The Territory (Josie Gray Mysteries #1)(22)
“It’s high-dollar stuff,” Josie called up to Otto. “He didn’t go to Walmart and stock up. Where’s ole Red getting his money?”
“I studied the list of members yesterday. I knew all the members but one, and there isn’t a sugar daddy in the bunch. A few with money, but nothing significant.”
She took a step off the ladder and into the room. The waders closed in around her legs, the cold water pressing against her. She poked around on the floor with the broom handle and found nothing. On the right-hand side of the room was a pipe that had apparently leaked the water. The pipe appeared to exit the back side of the building and was probably connected to a well. She could see the water pushing into the room where the pipe was submerged. Josie scanned the wall and found a shutoff valve.
She looked up toward the hole in the ceiling and saw Otto bent at the waist and squinting down at her.
“This was intentional,” she said. “That valve was opened completely. I can’t believe the well hasn’t run dry by now.”
“He had to be two feet from hell before he hit water out here,” Otto said.
Josie waded across the far side of the room, where five hundred–gallon plastic trunks lined the floor. The water was just below the lip of three of the trunks. The other two were empty and floating just below the wooden shelf above them. Josie opened both and found black grease stains on the inside and the strong smell of gun oil. She wondered aloud if the missing guns had been stored in the tubs. The other three trunks were full of detonators, frag grenades, explosives, night-vision goggles, tac lights, and scopes.
“There’s enough explosive here to blow up the entire town.”
A small green plastic tub sat on a shoulder-high shelf in the corner. Josie pulled it down and lifted the lid. Inside were approximately a hundred photos and a 35-millimeter camera in a black leather carrying case. Josie didn’t bother to examine the photos but took the tub and handed it up to Otto. She carried the remaining two trunks through the water, up the ladder, and loaded them into the jeep, and left the tubs with explosives for the Department of Public Safety to remove. Then Josie made the final climb out of the rank water and into Red’s bedroom, imagining mold settling into her lungs.
Later that afternoon, Josie and Otto cataloged the six trunks into evidence and then spread the photographs out on the table in the department office upstairs. After a quick scan of the pictures, Josie sat down in disgust and shook two Tums from the bottle that she kept in her desk drawer.
Otto remained standing, hands on his hips, scowling down at the pictures. “I just never figured him for a pervert. That poor girl didn’t have a clue,” Otto said, pointing to a picture of Pegasus Winning in shorts, bare chested, walking across the living room in her trailer. The grainy picture appeared to have been taken by a telephoto lens.
They found around forty pictures of Winning, mostly undressed, getting ready for bed or getting out of the shower. The pictures had obviously been taken on multiple days. One picture particularly bothered Josie. Winning stood completely naked at the kitchen counter, looking toward the window as if she heard a noise, with a shot glass held just up to her lips. Her expression was distant, the look of someone trying to deaden her loneliness through a bottle. Josie wondered what she might look like through a camera lens in the privacy of her own home at night. The thought depressed the hell out of her.
Otto pulled another manila envelope out of the green tub and dumped the pictures onto the table, then laid them out in rows. The photos all appeared to be of Gunner members and various meetings and activities.
He pointed to a picture and leaned closer to the table to examine it. “Those fellas aren’t Gunners. Look at the three men in the background, all wearing desert camouflage.”
Josie picked up the picture and studied it. Two of the men had what appeared to be automatic machine guns strapped over their shoulders, and all three appeared to be Mexican.
“Bingo.” Otto clapped Josie on the back. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
FOUR
The Border Crossing at the International Bridge into Ojinaga was backed up, typical but frustrating. Josie inched through, cursing yet another result of budget cuts on both sides of the border. Marta had logged on at the department at 4:30 P.M., as Josie logged off for the night. Department-issued vehicles were not allowed out of county, and definitely not across the border. Josie had to conduct business in Mexico off duty and in her personal car. Marta was on the clock, but traveling in uniform would draw unwanted attention. Josie had driven home, traded the jeep for her nondescript ten-year-old Ford Escort, and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She picked up Marta, who had changed out of her police uniform and into a pretty blue skirt and white lacy blouse. Josie held her tongue but smiled.
Marta left Mexico ten years ago after divorcing an abusive husband. She traveled through all the proper channels to get her green card and a job as the night custodian at the jail. Hard work and diligence had paid off as she worked her way up through the ranks to police officer. She had confided in Josie that she felt ashamed for leaving her country and working in America, but her daughter’s safety kept her from moving back to Piedra Labrada.
On several occasions over the past few years, Josie and Marta had met Sergio at his home, a small adobe in a barrio just south of a bend in the Rio. The stone walls were over a foot thick, with window wells that held flower boxes bursting with red geraniums. His only child, a shy teenaged girl, waved and smiled from the backyard but did not come to the front porch where they met her father. Sergio stood on the top step and smiled, threw his arms open to Marta, and wrapped her in his embrace.