Midnight Crossing: A Mystery

by Tricia Fields

  “Have you worked with her often?”

  “She’s helped me with a few negotiations. She has a network of contacts that would rival any police department’s.”

  “Why don’t the police use her? I’ve never even heard of her,” she said.

  “I’m not sure how to explain her,” he said. “She doesn’t have allegiance to the police, or to anyone, for that matter. She wouldn’t put up with the police coming to her for information, especially as an informant.”

  Josie nodded.

  “She told me once that her life’s work is heartache and trouble.”

  They rounded a bend and Nick pulled the SUV to a stop. Josie stepped outside and stood still to allow her eyes to adjust to the dark. She smiled and breathed in deep the sweet smell of wood smoke from a fire, and then heard the river flowing before she saw it, a dark swath cutting through the high bank on the U.S. side of the river. A jagged silhouette of rocky outcroppings and clumps of salt cedar were visible above the bank. As she turned away from the river she saw the stone house, barely visible against the low canyon wall that ran behind it. Tucked back under a narrow front porch was a door with two windows lit up on either side of it.

  The house was stacked stone, with the rock most likely collected from the low-lying mountains around it. Ruins of old stone homes could be found throughout West Texas, but there were still people who fought the critters and the occasional cold winters to live in them, enjoying the centuries-old way of living. Glass lanterns glowed in the deep windowsills and let off a warm orange light.

  Nick knocked on the door, which resembled an old barn door with long wrought-iron hinge straps that held the wooden slats together. Josie could see thin strips of light between gaps in the wood. Nick hollered through the door, “Señora Molina. It’s Nick Santos. I’ve come to check on you.”

  Nick had said he always came with a small gift of appreciation, something to help her get by, so Josie found herself holding a loaf of French bread that she’d fortunately picked up at the grocery to have on hand for her mother.

  They stood quietly at the door until it was finally pulled open. Josie realized Sergio hadn’t been exaggerating about the woman’s age. She was stooped over at the waist so far that she had to lift her head up to see Nick. Gray wisps of hair stuck out from under a faded blue bandanna tied around her head like a babushka. She wore a loose-fitting white smock top and long flowered skirt. She squinted up at Nick and then broke into a smile that showed a half dozen teeth.

  “What you doing here so late, ole boy?” Her voice crackled with age and carried very little accent of any kind.

  “I wanted to see how Señora Molina was. And you look better every time I see you.” She reached her hand out and they held hands for a moment before she turned to Josie.

  “And you brought a friend with you. Well, then you come inside so you can introduce me proper.”

  She stepped aside and Josie followed Nick into a room that held a small kitchen and woodstove to the left and a table with eight mismatched chairs around it in the middle of the room. To the right of the table, a handmade wooden couch with cushions covered in colorful afghans and wool blankets ran the length of the wall. Nick took the loaf of bread from Josie, and she watched him set it on the table and then slip money underneath it.

  Señora Molina shut the door and latched it, and turned to study Josie.

  “This is my good friend Josie Gray,” Nick said. “She lives just across the river, not too many miles from here.”

  The woman put both her hands out and Josie did the same. She held Josie’s hands inside of her own warm hands and looked straight into her eyes for a long time. “I know who you are, Josie Gray. You have a heart for people. And you do what’s right in the face of evil.”

  The warmth from the old woman’s hands was like a tonic. Josie felt the strength and wisdom move from the woman’s hands through her own body. She was overcome by this seemingly simple woman and her strength of spirit.

  “You do the work of God. Do not ever forget that. You are a foot soldier, just like me. Yes?”

  Josie felt her throat tighten with emotion and she was shocked at her own reaction. All she could do was nod yes in response.

  The woman finally let go of Josie’s hands and pointed to the table, where Nick was sitting. When she dropped her hands it was as if a connection had been broken. Josie turned to the table, shaken by the experience. She could feel Nick watching her as she sat down, and she finally looked over at him. His face was soft and kind. He seemed to understand what had just happened. Maybe this was the effect the old woman had on people.

