The Territory (Josie Gray Mysteries #1)(82)

“Kenny, you know we aren’t going to do that. You’re outnumbered here.”

“Bullshit! You can’t come near me without getting blown to pieces, so don’t tell me I’m outnumbered!”

She tried to reason with him, trying to stall. “Kenny, you can’t do this to your sister. You’re all the family she’s got.”

“Don’t bring her into this! She has nothing to do with this!”

“Kenny, if you’re thrown in jail for killing a police officer, you’ll never see her again. Whatever has happened to this point, we can work through it. Just come out here so we can talk.”

Josie noticed the Eldorado driving through the grass toward the campsite.

Pegasus parked and jumped out of the car, shouting Kenny’s name. Josie put her hands up in the air to slow her down. She pointed toward the trailer.

Pegasus called her brother’s name, softer now, and approached the trailer. He said nothing. She stopped just outside the door.

“Kenny? What are you thinking?”

*

Pegasus tentatively looked inside and found him sitting on the floor, his legs stretched out in front of him, each hand holding a grenade. Kenny’s head was leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed.

She stepped inside quietly, not wanting to startle him, terrified by what she saw. The dim light from the lantern cast angular shadows across the guns piled three and four deep on the floor in the back of the trailer, most of them large, most likely automatic. A box of explosives lay to Kenny’s right side. She winced at the smell of gun oil and sweat.

“Kenny,” she whispered, and sat beside him, careful not to touch him yet. “What are you doing, buddy?”

He turned his head toward her and opened bloodshot eyes. “It’s all turned to shit.”

“Are these the missing guns from Red’s place?”

“I wanted to get us out of this wasteland. Just enough to get a start somewhere else. Vermont or Montana. Start a bait-and-tackle shop. Anything but this.” He threw his hands into the air as if this was what his life had become.

Pegasus wiped sweat off her forehead and tried to stall the feeling of desperation that was starting to take over. “Did you steal Red’s guns from his house?”

Kenny had always been in charge; now he looked at her as if she was supposed to come up with the solution. “I messed up, sis. I did it good this time.”

“Who were you going to sell them to?” she asked, still trying to make some sense of her brother surrounded by guns.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter! The owner of those guns is dead! You don’t mess with people like that.”

“I was going to get us out of this hellhole. I could have made enough money to move us anywhere.”

Pegasus leaned across him and took both grenades out of his hands. “I love you, Kenny. I love you for trying. But you have to stop now. It’s over.”

*

Otto finally reached Josie on her cell phone on his way out to the campsite. Josie had Kenny handcuffed and was leading him to her jeep. Otto arrived as she reached the road. She loaded Kenny in the back of his jeep, and he transported Winning to the Arroyo County Jail. It was after three in the morning before he was booked and sitting in an interrogation room. Josie sat across the metal table from Kenny and slid him a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Otto set a cup of instant coffee in front of him and stood in the back of the room. Kenny still wore just a ripped black T-shirt and jeans. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

After the preliminary information, Josie asked him to explain in detail how he came up with Red’s guns. Kenny had lost the angry martyr persona and looked as if he were coming down off a three-day high. His eyes remained bloodshot and unfocused, his words slightly slurred.

“Not much detail to give. I found Red dead on my couch. I figured somebody was going to get the guns, may as well be me. He probably stole the guns to begin with. Turnabout.”

“You found Red’s body and didn’t bother to report it?”

He shrugged.

“You left a dead body in the trailer while your sister lay in the bedroom sleeping?”

He shrugged again. “The guy was dead. Wasn’t like he was going to get up and do something to her. I could tell he was dead, so I left to think. That’s when I decided to go back to Red’s and load the guns in my camper. It was already parked behind Red’s place. Why not take something bad and turn it? I rented the storage unit later that day. Check the records.”

Josie already knew the records Cammie gave her verified his story.

“Why use Paul Fallow’s name?”

“Because Paul Fallow is an ass. He’s an arrogant jerk who deserves whatever he gets.”

“Did you change the front page in Red’s policy manual? Did you take your name off the list to keep us from viewing you as a suspect?”

He lifted a shoulder and sipped at the coffee.

“What makes the most sense to me,” Josie said, “is that you shot Red for the guns and then stole them. You took your name out of the manual and added Fallow’s name to the rental information to throw suspicion away from you.”

“Why would I shoot Red, and then drag his bloody body into my own trailer?”

“Maybe you stuck him on the couch to get the body hidden while you ransacked his house.”