of the office and separated the lobby from the booking and intake area.

Josie turned to face Lou. “Get an ambulance out there and call Otto. Tell him we’ve got a probable homicide and we need him there now. Ask him to secure the scene and call the coroner. Tell him I’ll be there within the hour.”

“It doesn’t take a degree to figure out dead. He ain’t coming back.”

Josie turned to the woman. “Just a precaution. Have to do things by the book.”

“Whatever suits you,” she said.

Josie walked past Lou and led the woman to a desk with a computer that the officers shared for intakes and statements. She pointed to a chair across from the desk and pulled up the form on the computer. “Name?”

“Pegasus Winning.”

Josie glanced up and saw the woman was serious. “Address?”

“I don’t have an address.”

“The address for the trailer,” Josie said.

“There isn’t one. My brother said he never had an address for it.”

“Does your brother have a P.O. box?”

She shook her head. “Nope. He didn’t want mail.”

Josie looked up from her computer. “Work with me here, okay? I need to get out to your place, and you need to get to work.”

“It’s off Farm Road 170, just in front of Red’s place. Use his address. He’s dead, anyway.”

“What’s your relationship with Red?” Josie asked.

“Limited.” She grimaced. “He’d wander down to my place to tell me the world was coming to an end. How I needed guns and dead bolts. Like anyone in their right mind would want what’s inside my trailer. He’d rant about the government and the police state. Then he’d try to get me to go to his place to look at his guns. Show and tell. He was a leech.”

“You’re living in your brother’s trailer?” Josie asked.

“I moved here about three months ago to live with him, but he was gone. He left me a note and said he had to cool off. Couldn’t take the Texas heat anymore. He left me an address to mail the trailer payment each month. That was about it.”

“Think he was in trouble when he left?”

“He’s never been out of trouble.”

* * *

Because the murder was committed outside the city limits, Josie had called the sheriff’s department to pass the case off. Technically, it was their jurisdiction, but dispatch had said all their officers were tied up. Josie agreed to take the case. With a budget so tight it barely covered salaries, the two departments often operated out of jurisdiction in order to cover calls. Considering the territorial drama among agencies in some small towns, she took pride in the relationship the city police and sheriff’s department shared in Artemis. She also worked well with most of the Border Patrol agents, and with the occasional Department of Public Safety officer, though DPS rarely showed up so far out of the city.

Josie followed Winning’s 1980s Cadillac Eldorado to her trailer. The car was the size of a boat with a mottled black and gray paint job. Josie thought it was one of the ugliest cars she had ever seen. She followed Winning down Farm Road 170 west toward Candelaria, a ghost town and dead end for the 170. After the Mexican Revolution ended, the cavalry pulled out and the city had faded. Josie had once talked with an old rancher who raised his family in Candelaria back in the seventies. He said there were no border issues back then. People crossed the river at will and traded basic goods among the small towns. Families were buried on both sides of the river. Josie gazed out across the Chihuahuan Desert and tried to imagine the freedom and lack of fear that families like that once felt.

Winning was living alone in one of the most remote places in the United States, down the lane from Red Goff, a man rumored to have an arsenal of several hundred guns, including high-powered rifles and automatic weapons. Josie had no doubt that Winning knew more than she was telling, but Josie needed to deal with the dead body before the heat destroyed it. Just as important, Goff’s house had to be inventoried and locked before the vultures ransacked it for the rumored arsenal.

As the leader of the Gunners, a right-wing group of Second Amendment nuts who thought guns would solve the world’s ills, Red was known throughout West Texas. He was an arrogant hothead. Before he turned into a hermit, Josie would occasionally roust him from various Democratic rallies for shouting obscenities and causing a public disturbance. Josie had gathered intelligence on Red’s organization, the Gunners, for years. They had too much firepower to let it get into the wrong hands.

Ten minutes outside Artemis, Josie followed Winning down Davis Pass, a gravel road prone to washouts. The drive stirred up a thick layer of white desert dirt that recoated the ocotillo and prickly pear cactus that dotted the roadside. Large boulders, gray green agave, juniper, and Spanish daggers marked the white, sandy foothills for miles. The Chinati Peak could be seen in the distance, a grand backdrop to the ramshackle trailer propped up on two dozen cinder blocks in the rocky dirt. Josie wondered what kept the trailer from washing away in a heavy downpour.

