The Territory A Novel

FOUR



The Border Crossing at the International Bridge into Ojinaga was backed up, typical but frustrating. Josie inched through, cursing yet another result of budget cuts on both sides of the border. Marta had logged on at the department at 4:30 P.M., as Josie logged off for the night. Department-issued vehicles were not allowed out of county, and definitely not across the border. Josie had to conduct business in Mexico off duty and in her personal car. Marta was on the clock, but traveling in uniform would draw unwanted attention. Josie had driven home, traded the jeep for her nondescript ten-year-old Ford Escort, and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She picked up Marta, who had changed out of her police uniform and into a pretty blue skirt and white lacy blouse. Josie held her tongue but smiled.

Marta left Mexico ten years ago after divorcing an abusive husband. She traveled through all the proper channels to get her green card and a job as the night custodian at the jail. Hard work and diligence had paid off as she worked her way up through the ranks to police officer. She had confided in Josie that she felt ashamed for leaving her country and working in America, but her daughter’s safety kept her from moving back to Piedra Labrada.

On several occasions over the past few years, Josie and Marta had met Sergio at his home, a small adobe in a barrio just south of a bend in the Rio. The stone walls were over a foot thick, with window wells that held flower boxes bursting with red geraniums. His only child, a shy teenaged girl, waved and smiled from the backyard but did not come to the front porch where they met her father. Sergio stood on the top step and smiled, threw his arms open to Marta, and wrapped her in his embrace.

Sergio and Marta had been childhood sweethearts. Marta had surprised everyone when she married a local troublemaker, and Sergio married his wife soon after. After his wife was murdered and Marta divorced her abusive husband, Sergio came calling again. Marta had resisted his advances for many years now, but she never explained her reasoning to Josie.

Josie and Marta sat on plastic chairs at a round table covered with a bright orange tablecloth and set with mismatched plates and cups. Sergio, lit up like a man tending to royalty, brought out platters of roast pork tacos and beans and a pitcher of iced tea with lemons.

Marta smiled up at Sergio. “You cook beans to melt a woman’s heart.”

“Ah, if only that were so; you’d have married me years ago.”

Marta patted the empty seat beside her, and Sergio sat and poured drinks from the pitcher. After a delicious dinner and pleasant conversation, Josie felt she had to apologize in advance for ruining the evening with ugly police business.

Sergio frowned at Josie. “No apologies. What happened to you nearly killed me. I hear it on the radio and had to call on your safety.” He paused and looked at Marta with concern. “La Bestia is responsible for the Medrano murder. Most certainly. We struggle every day. Once they infiltrate your town, they are like rats. They will multiply, getting into every corner. They will devour your city.” He paused and pointed a finger at Josie. “You want to start a booming business in Mexico? Open a funeraria.”

Josie looked to Marta. “Funeral parlor,” Marta said.

“I heard yesterday they expect Lorenzo Marín to make a full recovery,” Josie said. “Is that what you hear?”

Sergio frowned deeply and nodded. “Unbelievable. He took three shots, one a centimeter from his heart. He talked to his wife yesterday, but he’ll be in the hospital for another week or two. Then therapy.”

“I can’t believe the difference a few short years has made here. I almost don’t recognize it.” Marta gestured to Sergio. “We grew up running the streets at all hours. Our parents didn’t give a thought to our safety.”

Sergio turned to Josie. “When’s the last time you drove around Piedra Labrada? More than just a trip to the restaurants downtown?”

“Probably six months or more. The crossing’s too much of a hassle,” Josie said.

Sergio stood and walked toward a small white car parked on the curb in front of the house. It resembled an old Volkswagen Rabbit, with rust spots and dented fenders on the front and back passenger side. “Come. Let me show you in person. Talking doesn’t show the extent of the damage La Bestia has done to our city.”

Sergio drove them first through the old section of Piedra, where the streets crossed one another in a maze that funneled into the central plaza. They entered a neighborhood that Marta said she knew well.

From the backseat, she scooted up between Sergio and Josie to point out a house on the right side of the street. “That’s my aunt’s house. We’ve tried to get her to move, but she refuses. Won’t give up on the neighborhood.”

