Midnight Crossing (Josie Gray Mysteries #5)(18)

“They could have been crossing the border with a larger group too. Gotten separated,” he said.

“I keep going back to the illegal immigrant idea and it just doesn’t fit.” Josie described the vehicle that had been driving by her house the two nights before they discovered the women.

Jimmy nodded as she finished describing the turn of events. “You’re thinking a coyote transporting these women across the border isn’t going to come back for them.”

Josie shrugged. “Why would they? They collect their money up front. If the women wanted to split from the group, it’s less hassle for the coyotes. Two less people to deliver.”

“Unless the women took something from them,” Jimmy said.

“They didn’t have anything on them. No money or ID, nothing.”

“Sounds more like a human trafficking case.”

Josie nodded. “Traffickers would have a lot more at stake if two girls escaped.”

“You bet. They get money from the girls to transport them into the U.S. Then they get a second payment when they deliver the girls to whoever is paying for the service,” Jimmy said. “And it fits that the girls had no money or passports. The transporters take everything from them, knowing they’re less likely to leave if they don’t have any ID or way to get back home.”

Josie frowned and watched a young woman with two small kids enter the PD across the street. “What kind of person takes someone’s desperation and turns it into profit?”

“It’s a pretty sound moneymaker,” he said. “The girls get dropped off to a pimp or a labor broker in Houston or San Antonio. They don’t speak English. They have no money, no ID, no passport, and they’re here illegally. They work sixteen-hour days for enough money for only food and board in a crappy motel room they share with half a dozen other people. Then the room and board is deducted from their paycheck, and they get nothing.”

“Indentured servants,” she said.

“That’s it. They’ll work for years in those conditions. And the labor broker moves the maids or factory workers around so they can’t form friendships or figure out ways to partner up and break free.”

“Have you heard of traffickers working in this area?” she asked.

“No, but we’re so overwhelmed with illegal entry—so that’s not a current target for this area,” he said. “I’ll get back to the office and pull together the intelligence we have. I know there was a ring running out of Guatemala last year that got busted. They were coming through Juárez and into El Paso. Sex-trade workers.”

“When these girls leave home do they know that’s where they’re headed?”

Jimmy scowled. “Hell, no. They’re fed stories about how rich they’ll be in the U.S. Their families scrape together thousands to send them here. They count on the girls getting high-paying jobs and mailing home the cash. Then the girls just disappear.”

Josie didn’t respond for a while. She watched the woman come back out of the police station, smiling, holding both her kids’ hands. Josie turned to look at Jimmy. “You ever wonder when you’ll hit the wall? When you’ll get up one morning and think, I just can’t do this job anymore. I can’t deal with one more piece of scum today.”

“Some days, by the time I get home, I can almost feel the dirt on my skin. You know? I worry all that bad we’re surrounded by is rubbing off on me.” Jimmy paused and pointed to the lady strapping her kids into car seats in the back of a minivan. “And then I think, some people can’t do this job. But I can. And if people like you and me give up, then what?”

*

Josie caught up with Otto in the office and described her conversation with Jimmy about human trafficking.

Otto gave her a half grin. “A few months ago Delores came home from the beauty shop complaining about a new hair-cutting place downtown. The one that offers massages?”

Josie nodded in recognition. “Selena’s Cuts. She called herself a massage therapist and sent the Holy Water Church into spasms.”

“That’s the one. The women at Delores’s old lady’s beauty shop claimed she went beyond the basic massage.”

“I talked to Selena and Marta looked into it, but nothing ever materialized,” Josie said. “I think it was a young woman wearing short skirts giving back rubs to men that had the old…” Josie paused, realizing she was about to refer to Otto’s wife.

He smiled at her discomfort. “That had the old women in a frenzy?”

She tilted her head. “Something like that.”

“Still might be worth a look. She came here from somewhere in South America, and there were rumors about how she came into the country,” Otto said. “Want me to talk to her?”

“Why don’t you let me talk to her, and you check in with Cowan on the autopsy. See if he found any matches on the woman’s fingerprints.” Josie turned to her desk to find Marta’s notes from her shift. She typically left Josie a brief summary and listed anything that needed follow-up the next day. Josie read through Marta’s notes, repeating key pieces for Otto. “Regarding the clothing the women were wearing, she says the brands were all too global to narrow down, except for the dead woman’s cowboy boots, which were tooled in Petrolina, Brazil.”