Otto’s Artemis PD jeep was parked out front, the navy blue paint barely visible under the nearly permanent layer of dust. The jeeps were a perk of the job: four-wheel drive, no-frills, stripped-down retired army models capable of driving anywhere, on road or off. Otto stepped out of the trailer as Pegasus parked her Eldorado beside the jeep and got out of her car looking angry and hot. Her car windows were down, and Josie figured she had no air-conditioning.

“It’s Red Goff in there, sure enough,” Otto said with a frown as Josie stood and slammed her door shut.

He smoothed down the flyaway gray hair on top of his head. Otto weighed forty pounds over the department limit for patrol work, but it had never been an issue. He had served as chief of police for twelve years before giving it up for a slower pace. He was still an excellent officer, slow and methodical.

“Murder or suicide?” Josie asked.

“There’s a nice piece of irony,” Otto said. “Gunshot through the head. Unless he’s been moved, angle’s wrong for suicide. Five hundred guns in his closet to save him from the government, and what do you want to bet one of the other gun crazies shot him?”

Josie introduced Otto to Winning, who still looked hot and annoyed.

“Let’s go over this again. What time did you get off work?” Josie asked her.

Winning rolled her eyes. “My shift ended at seven o’clock this morning. I got home at seven fifteen. I took a shower and went to bed.”

“You slept here all day long?” Josie asked.

“Yep.”

“A guy gets shot on your couch and you don’t hear it?” Josie asked.

“Nope.”

“You might want to lose the attitude. You’re a suspect for murder on a pretty short list.”

Winning laughed. “A short list? The guy’s threatened to kill half of Texas, you included. You got more suspects than you can count.”

“Difference is, he’s lying on your couch,” Josie said. “Now, tell me how it is a man gets shot in your trailer and you don’t hear it.”

She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. “If I knew, I’d tell you. Maybe someone shot him with a silencer. Maybe they shot him while I was in the shower with the music up.”

“You have a stereo in the bathroom?” Josie asked.

Winning walked to the trailer and stepped inside her front door. Josie followed her up the stack of cinder blocks that made for a front stoop and entered the trailer. Otto had propped the door open, but the heat was stifling.

The corpse was lying on the couch with a hole in the center of his forehead and three dried blood rivulets that ran down the side of his nose and right cheek. His face was covered in stubble that matched the gray of the military haircut on his head. Red’s eyes were open and vacant, the old arrogance extinguished.

Red Goff had been a thin man, standing about five feet five inches, but in the heat of the trailer, his face and arms were already beginning to bloat. It gave him a distended look, as if he were reflected in a fun house mirror. He wore black polyester dress pants and a white button-down shirt that was pulled up on one side, exposing a pale, hairy stomach that somehow looked more obscene than the bullet hole through his head.

The couch was up against a wall in the living room, the only room to the left of the front door. To the right was a small dining room and kitchen.

Pegasus pointed down a short hallway through the kitchen. “Bathroom and bedroom are down there.”

Josie entered the bathroom and saw a duffel bag–sized stereo perched on a wooden shelf on the wall facing the shower. She pushed the power button, and the Kinks blasted out from the speakers. She turned it off. She stepped back out into the hallway and saw that Red’s body couldn’t be seen from the hallway area in the back of the trailer. The couch sat behind a four-foot-by-four-foot half wall that separated the front door entryway from the living room.

“Satisfied?” Winning asked.

“Otto?” Josie called. “Give me twenty seconds, then shoot off one round.”

Josie ignored Pegasus standing in the hallway and shut the bathroom door. She turned the shower on and pressed the power button on the stereo to hear a head-splitting La-la-la-la Lola. Ten seconds later she heard a dim pop, but if Winning had been singing with the music, she could have missed the sound. Her bedroom was to the right of the bathroom, so she could have taken her shower and gone to bed without seeing the body.

Josie opened the door.

Winning cocked her head but said nothing.

“It’s pretty flimsy. What time did you take your shower?” Josie asked.

“Seven thirty.”

