Bag Limit

Chapter Thirty-one

I began to think that Judge Lester Hobart had fallen back on the bed, sound asleep. The phone rang eight times, and I was about to hang up when I heard the click, followed by a fumble and clatter and a muffled, “Goddammit.”

“Yes,” the judge snapped. “What is it?”

“Good morning, Judge,” I said. “This is Gastner.”

“I know who the hell it is, and what’s so good about the morning?”

I laughed and swiveled in my chair so I could see out the window. The sky was deep indigo to the west, mellowing toward the sunrise. “It looks like a nice Sunday, for one thing,” I said.

“I suppose. So what do you need?”

“I don’t need anything. You called the office and wanted to talk to me, Judge.”

“Dammit, where the hell is my mind,” he muttered.

“Haven’t seen it,” I said. “Same place mine is, no doubt.”

“Let me look at my notes a second. Hang on.” More rummaging and scuffling followed, and I had the mental picture of the judge sitting on his rumpled bed, papers scattered all over the bedroom, his ancient and disheveled toy poodle cowering on the far corner of the bedspread. “My office is a goddamn mess,” he said. “But you ought to see the goddamn clutter here at the house.”

“No worse than mine, I’m sure.”

“I hear your son’s visiting,” the judge said.

“Yes, he is.”

“The one in the navy?”

“Yes. He and my grandson drove up for a few days.”

“Grandson, eh.”

“Yep. One of several. He’s a nice kid.”

“I’m sure,” the judge said. “He into drugs yet? Tattoos and earrings? That kind of shit?”

I laughed. “No. Not that I can see, anyway.”

“Not even a tongue stud?”

“Nope. He’s a pretty straight-arrow sort of kid. The last time I saw him, he was sitting in my living room, watching High Noon.”

“Damn,” the judge said. “Well, clone him, while you have the chance. Let me see, now. Here’s the deal, speaking of kids. This Dale Torrance. Shit, I’m surprised Herb hasn’t had a stroke. Or killed the kid. Or maybe both. I have on file that the boy is nineteen. Is that right?”

“To the best of my recollection.”

“And he’s never been in trouble. At least he’s never been in my courtroom.”

“Up to now, a clean slate. And this one is pretty simple. Dale fell for a girl, and did all the stupid things.”

“This is the Prescott girl, right? Christine Prescott?”

“Yes.”

“Well, hell, this deposition from Larson says that she’s almost twenty-eight.”

“Right. I’m not sure that Dale’s infatuation is a two-way street, Judge.”

“Yeah, well…hell.” He stopped as if he were reading something, and I waited. “Okay, here’s what I want to happen. Larson already talked to Schroeder, and I guess the DA’s got enough on his plate right now that a few head of livestock going for a joyride isn’t something that he wants to pursue hot and heavy…assuming that the cattle are returned in fair health and condition to their rightful owner. At the preliminary hearing on Monday, he’s going to bring up charges against the kid for grand larceny and exportation of cattle without inspection papers, as well as leaving the scene of an accident. Schroeder tells me that the kid deliberately backed his pickup truck into one owned by Miles Waddell.”

“That’s correct. He did. And for not wanting to pursue the case hot and heavy, two felonies sounds like quite a start.”

“Well, hell,” Hobart said, “that’s the tip of the iceberg, if Schroeder wanted to play every card in the deck.”

“It’ll make Waddell happy,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I heard a little bit of an edge creep into the judge’s voice. He wasn’t up for reelection, but the district attorney was.

“It means exactly what I said,” I replied. “I’m sure Waddell wants to pursue this for all it’s worth.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what Miles Waddell wants to do or doesn’t want to do,” Hobart snapped. “Miles Waddell isn’t the State of New Mexico, much as he’d like to be. Anyway, Herb called me last night, and we talked for a bit, and then I tried to get a hold of you, but I guess you had your hands full.”

“Yes, we did.”

“Well, here’s the deal, regardless. Doc Perrone was going to turn Dale loose this morning, if all goes well. And the minute he does, Larson is going to bring him on over for arraignment. I’m going to turn him loose to the custody of his pappy-if his pappy has five thousand bucks for bond.”

“He won’t go anywhere,” I said, feeling a little less sure of that promise than I would have liked.

