I had met most of the troublemakers around town, but I knew none of the men on the list Harry had given me. According to the Missouri license bureau, four of them lived in the state and had active Missouri driver’s licenses, one had a suspended driver’s license, and two weren’t in the license system for any state. None of them had convictions for violent crimes in the United States, but several of them came from countries with which we didn’t exchange criminal records. I had work ahead of me.
Since I didn’t speak Spanish, I called Sasquatch and asked him to meet me on the outskirts of town. After that, I called a repair shop that offered to pick up my truck and replace the front window. They promised to return it by the time I finished work. With all that done, I signed out a marked SUV and headed out.
Ross Kelly Farms had built Nuevo Pueblo on a rolling hundred-acre spread east of downtown St. Augustine. I drove out and parked beside a Catholic church on a bluff overlooking the rest of the community. Not a single cloud marred the blue sky. From my car, I had a clear view to the Mississippi River and the chicken processing plant at which most of the town’s residents worked. A rail line ran to the processing plant from the west, while cornfields surrounded the property.
It was a pretty piece of land marred by one unfortunate problem: When the wind stopped blowing, the whole place stunk like ammonia and animal shit left to rot in the summer sun. It wasn’t pleasant.
I waited for about five minutes for Sasquatch to arrive. He smiled when he stepped out of the car, but then the breeze shifted and he caught a whiff of that foul country air and gagged.
“That’s a powerful odor,” he said, covering his mouth with his shirt sleeve. “How can people live around here?”
I looked around me. The houses near the church sat on pier-and-beam foundations, leaving them elevated above the soil. The piers prevented them from being flooded during heavy rains, but the wind would have whipped beneath them during the winter, making them cold inside. We were lucky the tornado hadn’t turned toward here. It would have taken out everything. I looked at Sasquatch before nodding to the chicken processing plant down the hill.
“It’s a company town. Room and board is probably part of their compensation,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my list of names. I caught Sasquatch up on the case, double-checked an address, and walked to the first home on the list. The roads were gravel, and a thin layer of dust seemed to cover everything, including the grass.
Our first potential suspect lived in a narrow home with gray siding. The front porch looked like construction-grade pine that had turned gray in the summer sun, while the wooden steps sagged under their own weight. To avoid that sag, the builder should have installed a third stringer in the center to support the weight of everyone who walked up and down, but—if I had to guess—he probably cared more for turning a profit than following the modern building code.
I knocked on the front door and waited, but no one answered.
“It’s Monday. You think he’s at work?” asked Sasquatch.
“Maybe,” I said, looking around. Sasquatch and I were alone amongst the buildings. Waterford College was still in session, but the public schools were out for the summer. Even if the town had its own daycare center, older kids should have been riding bicycles and running around. Something wasn’t right. “We’ll talk to the residents and then visit the front office.”
Sasquatch nodded, so we visited the next house on our list. Like the first one, nobody answered. We tried the third house on the list next, but again, nobody answered. I looked around. In front of one nearby house, I found geraniums in a terra-cotta pot. They were healthy plants, so someone was caring for them. Clothes hung on a line in front of another house, and two children’s bicycles leaned against the porch on another. People lived here. Someone should have been around. I looked at Sasquatch.
“You hear any air conditioners?”
He paused and shook his head. “No, why?”
“I don’t, either. On a day like this, wouldn’t you open your windows if you didn’t own an air conditioner?”
He tilted his head to the side. “If they open the windows, they let in the stink.”
It made sense, so I nodded even if it didn’t convince me.
“That’s true,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.
“What are you thinking?” asked Sasquatch.
“I don’t know, but something’s wrong.”
We knocked on one more door, but, again, no one answered. After striking out four times, we headed back toward our cars. About halfway to the church, a black SUV came down the road, trailing a long plume of dust. I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t inhale dirt and squinted as it pulled to a stop near us. Mr. Molina sat in the front seat.
“Thought you’d be by, Detective,” he said, rolling down his window. “I brought your suspects into my office. It’s much more comfortable there.”
I forced a smile to my lips. Having every suspect in one location saved me some walking-around time, but I much preferred talking to people inside their homes. It gave me an opportunity to see how they lived. Did they have pictures of their children on their mantels? Did they own a dog? Did the home smell like marijuana?
All those things gave me leverage, the most important commodity a police officer had during an interrogation. Molina had wasted a valuable opportunity.
“Where’s everybody else?” I asked. “Place looks abandoned.”
He looked around before shrugging. “Everybody must be inside for the day.”
I shook my head. It was in the mid-eighties, which meant the interiors of those homes with their asphalt roofs were probably in the mid-nineties. No one would have stayed in there without air conditioning and with the windows shut without reason.
“You say the suspects are in your office, huh?” I asked.
Molina nodded and pointed a thumb toward the back of his SUV.
“Hop in. I’ll give you a ride.”
I glanced at Sasquatch before opening the rear door. The SUV had dark tinted windows, an anodized metal grill guard in front, and a light bar on the roof. It looked like something the Secret Service might have driven if they needed a menacing off-road vehicle. Sasquatch and I rode in silence in the back for about five minutes before we reached an office building near the main plant. Molina parked in a nearly empty parking lot and looked at the two of us.
“How’s your Spanish, Detective?” asked Molina.
I tried the door, but it didn’t open. It must have had a child lock.
“Nonexistent,” I said. “You transport a lot of kids in here?”
Molina flashed me a smile before opening his own door.
“Give me a second. I’ll get you right out.”
He stepped out of the vehicle, closed his door, and pulled out his cell phone to make a call. The windows blocked his conversation, but I didn’t like this. I glanced at Sasquatch.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this place, and the longer we stay, the worse it gets,” I said. “If Molina doesn’t come back within a minute or two, I’m going to arrest him for interfering with a police investigation.”