Sergio pointed down the street. “Look at the empty houses, Marta. People move and don’t even try to sell. What would the point be? Who would buy here? I guarantee your aunt is paying protection or she would not be in the house.” He gestured through his open window to a small concrete-block home spray-painted with black graffiti. The windows were broken, the front door splintered in two. A fence post that had been put into a bucket of concrete and allowed to dry lay in the yard.

“The battering ram. Clever, yes?” Sergio asked.

Marta moaned in the backseat. “So sad. This used to be such a nice, quiet area. My mother lived only a block over.”

“The park, just behind your mother’s old place? Gone. Nothing left but bare ground. It’s so horrible, weeds even refuse to grow there.”

Sergio drove them through streets that once held ramshackle shops behind sidewalks filled with people walking all hours of the day and night. Now, about half the businesses were boarded up, windows broken, filth spray-painted on the sides of buildings. He slowed his car and they watched three young boys standing on the street corner stare suspiciously at the car.

“For three centuries, we have shared trade across the river. Raised our families as one community. Since La Bestia arrived two years ago, trade has practically stopped. People like you”—he gestured to Josie in the seat next to him—“are afraid to cross. And who can blame you? A third of the officers in Piedra Labrada have already quit. Every kind of brutal crime has taken place here: beheadings, acid baths, assassinations. They are overtaking the government, the police force, businesses.”

“I understand it’s about the drug routes, but why terrorize the city? How does that help their cause?” Marta said in disgust.

“It’s about control. La Bestia moved into Medrano’s territory and had to show dominance. This is their route now, not Medrano’s. It is their town and they run it. The police don’t arrest them, for fear of their families’ lives.” He looked at Marta in his rearview mirror. “You heard Ramón Díaz, his wife, and two children—all four of them gunned down. All he did was support the chief of police publicly at a town forum, and look what they did. They made their message clear. Since then, over two months ago, you hear no one say anything against La Bestia. The businesses pay protection. Some pay to La Bestia now, and still pay to Medrano. The cartels own us.”

Josie wondered how long Artemis could hold off that kind of power. People outside the strip joining the border states of Mexico and the United States failed to realize how dangerous the situation had become. United States citizens were living next to a country facing anarchy.

The next block over was a street of small homes behind two stone pillars and a wrought iron gate with a sentry posted, dressed in a police-style uniform with an automatic weapon slung over his shoulder. Run-down brick and stucco homes lined both sides of the street, many sitting empty, none of them cared for as they were just a year ago. Sergio pointed to a home just beyond the front gate with a shrine to the Virgin Mary in a front yard that was roughly a fifty-foot-square patch of dirt. Dozens of candles burned in windows that faced the road.

“A bajador. He stops the runners in the desert and steals their money.” He looked to Josie. “Pirates, you call them?”

She nodded.

“The good news is the routes change. Once a new route is discovered, the bajadores camp out. They steal guns, drugs, money. They extort money from Mexicans trying to cross the border. Life means nothing to these men. Most of those killings are never reported. Crime on crime we don’t even attempt to—” He gripped the steering wheel angrily with both hands. “We put out fires.”

* * *

Josie and Marta drove back to Artemis in silence that night. It had been a depressing evening: one that confirmed fears rather than relieved them. Josie knew prosecuting crimes over international borders was mired in paperwork, frustration, and pools of money her own department didn’t have. Over the past year, as the border violence increased, the trust among the two cities’ law enforcement agencies had deteriorated. Both countries found the other’s legal system lacking. Mexico blamed the American lust for drugs and lack of gun laws, and the U.S. blamed Mexico’s corrupt government and loss of control on the drug cartels. The blame was somewhere in the middle, so in a strange way, it made sense that the problems had collected and festered like an open wound in the hundred-mile strip of middle ground the locals called the Territory.

* * *

When Josie and Marta left for Mexico, Otto called Hack Bloster and Paul Fallow and asked them to meet him at the station. He’d decided to interview them together to get a feel for the dynamics of the Gunners before calling in its other members.

Fallow arrived first, still wearing his white doctor’s coat over a pink polo shirt and khaki pants. His expression was grim but composed, less frantic than he had appeared at Red’s place the day before. Waiting by the front desk, they discussed the slight chance of much-needed rain for the following day.

