Bag Limit

Chapter Six

Travis Hayes had been on his way to Posadas, about a third of his nighttime food-service delivery route completed, when Matt Baca staggered backward into the path of Travis’ International. The truck’s violent slide into the sand had scattered Jorgensen’s Blue Label Dairy Products around the inside of the rig’s reefer unit like small, frozen missiles.

If there had been heavy traffic, Hayes might have been the second fatality, because he launched himself out of the cab and dashed onto the highway without a glance left or right, only to be grabbed in a bear hug by Bergmann.

“My God,” Hayes cried, “I didn’t see him. He just…”

“We need you to stay back, sir,” Bergmann said.

“He just…” Hayes repeated, and tried to take a step toward the shapeless lump on the pavement. As I approached from the other side, the steel of the handcuffs winked in the headlights of the Border Patrol unit. One of the cuffs was empty and flung wide.

There was no point in feeling for a pulse, but Gutierrez did anyway. Reeling as if someone had punched me, I made my way back to my patrol car and rummaged for the mike.

“Posadas, three ten.”

“Three ten, go ahead.”

On automatic pilot, the words that would summon the troops spilled out. Deputy Taber estimated her ETA at six minutes, with Undersheriff Torrez right behind her. The ambulance would take twice that long. As far as Matt Baca was concerned, there was no hurry.

I slumped back in the seat and waited. Mercifully, the highway was deserted, as if the world were recoiling in hushed silence. One of the federal officers found a black tarp and highway flares, and the other moved the Border Patrol unit so that it completely blocked the eastbound lane, lights flashing.

I watched the amber numerals on the digital clock on the dashboard, but after a while even they drifted out of focus. My gaze was fixed somewhere out ahead, through the windshield and off across the dark prairie toward the south.

“Are you all right, sir?”

Startled out of whatever world I’d been in by the soft voice and a gentle hand on my left shoulder, I turned and looked up into Bob Torrez’s face.

“No…I mean, I’m fine,” I said, and shook off the mental cobwebs. The first word out of my mouth had been the accurate answer. I hadn’t seen Torrez drive up, but now the area was practically daylight in a brilliant symphony of flashing lights that captured half a dozen moving shadows.

“Deputy Taber is taking a statement from the truck driver,” Torrez said. “What he says jibes pretty much with what Gutierrez and his sidekick say happened.”

“I’m glad everybody goddamn agrees,” I said, and pushed myself out of the car. “How the hell long have you been here?” An ambulance was backing up carefully toward the black plastic-covered lump, the vehicle’s tires straddling the center line. A hundred yards to the east, another set of red lights blinked where Taber’s patrol unit blocked the highway.

“Just a couple of minutes.”

I don’t know why that irritated me, but it did. I had the mental picture of them all tiptoeing around me, careful not to disturb the old man sitting off by himself. What the hell did they think I had been doing, writing memoirs with a DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from the door handle?

I leaned against the rear fender of my car and watched the paramedics try to decide which part of Matt Baca’s remains to lift first onto the gurney.

“Baca had his feet out of the car when Officer Gutierrez walked back to his unit,” I said. “For a few seconds, I was the only one immediately beside the kid. He bowled into me, and twisted, and I wasn’t fast enough to grab him. He took a handful of steps, lost his balance, and went backward out into the high-way, right past the back of the car, here.” I patted the back fender of the unmarked Ford, and then lowered my voice. “The driver of the truck hadn’t pulled over to the left very much. And he didn’t spike the brakes until after he hit the kid.” I took a deep breath, and my fingers groped at my shirt pocket where I used to keep the cigarettes. “Just like that. I don’t think that the driver ever saw him. He certainly didn’t have a chance to swerve or brake.”

Torrez nodded and watched the paramedics. “Sosimo is home now?”

“Yes. He’s drunk to the world, but he’s home. I suppose the two girls are too. I didn’t see them when I went in after Matt.”

“Somebody’s going to have to let them know,” Torrez said. “When we get things cleaned up here, I’ll go on down there.”

“No hurry,” I replied. “If you woke up Sosimo now, he wouldn’t remember a thing. Let him sleep it off.”

“Hell of a deal.”

“Yes, it is. And I’ve been thinking and thinking, and I haven’t come up with any answers.” I turned and faced Torrez. “Number one, up on the pass, what’s the first thing Matt did after his car rammed into mine?”

“He bolted.”