“Well, he damn well is going somewhere,” Hobart said. “The minute we’re done here, Dale and his father are going to truck right back over to Lawton to pick up those steers. I’m going to tell Herb that I want the boy to use his own pickup, and to pay for the fuel out of his own pocket. I want to see the receipts with the boy’s signature on ’em.”

“Fair enough.”

“And then when they get back, Miles Waddell is going to hold the cattle in quarantine for thirty days, to make sure that none of them are hurt or sick, or any goddamn thing like that. Dale Torrance is going to pay for all that, too. All the feed, the inspections, whatever it takes. When Cliff gives the okay, Waddell can have ’em back, to rope or make hamburgers or whatever the hell it is that he does with the damn things. The dealer in Oklahoma gets his money back, Waddell gets his truck fixed, and the world is ready to start over again.” He coughed into the telephone.

“By the time we have the preliminary hearing on Monday morning, the cattle will be back in the county,” I said.

“They damn well better be. And then we’ll decide where to go from there. That sound good to you?”

“It’s what should happen,” I said, and Lester Hobart read the rest of my thoughts.

“And then on Monday all things being equal, Schroeder will agree to a year’s probation and a thousand bucks fine after all the expenses and damages are paid. That ought to get the kid’s attention. And after that, we’ll see about whether we wipe the slate clean or not as far as the boy’s record is concerned.”

“That will work.”

“All right, then. I wanted to run all that by you, just in case one of the deputies saw the Torrances on the road with a livestock trailer in tow. Didn’t want you cops to get excited.”

“They’ll be aware of the situation,” I said.

“I wish to hell the rest of the mess you’re in would clean up so nicely.” Hobart chuckled. “I can understand why Dan Schroeder is staying over in Deming. He sure as hell doesn’t want any of that shit to rub off on him.”

I started to say something inconsequential, but the judge interrupted. “And say, I have a question for you.”

“What?”

“Who’s Bobby Torrez going to pick for undersheriff? Has he said yet?”

“Bobby has to win the election first,” I replied.

The judge scoffed. “That’s a given, Bill. If Leona Spears wins the sheriff’s race in Posadas County, it’ll be because she’s the only one who voted.”

“I hope that’s true. For his sake, I’d like to see a landslide.”

He laughed. “He’ll get it. Now who’s on the short list?”

“He hasn’t shown it to me,” I said. “I wish I could tell you, but I can’t.” And it was almost the whole truth.

“I’ve heard some interesting rumors,” the judge said.

I took a deep breath. “Well, I tell you, Judge. Consider the source for each one. Unless you hear it from Robert himself, it ain’t worth much.”

“Well…” he said, turning coy. “We’ll see. We’ll see.”

Judge Lester Hobart was a staunch Republican, and the only candidate in his party had pulled out of the race in late summer. That left Torrez as an Independent running against the loony Leona, the embarrassment of the Democrats. I could understand the judge’s desire to bring at least part of the department under the party wing. I didn’t envy the taciturn Torrez the politics he might have to play to work smoothly and productively with the Republican-controlled county commission.

“Is what Cliff Larson tells me true?” Hobart quickly added.

“About?”

“You and the livestock inspector’s job.”

“Yes. I guess it is.”

“You’ve decided to take it?”

“Until Cliff comes back. a couple of weeks. Sure. Why not?”

“Did he tell you the rest of it?”

I frowned. “The rest of what? About his parents, you mean?”

“No. None of that. About why he wants to step down from the job.”

“He didn’t say specifically that he did. He told me that he wants a break to take care of family matters.”

Hobart chuckled that “I know more than you know” laugh. “Sure enough.” He cleared his throat, changing leads. “Well, see you Tuesday, if not before.”

“I’ll be at the Torrance hearing tomorrow morning,” I said. “What’s on Tuesday?”

Hobart hesitated, then muttered something I didn’t catch, and said, “Well, I figured I’d catch up with you one way or another around the ballot boxes. It’s going to be a long day.”

When I hung up, I sat for a few minutes, doodling mindless circles with a pencil on my clean desk pad. Politics was one of my personal irritations, partial explanation of why, in thirty-plus years, I’d never run for the sheriff’s post. I had the distinct feeling that Judge Lester Hobart was playing a political game with me. I didn’t like the feeling.

“What the hell,” I said to no one in particular. I wrote FRANK DAYAN in heavy block letters, and scribbled a circle around the newspaper publisher’s name. If anyone knew which way the political winds were blowing, it would be him.