“Exactly?”

“I get off work at seven. I come straight home. Drink two or three shots of tequila. Depends on how bad the shift was. I take a shower, brush my teeth, and go to bed.”

“You lock your door when you’re home?”

Winning pulled a rubber band off her wrist and ran her fingers through her sweaty, tangled hair to pull it into a loose ponytail behind her head. “Can I at least turn the air-conditioning on? I turn it off when I leave for work. I can’t even breathe in here.”

Josie nodded toward the living room and watched Winning walk by the body on her couch, grimace down at it, then turn the wall unit at the end of the room on high.

Otto had come back into the trailer and was on one knee by the couch, getting a carpet sample. He cursed as sweat dripped from the end of his nose and onto the plastic evidence bag in his hand.

“It already smells in here. Can’t you get him out?” Winning asked, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“The coroner should be here soon. We’ll get him out as soon as we can. Let’s step outside,” Josie said.

Outside, Pegasus led Josie to a small picnic table under a clump of gnarled cedar trees that offered a surprising amount of shade from the setting sun. “I can give you a glass of well water that tastes like nails, or you can have a beer,” Winning said.

She crossed her forearms in front of her and leaned on the picnic table. Josie noted the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and high, pronounced cheekbones. She was prettier than she let on.

“Nothing, thanks,” Josie said. She pulled out her steno pad and opened it. “Do you lock your doors when you come home, Ms. Winning?”

She smirked. “One swift kick’s all you need. Red claimed Kenny used to padlock the door. I can’t see why.”

Josie studied her for a moment. “Back at the office, why did you need to give me the keys to your trailer if it wasn’t locked?”

Winning tilted her head and paused long enough to consider the question, or her answer. Josie couldn’t tell.

“Don’t you think it was wise to lock the dead man inside until the police could get here? You wouldn’t want the body tampered with, would you?”

Josie gestured toward the trailer. “How did Officer Podowski get inside?”

“Beats me. Have to ask him. Probably the extra key under the mat.”

“You ought to consider being more careful with who has access to your trailer.”

Winning shrugged.

“Can you think of anyone who would want to break in?” Josie asked.

“Nope.”

“Have you made any enemies since you moved here?”

“Only enemy I have is back in New Orleans.”

“Who’s that?” Josie asked.

“My ex.”

“Any chance he could have paid you a visit? Found Red up the road and got jealous?” Josie asked.

“No way. He was strictly knives. They’re clean and easy. No jacking around with bullets. His words, not mine.”

Winning stood and stepped back from the picnic table. She lifted her shirt to reveal a pale flat stomach and a one-inch scar just below her navel. The scar was red and puffy, a fairly recent wound.

She looked down at her stomach as she talked. “This is his. I was a Daiquiri Girl on Bourbon Street. Made great money until my boss came in and saw blood seeping through my T-shirt. He said it was bad for business and fired me on the spot. Lousy bastard. That’s when I called my brother.”

“Do you know anyone who was out to get Red?”

She grinned. “You a Democrat?”

“Depends,” Josie said.

Winning shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You’re still the enemy. Democrats, cops, government, former schoolteachers, the Pope. You were all plotting an attack on his shitty little house in the desert. You were all about to converge and demand he sacrifice his land and home to your subversive causes.” She rolled her eyes and sat back down. “He told that slop to anyone who would listen. I figure more people wanted him dead than alive. Except that sick bunch of freaks he ran with.”

“The Gunners.”

“There are some seriously bizarre people in this world.”

“Think any of them could have killed Red?”

“No clue.”

“You ever hear of the members arguing with each other?”

“No clue.”

“Do you know if he has any family members in the area?”

“Nope.”

Josie sighed, frustrated at her lack of cooperation. “Ms. Winning, at this point, you’re my best connection to Red Goff.”

“Look. I’d help you if I could. But I don’t know anything. He’s just some weird guy that ended up dead on my couch. I’d like to know how he got there, too. Trust me.” She pointed in the direction of the trailer. “But I have to sleep in that thing tonight. So, honestly, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Red Goff. The feeling was mutual once he figured out my zipper was shut. I got my own worries right now.”