When Bloster walked in, in his brown sheriff’s department uniform, the still air changed perceptibly, as if an electric current emanated from his body. Fallow made eye contact, and Bloster’s back hunched up like a snarling dog’s. Otto wondered if he had made a mistake calling them in together.

Gesturing toward the office upstairs, Otto walked beside Fallow, and they followed two steps behind Bloster up the dimly lit stairs. Otto glanced over and saw Fallow’s eyes trained on the holstered gun hanging down Bloster’s side, tapping his thigh with each step.

They took seats around the oak conference table located at the front of the office. Fallow slipped into a seat across the table from Bloster and drew himself up like a rabbit trying to avoid notice. Bloster pulled a chair out, took his time adjusting his gun belt, and sat back in his chair with his legs apart. He took up a space that two average-sized men could have fit in. Otto thought he had the look of a man ready to explode at the slightest provocation. He had worked accidents and crime scenes with Bloster through the years and disapproved of his braggadocio. He was the kind of officer who liked to appear in charge of an investigation in front of victims, but who tried to slough off the actual paperwork and questioning to another officer.

Otto got started: “Here’s the situation. We’ve got a body, stolen guns, and a boatload of motives. Problem is, almost no leads. Since you fellas knew him better than anyone, I need you to help me fill in some gaps.”

Fallow nodded. Bloster didn’t move.

“What kind of fights go on between members?”

Fallow shrugged.

“Come on. A bunch of men talking guns and politics? I know there’re disagreements.”

Fallow shrugged again. Bloster’s nostrils flared, and Otto thought he might be getting somewhere.

“All right. Hack, we’ll start with you. You’re the vice president of the Gunners?”

Bloster tipped his head back slightly to acknowledge the question.

“Why don’t you start with your relationship with Red,” Otto said.

“My relationship?” he responded, as if the question were perverse.

“Did you think Red made a good president? Did you get along with him? That kind of thing.”

“When you sign the book as a Gunner, you sign it for life. You commit to a way of life. To upholding our Second Amendment rights. We’re not about getting along with each other. We’re about taking care of this country, our women and children.” Bloster glared at Fallow, who refused to look back and instead sipped at his coffee.

“Did you like Red as a person?” Otto asked.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

Otto sighed, already tired of Bloster’s tactics. He was a cop and knew exactly what the question had to do with the investigation. “Red’s dead. I need to find out who wanted him that way. I do that by asking a lot of questions to a lot of people. So, tell me. Did you like Red?”

“I loved him like a brother.” Bloster sneered at Otto with the look of a defiant high school punk.

“Did you agree with the way he led the organization?” Otto said.

“Look. Red had the guns. You can’t be the Gunners without guns. Get my drift? So whether I liked him or not was never the point. His sandbox. His rules.”

“Who takes over the club now that Red’s dead?”

Fallow cleared his throat but said nothing.

Bloster said, “I do.”

“I read all through the Gunners’ policy manual. I couldn’t find a provision for what would happen if the president died,” Otto said.

“Or was killed,” Fallow said.

Otto nodded. “Correct. That wasn’t in the policy manual either. So, did the members decide you would lead the group?” Otto asked.

Bloster’s face turned an angry red. “What happens when the president of the United States is killed? Pretty obvious, isn’t it? Why else have a vice president?”

“Who gets the guns?” Otto asked.

“It looks like you do, since we haven’t seen them since you showed up,” Bloster said.

“When we arrived at Red’s place, about an hour after we found Red’s body, the guns were gone. We searched the house and found none. You don’t have them? Don’t know where they are?” Otto asked, looking at him.

Bloster frowned and shook his head no.

“Dr. Fallow?” Otto asked.

“No, sir.”

Otto watched Fallow for a moment and wondered if the man was going to start crying. His forehead wrinkled, and he looked as if he were holding his breath.

“Dr. Fallow, if you have any idea where those guns are, you need to tell me. This could be crucial to finding Red’s killer.”

Fallow slapped his hand on the table and looked at Bloster. “Why don’t you ask him? He and Red were the ones who did things behind our backs.”

