Midnight Crossing: A Mystery

by Tricia Fields

  “No! We had nothing to do with that!”

  “Macey, help us out here,” Otto said. “We know about the trafficking. We just need some information from you.”

  Again, wide-eyed innocence.

  “Tell us about those two women. How did they end up here in Artemis?” he said.

  “It wasn’t our fault!” she said. Her voice was a high-pitched whine. “You need to go talk to Ryan Needleman. He’s the man you need. Not us.”

  “How do you know him?” Otto asked.

  “We know him from around town,” Macey said.

  “What does he have to do with the women from Guatemala?” he said.

  “We just heard he was driving some people up. He asked us to help but we didn’t want to get involved.”

  “You mean, you didn’t want to get involved with the woman’s murder?” Otto asked.

  “With none of it,” Macey said.

  Her facial expression didn’t change at the word murder. Josie had no doubt the two were involved.

  Otto stood, moved behind his chair, and gripped the back of it. He scowled angrily at both of them. Josie was always surprised when Otto took this role in an interview. He was such a kind, generous man; to see him turn dark and angry was unsettling.

  He stared at one, and then the other, finally landing on Josh. “Let me tell you something.” His voice dropped an octave and landed into a quiet threatening zone. “We found a young woman, shot in the back and left to die. Her friend slept in Chief Gray’s shed for days and is terrified now. I will catch who did this. So you can either stay out of a lot of trouble now and come clean with us, or you can wait and pay full price with jail time later.”

  Josh cleared his throat and Macey looked at him in a panic.

  “We’ll think about—”

  Macey cut him off. “We got nothing to say because we did nothing wrong.”

  Josie stood and laid her business card on top of a piece of mail. “You think it over. Our deal stands until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. After that? You’re on your own.”

  * * *

  Back outside, Josie motioned for Otto to climb into her jeep instead of taking his own vehicle.

  Otto slammed the door and said, “I wish we had something more recent on him. I’d love to take that kid to jail.”

  “You know Ryan Needleman?”

  “The name’s familiar,” he said.

  “He just graduated high school last year. Played sports. He was a hothead, got into trouble for fighting. His dad told me he got thrown out of college the first week of school for beating up some kid in the dorm. Still hard to figure how he’d go from college in August to transporting women from Guatemala to Artemis two months later.”

  “How would the Mooneys connect with him?” he asked.

  “He probably bought dope off them. Now he’s their scapegoat.”

  “You got something in mind?”

  “Let’s get to him before somebody tips him off. His dad told me he’s working over at the landscape place,” she said. “Maybe he can give us something on the Mooneys.”

  * * *

  Turf and Annuals was a landscaping company that specialized in helping West Texans grow grass and flowers that normally weren’t seen in a desert climate. When the economy tanked, so did its business, but it had started to pick back up again. Josie had been a customer for years and knew the owner, Lisa Spinner, well.

  Driving down the gravel lane, Josie pointed to the variety of pine trees on either side.

  “Lisa got a research grant and uses some kind of experimental underground irrigation system that taps into groundwater supply.”

  “They got a heck of a place here in the middle of the desert,” Otto said.

  They parked in a gravel lot that fronted five large greenhouses and a log cabin office. On the other side of the lot, several Bobcats and backhoes were running, scooping mulch and digging trees. Josie parked in front of the office and found Lisa inside on the phone. She told whoever she was talking with to hang on and covered the receiver with her hand. “What can I do for you, Chief?”

  “I’m looking for Ryan Needleman. He working today?”

  Lisa frowned and drew her eyebrows together. “He is. He in trouble?”

  “No. I just have a couple questions. You care if I talk to him for just a minute?”

  “Not at all.”

  The woman ended her phone call and radioed Ryan to come in off the Bobcat to talk to Josie.

  * * *

  Josie and Otto stood outside the office and waited for Ryan. He parked the Bobcat and was wiping his hands on his jeans as he reached them. It was almost four in the afternoon, but the sun was still bright, and he squinted at them. Josie thought he looked wary, like he was waiting for the handcuffs to appear, but she figured it wasn’t often that a uniformed cop pulled you off your work duty simply to talk.

  She put her hand out and he shook it as they introduced themselves.

  “I talked to your boss, so she knows we’re here to see you. I let her know you aren’t in any trouble. We just have a few questions for you. That okay?”

  He shrugged.

  What had happened to a polite Yes, ma’am? Or even a plain yes or no? After all these years she was still shocked when someone treated a visit by the police as an inconvenience.

  “Have you heard about the two women that were found in Artemis this week?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Okay. How about you drop the shrug routine and answer the questions. I’ll be more specific for you this time. Tell me what you’ve heard about the woman who was found shot in the back out in a ranch pasture this past week,” she said. It wasn’t the best way to start an interview, but his insolent stare and shrug were pissing her off.

  This question at least produced more than a shrug. His eyebrows rose and he reeled back like she’d asked something distasteful. “Same as anyone else. I heard about it on the radio. Figured she was some illegal crossing the border.”

  “Who would shoot an illegal in the back for crossing the border?” she said.

