The Territory A Novel

FIVE



Dawn came slowly with the sun hidden behind a thick wall of clouds. The gray sky faded into the desert floor with no horizon line. Looking out her kitchen window that morning, Josie thought the day could have passed for January instead of mid-July. Clouds billowed around Chimiso Peak, causing the slow sloping mountain to appear massive. Josie let her gaze drift from the window to the small framed black-and-white photograph sitting on the kitchen counter: the only picture she had of her family. The photo was taken on a boat, with her mom and dad sitting on the backseat, Josie sitting on her father’s lap, both his hands resting on her shoulders. All three smiled widely at the camera, squinting into the sun. Josie couldn’t remember the day, but she loved the idea that she had once been part of a happy family.

Her father had been shot during a routine traffic stop after just five years as a trooper with the Indiana State Police. Josie had been eight. At twenty-seven, her mom had lost her protector and provider. She never took over that role herself.

Josie picked the photo up and placed it facedown in the kitchen drawer. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she didn’t want her mother coming to her home and seeing the picture on display. She dreaded the visit but had resigned herself to the fact that it would happen.

Josie twisted the can opener and poured out half a can of peaches into a bowl. As she ate her breakfast standing at the counter, she opened her cell phone and dialed Macon Drench, got him out of bed, and asked if she could stop by his home on her way to work.

Josie used her cell phone to clock in with Lou and drove the back roads past the mudflats, a long-ago dried-up lake bed that turned to mud during the summer monsoon season, then through the craggy Chinati Mountain pass north of town. The mountains in Arroyo County appeared larger and more imposing because the land between them was completely flat, with only spare sections of native grass and occasional patches of trees and scrub brush. The land looked to Josie as if a giant mountain range had split and separated, like the continental drift on a smaller scale.

Drench’s home sat at the base of the mountains and was surrounded on either side by ponderosa and piñon pines. The steel and glass house was made up of three rectangular boxes stacked haphazardly on top of one another, extending up the side of the mountain. The excavation work alone had cost half a million dollars because of the equipment trucked in from El Paso for months on end. But the final effect was stunning, and among the pine trees, the villa could have passed for a home in Aspen, Colorado. Josie was looking forward to seeing the house. She’d heard stories but never been inside.

She parked her jeep in a spot sheltered in the pines and saw Drench standing beside the reflecting pool in front of his home. A formidable six foot five in cowboy hat and boots, often sporting leather chaps, he was dwarfed by his monstrous house.

“How do, Chief?” Drench called.

He had the ability to make a slight acquaintance feel like an old friend. Josie had talked with him on a few law-related matters through the years but had never felt intimidated by his wealth or position as the town’s founder.

She made her way around the granite boulders that had been dropped along the front walkway to look like a rockslide. The reflecting pool was surrounded by smooth black granite slabs flecked with white and gold that caught the light despite the cloudy day.

“Sorry to wake you this morning,” she said.

Drench waved her inside. “No worry. Come on in. Haven’t even had my coffee yet.”

Josie followed Drench into a vast minimalist space constructed primarily of concrete, glass, and steel. The couches were concrete slabs covered in gray and blue cushions. The space looked cold and uncomfortable, like she had fallen through a crag in an iceberg.

Drench noticed her look and smiled wryly. “Have you ever met my wife?”

“No, sir.”

“This is her floor.” He looked around the room with a wry smile. “She’s a fine woman, but a little chilly.”

Drench walked toward an angular stairway consisting of wide slabs of concrete that twisted up to a second floor; the middle box that was visible from the road. Thick floor-to-ceiling windows surrounded the room, large fur rugs were scattered about the space, and overstuffed black leather couches and armchairs encircled a bar and a fireplace on the other end of the room. Drench walked to the bar, where he poured two cups of coffee from a carafe.

“Gladys buys this stuff from the Andes. We could feed a family of four on what she spends for coffee. But it’s damn good.”