  They watched as she went into the small kitchen area, pulled a teakettle off the wood-burning stove, and carried it over to the table.

  “Can I help you?” Josie asked.

  She pointed Josie toward the small bank of kitchen cabinets and a tray that sat on top of the counter with teacups and containers holding milk and sugar.

  They sat down at the table, and as Josie poured each of them a cup of tea to steep, the woman asked, “Have you come to see me about the two women I sent to you?”

  Josie stared at her, startled by the question. She’d hoped to find some tidbit of information, but never expected the women had actually visited Señora Molina. “I have. Yes.”

  “They made it to you safely?” she asked.

  Josie glanced over at Nick, unsure if she should upset the woman with the news that one had been murdered.

  “You can tell her. Señora Molina has watched the same story unfold again and again. It won’t surprise her,” he said.

  The woman sipped from her cup, her expression never wavering as Josie explained how they had found the murdered girl in the pasture and the other girl hiding on her porch.

  Josie was sitting next to Señora Molina, who laid her arm on the table and opened her hand for Josie to take it.

  “When God calls upon you to do something important, you mustn’t question. God trusts you to make decisions to help people as best you can. When you question your decisions, you weaken your resolve. If those women hadn’t come to see you, perhaps both would be dead.”

  Josie nodded.

  “Too much thinking goes on up here.” She dropped Josie’s hand and tapped a finger to her own temple.

  Josie smiled and noticed Nick doing the same. “I’ve been told that,” she said.

  “We do the best we can, and we let the rest go,” she said. She braced her hand on the table and slowly stood. “I want to show you something.”

  The woman walked into the kitchen and then called for Nick. She pointed to a box on top of a kitchen cupboard in the corner. “Reach up there and pull that down.”

  He did so, and she carried a small glass bowl to the table. Several bullets rattled around in the bowl as she placed it in front of Josie.

  Señora Molina sat down beside her again and said, “When I was fifteen I married a man much older than me in my village. He was a mean man. When he drank, his anger boiled up into a volcano of hatred for me. The longer we were married, the more he hated me. But I had nowhere else to go.”

  Her voice was so broken and cracked with age that Josie wasn’t sure she’d be able to finish her story. Nick pointed to a clay honeypot on the tray and Señora Molina nodded. He lifted the lid and twirled the dipper to gather honey onto the stick and then drizzled it into her tea. She stirred her tea and drank from it, allowing her voice to rest before she continued.

  “One hot summer night he was in the horse stable and I was inside the house. I could hear banging and yelling. He’d been drinking tequila all day. He’d skipped the supper I had laid out for him. Then he started yelling my name, and I went to him. Why did I walk into that barn full of trouble and hate? I can’t tell you. That’s what victims do, they walk into trouble. I found him lying on his back in one of the horse stalls, pointing his gun at me. He fired as soon as he saw me. He looked right into my eyes. Six times he pulled that trigger. Time enough to stop and think, regr
et, feel something other than hate for me, for the woman who cooked his meals and shared his bed.”

  She reached up with hands crooked, probably from arthritis, and slowly unbuttoned the top buttons of her smock. She looked at Josie with eyes distant from memories, and she ran her finger from the hollow at her neck down and over to an indentation under her collarbone. She slipped her finger into the hole like a plug in a socket.

  “That’s where all the hatred from one man’s soul buried inside me for eternity. If I push hard enough, I can still feel the lead.” She reached her hand into the bowl of bullets and picked one up, showing it to Josie. “He died that night. Drank himself to death. Later I stood in the barn with his rusty pocketknife and dug the rest of these bullets out of the wood in the barn stall. I’ve kept them all these years.”