  He turned up his lip like it was a stupid question. “Who would shoot anyone in the back?”

  She felt the sting from his response. She wasn’t handling the interview well. Otto obviously noticed and stepped in. “Okay. Let me be even more blunt, Ryan. We heard from a couple people that you were involved in transporting two women from Guatemala to the U.S. Were you?”

  His expression carried the expected measure of shock, but there was an element of fear as his eyes darted from Otto to Josie and back again in a way that made Josie believe the Mooneys might actually have sent them in the right direction.

  “No! I was at college!”

  “But you got thrown out for assault and battery. Right?” Otto said.

  The shock gave way to full-on fear. “No! I mean, I came home. I got in a fight and all, but I came home because I hated it.”

  “Hated getting thrown out of college?” Otto said.

  “Why are you asking me about this? Those charges were dropped.”

  “What do you know about Josh and Macey Mooney?” Josie asked.

  He leaned his head back and groaned. “Seriously? Is that what this is about?”

  Josie said nothing.

  “They are inbred freaks. If they told you anything about anything you can count on it being a lie.”

  “How do you know them?” she asked.

  The question obviously caught him off guard. He stammered and said, “Everybody knows them. They’re weird as hell.”

  “But you said they lie. What have they lied to you about?” she said.

  He grinned and tilted his head as if he were being misunderstood. “I just meant in general. Everybody knows they’re freaks and they’re liars.”

  Josie looked at Otto. “Did you know they were liars?”

  Otto seemed to consider the question. “No. I didn’t know they were liars. Did you?”

  “Nope.” She faced Ryan again but sai
d nothing. Let him hang himself, she thought. People watched cop shows on TV and figured investigations turned on some clever piece of evidence, but nine times out of ten, the case was solved by dogged police work and whittling down witnesses, one question at a time. Just the right question, at just the right time, to make the vulnerable witness falter and break. That was the goal—a crack in the story.

  Ryan’s shoulders slumped, and he looked at Josie as if she was messing with him. She was surprised by his general composure, given he was only eighteen or nineteen years old.

  “You know what I mean. That’s their reputation,” he said.

  “I know that Josh and Macey both said you were involved in transporting those two women from Guatemala to the United States. And now one of those women is dead.” Josh started to reply, and Josie put one hand on the butt of the gun sticking out from her belt, and the other hand in the air to stop him. It did the trick. “Look. We have enough intelligence to know that you’re involved with the transport. You help us figure out who we need to talk to, and you’ll have some room to bargain.”

  He kicked the dirt and pressed his fists into his eyes. Barely out of high school, and yet the cops were already talking to him about murder. He was one of those kids that people loved to gossip about because his parents were nice, upstanding people in the community. As if nice parents kept you insulated from making bad decisions.

  “It’s those two idiots—the Mooneys! They knew I was trying to pay my parents back for flunking out of school my first semester.” Ryan paused and Josie wondered if he was gauging her reaction to his lie about flunking out. “I met them both one night at a party at Cici Gomez’s apartment.”

  Otto made a face. “If that’s where you’re hanging out, we may as well arrest you right now.”

  His hands rose again in a conciliatory gesture. He clearly realized his excuses were getting him in deeper, not providing the alibi he was moving closer to needing.

  “I’m just saying that I was at the party with another guy, and the freak brother and sister came up to me. They were like, Hey, we heard you got kicked out of school. You want to earn a few bucks driving a van full of girls from Guatemala to the U.S.? We’ll teach you how to drive the van, and that’s it. The trip should take a week total and you make two thousand bucks.” He shrugged, as if saying, What else was I supposed to say? Easy money.

  “So you drove to Guatemala, just like that?” she said.

  “Well, no, it was more detailed than that. Macey explained everything a hundred times. Who, what, where, and when. She drilled it into my head. And then she’d say, ‘And you don’t need to know why. MYOB.’ I’d think, Really? Is this junior high? You’re paying me two thousand dollars and telling me to MYOB? Whatever. The money was good and I needed it. That’s all I know.”

  “You know a lot more than that,” Josie said. “You transported two women who endured horrific crimes.”

  “I don’t know anything about any crimes. I just drove the van.”

  “What kind of van?”

  “One of those ugly ones with bench seats. Me and Josh took turns driving. We drove sixteen hours a day. Those were the rules. I drove eight and he drove eight.”

  “What city did you pick the women up in?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is we were in Guatemala. I don’t speak Spanish. I couldn’t read the signs. There were guys driving in trucks with machine guns wearing face masks. It looked like a war zone. It was like nowhere I’ve ever been. And Josh is a complete idiot. I was sure we were all gonna die before we got out of there. I just drove where he told me to.”

  “How many people were you transporting?” she asked.

  “There were five women. And Josh and me.”

  Josie felt nausea well up in her stomach. Five women. So where were the other three?

  “Josh drove too?” she asked.

  “Yeah, he did! And then he tries to sell me out. The guy is an idiot.”

  “So you and Josh were the only men on the trip?” she asked, surprised at the implication of that.

  “Yes.”