“Good,” said Sasquatch. “I don’t like being locked in the back of an SUV.”
I nodded and dropped my hand to my firearm’s grip. Molina opened my door a few seconds later and then hurried around the car to get Sasquatch. The lines demarcating one spot from another on the asphalt parking lot looked freshly painted, and the lawns and flower beds around the building were immaculate. The building itself had smoked glass windows and a modern, gray granite exterior. At least we knew where Ross Kelly Farms spent its money.
Molina looked at me and gestured toward the building.
“After you, Detective,” he said. I nodded and walked toward the front door. Before we reached it, Molina hurried forward and waved his wallet in front of the key reader. The door buzzed and unlocked. The building’s interior was clean and utilitarian. Thin gray carpet covered the floors, while light blue-gray paint covered the walls.
“This way, officers,” he said, leading us toward an elevator up the hall. Molina accessed this, too, with his keycard.
“Your security is tight around here,” I said. “It’s almost like a prison.”
Molina tilted his head to the side and chuckled. “Some days, it feels like a prison.”
We took the elevator to the third floor before Molina led us to a small, nondescript office with two empty bookshelves, a big desk, and a pair of windows overlooking the parking lot.
“Will this office work for your interview?”
“Sure,” I said, glancing toward the door, “but if you lock us in here, I’ll arrest you.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “These doors lock from the inside. If you’re tired of seeing me, you can even lock me out.”
I nodded, although I didn’t smile or acknowledge the joke.
“If I needed to use the restroom, where would I go?”
“If you need to go, I’ll call a staff member to escort you to the ladies’ room.”
I crossed my arms. “I can’t walk on my own?”
He shook his head. “Our company policy requires an escort for all guests. Would you like me to call my assistant? She’d be happy to escort you wherever you’d like to go.”
“Just bring in Mr. Sanchez, our first guest.”
“Sure,” said Molina. The door shut behind him as he left, so I tried the handle to make sure he hadn’t locked it. Molina turned down a hallway to the left and disappeared. I grabbed a lanyard from my purse to hang my badge from my neck. Then I looked at Sasquatch.
“Stay here. I’m going to take a walk.”
He nodded. “I’ll hold down the fort.”
I grunted and left to explore. The floor held twelve offices, two restrooms, and a break room, but no people. There were emergency stairwells at either end of the building and an elevator in the center. Every exit required a keycard to enter, which meant Molina had locked Sasquatch and me on the floor.
I walked back to the office and found Mr. Molina and a second man inside with Sasquatch. Molina put a hand on the shoulder of his guest. He was short, maybe five-six, and he weighed about a hundred and fifty pounds. His barber had trimmed his hair close to his scalp. Wrinkles accentuated the roughness of his skin.
“This is Gabriel Sanchez,” said Molina. I shook Mr. Sanchez’s rough, calloused hand. “Find anything interesting outside?”
“Yeah, the elevator and stairs are both locked,” I said. “You guys like locks around here, don’t you?”
“Ahh,” said Molina, nodding as if he had realized something. “This floor isn’t in use, so the management keeps it locked. In an emergency, the electronic locks on the doors disengage. You were never in any danger.”
“Great,” I said, crossing the office. “Please tell Mr. Sanchez to sit.”
Sasquatch opened his mouth to translate, but Mr. Molina barked an order before Sasquatch spoke. If Molina wanted to translate, that worked for me.
I started the conversation by introducing myself and asking Mr. Sanchez to confirm his name, occupation, and address. Then we got into things. I showed him a headshot of my victim and watched his face for any signs of recognition. Even though she was dead, he barely reacted.
“Is this woman familiar, Mr. Sanchez?”
Molina translated, and Sanchez shook his head.
“Please look again. Are you sure you’ve never seen her?”
Mr. Sanchez looked at my phone and nodded that he was sure. The worker clutched a baseball cap between his hands, and his foot tapped rhythmically on the carpet. He looked nervous and kept stealing glances at Molina, like a child hoping to get a read on his dad’s mood.
“Do you ever go camping?” I asked.
Molina translated, and Mr. Sanchez furrowed his brow as if he didn’t understand. Molina repeated the question. Mr. Sanchez shook his head.
“Do you know of a campsite on company grounds? And remember, camping isn’t a crime—even if you get drunk. No one’s in trouble for that. I’m here about a homicide. I’m not interested in anything else.”
Molina translated, but before Mr. Sanchez responded, Sasquatch cleared his throat.
“Detective Court, can I talk to you in private?”
I glanced at him.
Now? I mouthed. He nodded, so I looked to Molina.
“Can you step out into the hall, please?” I asked. “And take Mr. Sanchez with you.”
Molina hesitated, but then he and Sanchez left the room. I looked at Sasquatch.
“What’s going on?”
Sasquatch lowered his voice. “Molina didn’t translate your question. He told Mr. Sanchez that if he doesn’t stop complaining about the conditions at the plant, you’ll take him to the woods and shoot him like you shot that woman in the picture. Then he asked whether Sanchez would like to see his family shot in front of him at a campsite.”
I closed my eyes and ran a hand over my brow.
“Tell me you’re kidding.”
“I’m not kidding, boss. What do you want to do?”
“I want to do my job,” I said. I swore under my breath, stood, and checked my firearm to make sure I had a round in the chamber. I saw Sasquatch do likewise. Mr. Molina and Mr. Sanchez were both in the hallway outside the office. Neither spoke, but Molina looked at us and smiled.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yep. Please turn around and put your hands on the wall. I’ll pat you down, and then my partner will put cuffs on your wrists. You’re under arrest for interfering with a police investigation. And because you’re a dick.”