He shrugged.
What had happened to a polite Yes, ma’am? Or even a plain yes or no? After all these years she was still shocked when someone treated a visit by the police as an inconvenience.
“Have you heard about the two women that were found in Artemis this week?”
He shrugged again.
“Okay. How about you drop the shrug routine and answer the questions. I’ll be more specific for you this time. Tell me what you’ve heard about the woman who was found shot in the back out in a ranch pasture this past week,” she said. It wasn’t the best way to start an interview, but his insolent stare and shrug were pissing her off.
This question at least produced more than a shrug. His eyebrows rose and he reeled back like she’d asked something distasteful. “Same as anyone else. I heard about it on the radio. Figured she was some illegal crossing the border.”
“Who would shoot an illegal in the back for crossing the border?” she said.
He turned up his lip like it was a stupid question. “Who would shoot anyone in the back?”
She felt the sting from his response. She wasn’t handling the interview well. Otto obviously noticed and stepped in. “Okay. Let me be even more blunt, Ryan. We heard from a couple people that you were involved in transporting two women from Guatemala to the U.S. Were you?”
His expression carried the expected measure of shock, but there was an element of fear as his eyes darted from Otto to Josie and back again in a way that made Josie believe the Mooneys might actually have sent them in the right direction.
“No! I was at college!”
“But you got thrown out for assault and battery. Right?” Otto said.
The shock gave way to full-on fear. “No! I mean, I came home. I got in a fight and all, but I came home because I hated it.”
“Hated getting thrown out of college?” Otto said.
“Why are you asking me about this? Those charges were dropped.”
“What do you know about Josh and Macey Mooney?” Josie asked.
He leaned his head back and groaned. “Seriously? Is that what this is about?”
Josie said nothing.
“They are inbred freaks. If they told you anything about anything you can count on it being a lie.”
“How do you know them?” she asked.
The question obviously caught him off guard. He stammered and said, “Everybody knows them. They’re weird as hell.”
“But you said they lie. What have they lied to you about?” she said.
He grinned and tilted his head as if he were being misunderstood. “I just meant in general. Everybody knows they’re freaks and they’re liars.”
Josie looked at Otto. “Did you know they were liars?”
Otto seemed to consider the question. “No. I didn’t know they were liars. Did you?”
“Nope.” She faced Ryan again but said nothing. Let him hang himself, she thought. People watched cop shows on TV and figured investigations turned on some clever piece of evidence, but nine times out of ten, the case was solved by dogged police work and whittling down witnesses, one question at a time. Just the right question, at just the right time, to make the vulnerable witness falter and break. That was the goal—a crack in the story.
Ryan’s shoulders slumped, and he looked at Josie as if she was messing with him. She was surprised by his general composure, given he was only eighteen or nineteen years old.
“You know what I mean. That’s their reputation,” he said.
“I know that Josh and Macey both said you were involved in transporting those two women from Guatemala to the United States. And now one of those women is dead.” Josh started to reply, and Josie put one hand on the butt of the gun sticking out from her belt, and the other hand in the air to stop him. It did the trick. “Look. We have enough intelligence to know that you’re involved with the transport. You help us figure out who we need to talk to, and you’ll have some room to bargain.”
He kicked the dirt and pressed his fists into his eyes. Barely out of high school, and yet the cops were already talking to him about murder. He was one of those kids that people loved to gossip about because his parents were nice, upstanding people in the community. As if nice parents kept you insulated from making bad decisions.
“It’s those two idiots—the Mooneys! They knew I was trying to pay my parents back for flunking out of school my first semester.” Ryan paused and Josie wondered if he was gauging her reaction to his lie about flunking out. “I met them both one night at a party at Cici Gomez’s apartment.”
Otto made a face. “If that’s where you’re hanging out, we may as well arrest you right now.”