Midnight Crossing (Josie Gray Mysteries #5)(64)

“I’m here to help,” he said.

“I know you are. And you have no idea how much I appreciate it. But I’m not giving the mayor any fuel to burn my ass. Someone else can, but not me. As much as I despise that man, I love my job more. And I want it back.”





SIXTEEN

Chester ran to Dell’s house several times a day, visiting him anytime Josie left home, in constant need of companionship. Josie made the walk to Dell’s house when she needed to hear a sane voice.

She found Dell in the tack room of his barn, bent over his workbench, tooling a design into the side of a saddle. He wore a pair of ancient blue jeans and a navy T-shirt that was so threadbare his skin was visible through the cotton around the shoulders. This was a man who Josie suspected had several hundred thousand dollars squirreled away, most likely in coffee cans buried behind his house, but she knew in Dell’s mind a new T-shirt was an unnecessary extravagance.

He looked up when Chester ambled in, and smiled when he saw Josie.

“How’s tricks?” he said, and pitched his leather punch onto the workbench.

“You haven’t heard?”

He pointed at the radio on a shelf above him, his only source of daily news. “Got tired of the drama. Gave it up for a day or two. What’s happened?”

“I got suspended this morning. The mayor took my badge and gun.”

He jerked his head back. “What?”

“I accused his wife of something. And he views that as breach of contract.”

“How can he get away with that kind of crap? Why do people keep voting that ass into office?”

Josie shook her head slowly. “He’s all we’ve got. No one runs against him.”

Dell seemed to have caught what she had said. “What’d his wife do? I thought she was an uppity-up. A big senator’s daughter, helper to the poor. All that nonsense.”

“She may be an uppity-up, but I’m not so sure about a helper to the poor.”

Dell motioned out into the walkway between the horse stalls. Josie sat on a bale of straw while he leaned against one of the stalls with an angry expression on his face. “What did she do?”

Josie didn’t hesitate to tell Dell. Confidentiality was critical, but so was sanity, and Dell had been a trustworthy confidant for years.

She described how Josh Mooney and Ryan Needleman had transported five women up from Central America based on the orders of Caroline Moss. She also described how a haul of five women could net Caroline fifty thousand dollars’ profit if all went well.

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m here.”

He grinned. “I’m ready.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“I know enough. Let’s go kick some ass.”

She laughed at the wicked look in his eyes. “It’s a good thing I’m a cop and not a criminal.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I need to get some legwork done, then I’ll fill you in. We’ll leave first thing in the morning if things come together.”

“I thought you were suspended from the case.”

“We’ll leave quietly.”

*

It was almost nine o’clock when Josie and Chester walked back down the lane from Dell’s place. The temperature had dropped into the lower seventies and Chester was loving the cool weather, tracking scents from bush to bush, zigzagging through the pasture in bloodhound nirvana.

Josie pulled out her cell phone and dialed Sheriff Roy Martinez’s number.

“You hanging in there?” he asked.

“I’ve seen better days,” she said. “Sorry to call you so late at home.”

“Not a problem, you know that.”

“Thanks, Roy.”

“Anything you need, you name it.”

“It’s sort of a big one.”

“Bring it on.”

“I need to talk to Josh Mooney.”

He laughed. “That’s a big one. The mayor called me this afternoon to make it clear you were off-limits at the jail.”

“I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t sure Caroline was all over this. I need to put that woman out of business.”

“I’m thinking we never had this conversation.”

Josie said nothing, hoping the silence on the other end of the phone was a good sign.

“Meet me at the prisoner entrance to the jail in twenty minutes. I’ll see what I can do.”

*

Josie drove her S-10 pickup truck and parked in the back lot, which at nine o’clock was empty aside from two pool cars and the sheriff’s SUV. Roy waved to her and she entered, feeling uneasy about the situation she was putting Roy in.

“I appreciate this,” she said.

He patted her on the back and pointed to a small unused office space that connected to the kitchen, deserted at that time of night.

“I put the fear of hard time into Josh Mooney,” Roy said. “After sitting in that cell for two days it didn’t take much. He’s ready to talk.”

“His attorney?”

“He didn’t want one. Josh thinks he’s got this all figured out. Thinks he’s a wise guy, smarter than the rest of us. We’re just going to leave it at that.”