“Damn right he bolted. He didn’t wait two seconds to see if his friends were hurt, or to see who he hit, or any of that. He just flat ran. And it looks like he ran all the way home, too. When I got to the house, he was crashed out, dead to the world on the couch. Flat busted.”

“Did you have any trouble with him?”

“That’s what I’m getting at,” I said. “I had the cuffs slapped on him while he was still asleep. For a little bit, he was pretty belligerent, but when I mentioned that I might have you carry him out to the car, he just calmed right down.”

“We’ve had our share of run-ins in the past.” He hunched his shoulders as if the cold was beginning to seep through his jacket. “You may remember that he was the one who fell down the stairs a couple of years ago, back when the juvenile cell was on the second floor.”

“I’d forgotten that. He took a swing at you then, as I recall.”

“Sort of.”

“Well, whatever the reason, the peace and quiet didn’t last. About the time we passed the saloon, maybe a little later, he starts kicking the glass. Now what the hell is he going to do when it breaks? The door’s locked, so he can’t get out.”

“Maybe he hadn’t figured that part out,” Torrez said.

“Maybe not. But he worked away at that window until he popped it. And then when he had another chance to bolt, he took it.” I shook my head in disgust.

“What did he say to you? Anything at all during the drive?”

“Just a colorful vocabulary.”

“Anything to the two officers?” He nodded toward Gutierrez and Bergmann, who were in conference with Jackie Taber and the truck driver.

“Nope. He didn’t say squat from the time I woke him up until this. Other than cussing me and my ancestors. And you and yours. Half of it was in Spanish. Probably all the good stuff.” I stood up straight and tried to stretch the kinks out of my left arm. “Why did he run, Bob? Like you said before, we know where he lives.”

“There’s no telling what goes through their heads, sir. Especially when they’re half-blasted. Something that seems dumb as shit to you or me makes perfect sense to them. At least we know where Matt bought the booze.”

“We do? Where?”

“I talked to Tommy Portillo. He remembers that Matt stopped by the convenience store shortly before ten. Beer and a couple of pints.”

“Tommy knows better than that,” I snapped. “Jesus, he’s got kids who go in there all the time, and we’ve never had a complaint of sales to minors. I always thought he was one we didn’t have to worry about.”

“He maintains that Matt had a valid ID that showed he was twenty-one, going on twenty-two. He says that he doesn’t know Matt all that well, so he glanced at it, saw that it was all right, and let it go. Matt’s one of those kids who could pass for anything between fourteen and legal.”

“Like hell it was a valid ID.” I pulled the driver’s license out of my shirt pocket and handed it to Torrez. “I took this out of his wallet. He had this and seven bucks. The license says he turns nineteen in December.”

Torrez nodded his head slowly. “He would have been nineteen on the thirteenth of December.” He tapped the plastic card against his thumbnail. “Portillo didn’t look very closely.”

“Shit,” I said. “Damn right he didn’t look close. Either that or he can’t read, the dumb son of a bitch. I can’t believe he’d do a thing like that. Hell, he knows what kind of a heller your cousin is…he has to.” I grimaced in frustration. “And he couldn’t look out his own damn store window and see a carload of kids? Where the hell does he think the booze is going, anyway?”

“He said the car was parked over on the side, where the newspaper vending machines are. Portillo said he glanced that way, and when he couldn’t see anything, didn’t pursue it. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Terrific. He doesn’t see much, does he. Did you check whether there was anything else Matt was carrying? Something I might have missed in the wallet? It’s possible he had some other form of ID that he was using…something that a store clerk like Portillo would accept.”

“We’re looking, sir. Taber’s working on that.”

“Let’s see what she’s got.” I pushed myself away from the car and glanced down the highway. It was long and dark, stretching away empty in both directions.

The ambulance pulled away, and the driver of the truck waited by his vehicle, his back to the road and one arm thrown up and resting against the massive hood and front fender, face buried in his coat sleeve. Bergmann stood beside him, talking to what didn’t look like much response. Gutierrez intercepted us as we walked out on the asphalt.

“This is a real mess,” he said. “Tell you what we’d like to do, Sheriff, if you’re about through with us here. We’ll go on into Posadas and stop by the S.O. and write you up a deposition. You’ll be wanting that, am I right?”

“Yes. I’d appreciate that.”

“No problem. Starting Sunday, I’ll be on leave for a while, so we might as well get this all wrapped up right now.”