Josie sipped and admired it, although she thought it tasted burnt.

“What brings you to the hinterlands so early in the morning?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard about Red Goff?”

“That I have.”

“I’m hoping for a little perspective on Red. Everyone we’ve interviewed hated the man. I haven’t found anyone upset by his murder. Makes it a little hard to narrow the focus.”

Drench squinted and looked out a wall of plate glass into the smoky sky. “Red and I go way back. He was friends with my brother, Samuel. We all went to the same grade school and high school, but he and Sam were three years older. I took off to make my fortune in Houston, and Red stayed back. He’s seen some terrible things. Red’s daddy was gunned down and killed by Mexican coyotes sneaking a group of illegals across. They’d stopped at his farm to camp for the night and use water from the stock pond. Red’s dad confronted them, tried to run them off, and they killed him. Red never got over it.”

Josie shook her head. “He never saw guns as a danger. Even though his own father was killed with a gun.”

Drench raised his right hand as if swearing on a Bible. “No, ma’am. Guns don’t kill. People do. Red’s doctrine.”

Drench pulled a barstool out for Josie and she sat. He sat on the stool beside her and sipped at his coffee.

“Red started working as a field hand the year his daddy died, and he worked hard physical labor every year after. He blamed the illegals for his family’s tough life. And he blamed the government for doing nothing about the problem. Police, too. Growing up, his three sisters relied on him as a father figure. His mother died from a heart attack just after his daddy.”

“No family money that you know of? No inheritance or insurance from way back to support him?” Josie asked.

“Red married an acid-tongued barmaid when he was in his thirties to help him with the farm, but she took off on him. That was Colt’s mom. Red didn’t have a plug nickel.” Drench frowned, his gaze fixed on the desert beyond his home. “He raised his daughter in a house filled with hate. I worry about that girl quite a bit.”

“So, how does a man with no money have an arsenal of several hundred guns and bulletproof glass?” she asked.

Drench leaned on an elbow and gave Josie a half smile. “I wondered that myself. None of those yahoos he ran around with has that kind of money. Bunch of men with overactive testosterone production, if you ask me. I don’t know where Red got his money, but I’d imagine whoever took off with that batch of guns knows something about his murder.”

“I understand you own the land in front of Red’s. Is that true?”

Drench smiled. “That pissed Red off to no end.”

“He ever try and buy it from you?”

He laughed. “Offered me five times what that land was worth. I wouldn’t take it. He was a fun one to get mad. I never once saw him raise a hand, but he sure could cuss a blue streak. Gladys always said he had the Napoleon complex. I just think life slapped his chops one too many times.”

“Do you rent out the trailer at the bottom of the property?” Josie asked.

“Yep. Kenny Winning. Although his sister’s living there now. He’s a nice-enough kid.”

“Think Kenny had any reason to kill Red? His sister said they hated each other,” Josie said.

Drench smiled again. “That was my fault. I gave that kid land to set his trailer on just to tick Red off. Kenny worked for me for a while doing odd jobs. Handyman stuff. He was a good kid, honest, dependable, but real skittish. Never stayed in one place too long, like he was being chased.” He pointed a finger at Josie. “Come to think of it, that kid was dating Colt for a while. Red’s daughter.”

“How long did they date?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t anything serious. Couple months, maybe.”

“Think he’d have had any reason to kill Red?”

Drench bit his lip. “I can’t imagine it.”

“What do you know about Hack Bloster?”

Drench looked down at the bar and traced the wood grain with his finger. “This is between me and you?”

“Of course.”

“I think he’s a dirty cop. I had my eye on that kid ever since he moved to town. He worked for me, digging wells for about six months. I always had a hard time getting a straight answer out of him. I even told Red to steer clear of him. I told him he was insane for ever letting him join the Gunners. Red thought Bloster would give legitimacy to the group just because he’s a cop. A gun and a badge don’t make you legitimate.”

“You have anything concrete on Bloster? Anything to back up your suspicions?” she asked.