  “Where are the other three women you transported?” she asked.

  He put his hands up in the air. “I don’t know. I swear. I drove to Piedra Labrada, and Josh took it from there.”

  “Why didn’t you finish the trip with him?” she asked.

  “I didn’t have my passport to get back in the country. Josh had it and we got into a fight. He wouldn’t give it back to me, so I just crossed on my own.”

  “Help me out here, Ryan. We’re talking about five women. One of those women is dead, the other is traumatized. We need to find out where those other three women are.”

  “I swear, I don’t know. When I left, the five women were all with Josh. He was going to get the van across somehow. I don’t even know how. He wouldn’t tell me. I just hiked out of the city and crossed the river by foot on my own.”

  There were several issues they could have pushed with Ryan, but she wanted the leverage for later. No sense showing her hand just yet.

  Josie held out her card and Ryan took it, seeming shocked that the meeting was ending.

  “You go home and think about all of this. You may decide you want to come talk to us before this gets much further. You might do yourself a big favor in the end.”

  They walked away at that point, leaving him standing there with Josie’s card, completely unstrung. When they got into Josie’s jeep, she started it but didn’t move.

  “That’s a shocker,” Otto said. “I don’t see Josh as a rapist.”

  “That just leaves Ryan.”

  “You think we ought to take him in now, while he’s nervous? He may get counsel and freeze up,” Otto said.

  Josie watched him climb back up on the Bobcat and turn the machine away from them. “I don’t know. It’s a gamble. I’d like to think he may realize the trouble he’s in and offer up Josh. We can play one against the other before the attorneys take over.”

  “Or he’ll talk to his parents and get an attorney tonight and we’ll get nothing. We could go over and ask him to take a ride with us to the station, Mirandize him, and hope he talks because he’s so worried about everything.”

  “We don’t have anything concrete to bring him in on. The rape? I think it’s a stretch between knowing the dead female was raped, and attaching that to Ryan. Who knows what else may have happened on that trip?” she said. “Maybe Josh brought someone else in to help after Ryan left.”

  “We need a statement from Isabella. Immediately.”

  “And we need to find out what happened to those other women.”

  * * *

  Josie sent Marta a text asking her to meet them at the PD. She said she was already there typing a case report, working a swing shift. When Josie and Otto entered the office, Marta sat down at the conference table with her notepad. It was obvious from her lack of friendly chatter that she was still angry with Josie over not allowing Isabella to stay at her house.

  Josie recapped the conversation they’d had with Ryan Needleman and Josh and Macey Mooney. Marta quickly warmed to the conversation, asking questions about the major break they’d had in the case.

  Otto finally said, “Have you talked with Isabella today? Or the doctor?”

  “No. I’ve been working another case. But I think the psychiatrist was supposed to work with her again this evening. He was hoping to be at the trauma center by six.”

  Josie looked at her watch. “Damn. I have that charity dinner the mayor expects me at for his wife.”

  “I can explain the situation to the doctor. Let him know we desperately need her to open up about the trip and her attacker,” Marta said. “I’ll see what he thinks.”

  “I appreciate it. It’s five-fifteen now. I’m going to stop by and talk to Manny and see about getting Isabella a room at the motel for the next week. I’ll see what the sheriff can offer, but we just don’t have the manpower to continue dedicating an officer to a room twenty-four hours a day right n
ow.”

  Marta nodded.

  “If the doctor agrees, can you talk with her tonight? Explain that we’re trying to help make her safe by arresting the men that abused her? But she has to help us locate those other women before this gets even worse. And we have to find out what happened in the pasture when the other woman was shot.”

  “I’ll do that. Hopefully with the doctor in the room with me.”

  “And will you talk with the doctor about moving her into Manny’s tomorrow morning? At least for a few days, until we can figure out how to relocate her with family?” Josie said.

  Marta nodded.

  “Otto, can you get online and look for a couple photos of Ryan?”

  “Won’t he have a mug shot from the fight at college?”

  Josie shook her head. “They kicked him out of school, but no charges were filed. I’m guessing you’ll find some photos of him from playing sports in high school. We’ll have Josh’s mug shot. Put together a photo lineup. Get at least six photos, nine if you can. Get them to Marta so she can take them with her tonight. We’ll see if Isabella can identify Josh and Ryan.”

  “Will do,” he said.

  “Okay. I have to go change into something other than a uniform. We’re all good?” She glanced at Marta.

  “We’re good. I understand,” she said. She frowned and nodded once, indicating the argument was over.

  “Once we confirm with Isabella, I’ll brief the prosecutor and bring both men in for questioning,” Josie said.

  * * *

  Josie got into her jeep and called Nick to let him know she was headed to the charity event with her mom.

  “Hanging out with the rich and famous tonight?” She could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Neither. I’m hanging out with the do-gooders.”

  “What’s wrong with people trying to do good?” he said.

  His question made her pause. “I don’t know. Nothing’s wrong with them. They’re good people.”

  “Then why call them do-gooders? Why do they irritate you?”

  “It’s the self-righteous people who throw their good out there for praise that irritate me.”