Midnight Crossing (Josie Gray Mysteries #5)(2)

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.

Josie unlocked the office door and the rows of fluorescent lights hummed on. Otto filled the coffeepot with water at the back of the room and they both settled into the comfortable early-morning routine they had developed in their ten-plus years of working together.

Josie sat down at her computer and started through the several dozen emails that had come through since the evening before and began making return phone calls regarding a vandalized water tank behind the gas station and a burglary at an apartment downtown. A young couple had reported a thousand dollars was stolen from their apartment, but Josie had talked to the sheriff that morning and he said they’d also supposedly lost fifty thousand dollars’ worth of heroin and cocaine earlier in the week. If true, the domino effect would travel along the drug trail that started in Mexico and chugged up north into the U.S. from dealer to dealer, until the drugs were recovered, or someone paid the price. The police carried out an investigation while the criminals conducted their own, which often resulted in a faster, more violent conclusion.

*

At two o’clock Marta called from home.

“What’s up?” Josie asked.

“I got a follow-up for you. I’m off duty tonight and just wanted to make sure to get this on record. I had a busy night and didn’t have time to leave you a note.”

“No problem. What do you need?”

“It’s Slick Fish. He’s back at it again. I thought we ran him off, but he just changed locations.”

“Somebody saw him?”

“Agnes Delaney, of all people.”

Josie grinned. “Was he naked?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s coming up out of the water just south of Agnes’s house,” Marta said.

“Okay. I’ll check it out.” She hung up the phone and turned to Otto. “Slick Fish resurfaced. Out by Cotton Canyon. Want to go take a look?”

“You bet,” he said. “You got your bathing suit?”

Josie shuddered. “Slick and I will not be swimming together.”

*

Josie drove with the windows down, enjoying the cooler mid-eighties temperature while Otto cranked up the air-conditioning and pointed all the vents toward his face.

“Four decades I’ve spent in this desert, and I still haven’t adapted to the heat,” he said.