“Nothing but a bad feeling.”

* * *

Pegasus Winning sat on the picnic table under the pecan trees and stared at the tattoo on her forearm: a constant reminder of the man who had sliced her open and left her to bleed on the dirty linoleum floor in their kitchen. The tattoo had been done just a month before he sliced her, a blackbird with a ribbon dangling from its beak. The inscription on the ribbon read, Death do us part. The inscription was his idea, the crow hers.

She stared at the words. He had promised her that day, sitting in a chair beside the table where she lay, her arm strapped down to a rusty surgical table the shop owner had called a relic, that he would love her until “death do us part.” The tattoo artist worked with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, occasionally blowing ashes off her arm to clear the work area. She had gone into the shop for the crow and nothing else. “Sing a Song of Sixpence” had been her favorite rhyme as a kid. She had memorized it and in middle school had composed a melody that a boyfriend turned into a rock ballad. She liked that they stole shiny things but nothing of value: tinfoil scraps and screws lying in the gutter.

Her boyfriend, Brock, had told the artist to include the ribbon. He smiled, told her, “My treat.” Brock had looked pleased, so proud of his offer that she smiled, too, and shrugged when the guy gave her the eye. The tattooist obviously thought it a bad idea.

She rubbed at the words, turning her wrist an ugly red, and wondered if Brock had killed Red Goff. It was eight o’clock in the morning, she had just gotten home off third shift, but her mind was restless. It bothered her about the bullet through Red’s forehead. It was true what she had told the cop. Brock had been strictly knives, but he told her once that if he ever used a gun, it would be straight through the forehead. No jacking around with the heart. Too much room for error. His theory was, if you got rid of the brain, you got rid of the witness.

These were her thoughts Tuesday morning after work, sipping her breakfast, tequila hot and straight, thinking about her next move. Artemis obviously was not the end of the line for her. Every day left her skin itching like she wanted to crawl out of it; she felt like a snake must feel before it sheds. Living in a rat-hole trailer in the middle of the desert, a dead body on her couch, her brother who knows where. How much worse could it get? she wondered. Kenny had been the one constant in a life spent moving.

Then, like a mirage, a body appeared, stirring up the dust, not from the road but from the open desert behind Red’s place. A dark figure growing taller with each step. She knew immediately it was Kenny. He had a lanky way of moving. His outline against the sky sloped on one side, and she could tell he carried a duffel bag on one shoulder. He stopped at one point, maybe half a mile from her, and she figured he had spotted her sitting at the table. She smiled but stayed still.

He finally closed the distance, smooth and quiet, and stood smiling before her. “Hey, sis.”

Pegasus stood and wrapped her brother in a long hug and realized how terribly lonely she had grown since moving to the desert.

* * *

Chief Gray arrived downtown a little before eight Wednesday morning and drove her jeep around the courthouse toward the Artemis Police Department. She was about to pull into her reserved space when she noticed an unfamiliar car in front of Manny’s, a six-room motel half a block away from the police station. The car was a low-slung Buick. A pair of fuzzy purple dice and half a dozen Mardis Gras beads hung from the rearview mirror. Josie’s stomach lurched. She parked and walked down the block toward the front end of the car. The dashboard was filled with fast-food wrappers, and a deck of tarot cards lay on the front seat. There was little doubt whom the car belonged to. She walked to the back of the car and found Indiana license plates and a bumper sticker with big red lips shaped as if ready for a kiss. The caption read, GO AHEAD—MAKE MY DAY.

Once she was back at her desk, Josie ran the plate number and found the car was registered to Beverly Gray, DOB 9/9/1956, green eyes, auburn hair, five feet four inches, 120 pounds. Josie kicked the metal trash can across the room, and papers went flying. She stood from her desk and saw Lou Hagerty standing at the office door.

“That what they call pitching a fit?” Lou asked.

“What do you need, Lou?” Josie asked, failing to keep the irritation out of her voice.

