The Territory (Josie Gray Mysteries #1)(10)

Pegasus pointed down a short hallway through the kitchen. “Bathroom and bedroom are down there.”

Josie entered the bathroom and saw a duffel bag–sized stereo perched on a wooden shelf on the wall facing the shower. She pushed the power button, and the Kinks blasted out from the speakers. She turned it off. She stepped back out into the hallway and saw that Red’s body couldn’t be seen from the hallway area in the back of the trailer. The couch sat behind a four-foot-by-four-foot half wall that separated the front door entryway from the living room.

“Satisfied?” Winning asked.

“Otto?” Josie called. “Give me twenty seconds, then shoot off one round.”

Josie ignored Pegasus standing in the hallway and shut the bathroom door. She turned the shower on and pressed the power button on the stereo to hear a head-splitting La-la-la-la Lola. Ten seconds later she heard a dim pop, but if Winning had been singing with the music, she could have missed the sound. Her bedroom was to the right of the bathroom, so she could have taken her shower and gone to bed without seeing the body.

Josie opened the door.

Winning cocked her head but said nothing.

“It’s pretty flimsy. What time did you take your shower?” Josie asked.

“Seven thirty.”

“Exactly?”

“I get off work at seven. I come straight home. Drink two or three shots of tequila. Depends on how bad the shift was. I take a shower, brush my teeth, and go to bed.”

“You lock your door when you’re home?”

Winning pulled a rubber band off her wrist and ran her fingers through her sweaty, tangled hair to pull it into a loose ponytail behind her head. “Can I at least turn the air-conditioning on? I turn it off when I leave for work. I can’t even breathe in here.”

Josie nodded toward the living room and watched Winning walk by the body on her couch, grimace down at it, then turn the wall unit at the end of the room on high.

Otto had come back into the trailer and was on one knee by the couch, getting a carpet sample. He cursed as sweat dripped from the end of his nose and onto the plastic evidence bag in his hand.

“It already smells in here. Can’t you get him out?” Winning asked, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“The coroner should be here soon. We’ll get him out as soon as we can. Let’s step outside,” Josie said.

Outside, Pegasus led Josie to a small picnic table under a clump of gnarled cedar trees that offered a surprising amount of shade from the setting sun. “I can give you a glass of well water that tastes like nails, or you can have a beer,” Winning said.

She crossed her forearms in front of her and leaned on the picnic table. Josie noted the sprinkling of freckles across her nose and high, pronounced cheekbones. She was prettier than she let on.

“Nothing, thanks,” Josie said. She pulled out her steno pad and opened it. “Do you lock your doors when you come home, Ms. Winning?”

She smirked. “One swift kick’s all you need. Red claimed Kenny used to padlock the door. I can’t see why.”

Josie studied her for a moment. “Back at the office, why did you need to give me the keys to your trailer if it wasn’t locked?”

Winning tilted her head and paused long enough to consider the question, or her answer. Josie couldn’t tell.

“Don’t you think it was wise to lock the dead man inside until the police could get here? You wouldn’t want the body tampered with, would you?”

Josie gestured toward the trailer. “How did Officer Podowski get inside?”

“Beats me. Have to ask him. Probably the extra key under the mat.”

“You ought to consider being more careful with who has access to your trailer.”

Winning shrugged.

“Can you think of anyone who would want to break in?” Josie asked.

“Nope.”

“Have you made any enemies since you moved here?”

“Only enemy I have is back in New Orleans.”

“Who’s that?” Josie asked.

“My ex.”

“Any chance he could have paid you a visit? Found Red up the road and got jealous?” Josie asked.

“No way. He was strictly knives. They’re clean and easy. No jacking around with bullets. His words, not mine.”

Winning stood and stepped back from the picnic table. She lifted her shirt to reveal a pale flat stomach and a one-inch scar just below her navel. The scar was red and puffy, a fairly recent wound.

She looked down at her stomach as she talked. “This is his. I was a Daiquiri Girl on Bourbon Street. Made great money until my boss came in and saw blood seeping through my T-shirt. He said it was bad for business and fired me on the spot. Lousy bastard. That’s when I called my brother.”

“Do you know anyone who was out to get Red?”

She grinned. “You a Democrat?”

“Depends,” Josie said.

Winning shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You’re still the enemy. Democrats, cops, government, former schoolteachers, the Pope. You were all plotting an attack on his shitty little house in the desert. You were all about to converge and demand he sacrifice his land and home to your subversive causes.” She rolled her eyes and sat back down. “He told that slop to anyone who would listen. I figure more people wanted him dead than alive. Except that sick bunch of freaks he ran with.”