Bag Limit

Chapter Thirty-nine

By the time we left the Motor Vehicles Division field office, the sun had dipped below the boot of the San Cristobal Mountains. The air was still. The last vestige of clouds formed a thin lenticular wisp about thirty thousand feet over Regal Pass. In another hour, we’d be able to stand in my backyard, away from all the streetlights, and see every star in the heavens. And they wouldn’t give me any answers, either.

I drew in a deep breath of the nippy fall air and stood on the sidewalk with my hands jammed in my pockets as I watched Melinda Torrez lock the MVD’s front door.

“Thanks, Melinda,” I said.

“I don’t know what for,” she replied. “If there’s anything else, let me know. This whole thing makes my skin crawl, I can tell you that. Will you let me know what happens?”

“Without a doubt.” She nodded and slipped into her little truck. Estelle had opened the door of the county car and was about to get in when she saw that I had settled against the front fender. I slouched there, arms folded over my belly, one boot crossed over the other. I don’t know what I was looking at-the scenery was limited to a spread of old adobe buildings renovated to look younger than they were, county gas pumps, and three Sheriff’s Department vehicles parked in a neat row between the two elm trees that marked the front entrance of the Public Safety Building.

My back was to her, but I heard Estelle step around the car. She appeared at my right elbow.

“So what do you think?” I asked.

“Too many possibilities,” she said quietly.

I grinned. “I was afraid you were going to say that.” I turned to look at her. As always, I was struck by how slight she was, even with the extra bulk of the nifty quilted vest that she was wearing. “How well do you know Melinda?”

“I know her pretty well.” Estelle didn’t elaborate, but it would be tough to work for a decade in a tiny department in a tiny village without forming some lasting friendships-and without learning where most of the dark corners were.

“Well?”

“What are the possibilities?”

“It would be easier to imagine what isn’t possible.”

“All right. Start there.”

“For one thing, Melinda is telling us the truth. I can’t conceive of her issuing some wild kid a fake license so that he can go buy booze whenever he wants to.”

“Especially a relative.”

“Especially that. Especially when one of Melinda’s own brothers was killed by a drunk driver. In fact, Melinda was one of the prime movers and shakers when the state was trying to drum up support to outlaw drive-up windows at liquor stores.”

I stared off into the distance again, chewing on my lower lip. Estelle stepped down off the curb. That put us at eye level with each other.

“Now,” Estelle continued, “would Melinda allow someone else to do the dirty work? Did she know about it? No. I don’t think so.”

“Me either,” I said. “Do you know Connie French?”

“I think I’ve met her a few times. I’d be able to pick her out of a crowd, but that’s it.”

“So if she issued the license, she did it on the sly, when Melinda wouldn’t know about it.”

“That makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that she’d bother. What’s there to gain?”

“Just a favor for a friend,” I said. “People have done worse for less. Maybe she had a crush on the kid. Who the hell knows.”

“You haven’t talked to her yet, then?”

“No. All this reminds me of what downhill skiing must be like. Not much time for side trips.”

Estelle smiled. “Well, speaking of side trips. If Connie French didn’t issue the license, then that opens a whole new series of possibilities.”

“The damn license could have come from anywhere,” I said.

“Exactly. But there is something that tells me the license came from here.” She nodded at the dark building. “From what you told me, Scott Gutierrez has been around most of the weekend, in one way or another.”

“He works in this part of the country. And he has relatives here.”

“He works in the area, true. But he lives in Deming. Now, you said that he arrived at the scene when Matthew Baca was killed. He apparently spent a good deal of the night in the area, with or without his partner. He was first at the scene when Robert called for assistance the next morning…not at his home in Deming, or not at the field office. And if he’d been on duty with what’s-his-name that night…”

“Bergmann.”

“With Bergmann, then he wouldn’t have been assigned to work the border crossing the next morning. But there he was. And he was around, still using a government vehicle, when you guys chased Dale Torrance into the Broken Spur.”

“Sure. I thought about all that. And it makes sense to me.”

“It does?”

“Sure. He’s an eager young cop. He works long hours. So what?”

“Sir…you work hours like that because you can’t sleep, and because this entire county is as much home to you as your adobe house on Guadalupe Terrace. But follow it through. Who is sitting in the dark behind the church in Regal in the middle of the night? Isn’t that when you said you and Buddy talked to him?”

“Yes. After Jackie Taber saw him drive through the village.”

“And he’s going on a hunting trip with his sister and stepfather the next day? He’s going to be in great shape for that. He’ll spend the day sleeping under a tree somewhere.”

“What are you telling me, Estelle?”

“Scott Gutierrez is looking for something.”

“That’s been my assumption. And it only makes sense that it has to do with the license. Why else would he be interested in anything Matt Baca is up to? Why would he go inside their house? A neighbor claims to have seen his vehicle there, when he had no reason to be on the property at all. And when I told him that we’d found a fake driver’s license, he left Regal. What’s that sound like to you?”

“That he knew what was going on,” Estelle said. “That he was looking for the license.”

“And now tell me why.”

“Too many possibilities,” Estelle said, and I scowled with frustration. “The one that comes to mind first is that he’s protecting his sister. If Connie issued that license, and if Scott can find it first, then she’s off the hook. It’s just the say-so of witnesses that Matt Baca used a fake ID.”

“That thought had crossed my mind,” I said, but I shook my head. “All this for one stupid fake license? I don’t believe it. She’d lose her job and God knows what all else. Scott Gutierrez would lose his…and God knows what all else, too. All for some smooth-talking little punk who convinces Connie that if she issues him a fake ID, the whole world will spin faster and truer? Jesus.”

Estelle smiled, and even in the poor light, it appeared to me that maybe there was a trace of sympathy there.

“People do stupid things, we both know that. Why were you chasing Dale Torrance?”

That prompted a loud laugh, the sort that reduced my blood pressure a couple of points. “Because he stole eighteen head of cattle so that he could buy his girlfriend a diamond ring or make a payment for her on a new pickup truck, or whatever the hell the money was for,” I said. “And he’s too stupid to realize that the love of his life wasn’t just all that impressed. And he’s too thick-skulled to figure out that if he stops for gas at a neighborhood station, someone might remember him?”

Estelle held up her hands in surrender. “You see what I mean.”

“Clearly.”

“There’s one other possibility that we need to explore, though.”

I stood up and brushed the fender dust from the back of my pants. I didn’t bother to correct her use of the “we.” “What’s that?”

“Suppose that the license that was issued to Matt Baca wasn’t the only one.”

I looked hard at Estelle for a minute. “That thought has crossed my mind.”

“Exactly.”

I slumped back against the car. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” I said.