Josie heard Otto sigh and she glanced over at his slack face. She had noticed Otto had begun to lose patience when people being questioned about a topic relevant to the investigation rambled on about something unrelated. A significant number of people in far West Texas lived in remote solitude, so when unexpected visits happened, they occasionally got chatty. It mostly led to wasted time, but every now and then a golden nugget surfaced between the details.
“That’s when I saw a pale blob in my binoculars. I put them down and saw this man dragging a big rubber inner tube by a rope, up and out of the water and onto the riverbank. There was a woman who climbed off the inner tube and stood there onshore with a big black backpack over her shoulders. I almost screamed at them to get off my land, but then I worried they might have a gun. Well, obviously he didn’t have a gun, because he was stark-naked. But she could have. So I just stood there in the tall grass and watched.”
“He only brought one person over?” Josie asked.
“There was a man standing onshore, already waiting there. I hadn’t noticed him until the woman came ashore. Then the naked man jumped back in the river and swam over for another man. He put the rope over his arm, like a woman’s purse, and swam the man over in the inner tube like a fish. He has a heck of a strong stroke. I’ll give him that. I bet I stood there maybe ten minutes and it was over.”
“Was anyone else on the bank waiting for them? A coyote picking them up?” Josie asked.
“As soon as the last man got to the shore another fella in jeans and a shirt and cowboy boots appeared out of nowhere, and the three people followed him out toward the road. I stayed right where I was until I heard a car take off. I couldn’t see them on the road. I was down below the bank.”
“What time was this?” Otto asked.
“About five. It was about dinnertime.”
“Have you seen him here before?” he asked.
“No, sir. But I’ve heard about the naked Mexican. He charges people for that!”
“About a thousand dollars a person,” Josie said.
Agnes’s jaw dropped. “Well, I’ll swim them across for that kind of money!”
Otto smirked. “Don’t try it. It’s a bit easier to arrest you, on U.S. soil, than it is to catch a guy who just has to jump back over the river to avoid arrest,” Otto said.
“We call him Slick Fish,” Josie said. “He’s been doing this for years. He has runners up and down the river that he pays to watch for police and Border Patrol. When the area’s clear, they radio Slick and he strips down, gets his people on the inner tube, and swims them across. No engine noise, no commotion.”
“Why on earth would he come here where he has to swim across?” she asked. “There’s places in the river upstream where you can practically walk across.”
Josie looked downriver to where Agnes was pointing. “He’s got a perfect spot here. The river splits this long low hill.” She pointed to where the river dipped down a fifteen-foot bank and disappeared from view. “The cottonwood trees and the salt cedar give him cover. His scouts look up and down the road here to ensure there aren’t any cops. And he has easy access to a road. When you cross in the open desert, you can cross the border easy enough, but you’re an open target on the run. Here, it only takes fifteen minutes and he’s got three people across the border, loaded into a pickup truck, and headed north to freedom.”
“And three thousand bucks for his trouble,” Otto said.
Agnes looked horrified. “Well, you can’t just let this naked man ferry people onto my property!”
“We’ll get someone out here.” Josie handed her a business card. “You call me if you see anything else. By the time we get here the transport will probably be over, but we’ll track what times he comes and goes. We’ll get him eventually.
“And, whatever you do, don’t get involved. No yelling at him to get off your land, or firing shots, or you’re likely to get shot yourself. Understood?”
Agnes nodded, her expression grim, and slipped the card into her shirt pocket.
*
They got back in the jeep and Otto buckled his seat belt, clearly agitated. “Explain how a multimillion-dollar border fence is going to stop a guy like Slick Fish.”
“No clue,” Josie said. She’d heard the same rant from Otto for years.
“We spend a small fortune building a fence that they’ll go under, or over, or cut a hole in and drive straight through. Makes no sense.”
“It’s a deterrent. It slows them down,” she said, which was the same response she always gave.
“It’s like shoving your thumb into a hole in a dam and expecting to stop the water. The water always wins. It doesn’t work.”
Josie changed the topic. “I’ll work with Marta to set up an observation post to track Slick’s movements. It’ll be tough to find her time to get over there in the evening, but we’ll give it a shot.”
“We’ll never catch the bastard. He’s naked and he’s slick. Unless you’re right down there on the water and plan on jumping into the river and wrestling him back onto U.S. soil, he’s home free. What’s the point?”