* * *

Red Goff’s place was built into the hillside two hundred feet behind Winning’s trailer. The underground dwelling consisted of a nine-foot-by-forty-foot-long wall covered in gray aluminum siding with no windows and only one entry point, a set of sliding glass doors dead center in the wall. Cactus and desert scrub had been strategically placed in front of the wall so that his house blended into the landscape.

After the coroner arrived for the body, Josie and Otto walked up the steep hill to Goff’s to check out his house. Otto mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief and complained about the heat.

“What’s your take on the girl?” Josie asked.

“Pegasus Winning. What kind of mother names her kid that?”

“She’s pretty laid-back about it all,” Josie said. “People usually try and put on a show when they’re trying to hide something. Give you what they think you want.”

“She couldn’t care less.”

Josie nodded, but her gut instinct told her Winning was innocent.

Otto pointed to the left of the house. Another structure had been built into the hillside, a one-car garage, even more carefully disguised behind a thick stand of piñon pines. “Sneaky bastard.”

“He definitely wanted to hide something. Maybe he just wanted to hide himself away from the world.”

“Don’t you bet that son of a buck hated that trailer perched at the bottom of his driveway? I bet old Red tried like hell to buy that piece of land just for the privacy,” Otto said.

“I’ll call the courthouse and see who owns the land. Winning said her brother rented the land from someone, and she sends the rent payment to a P.O. box each month. The check is made out to a third-party rental agency,” Josie said.

Otto asked, “You know anything about her brother? All I knew was there was someone living out here by Red.”

Josie shook her head. “She showed me a picture of him, but I didn’t recognize him. I think he kept a low profile. Name is Kenny Winning. Thirty years old. Tall, skinny guy. She claims she doesn’t know what kind of job he had.”

As they reached Red’s house, Josie pointed up the hill that served as the side of his house. “Let’s clear the back before we go inside.”

From atop the roof, it was impossible to tell there was a house below. A half mile beyond, the land sloped into government grazing pasture and tall swaths of green native grasses, some of the prettiest country in Artemis.

“Typical Red. Builds his house on the ugliest chunk of ground on his property,” Otto said.

“Facing a double-wide trailer on cement blocks.” She shook her head and pointed toward a small barn with its doors wide open. “He used to raise a small herd of cattle. At least we don’t have to deal with moving cows out of here. I’ll check around and make sure somebody didn’t run off with them.”

Otto pointed to the right side of the property, where a well-tended ten-foot-by-twenty-foot garden thrived due to a drip-irrigation system on a timer. “Hard to picture Red as a gardener.”

They walked back down the hill, and Josie snapped 35-millimeter pictures of the house and garage before entering. Otto set his evidence kit down and tried the sliding door with a gloved hand. It opened easily.

“Not a good sign,” said Josie.

Otto slid the door all the way open and tapped on it. “I heard this is bulletproof glass shipped in from China. Cost him a pretty penny.”

The two stepped into a room lit by the late afternoon sun. Several tube skylights ran approximately four feet through the dirt above the house to the ground above and provided a surprising amount of light.

“Looks like a bachelor pad,” Otto said. “Couch, coffee table, and TV. Concrete floor. Not much else a man needs.”

Josie winced. “Smells like Red. Musty and rank.” She walked to the back wall, which was painted a deep gray. Several hundred hooks stuck out of the wall, starting at about four feet from the floor and extending to the ceiling. “What do you figure these are?” Josie asked, moving closer.

Otto stood in front of the wall and drew his finger around long, darkened shadows where something had covered the wall and kept the sun from bleaching the paint.

Otto pointed to a dark outline. They noticed the pattern at the same time.

“He had guns mounted on the wall. Dozens,” Josie said. “Somebody beat us.”

Gravel sprayed as a pickup truck slid to a stop outside Red’s front door. A man stormed out of the truck and was about to walk in before Josie stepped up and stopped him.

“What’s going on here?” the man demanded, trying to see around Josie and into the house.

“I’ll ask you the same,” Josie said.

She recognized him as the local pediatrician: a slightly balding middle-aged man in khaki pants and a button-down short-sleeved shirt. Average everything. He was a compact man, about five feet seven inches tall, with a soft boyish complexion and light blond hair. His lips had tightened down into an angry line; his eyes filled with unfocused anger.

