Driving to work did little to diminish the unease she felt from the night before.
She wondered if the baggie might be connected to the car driving by her house. A few months ago, she and Nick had found signs of crossing and two kayaks on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, just a few miles from her house. Crossing the Rio from Mexico into West Texas made no sense at that particular location. Josie lived in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert, with the Chinati Mountains located just beyond her home. If someone from Mexico wanted to illegally make the trek into the States, they would cross five miles beyond her house, where the land was wide open and mountains wouldn’t add dangerous and unnecessary travel to the journey. And any coyote working out of Piedra Labrada, the Mexican sister city to Artemis, knew where along the Rio the cops lived. They wouldn’t choose to cross by her home, unless crossing by her home was their specific intent. In that case, the crossing probably had little to do with illegals, and more to do with the Medrano Cartel.
Josie tried to clear these thoughts from her mind as she approached her one-stoplight town of Artemis, preparing herself for the day ahead. As a female chief of police in a speck of a town on the border with a country whose criminals had more resources than the federal army, every day was a new drama.
She pulled her jeep in front of the Artemis PD. The words ARTEMIS POLICE DEPARTMENT were painted in gold across a large plate-glass window to the left of the main door, and their motto, TO SERVE AND PROTECT, was painted across the window on the other side of the door. It looked like Mayberry: old-fashioned, small-town paradise. But the issues brought on by the drugs and guns that fueled the cartels had long overtaken paradise.
Josie parked next to Officer Otto Podowski, who stood on the sidewalk, holding a plate covered with plastic wrap. Josie slammed her car door and smiled. “Delores baking again?”
“The woman is amazing. She stayed up late last night to make us apple dumplings for breakfast. And, of course, she made a plate for you and Lou.”
“Lou won’t eat those. She’s boycotting sugar again.”
Otto winked and grinned. “I know that.”
“Ah. Which means you get Lou’s share. On top of the ones you already ate for breakfast. You’re a sneaky one.”
“Josie. A man has to have a vice in his life. It keeps me young. Gives me something to look forward to.”
At sixty-something, Otto was a good fifty pounds over the department weight limit, which was set thirty years ago and had since been ignored. He and his wife, Delores, had left Poland when they graduated from high school so that Otto could attend medical school in the U.S. and then move back home to take care of the village. School had proved too much in an unfamiliar country at such a young age, and so he and Delores had stayed on and made a new life for themselves. Josie knew the hint of melancholy that lay just behind his smile was linked to his faraway homeland and parents who had passed away.
The silver bell clanged against the door to the police department, announcing their entrance. Lou scooted her chair back from her computer to see who had come in.
“Good morning, Lou. You’re looking lovely today,” Otto said.
“Please,” she said.
Lou didn’t get friendly until after nine o’clock, and even then it was a stretch some days.
“Delores made apple dumplings, if I can interest you.”
“You know I don’t eat that stuff.”
“Just checking,” he said. He turned and grinned at Josie.
Josie said hello to Lou and picked up a stack of paperwork and sticky notes, and then they headed upstairs to the office.
Josie and Otto shared an office with the third officer in the department, Marta Cruz. She typically worked the night shift, and Josie and Otto split day and night shifts with the sheriff’s department so that Arroyo County had at least one patrol car, preferably two, on the road at all times. In charge of running the Arroyo County Jail, the sheriff was often shorthanded due to a jail overrun with problems caused by an international border and not enough staff to patrol it. That left the city police to take calls well outside of city limits.