The Territory A Novel - By Tricia Fields Page 0,26

stared at her as she got back in the car.

“Wondered if the trailer was locked,” Josie said.

“And?”

“It was.”

“There’s something strange about that girl, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Might it be that she found Red Goff dead on her couch?”

“It’s the way she seemed so bored with the dead body. Most women I know would have been bawling their eyes out. She was more worried about missing work.”

Josie shrugged. “Bills have to get paid.” She thought part of Winning’s tough image was an act. She didn’t have the woman figured out yet, but she would bet money she was not the killer.

The crime scene tape was still in place at Red’s, and things appeared undisturbed since their last visit.

Josie put plastic gloves on and unlocked the glass door. The smell of mildew hit them both as she opened it.

Josie and Otto stood at the entrance and scanned the living room, the kitchen to the right, and the hallway to the left.

“Where’s that smell coming from? It didn’t smell like this yesterday,” he said.

Josie flipped the light switch on and nothing happened.

“Generator’s off,” she said.

Otto clicked on his flashlight and walked in.

Red Goff lived off the grid, a phenomenon that could be found in pockets across the country, but was more prevalent out West. Red wasn’t connected to the city utilities. He received no electricity, no city water or sewage, no phone lines. The goal was to have no connection to the outside world. It was difficult in West Texas, where growing your own crops meant costly irrigation, but Red managed it as a hobby farm. He had raised cows, which he butchered for his own meat, selling the rest off to the meat-processing plant for profit. He also maintained a garden, where he grew almost all his vegetables. He purchased nonpasteurized dairy products from a farmer in Odessa. The University of Texas used to bring out a group of Environmental Studies students each year to observe his solar operation, but the guns on his walls and the pop-up rants on government control had ended the visits several years ago. Since then, Red had practically vanished from public life, except for his status with the Gunners.

Otto called to Josie from Red’s bedroom. “Look at this!”

Josie found Otto on his hands and knees, looking under a queen-sized bed with a leopard-print comforter and black satin pillows. Josie shuddered at the thought of Red slipping around on satin sheets.

Otto’s voice was muffled as he pulled an area rug out from under the bed. “How many people do you know lay their rugs under the bed instead of beside them?”

Josie took the corner of the rug from Otto and pulled. Otto stood up and they moved the bed out toward the door. The room was about fifteen feet square and contained the bed and an old Scandinavian-style dresser that had been painted black. With the bed moved back against the opposite wall, a trapdoor became visible. Otto smiled.

“Nice work,” Josie said, and bent down to lift the wooden door that lay recessed into the concrete floor. As she lifted the door, the smell of mildew pushed up out of the cellar and became so strong, her eyes watered. A wooden stepladder led down into a black hole.

Otto and Josie stared at each other in the flashlight’s dim beam.

“Isn’t this where you walk down those stairs and find ten mutilated bodies in a freezer?” Otto asked.

“Basements give me the creeps. You want to take this one?” she asked.

Otto shook his head. “I don’t think that ladder will hold me.”

Josie flicked on her own flashlight and shone it down the hole into standing water. “Damn.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Josie was easing herself down the ladder wearing thigh-high rubber boots, a broom in one hand, and a miner’s lamp attached to a band around her forehead. She kept the rubber boots and miner’s lamp in a plastic trunk in the back of her jeep for calls that took her down along the Rio. She found the broom in Red’s kitchen. Josie stood on the bottom rung of the ladder and slowly panned the light around the room. The cellar, about fifteen by twenty feet, appeared to be a supply area containing large cans of peanut butter, green beans, corn, roast beef, and lard. Sleeping bags in plastic lined the top shelf, as did various Coleman lanterns and one-burner stoves. Ten-gallon plastic containers of drinking water were almost submerged around the bottom perimeter of the