Bag Limit

Chapter Twenty-five

My son waited patiently for me to saddle up, and when I’d slammed the door, said, “Now what?”

“I wish to hell that I knew,” I said, nodding at the clock on the dash. “Tell you what…it’s still early. Want to take a little ride?”

“Sure. I’d even be sort of curious to see where all this happened.”

“Then south to the border it is. Back under the interstate, and then take Fifty-six to Regal.”

We rolled out onto Grande and a few minutes later, as we drove southwest on the state highway, I filled in the details of the past couple of days for Buddy. He let the car amble along at fifty-five, lugging in fourth gear. Even so, the healthy exhaust note combined with open windows made whispered conversation impossible.

The highway was deserted, and when we passed the Broken Spur, the saloon was just a dark lump on the prairie, its one sodium vapor light casting shadows through the cholla and greasewood that outlined the parking lot.

We started up through the esses toward Regal Pass, and Buddy downshifted into third as we swept through the first bend. I had been in the middle of recounting my conversation with Emilio Contreras at the church, and I hesitated as the sports car leaped forward.

“Nice road,” my son said.

“Lots of deer, too,” I shouted back, picturing the car’s shark nose slicing under a mule deer’s belly, pitching the critter through the windshield and into our laps.

With the car holding just enough speed to make the twists, turns, and switchbacks a continuous graceful ballet, I relaxed back into the support of the seat.

“The point is, no one saw anyone,” I shouted at Buddy. “Not the neighbors, not anyone. We’ve got a big, ugly gap.”

“In a town where everyone knows and sees everything,” Buddy replied. “That’s interesting. You think they’re holding back because of Torrez? His being related and all?”

“I don’t think so. But it’s hard to say. I’ve known Bob a long time. The one thing I am certain of is that he wouldn’t try to cover up anything. But I don’t know about the others.”

As we approached the divide, I pointed off to the left. “That’s where I was parked when the kid crashed into my car.”

We shot through the pass and started to nose downhill toward Regal. Where the highway curved in a sweeping turn to the left, the right shoulder had been bladed into a turn-out. Parked in that turn-out, lights off, was one of the Sheriff’s Department Broncos.

“Whoops.” Buddy lifted his foot, but if the deputy had his radar on, we were already nailed. “Are you in good with these guys?” My son watched in the rearview mirror for a couple of seconds until the lights disappeared around the curve. “Maybe he’s asleep,” he said.

“That would be Deputy Jackie Taber, and she wasn’t asleep. Guaranteed.” Even as I uttered the last word, headlights popped into view behind us. My son had slowed the car to under the speed limit by then, but since we’d been cruising at well over eighty when we passed, it took the deputy a couple of miles before she was riding on our back bumper.

“It takes her a few seconds to get a response from dispatch when she calls in the plate,” I said. “Assuming everyone’s computer is up and running, and assuming that none of us is asleep.”

The road wound the six miles down toward Regal, and just as we approached the last switchback, the deputy behind us flipped her headlights quickly to high beam and back, braked abruptly into a wide parking area at the apex of the turn, and swung around in the road to head back north.

“You still have clout”-my son laughed-“at least for another two days.”

“Damn right.” I wasn’t so interested in that as in the view ahead. From the flank of the hill above Regal, I could estimate where the old church would be off to the left, nestled in its comfortable darkness. A mile farther south the harsh lights at the locked border crossing illuminated the gate and barbed wire. A sprinkling of porch lights dotted the village.

Any vehicle driving through the village was exposed to view from a dozen directions. “It’s hard to imagine anything happening in secret here,” I said. “Take the first right, where the sign says SANCHEZ.”

We turned onto the dirt lane with a clink of stones against undercarriage, and Buddy slowed the Corvette to a walk. “I don’t have much clearance. Does this get worse?” he said as we scraped over a hummock of dried grass in the middle of the lane.

“No. Just go slow.”

With the engine thumping at idle, we eased around the Contreras’ front porch. From inside, it must have sounded as if we were about to turn into their bedroom.

“This is the Baca place,” I said as we drew in front of the adobe. For once the two dogs across the street weren’t in their chain-link run. When Buddy nosed the Corvette close to Sosimo Baca’s front gate and switched off the ignition, the only sound we could hear was the ticking of the cooling engine.