Bloster pointed a finger like a pistol toward Fallow. “You better shut the hell up.”

Fallow looked wild-eyed. “I’m tired of listening to you! You aren’t the president. You aren’t anyone’s boss. You’re just a bully. And you and Red have jeopardized everything!”

Bloster stood suddenly, knocking his chair backwards, leaned across the table, and punched Fallow in the mouth.

Otto leaped up from his chair. He pulled his gun and pointed it directly at Bloster’s chest. “Back away from the table!”

Bloster took a step back, surprise registered on his face as if he couldn’t believe he had just punched a man.

“Hand me your gun!” Otto yelled.

Bloster started to protest, but the fierce look Otto gave him worked. He pulled his sidearm from his holster.

Otto used his own gun to point at a folding metal chair several feet to the side of the conference table. “Sit down there and don’t say another word.”

Otto glared at Fallow, who was still sitting in his chair, looking like a whipped pup. Otto pointed toward the back of the room. “There’s a bathroom back there. Why don’t you go clean up.”

Fallow walked back to the bathroom, his head hung low. Otto turned to stand in front of Bloster, one hand on his hip, the other still holding the gun, pointed at the floor. “This the way you deal with your problems? You want to shut somebody up, so you punch them? Maybe you shoot a bullet through their forehead?”

Bloster turned his head away. “I can’t stand that sissy. He had no business joining the Gunners. Only reason Red let him was money. He dropped a wad of money toward the cause so he could feel like a man.” Bloster looked as if he were going to spit on the floor. “He’s a joke.”

Otto split the men up and interviewed them separately after Fallow refused to press charges. Bloster would not talk and said if Otto had anything more to ask, he would have to do it through a lawyer. When Bloster left, Fallow sat with Otto at the conference table again. Fallow closed his eyes and held a fist to his mouth, obviously too terrified of Hack Bloster or some other demon to come clean with Otto about what he knew.

“Talk to me about some of the other members in the Gunners,” Otto said. “Who was Red closest to? Who did he have the most problems with?”

Fallow sniffed. “Hack Bloster. On both counts.”

Otto was losing patience. “I got that. Who else?”

Fallow shrugged a shoulder. Otto noticed his red-rimmed eyes were a lavender color, and he wondered if the man wore tinted contacts. Otto figured he probably dyed his thin head of hair blond as well.

Fallow said, “Jimmy Johnson and Fred Grant. They’re two buddies of Red’s. Never missed meetings. Jimmy used to help Red with his cows. He transported them for slaughter. He and Red were pretty close.” He listed several other members who attended regularly and were “true to the cause.” Otto took down the names of two other men who Fallow claimed were sometimes argumentative in meetings.

“How often did the group meet?”

“Once a month. We also got together to shoot out at Red’s place a few times a year. The big event was Fourth of July weekend. Red used to have a cookout and the families were invited. He’d have shooting contests for the adults and the kids. Even the wives. My wife never came, of course, but some did.”

“Why didn’t your wife go?’

Fallow picked up a pencil off the table and rolled it between his fingers. “Not her thing. She’s not much into guns. Or socializing.”

“You said he used to have a Fourth of July party. When did he quit?”

“A few years ago.” Fallow stared off into space for a minute. “I don’t really know why he quit. Red got a little strange the last couple of years. He quit going out. Hung out with the Gunners and that was about it. We’d even bring him supplies from town.”

“Any theories on why he quit going out?”

“Not really. Just didn’t like people very much.”

“Red have trouble with anyone? Anyone dislike him?”

“I think a lot of people disliked him, if you want the truth. He was a blowhard. He could be mean, you know? He tried to make you look weak so he looked strong.”

“Give me an example.”

Fallow pursed his lips a moment in thought. He finally pointed the pencil at Otto and said, “Okay. At our last meeting, I asked a question about the guns. About storing them somewhere a little safer than Red’s living room. Makes sense, right? Hack gave me grief, then Red egged him on. Wanted to know what I was afraid of. I said, ‘Hey, you want someone knocking down your door to get at your guns, then fine.’ Red told me I was stupid. A pansy. Didn’t have the balls to be a true Gunner.”