“Sheriff called. Said he’s got a match on your Trauma Center shooter.”

* * *

The Arroyo County Jail was located east of town, just a few miles from Highway 67 in a five-year-old complex with ten holding cells and twenty beds. When Macon Drench founded Artemis, his intention had been to keep jails out of his city. He envisioned a town ruled by vigilante justice: a place where the people of Artemis took care of their own, where crime was not allowed. It was a lofty idea that didn’t work. After the courthouse was built, three cells were installed in the basement, but the escalating violence along the border had made a secure and updated facility a necessity. After 9/11, money from Homeland Security was used to outfit a first-rate jail that Sheriff Martínez ran with great care, and only half the manpower he needed.

Constructed of brick and concrete block, the jail opened into a secure lobby with a visitation room and conference room for law officers through a locked door to the left, as well as a holding cell and booking desk through a secured door to the right. The hub was located directly behind the entrance and was the area where law enforcement personnel typically visited. The inmate pods and day space were located in the center of the structure. Offices were located on the outer walls, and an enclosed basketball court was located on the back side of the building. The enclosed court contained a large door that opened onto the rear lot for transport vans to allow the secure transfer of prisoners.

Josie stood outside the entrance, looked up into a small video camera, and pressed the visitor button. A second later, she was buzzed into a small unfurnished room. Josie proceeded to a second set of doors where a buzzer sounded again and the doors opened into the central hub. Maria Santiago sat behind a computer screen at a large desk. She smiled and nodded at Josie. Maria was a short, round woman with a happy disposition, able to find humor in almost anything. She was also a competent and efficient intake officer, one of Josie’s favorites.

“NCIC came through with fingerprints. Sheriff’s got some good information for you,” Santiago said.

“How good?”

“I think he matched your shooter. He gave me a packet to give you. He got called out on a domestic about ten minutes ago,” she said.

Josie smiled. “He’s a saint. You have a room I can use to sort through the paperwork?”

“Interrogation room’s empty. You’re welcome to it.”

Josie nodded thanks. “The shooter still on medical watch?”

Santiago rolled her chair away from her computer to give her full attention to Josie. “Yes, ma’am. We’ve had a nurse here around the clock. The sheriff’s mad as a hornet. A bigwig from the hospital’s already been over here twice to talk with him. Hospital says when they bill the jail for services, they expect payment in thirty days.”

Josie smiled again. “Good luck with that.”

Aside from the bureaucratic nightmare of submitting bills, getting signatures, receiving the appropriate supervisor and board approvals, and general passing of the buck, there was the political nightmare of working cross-border to attempt to retrieve at least some payment for services from Mexican authorities.

“Sheriff Martínez is planning on sending the nurse home tomorrow. The man’s stabilized. You know Dooley Thomas? The day shift guard?”

“Yes.”

“His wife is a nurse. She’s offered to stop by once a day to check his bandages and get his vital signs.”

Josie nodded. “Good. Anybody talked to the prisoner yet?”

“As in interviewed him?”

Josie shrugged. “I know you haven’t done anything formal, but have you heard anything? Has he talked to anyone? Asked for phone calls, lawyers?”

“Nothing. He hasn’t made a peep. I don’t think he speaks English. Sheriff just got the fingerprint confirmation right before he called you. He was all fired up when he left.”

Santiago dug around on her desk through various stacks of envelopes and papers before handing Josie a sealed manila envelope with her name on it.

Josie settled into a typical interrogation room: a sterile, eight-foot-by-eight-foot space with one metal table and two folding chairs sitting opposite each other. She opened the packet and found the first good news of the day. Martínez had left her a handwritten note that stated he fingerprinted the prisoner and ran him through NCIC and the Deportable Alien Control System, or DACS. He found a definite match with a male Hispanic linked to a deportation case from two years ago. Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez was picked up for leaving the scene of an accident without a license. He was subsequently linked to a charge for lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor, a twelve-year-old child. He was indicted and deported, supposedly to serve time in a Mexican prison.