  She motioned for Josie to fix the buttons on her top. When Josie was done buttoning them, Señora Molina studied her again. “You have your own lead bullet lodged inside your heart. Don’t let it poison you. That night I committed myself to doing good in the world. And I don’t let the hatred inside that bullet escape.” She tapped her chest where the bullet was buried. “You protect yourself with people who care about you. With good men like Nick. Yes?”

  Josie nodded and felt her face flush.

  Señora Molina brushed at her sleeve with the back of her hand as if brushing off a worry. “Now. I’ve talked too much. Tell me why you came to see me.”

  Josie looked at Nick. She was so overcome with the woman’s story she wasn’t sure she could make the right connections just yet.

  Nick set down his cup and said, “We came here looking for information about the two young women. Can you tell us what you remember about them? Any details about where they came from so we can search for their families? Our problem is, we have the young woman in our trauma center, and we know her name but don’t know where she’s from. She speaks some English, but she’s said little more than Josie’s name since we found her.”

  Señora Molina nodded. “A rancher who lives five miles downriver from here brought the women one afternoon. He found them hiding in his barn. They wouldn’t talk. His wife fed them and let them clean up. They’d been staying in the barn.”

  “Did they talk to you?” Nick asked.

  “The first day they slept. I made them a pallet of blankets on the floor and they slept for hours and hours. The next day they talked and talked. A horrible thing that happened to them.”

  “Did they speak English?” Josie asked.

  “Spanish. To me anyway. They are from Guatemala.”

  Josie looked at Nick. It was a good start.

  “Did they tell you what city?” he said.

  She pursed her lips in thought for a moment and then shook her head. “No. I don’t remember that. They come from all over. I can’t remember all of them.”

  “Did they tell you why they were heading to the U.S.?” Josie asked.

  She tilted her head as if it were a frivolous question. “Same as all the others. Going to a big city to get a job and send money home to family.”

  “Did they give you any information about the men who had been transporting them?” Nick asked.

  She thought for quite a while and finally said, “Two. I remember they said there were two of them. And one of them was a very bad man. He forced himself on them. They could barely speak of it.”

  “Were the men from Guatemala too?” Josie asked.

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. All these details. They mix up with all the others. I remember I tried to get them to go home. Back to Guatemala. But their families had spent precious money on their trip. They had to make it to the U.S. I remember that. And that’s when I sent them to you. To Josie.”

  * * *

  On the way home, Josie kept thinking about how the two women saw the United States as their savior. Josie as their savior. What a disturbing idea, Josie thought. In her experience, there were no saviors on earth, just people trying to get by as best they could.

  As Nick drove the SUV up and out of the arroyo, he said, “It’s almost ten and you didn’t get much sleep last night. How soon do you need to get home?”

  She shrugged and looked at his profile, smiling into the dark. “What did you have in mind?”

  “It would be better in the daylight, but I’ll show you one of my favorite places in Mexico. A fishing hole on the Rio.”

  “You go there often?”

  “I own some land. I have a fishing cabin on the river. Actually, when you first called me about your old boyfriend being kidnapped, I was headed to the cabin for a weekend. I was surprised how close your house was to my place. And I heard the desperation in your voice.” He glanced over at her. “It didn’t take much convincing to get me to take the case when I heard you were the cop that tangled with the Medranos.”

  “At first, taking on the cartel might have been bragging rights. But now? I’m over it. I want to live my life. I want to do my job and not worry about looking over my shoulder twenty-four/seven.”

  “Doesn’t work like that,” he said.

  She felt her blood pressure spike, and while she regretted the path the conversation was taking, she couldn’t stop herself. “If they want me, then come and get me. Let’s get this over with.”

  “You don’t use bravado with these people. They don’t have the same moral code you do. They will one-up you every time. You will never outbrave them.”

  “It’s not about that! Don’t you see? I want my life back.”

  “You aren’t even talking sense. You know better. Nobody’s dealt a fair hand in life. If you’re born in the slums, you work your ass off to get out. If you’re born into wealth, you work your ass off to make your own name in the world. If you work as a cop, you—” He stopped talking, apparently sensing her growing anger.