“Where’s Red at?” he asked, his voice shallow and nervous.

“Are you Dr. Fallow?” Josie asked.

“Yes. Paul Fallow.”

“Dr. Fallow, you’re interrupting a crime scene investigation. Unless you have something to share concerning the investigation, you need to leave.”

The man’s complexion turned gray, and he put both hands out as if searching for a chair. Josie moved backwards and allowed him entrance to Red’s house. He stumbled in, and Otto and Josie grabbed his arms to lead him toward the couch, where he sat, staring up at Josie with uncomprehending eyes.

“Is it true, then, that Red’s dead?”

“Where did you hear that?” Josie asked.

“I stopped at the Gun Club. Tiny was closing up for the day. I had to ask him about an order. He told me he’d heard a rumor that Red had been murdered. Is it true?”

Josie shook her head at Otto. “This has to be the gossip capital of the world.”

“Looks like Lou decided to scoop the story,” Otto said.

Fallow looked confused. “So, it’s gossip, then—about Red?”

“No, Mr. Fallow, this time the gossip was accurate. Red was murdered. Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill him?” Josie asked.

Fallow sank back into the couch, his jaw slack. “I didn’t believe it. I was sure it was just a rumor.”

“Do you know anyone who was angry with Red? Anyone Red had fought with recently?” she asked.

Another pickup truck drove up the driveway, and all three of them turned to the sliding glass door to watch a large man in blue jeans, black T-shirt, and black cowboy hat climb out of his truck. Josie recognized Sheriff’s Deputy Hack Bloster and met him at the door before he could enter.

“What can I do for you, Hack?”

“What the hell are you doing in Red’s house?” Bloster spoke with a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek that made it hard to separate his words. His skin had the dark, lined texture of cowhide, and he looked to be anywhere from a well-preserved fifty to a life-hardened thirty. Josie assumed it was the latter. Bloster noticed Fallow sitting on the couch and made a move to walk past Josie into the house.

She put her forearm up to block Bloster’s entrance, and he flinched like he had been touched by a hot iron. “This is an investigation. You need to leave the property. If you have questions, call and make an appointment with the dispatcher. I can see you tomorrow.”

“I’m a cop. I don’t need an appointment. This is our jurisdiction, anyway. You’re the one shouldn’t be here,” Bloster said.

Otto turned and grimaced at Fallow. “Is he part of your club?”

Fallow’s already pale face had gone completely white. “Vice president.”

Josie gestured toward Bloster’s truck and attempted to maintain her patience. “Deputy, you have a conflict of interest here that wouldn’t do you, or the investigation, any good. For both our sakes, I would suggest you leave until we figure out what happened here.”

Bloster noticed the wall behind the couch in Red’s living room. His eyes widened. “What the hell did you do with his guns?”

She considered him. The rumors would spin hard and fast, twisting the investigation into a funnel cloud of half truths and innuendo. She decided to tell Bloster the truth to gauge his reaction.

“The guns were missing when we arrived. How do you know Red didn’t move them?” she asked.

Bloster pointed his index finger within an inch of Josie’s chest, and she knocked it away with her forearm.

“Don’t do that again. You have something to say to me, then do it with respect.”

Bloster stared at her for a moment. When he spoke again, the volume was lower, but the anger just as intense. “Those guns leave the wall for one reason and one reason only.”

“Which is?” she asked.

“Use.” He lifted his chin in the air.

“What kind of use?” she asked.

“The kind we find necessary to keep this world running the way it ought to,” Bloster said.

Fallow moaned on the couch and leaned over to put his head between his knees.

“Suck it up, Fallow,” Bloster said.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Fallow said toward the floor.

“We continue to do the right thing!” Bloster said.

Josie sighed. “I need you both to leave so we can finish here. Officer Podowski or I will be in contact with you tonight or tomorrow.”

She wrote Bloster’s and Fallow’s contact information on the small notepad she kept in her uniform shirt pocket and both men left. Otto stood at the sliding glass door and watched the cars exit the driveway, making sure they didn’t stop to talk with the coroner or, worse, tamper with evidence.