“You know what strikes me as odd?” Buddy asked. He sat with his head propped on his left fist, regarding the dark house. “I always associated crime with the evening hours-the saloon hours, know what I mean?”

“Sure. The swing shift is our busiest, usually.”

“And all this happened right around daybreak. That just strikes me as unusual. Most folks are wound up at nightfall, not dawn. That’s the ebb tide, so to speak.”

He turned and looked at me for explanation. “That’s because we started the party,” I said. “The Baca kid visited the saloon at about eleven. That’s the usual time for hijinks, as you say.”

“And then he spent the rest of the night sobering up on the mountain somewhere.”

“Right. And made his way back to his house…” I stopped, trying to estimate Matt’s arrival home. “Hell, I don’t know. Sometime.” Clorinda Baca’s vague answers came to mind, and I chuckled. “I was out and around, and like you say-at dawn, the vast majority of people are asleep, or at least so groggy they don’t function too well. That’s the best time to bust in on somebody. I swung by here long before that, though, just in time to catch Sosimo walking home from his night of guzzling the hard cider. I took the kid into custody a few minutes after that. If things had gone right, he would have been in jail when dawn broke.”

“There’s nothing you could have done about that,” my son said gently.

“That’s what I tell myself. That it was just the luck of the cards. When Bob Torrez drove back down to break the news to Sosimo it was an hour or so before dawn.”

“After that, the old man went for a walk, headed toward Posadas,” Buddy said. He turned back and looked at the house. “Huh. Somebody was up and around early to meet up with him.”

“That’s what I think. But…” I turned first to the left and then to the right, indicating the village that surrounded us. “Lots of these folks get up at the crack of dawn. The coroner says that Sosimo died sometime around eight. Hell, by then the day’s half over. And even though it’s three thirty-five right now,” I said, leaning forward and tapping the clock, “I’m willing to bet that there’s at least one or two sets of eyes watching us at this moment.”

“Or one or two dozen.” Buddy laughed. “We can’t exactly tiptoe with this car.”

“That’s for sure,” I said, and then was interrupted by the chirp of my cell phone.

“Now I’m impressed, Dad. Such high-tech stuff,” Buddy said as he watched me fumble the little thing out.

“You betcha. We’re feetfirst in the twenty-first century.” I found the correct side, the one with all the buttons. “Gastner.”

“Sir,” a soft feminine voice said, “this is Deputy Taber.”

“Jackie, what’s up?”

“Sir, I’m parked up on Regal Pass. That was me that came up behind you and your son a little bit ago there, up above the village.”

I twisted in my seat and looked up the hill. It was a waste of energy, since there was nothing but the black featureless hulk of the mountains through the tiny window. “I thought it might be. I’m giving my son the grand tour.”

“Yes, sir. I was wondering if I could ask you to do me a favor.”

“Name it.”

“There’s a vehicle parked over behind the church. When I was driving down the hill toward the village the first time, I saw him start up and head out of the lane you’re on right now. He had been parked at the Baca place.”

“And now he’s over behind the church?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were you able to identify the vehicle?”

“No, sir. But it’s a white or off-white SUV of some sort. Maybe Border Patrol. I couldn’t be sure.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just go over and talk to whoever it is, sir.”

“All right. That’s easy enough,” I said. “What are you fishing for?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

I laughed. “I’ll be in touch.” I closed the phone and looked at my son. “There’s a vehicle parked over behind the mission. Deputy Taber wants us to find out who it is.”

Surprised, Buddy tried to look past the scrubby elm that blocked his view to the east, toward the church. “If Taber knows there’s somebody over there, why doesn’t he just go talk to whoever it is himself?”

“Herself,” I corrected. “Deputy Jackie Taber is a her. And I don’t know why. I just do what I’m told these days.” I gestured toward the ignition. “And let’s try not to wake the entire village on our way over there.”

Buddy was reaching for the keys when we heard a vehicle approach from behind us. The silky smooth engine was little more than a whisper of the various fans and belts, accompanied by the crunch of tires on gravel.

Contrasted to the low, wide profile of the Corvette, the boxy-shaped vehicle loomed like a tractor-trailer as it idled up behind our rear bumper and stopped.

“Who’s this?” Buddy asked, and the answer was not long in coming. A bright spotlight beam lanced out and blasted through our back window.