Josie shook her head in amazement. “The news has already spread?”
Lou held up Josie’s gun in one hand and her badge in the other. “Helen brought these over about two minutes ago. She carried them in a paper bag and dropped them on the counter. She said the mayor asked her to make a delivery. That’s all she said. What did you do to piss Helen off so bad?”
“I made her boss mad.”
“So the drama’s over?” Lou asked.
“It hasn’t even started. But at least I’m back on the job. Let me know if you hear anything on the radio about it. Hopefully the mayor will make some sort of announcement.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Lou said. “Otto doesn’t know yet. He’ll be glad to see you. He’s been a grouch ever since this happened.”
“Is he upstairs?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She smiled and handed Josie her badge and gun. “Good to have you back, Chief.”
*
Josie walked upstairs and held up her equipment as she entered the office. Otto turned away from his desk looking shocked. “How did that happen?”
They sat together at the conference table and Josie explained her visit with Caroline and the mayor.
“You were right not to tell me. I’d have told you to quit being foolish.” He gestured to her gun lying on the table. “And now this. Good for you.”
“I have to talk to Holder. I have no idea what kind of charges he might bring against her.”
“Maybe none, since this is still circumstantial. The only physical evidence that ties her to trafficking, other than Ryan’s admission, is the Visa payment to set up the Web site four years ago. The name Lilith doesn’t exactly make the case.”
“Understood. But a jury will love it.”
“You know she won’t do jail time,” he said. “She’ll get a high-dollar attorney who’ll claim she was framed.”
“We also have an unsolved murder. Who says she’s not involved?”
“Speaking of the murder, Cowan called this morning. The lab ran the mouth swab from Josh Mooney. They were able to collect DNA off Renata’s underwear that was still intact. It matched the DNA collected from Mooney.”
Josie put a fist in the air. “Excellent. I hope that bastard pays like hell for what he did.”
Otto studied her for a moment. “Let’s go back to Caroline. To our former Citizen of the Year. What’s your opinion?”
Josie raised a hand to dismiss his question. “That’s why we have judges and juries. I just arrest them. I don’t have to decide guilt.”
“Come on. Don’t be such a cop. I’m asking your personal opinion about what Caroline did.”
Josie had thought about little else for days. “Okay, then. She used her humanitarian work to cover up something illegal. To me, that makes what she did even worse.” Josie walked to the back of the office to look out the window. She finally turned back to Otto. “But this goes deeper than that. It reminds me of one of those companies that make their money on the backs of the little people, with no regard for their safety. As long as they make their money, and they get away with their crimes, they can look the other way and get rich. Pretend what they’re doing is helping society. Until someone catches them. That’s what I think Caroline did. She didn’t care what was happening to those women. She didn’t bother to check on their safety because she didn’t want to know. That’s not just irresponsible, it’s criminal.”
Otto’s lips were pursed and he was nodding as she talked. “I doubt Holder can use any of that, but it sure as hell makes sense to me. Let’s get her.”
*
At four-thirty, Josie and Otto sat down with Holder and spent the next several hours discussing Josie’s trip to Albuquerque and her involvement in the investigation while officially suspended. She and Holder had a good relationship, and she hadn’t wanted him to find out about her involvement when he was in the middle of presenting his latest case to a jury. At one point, Holder called Smokey Blessings, who said that the counsel never officially recognized Josie’s suspension because the mayor had not followed proper protocol. Holder asked Blessings to write up his explanation and deliver it to the prosecutor’s office.
“I’ll be honest, Josie. I don’t like any of this. I understand why you went, and I get that you had to go when you did, but you put me in a hell of a bind. This is one of those jury minefields. They could either turn on the mayor for suspending you, or they could sympathize with him because he supported his wife. In that case, they could turn on you for investigating a case without your badge.”
“But Smokey just said—”
“I know what he said. But Caroline Moss will have a first-rate attorney who will take anything outside of the investigative norm and paint it as questionable. It comes down to perception and the makeup of the jury. I hate cases like this. I want to take a case to trial that revolves around evidence, not bad decisions.”