“Where do you think the guns are?”

“I have no idea. I just know they were worth a lot of money. And if they had listened to me, Red might still be living.”

* * *

Back in Artemis, Josie dropped Marta off at the department. She had one more task to accomplish before heading home that night. Red’s body had been found the day before, and she had not talked with his daughter, Colt Goff, an angry twenty-year-old who was known locally for her support of the liberal left. Josie had interviewed Colt for an evening dispatcher’s position about a year ago, but the girl had refused to unspike her hair or remove her facial piercings. She had given up a six-dollar-an-hour raise from what she made stacking books at the public library.

Colt lived above the Family Value Store in the run-down part of town. The downtown grid of streets in Artemis was shaped like a tic-tac-toe board, with the southernmost horizontal street containing the low-rent businesses and a few apartments. City offices and the more upscale stores were located closest to the courthouse; the nicer homes were a block back, the shabbier homes and cheap apartments were three blocks back, on the fringes of the downtown area. Josie parallel-parked in front of the Family Value Store and walked up a narrow flight of stairs that led from the street to the only apartment at the top of the landing.

Colt answered the door in a pair of red plaid boxers and a man’s V-neck undershirt. She looked bored, but Josie thought it was affected. Her hair was jet black and spiked, but the long spikes drooped around her head like wilted grass. Her face was pierced, with studs in her nose, eyebrows, and tongue, and black eyeliner was smudged under both eyes. She looked like a young woman in need of a good night’s sleep and a bath.

“What took you so long?” the girl asked, and leaned her shoulder against the doorframe to her apartment. “I figured I’d be first on your list of suspects.”

“I’m sorry about your dad, Colt.”

Colt pinched her thumb and forefinger together in front of her eye, looking through the crack between them. “Honestly, I’m not even the teensiest bit sad.”

“Do you mind if I come in for a minute to ask you some questions?”

“I’m good with here,” Colt said.

Josie sighed. “I’m too tired to play games tonight. Let’s just go inside and have a seat and talk about a few things.”

The girl stared at Josie a moment, then turned away quickly, leaving Josie to follow. The small living room was littered with pizza boxes, newspapers, books, dirty dishes, and clothes. With her back to Josie, Colt opened a newspaper and covered the contents on the coffee table as if laying out a tablecloth. Josie wondered what kind of drug paraphernalia lay beneath it.

“When’s the last time you talked with your dad?” Josie asked. She pulled a small notepad out of her shirt pocket and sat on the couch opposite Colt, who had pulled over a chair from the kitchen table.

“About two weeks ago. He stopped by my apartment to tell me my ex-boyfriend, Jessup Lamey, got picked up in El Paso. Thrown in the pokey for possession. It was a sweet conversation. Very loving, as you can imagine.” She rolled her eyes and lifted the newspaper high enough to pull out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Do you have any idea who might have killed your dad?” Josie asked.

“Anyone with a gun and half a brain.”

“A little more specific.”

“It’s not like we ran with the same crowd.”

“You don’t know of anyone specifically who would want to see your father killed?”

She cocked her head and pursed her lips with a forefinger on her temple. “Let’s see. Me. My ex. The mayor. The people he called his friends. The people he called his enemies. You.” She gave Josie a half smile. “Because, let’s face it. You don’t mind Red’s gone, do you? He was a pain in the proverbial ass.”

“Can you tell me where you were yesterday from about eight in the morning through dinnertime?”

“Here.”

“Don’t you work at the library?”

“Not yesterday. I was home sick.”

“Did you go to the doctor, talk to anyone throughout the day who can verify your whereabouts?”

“Nope.”

Josie stood from the couch and considered her a moment. “I’ll give you some advice from someone who grew up with a difficult parent. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. It took me a long time to realize that, for the most part, people don’t judge me based upon my mother’s actions. I have no control over her, and I don’t owe anyone an explanation for her actions.”

The girl’s expression faltered for the first time. “You get my name, right? He named me for a gun. What kind of father names a newborn baby after a gun?”

Josie could think of no adequate response.

“I was nothing but a nuisance to him growing up. I didn’t kill my father, but I’m not going to pretend I’m sad he’s dead.”