Josie stared at the mug shot from two years ago and recognized the man she had shot, although he was now about twenty pounds heavier, with a goatee. She was positive it was the same man. He was a member of La Bestia who had defected from the Medrano cartel. She felt her heart rate increasing and the acid burn ignite in the pit of her stomach. She remembered the case but wanted to confirm the details.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed Lou at the police department, who gave Josie the phone number for an old friend of hers. Anthony Dixon was a detention and deportation officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She had worked two deportation cases with ICE over the past several years, and Dixon was the case agent both times. Josie reached Dixon on his cell phone as he was driving down the interstate from El Paso to Houston for a federal trial. She gave him the prisoner’s name and a brief summary of the murder at the trauma unit.

“I got your man, Josie. No doubt about it.” Dixon spoke with a slow Western drawl, making every word sound important.

“Is he family?” she asked.

“You bet he is. He’s referred to as ‘Cousin’ by his comrades in La Bestia. You got a nasty one. You better set up some guards outside. That bad boy belongs in maximum.”

Josie laughed. “He’s in the Artemis lockup. We don’t do maximum security.”

“Better figure something out. He’s a cousin to the Bishop, who is second in command in the Medrano clan. Gutiérrez left Medrano after he caught the Bishop having sex with his wife. He killed her, then left the organization.”

“So, not only has he turned his back on the most famous family in Mexico, but he has also brutally murdered the leader.”

“He will be killed. It’s a matter of time and opportunity.”

Dixon went on to explain that Gutiérrez had a relatively short criminal history of gun and drug charges in Mexico. However, intelligence from ICE had recently linked him to La Bestia’s weapons division. No surprise there. He was a suspected recruiter for U.S. cartel surrogates in El Paso and Laredo. Dixon said he would call his secretary and tell her to e-mail Josie several pictures of Gutiérrez with high-ranking gang members in both the Texas Machismo and the Tejana Guard.

Josie thanked Dixon for the information and promised to share the full case file with him at the close of the investigation. Next, she found Maria and asked to borrow a computer to pull up her e-mail account on the jail’s secure server. Maria set her up on a computer that was currently not in use in the booking room. Josie logged on to her account, and as promised, Dixon’s office had e-mailed her two pictures of Cousin Gutiérrez. Josie pulled a picture out of the steno pad she carried with her. It was the picture of Red Goff and the three Mexicans that she and Otto had seized from Red’s basement. She held it up to the computer screen. It was a definite match for Gutiérrez. He stood in the background, just to the left of Red, dressed in a camouflage flak suit, an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, staring intently at something beyond the photographer. Josie could tell the photograph was a few years old by the lack of gray in Red’s hair. Gutiérrez had just left the family clan six months ago, so the picture had to have been taken with members of Medrano. The news was an important step forward in the investigation, but it meant trouble for the town.

The jail contained two identical pods, each with their own day space: a fifteen-foot-square room with metal tables and chairs and a TV mounted near the ceiling. Each pod housed five single-bed cells that could be turned into bunk beds, thus doubling the size of the jail when necessary. Santiago told Josie one pod was full; the other pod had two cells in use, one of them occupied by Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez. The prisoners were currently all back in their cells after breakfast.

Santiago checked Josie’s weapon and put it in a locker, then escorted her back to lock up. Dooley, the six-foot-tall, three-hundred-pound day shift guard met Josie at the door with a smile.

“I want to shake your hand, Chief.” Dooley smiled widely and held a hand out as Josie entered the day space. Josie smiled back, confused, and shook his hand. “You are an official legend. Took down two cartel members in one whack. Single-handed.” He shook his head, still smiling widely.

“It wasn’t quite like that, Dooley.”

