The Territory (Josie Gray Mysteries #1)(8)

Before Josie could reach the stairs, the bell on the front door rang and she turned back to see a tall woman who looked to be in her early thirties. She wore a spaghetti strap tank top, cut-off jean shorts that revealed long tanned legs, and flip-flops. Long brown hair hung in tangles around her shoulders as if she had just been riding a motorcycle with no helmet.

“Can I help you?” Josie asked.

“There’s a dead man on my couch.”

Josie stifled a sigh. “Any special reason he’s dead on your couch as opposed to someone else’s?”

“Is that cop humor?”

“No. I’d like an answer.”

“None to give. All I know is he’s left a hell of a stain on the couch. Isn’t even mine.”

“The couch?”

“Not the couch or the trailer.”

“Why didn’t you call 911?” Josie asked.

The woman glanced at her watch. “I got ten minutes before I’m late to work. Six to midnight. If I called from the trailer, you guys would have kept me there for hours. I need my paycheck.” She held up a set of house keys. “Make yourself at home.”

Josie ignored the keys. “Do you know the dead man?”

“Red Goff.”

Josie shook her head in shock. The woman smirked.

“How did he die?” Josie asked.

“Gunshot. In the forehead.”

Josie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re telling me Red Goff was shot in the head inside your trailer?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“Do you know who shot him?” Josie asked.

“I have no idea.” She held her keys up again. “I have to get to work. Can I pick my keys up here when I get off?”

“You have a dead man on your couch, and you can’t tell me why?” Josie let the question hang for a beat, but the woman didn’t respond. “Where do you work?”

“Value Gas.”

“Call your boss. Tell her you won’t be in tonight.”

“You guarantee I won’t get fired after I miss work?”

Josie felt a tension headache starting at the base of her skull. “Is Leona still a manager?” she asked.

The woman nodded.

“I’ll call Leona. She owes me one.”

She sighed loudly and slipped her keys into her shorts pocket.

“I’ll have to take your statement.” Josie gestured for the woman to enter through the swinging half door that led behind the front counter. The counter extended across the front of the office and separated the lobby from the booking and intake area.

Josie turned to face Lou. “Get an ambulance out there and call Otto. Tell him we’ve got a probable homicide and we need him there now. Ask him to secure the scene and call the coroner. Tell him I’ll be there within the hour.”

“It doesn’t take a degree to figure out dead. He ain’t coming back.”

Josie turned to the woman. “Just a precaution. Have to do things by the book.”

“Whatever suits you,” she said.

Josie walked past Lou and led the woman to a desk with a computer that the officers shared for intakes and statements. She pointed to a chair across from the desk and pulled up the form on the computer. “Name?”

“Pegasus Winning.”

Josie glanced up and saw the woman was serious. “Address?”

“I don’t have an address.”

“The address for the trailer,” Josie said.

“There isn’t one. My brother said he never had an address for it.”

“Does your brother have a P.O. box?”

She shook her head. “Nope. He didn’t want mail.”

Josie looked up from her computer. “Work with me here, okay? I need to get out to your place, and you need to get to work.”

“It’s off Farm Road 170, just in front of Red’s place. Use his address. He’s dead, anyway.”

“What’s your relationship with Red?” Josie asked.

“Limited.” She grimaced. “He’d wander down to my place to tell me the world was coming to an end. How I needed guns and dead bolts. Like anyone in their right mind would want what’s inside my trailer. He’d rant about the government and the police state. Then he’d try to get me to go to his place to look at his guns. Show and tell. He was a leech.”

“You’re living in your brother’s trailer?” Josie asked.

“I moved here about three months ago to live with him, but he was gone. He left me a note and said he had to cool off. Couldn’t take the Texas heat anymore. He left me an address to mail the trailer payment each month. That was about it.”

“Think he was in trouble when he left?”

“He’s never been out of trouble.”

*

Because the murder was committed outside the city limits, Josie had called the sheriff’s department to pass the case off. Technically, it was their jurisdiction, but dispatch had said all their officers were tied up. Josie agreed to take the case. With a budget so tight it barely covered salaries, the two departments often operated out of jurisdiction in order to cover calls. Considering the territorial drama among agencies in some small towns, she took pride in the relationship the city police and sheriff’s department shared in Artemis. She also worked well with most of the Border Patrol agents, and with the occasional Department of Public Safety officer, though DPS rarely showed up so far out of the city.