The Territory A Novel - By Tricia Fields Page 0,37
well as a holding cell and booking desk through a secured door to the right. The hub was located directly behind the entrance and was the area where law enforcement personnel typically visited. The inmate pods and day space were located in the center of the structure. Offices were located on the outer walls, and an enclosed basketball court was located on the back side of the building. The enclosed court contained a large door that opened onto the rear lot for transport vans to allow the secure transfer of prisoners.
Josie stood outside the entrance, looked up into a small video camera, and pressed the visitor button. A second later, she was buzzed into a small unfurnished room. Josie proceeded to a second set of doors where a buzzer sounded again and the doors opened into the central hub. Maria Santiago sat behind a computer screen at a large desk. She smiled and nodded at Josie. Maria was a short, round woman with a happy disposition, able to find humor in almost anything. She was also a competent and efficient intake officer, one of Josie’s favorites.
“NCIC came through with fingerprints. Sheriff’s got some good information for you,” Santiago said.
“How good?”
“I think he matched your shooter. He gave me a packet to give you. He got called out on a domestic about ten minutes ago,” she said.
Josie smiled. “He’s a saint. You have a room I can use to sort through the paperwork?”
“Interrogation room’s empty. You’re welcome to it.”
Josie nodded thanks. “The shooter still on medical watch?”
Santiago rolled her chair away from her computer to give her full attention to Josie. “Yes, ma’am. We’ve had a nurse here around the clock. The sheriff’s mad as a hornet. A bigwig from the hospital’s already been over here twice to talk with him. Hospital says when they bill the jail for services, they expect payment in thirty days.”
Josie smiled again. “Good luck with that.”
Aside from the bureaucratic nightmare of submitting bills, getting signatures, receiving the appropriate supervisor and board approvals, and general passing of the buck, there was the political nightmare of working cross-border to attempt to retrieve at least some payment for services from Mexican authorities.
“Sheriff Martínez is planning on sending the nurse home tomorrow. The man’s stabilized. You know Dooley Thomas? The day shift guard?”
“Yes.”
“His wife is a nurse. She’s offered to stop by once a day to check his bandages and get his vital signs.”
Josie nodded. “Good. Anybody talked to the prisoner yet?”
“As in interviewed him?”
Josie shrugged. “I know you haven’t done anything formal, but have you heard anything? Has he talked to anyone? Asked for phone calls, lawyers?”
“Nothing. He hasn’t made a peep. I don’t think he speaks English. Sheriff just got the fingerprint confirmation right before he called you. He was all fired up when he left.”
Santiago dug around on her desk through various stacks of envelopes and papers before handing Josie a sealed manila envelope with her name on it.
Josie settled into a typical interrogation room: a sterile, eight-foot-by-eight-foot space with one metal table and two folding chairs sitting opposite each other. She opened the packet and found the first good news of the day. Martínez had left her a handwritten note that stated he fingerprinted the prisoner and ran him through NCIC and the Deportable Alien Control System, or DACS. He found a definite match with a male Hispanic linked to a deportation case from two years ago. Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez was picked up for leaving the scene of an accident without a license. He was subsequently linked to a charge for lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor, a twelve-year-old child. He was indicted and deported, supposedly to serve time in a Mexican prison.
Josie stared at the mug shot from two years ago and recognized the man she had shot, although he was now about twenty pounds heavier, with a goatee. She was positive it was the same man. He was a member of La Bestia who had defected from the Medrano cartel. She felt her heart rate increasing and the acid burn ignite in the pit of her stomach. She remembered the case but wanted to confirm the details.
She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed Lou at the police department, who gave Josie the phone number for an old friend of hers. Anthony Dixon was a detention and deportation officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She had worked two deportation cases with ICE over the past several years, and Dixon was