He winked and patted her gently on the back with his massive hand. “No need to be shy about it. I just want you to know the jailers got our money on you.” He started walking toward the cell containing Guitiérrez, jingling his ring of keys at his side. He said over his shoulder, “You keep holding the line.”

Josie assured him she would and asked about the prisoner. Dooley told Josie he had not heard a word out of Gutiérrez and that he had refused all food.

Dooley released the nurse, who was sitting in a chair outside the cell, reading a paperback book. The woman sighed heavily and thanked Josie for the break. “I was worried for my safety at first, but I’ll die from boredom before anything else.”

Dooley unlocked the door and rattled off a set of rules to Gutiérrez, who kept his eyes closed. It gave Josie a minute to size him up. His face was drawn, his eyes puffy and lifeless. She knew from information that Dixon had provided that he was forty-eight years old, but she would have guessed seventy. His arm was bandaged with white gauze where she had shot him, but he wasn’t connected to any medical apparatus. He was still dressed in a blue hospital gown, lying on his back in bed. To the right of the bed was a toilet, a metal chair, and an empty metal shelf attached to the wall. The walls were concrete, as was the floor.

Dooley locked the door behind her, and she turned and noted that he remained close, within her line of sight. The sheriff ran a tight ship. Other than petty grievances and minor fights, there had never been a serious altercation against a prisoner or a guard since he took the reins when the jail opened five years ago. Martínez allowed very minimal contact with outside visitors, and absolutely no physical contact. Prisoners were searched daily, and metal detectors were in place throughout the facility. For a small jail, it was run very efficiently. Josie wondered what kind of firepower would be necessary to reach the prisoners.

“Mr. Gutiérrez, I’m Chief Josie Gray with the Artemis Police Department.” He opened his eyes and turned his head to stare at her. “I’m your arresting officer. I have a few questions to ask you.”

He said nothing, seemingly uncomprehending.

“Do you speak English?” she asked. Nothing.

She kept going nevertheless. After several minutes of Mirandizing in English, telling him who she was and telling him briefly about his situation in the U.S., Josie confronted him with his identity, his mug shots, his deportation record, and his testimony at trial. He finally broke his silence, apparently convinced it would no longer serve his purpose.

“When will I be deported?” he asked, his English good.

“You killed a man on U.S. soil. You may be deported, but only after you serve your time here for first-degree murder.”

His face grew angry, his eyes suddenly bright, and the man she faced at gunpoint two days ago showed through. “This should not have been a problem for your soil! You were the ones who took a Mexican problem and made it your own. You cannot lay that on my shoulders. I was simply following my orders.”

“From who?”

He turned his head from her and looked at the gray concrete wall to the right of his bed.

“Are you associated with La Bestia Cartel?”

He said nothing.

“Is the man referred to as ‘the Bishop’ your cousin?” she asked.

He stared at the block wall.

“Because in this jail cell, with the entire Medrano cartel ready to blow you to pieces, you are quite a target.”

No response.

“Okay,” Josie said, nodding. “Here’s your situation: This is your second offense. You get to rot in an American jail. I will monitor your progress as you serve your life sentence. I don’t like you, or what you stand for, and you will serve maximum time.”

He continued to stare at the wall, saying nothing.

“I don’t know how prisons in Mexico work, but here in the U.S., we despise pedophiles. They don’t get treated well. In the world of prisoners, men who screw around with little kids are the bottom feeders. A guy could blow up a church full of nuns, and he’d still have the moral high ground compared to a guy like you. You can request the hole, but I hear solitaries are full up at federal penitentiary. All the filthy kiddie lovers already have those beds taken, so you’ll be in with the biker boys, the skinheads. And a Mexican pedophile? The Aryans dream about guys like you.”

Even with Gutiérrez partially covered under the hospital sheets, Josie could see his body was rigid, his jugular vein swollen and pulsing on his neck.

“Maybe you decide to share information, talk about La Bestia. Tell me why they want to move through Artemis so badly. What their connection here is. You might get out of jail before your family forgets you’re alive.”