After she and Otto finished a quick inventory of Red’s place, they locked the sliding door with a key they had found on Red’s desk and ran crime scene tape around the front of the house. Before they locked up, Josie sketched a picture of Red’s desk and the location of the key. It seemed odd to her that someone as paranoid as Red would leave a key lying in the open on his desk. By the time they walked back down the lane to Winning’s trailer, the county coroner, Mitchell Cowan, had finished his job and was zipping Red Goff’s corpse into a black plastic body bag.

Cowan was a large man who reminded Josie of Eeyore, the sad donkey from Winnie the Pooh. His head drooped low like his gut, as if the weight of the world was dragging him down. He talked slowly, to the point of annoyance, but he was thorough and his findings were well respected in court.

Cowan lifted his balding head and waved to Josie and Otto. “Got a surprise for you.”

Josie and Otto followed Cowan to the shade provided by the cedar trees. When he didn’t elaborate, Josie cleared her throat, prompting him to continue, her tolerance slipping in the heat.

“That bullet exited Red’s skull.”

“Does that mean the shooter was up close?” Josie asked.

“Yes, ma’am. I’m guessing a pretty high-caliber gun was used. The surprise, though?” He posed the question and waited for Josie to wave him on again before he would finish. “The bullet isn’t in the couch. Somebody shot him elsewhere and then arranged the body on the couch,” Cowan finished with a satisfied smile.

“They either thought the police were inept, or they were telling us something,” Josie said.

“Or the message was for someone else,” Otto said.

With the body removed, Josie took additional pictures of the couch. They searched the trailer, looking for the ejected bullet, but there was no indication a gun was fired inside.

Otto helped Cowan get the body on the stretcher, and Josie stood outside to talk to Danny Delgado, sanitation supervisor, known locally as the Dump Man. Josie had called and asked if he would haul away the bloodstained couch to the evidence locker at the department that evening. Winning stood by the trailer door and watched as Josie and Delgado carried the couch to his pickup truck. Danny and Josie climbed inside the pickup where he helped her cover the couch with a plastic tarp before she took pictures of how it would be transported. She had a feeling the couch might play a major role in the investigation and the trial.

Danny shut the tailgate and headed for Winning like a dog after a bone. He smiled at her and rubbed his hands down the front of his blue jeans, then up and through his hair, then back down to his jeans. He had the nervous tics of a crack addict, and Josie wondered if he was really wound that tight or if drugs were the issue.

“How about I drop your couch off, then come back and take you out for a beer?” Danny ran his hands through his coarse blond hair again.

Winning scowled at him and crossed her arms over her chest but didn’t speak.

“Danny. Leave her alone. A man was murdered in her home today,” Josie said.

“Hey! If anybody in this town needs a beer, it’s her. And I’m offering it to her free!”

Josie pointed to Danny’s truck, and he winked at Winning as he turned to leave. Josie sent Otto to ride with Danny to provide validation the evidence was not tampered with before it was logged into evidence.

* * *

By the time Josie finished Red Goff’s initial paperwork, she felt as if she had worked a twenty-four-hour shift. She sat in her jeep to clear up a few things before driving home. A call to the night dispatcher confirmed there was no new activity coming from across the border. She had instructed dispatch to make daily phone calls to the Artemis PD contacts in Piedra Labrada until the city calmed down. Next, she called Martínez, who told her that the Mexican prisoner from the shooting at the Trauma Center had stabilized and was ready for questioning. Martínez was working on fingerprints and hopefully a positive identification from NCIC or DACS, the National Crime Information Center or Deportable Alien Control System. Josie thanked him and told him she would be at the jail by noon the next day to interview the prisoner.

Before Josie hung up, she asked, “What’s the story with your deputy, Hack Bloster, and the Gunners?”

“Bloster’s too intense for his own good. He’s a gun nut, but he’s a good cop. He’ll walk into a shit storm without a second thought. He’s good with border issues.”

“He showed up at Red’s tonight, off duty. He threw his weight around. Wanted to know why your department wasn’t conducting the investigation.”

“It doesn’t surprise me. I’ll talk to him.”

“Remind him a little professional courtesy goes a long way.”