  She glared at him, and after a moment he laid his hand on her thigh. She instinctively tensed her leg muscles.

  “We’re arguing over words right now,” he said. His voice was quiet. “Let’s stop.”

  He drove another five minutes along the river and finally pulled down a narrow path lined with cottonwood trees and then stopped abruptly in front of a wooden shack.

  He looked over at her and smiled. “This is my mansion. My house in Mexico City? I’d take this little shack over that monster any day.”

  She got out of the SUV and he moved around to her side and grabbed her hand. “Let me show you what makes me happy.”

  They walked side by side along a dirt path that led to the wooden porch. He unlocked the door and she could smell the earthy wood and stone as they stepped inside. He turned on the lights and she smiled.

  “This is you,” she said. Mismatched wool blankets hung from large windows that faced the river. A stone fireplace was located between the windows with a massive split log for a mantel. On top of it was a mantel clock and what appeared to be family photos. The living room was small, with a couch, love seat, and coffee table filling it up, but the ceiling was open to the wood rafters above and gave it a spacious feeling.

  “How come you never mentioned this place?” she asked. “It’s a perfect hideaway.”

  “Exactly. It’s a hideaway. I’ve had this place almost ten years now and I’ve never brought another person here. This is where I decompress. Not even my brother knows about it.”

  “Why did you bring me?” she asked, turning to face him.

  “Because this isn’t enough anymore. When I want to relax and get away from the job, I want you with me. You quiet the noise in my head.”

  She smiled at his description. She couldn’t quiet the voices in her own head; she couldn’t imagine how she could quiet his.

  He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Josie.”

  “I love you too,” she whispered. She kissed him, a slow sweet kiss that was uncomplicated and perfect.

  He ran his hands down her back and she shivered. He put his mouth close to her
ear and whispered, “There’s one more room I need to show you.”

  She followed him into the bedroom, where he pushed back the curtains and opened the window. She stood beside him and they listened to the Rio Grande rush by, watching the water glint from the moonlight’s reflection.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

  “And so are you.”

  Nick moved behind her and gently pressed his thumbs into her shoulders, making her sigh and smile. She took a slow deep breath, smelling the clean river air, feeling her senses come alive.

  She turned around and they undressed one another slowly, dropping their clothes onto the floor. She ran her hands over his arms and chest, her fingertips sensing the soft skin covering the hard muscles underneath.

  Nick bent his head and kissed the hollow of her neck and then drew his finger down to her heart and left it there.

  “You don’t need to keep that lead bullet in your heart, Josie. I don’t want you to keep hate trapped inside of you. I want to be the one who protects you, so you don’t worry all the time. I want to make you happy and keep you safe. Will you let me do that?”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled her body into his, as close as she could get, and whispered into his ear, “I love you so much that my body aches with it. I didn’t even know I had this feeling inside me.” But she couldn’t answer his question. She didn’t know if she could let him be her protector, and she wouldn’t lie to him.

  “We’ll just take this slow,” he said. “I’ll do my best, and you’ll do the same, and somehow I think it’ll all work out.”

  He bent his head and kissed her until the words fell away, and the worries drifted out the window, and there was nothing left but two people in love.

  EIGHT

  Back to reality the next morning, Josie sat at her computer to email her contact from Immigration and Customs Enforcement about Isabella Dagati, whom they now believed had resided in Guatemala. Like so many customs issues, it wouldn’t be a simple deportation, especially with a murder connected to the case. The case could take months of sorting through policy and procedures with Homeland Security and ICE. Josie had just finished summarizing the situation for Prosecutor Tyler Holder when Lou buzzed and asked her to come downstairs. As the dispatcher, and the only employee working on the first floor, Lou spent her full shift at the PD, only getting out for lunch if one of the officers took her place.