I nodded. “Thanks. Beyond the deposition, I don’t see any reason to tie you guys up with this mess. Enjoy your days off.”

“I’ll be around, though, if you need anything else. My step-father’s visiting from down south, and him and me and my sister are going to get in a little deer hunting down this way.”

I shook my head in frustration. “If you figure out in a sudden burst of inspiration just what the hell happened here, you let me know.”

Gutierrez frowned. “We just aren’t ever going to know.” He reached out a hand and I took it. “You take care, now.” I knew he was right. Maybe the red lights on the Border Patrol unit had spooked the kid. Maybe it was the three of us standing around, jawing. Maybe if I’d just driven on into Posadas without stopping, the worst-case scenario would have been a few shards of glass to pick out of Matt’s hair. Who the hell knew?

Bergmann strode across the road, and when he reached us, he stepped so close that I could smell his cologne. “You’ve got a basket case over there, Sheriff. I wouldn’t leave him alone, if I were you.”

“I don’t intend to, thanks.”

Deputy Taber had expended the better part of two rolls of film, and Gutierrez raised a hand toward her. “All right to move it?” he called, pointing at the Border Patrol unit. The deputy nodded, holding up the camera to indicate that she had all the photos that she needed.

When the two feds had left, I walked over to Taber. “About wrapped up?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I wanted to roll a few more measurements, but that will only take a minute.”

“Did you find any kind of ID other than this?” I handed her Matt’s driver’s license. “I took this from him at the house. It was in the wallet, along with a few bucks.”

She pulled her clipboard out from under her arm and thumbed the laminated license under the clip. “The wallet itself and the contents of his pockets are bagged, if you want a look. They’re over in my car.”

I shook my head. “Nothing else? No other ID? No other driver’s license? Nothing like that? Something that has a different D.O.B.?”

Taber shined her flashlight on the license I’d given her. “Looks like December thirteen, 1982.”

The undersheriff leaned close so that he could scrutinize the license. “And that’s the right one. The family Bible never lies, sir,” Torrez said.

“So either Portillo was lying, or the kid had another ID with him. One that we haven’t found. Maybe back at the house.”

“We’ve never had trouble with Portillo before,” Torrez said. “But I guess there’s always a first time.”

“First and last,” I muttered. “What the hell is the point of asking for an ID, and looking at it, if you’re not going to enforce the date?” I held out a hand. “Let me take that license. I’ll see how well Portillo reads.” Deputy Taber hesitated for an instant, then unclipped the license and handed it to me. “Thanks.” I slipped it into my pocket, took a deep breath, and stepped over to the truck driver.

He lifted his head out of his arm, but didn’t meet my gaze. In the psychedelic light from the various sets of flickering roof racks, it was tough to read his expression.

“I’m Sheriff Gastner,” I said. “We haven’t had a chance to talk yet.”

“God, I wish you could have grabbed him,” the man said, and as he turned a bit more, I could see his face was wet.

“You and me both,” I said. “These things happen sometimes.”

“I couldn’t stop. I didn’t even see him until just before…”

“I know that,” I said. “Right now, my concern is getting this rig out of here, and you safely into town.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“You’ll be able to drive?”

“I guess so.” He tried a faint chuckle. “We’ll see.”

“Undersheriff Torrez can drive the rig in for you. That might be better. You can ride in with the deputy.”

He shook his head and backed away from the truck. “No, that’s all right.” He took a couple of steps until he was even with the big chrome bumper, looked down, and then jerked his head up. He turned his back to the truck. It was too dark to see anything, of course, but just the idea of what had happened was replaying in his mind-and would continue to do so for months, sneaking back to jar him awake in the night, or to make him wince in the middle of a meal or the middle of a movie.

“Do you need me for anything else?” he asked.

“The deputy has everything,” I said. “If she needs any additional information, she’ll give you a call. She’ll want you to sign a formal deposition when she finishes, but that’ll be later today.”

He nodded. “Well, okay,” he said and walked around the front of the truck. There was just enough room between the left front fender and the barbed-wire highway right-of-way fence for him to squeeze through.

“You’re sure you’re going to be all right?” I called after him.

“No, but I don’t guess there’s anything you can do about that,” he said, and swung himself up into the truck. His knees still must have been jelly, because he stalled the rig three times before he managed to back it away from the fence and then judder through the loose sand to the pavement.