Midnight Crossing (Josie Gray Mysteries #5)(36)

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.”

His hands rose again in a conciliatory gesture. He clearly realized his excuses were getting him in deeper, not providing the alibi he was moving closer to needing.

“I’m just saying that I was at the party with another guy, and the freak brother and sister came up to me. They were like, Hey, we heard you got kicked out of school. You want to earn a few bucks driving a van full of girls from Guatemala to the U.S.? We’ll teach you how to drive the van, and that’s it. The trip should take a week total and you make two thousand bucks.” He shrugged, as if saying, What else was I supposed to say? Easy money.

“So you drove to Guatemala, just like that?” she said.

“Well, no, it was more detailed than that. Macey explained everything a hundred times. Who, what, where, and when. She drilled it into my head. And then she’d say, ‘And you don’t need to know why. MYOB.’ I’d think, Really? Is this junior high? You’re paying me two thousand dollars and telling me to MYOB? Whatever. The money was good and I needed it. That’s all I know.”

“You know a lot more than that,” Josie said. “You transported two women who endured horrific crimes.”

“I don’t know anything about any crimes. I just drove the van.”

“What kind of van?”

“One of those ugly ones with bench seats. Me and Josh took turns driving. We drove sixteen hours a day. Those were the rules. I drove eight and he drove eight.”

“What city did you pick the women up in?”

“I don’t know. All I know is we were in Guatemala. I don’t speak Spanish. I couldn’t read the signs. There were guys driving in trucks with machine guns wearing face masks. It looked like a war zone. It was like nowhere I’ve ever been. And Josh is a complete idiot. I was sure we were all gonna die before we got out of there. I just drove where he told me to.”

“How many people were you transporting?” she asked.

“There were five women. And Josh and me.”

Josie felt nausea well up in her stomach. Five women. So where were the other three?

“Josh drove too?” she asked.

“Yeah, he did! And then he tries to sell me out. The guy is an idiot.”

“So you and Josh were the only men on the trip?” she asked, surprised at the implication of that.

“Yes.”

“Where are the other three women you transported?” she asked.

He put his hands up in the air. “I don’t know. I swear. I drove to Piedra Labrada, and Josh took it from there.”

“Why didn’t you finish the trip with him?” she asked.

“I didn’t have my passport to get back in the country. Josh had it and we got into a fight. He wouldn’t give it back to me, so I just crossed on my own.”