Scratchgravel Road (Josie Gray Mysteries #2)(2)
Enrico laid his arm over her shoulder and it felt heavy. He was built thick and worked out obsessively. She struggled to keep up with him, worrying she would trip over a cactus, leaving cuts that she would struggle to explain to her mother the next day.
She smelled the sweet musky smoke before she saw the faint light from the bonfire in the distance. Enrico put a finger to his lips and they listened to hushed laughter, maybe fifty feet in front of them. She couldn’t tell if the voices’ owners were walking or were inside a vehicle. After a few seconds the sounds faded into the distance.
With no city lights the stars and moon lit the desert floor a soft gray. The ground appeared to be reflecting back the absorbed light from the sun’s afternoon glare. The light from the fire, still partially hidden behind a large boulder, appeared bright suddenly.
“It’s a half-mile walk from here. You cool?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Watch for the long skinny cactus. They rip into your skin like a fishing hook. Hurts like hell to pull them out.”
Enrico stopped suddenly and Teresa ran into his side. He pointed to his left, toward the road, in the direction of an approaching vehicle. “Hold up. Truck’s coming.”
They stood and watched the yellow parking lights of a dark-colored, full-size pickup as it drove slowly forward, just to the north of them. Without a word, they both crouched in the sand and watched the truck slow to a crawl, then circle behind a large thick grove of bushes roughly thirty feet in front of them.
“Don’t you know all these people?” she whispered.
“Nobody comes to the Hollow off Scratchgravel like that,” he said, pointing in the direction of the truck. “Got to be safe.”
She wondered what he meant. Safe from the cops?
The truck stopped. The driver exited, slammed the door, and walked to the back end.
“What the hell’s this guy doing?” Enrico said.
Teresa could feel his arm tense against hers like he was ready to take off after the guy in the truck. Enrico had an intensity that she respected, like he could handle anything.
The man laid the tailgate down and dragged something forward. They heard him grunt, obviously struggling with the load. Teresa wondered if they were watching a drug exchange. The Rio Grande, the border to Mexico, was less than a mile away, and crossing it in the middle of nowhere was no big deal. The Border Patrol rarely made it to Artemis. With two thousand miles of international border their little town barely got noticed, and drug mules and coyotes transporting illegals were part of life.
The man at the back of the truck continued to struggle for another minute, and then they heard a heavy thud as the load hit the ground. The man bent and worked for several seconds arranging something, then stood abruptly, shut the tailgate, and walked back to the driver’s side. They listened as he shoved the truck into gear and drove slowly away, around the bushes and back the same way he came, straight back out to the road.
Enrico stood and Teresa grabbed ahold of the back of his shirt. “Maybe we should turn back. If that’s a load of weed we should get out of here.”
Instead, he walked forward, toward the dark mass lying on the ground. Teresa followed a few feet behind him.
Enrico stopped suddenly and threw his arm out to stop her. “Son of a bitch.”
Looking over his shoulder, she gasped and stifled a scream into her fist.
TWO
At noon on Monday, Chief Josie Gray followed her bloodhound outside, then locked the front door of her small adobe house in the foothills of the Chinati Mountains. She watched Chester lope up the long lane behind her house to the cabin owned by her closest friend, Dell Seapus. His place was the dog’s second home while Josie went to work. She unlocked the driver’s-side door of her dusty blue and white jeep and leaned in to start the car. The blast of hot air sent her back to the shade of the front porch while the car cooled. Her police uniform was standard garb: thick gray pants, navy blue short-sleeved shirt, and heavy black work boots that made little sense in the West Texas desert, but the mayor and commissioners were convinced they conveyed the proper image. Josie wore her uniform carefully pressed and the brass polished. She recognized that her public image as chief of police had to remain impeccable on every level. Not everyone thought a thirty-three-year-old woman fit that role.
She pulled her cell phone out of her uniform shirt pocket and called dispatcher Louise Hagerty, to log on for second shift.
“Anything going on?” she asked.
“Otto’s taking a report at the Gun Club. Tiny called and said somebody stole all the trash cans from behind his store.”
Josie sighed.
Lou told her she was cleaning out the refrigerator and wanted Josie to tell Otto to quit leaving open Coke cans on the shelves. Lou was a forty-seven-year-old chain smoker with a voice like sandpaper who complained about having to work as secretary, detective, intake officer, custodian, and psychologist on top of her real job as dispatcher. But Josie knew Lou was first rate at all her various tasks, and probably would have complained bitterly if someone tried to take one away from her.
“I’ll talk to him,” Josie said. “I’m going to drive by the watchtower before I come into town. Call me if you need anything.”
With the steering wheel cool enough to touch, Josie backed out of her driveway onto Schenck Road, the gravel lane that led to her and Dell’s property. The Chihuahuan Desert spread out before her, sparsely marked with cactus, scrub bushes, and pinyon pine, with not another house in sight for miles. Josie drove slowly down the lane, appreciating the quiet and the solitude.