Bag Limit pc-9

by Steven F Havill

  “I don’t know, sir. He just called and asked for you. And by the way, Catron County returned my call. Edward Johns quit that department in March, ’99. Ortiz said that if he could have found an easy way to fire him, he would have. But Johns just quit. Sheriff Ortiz said that he had an attitude problem.”

  “It’s hard to picture Eddie Johns working for Lorenzo Ortiz anyway,” I said. “What’s he doing now, did Ortiz say?”

  “The last he heard, Johns was working for University Real Estate in Las Cruces. I called and confirmed that.”

  “Real estate?” I frowned, trying to picture Johns showing a two-bedroom bungalow with white picket fence to a newly married couple. Warm fuzzies all over the place. “That’s a start. Thanks, Gayle. And now I need some wheels.”

  The only vehicle remaining in our parking lot was an aging Bronco whose transfer case sounded as if it were full of gravel and whose windshield sported a fascinating pattern of cracks. I took it, figuring that if three was a charmed number, the old Bronco was a good choice for something to wreck.

  The county barn one block south of Bustos on Fifth Avenue was a bulky Quonset building that overlooked the vast bone-yard of equipment, both functional and long-dead, that kept the county in business.

  Puzzled, I parked the Bronco so it joined the lineup of other department vehicles. The confab apparently had moved from Regal to here. The massive roll-up door was closed, so I entered the shop through the white steel door with the single word OFFICE stenciled at eye level.

  The office included three desks and a variety of bookshelves, with every available flat surface covered in a vast avalanche of junk, from empty coffee cups to reams of computer verbiage to a case of oil filters with an invoice that, before the next week was over, would probably be filed by the gravity system. All of it was untended, but I heard voices out in the shop.

  I stepped through the side door that sported the eye-level warning AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Perhaps there were a surprising number of people who wanted to tour the place, hoping to catch a tantalizing glimpse of a county road-grader having its blade changed.

  The unmarked county car in which I had been transporting Matt Baca during those almost surrealistic early morning hours was parked in the far west rear corner of the building. It was snuggled between the sorry remains of the marked unit that had been T-boned earlier through young Baca’s efforts, and an elderly dump truck with its uncovered differential in a thousand pieces.

  Skirting the yawning lube pit that had been built long before the county could afford a decent hydraulic lift, I made my way across the dark, oily concrete floor. A burst of light exploded inside the unmarked car, followed by another. Undersheriff Robert Torrez saw me and broke away from the party. I saw Tom Pasquale leaning inside the car, and could make out the top of Linda Real’s head where she manipulated the camera.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Sir,” Torrez said. “A couple of interesting things. First of all, did Alan get a hold of you?”

  “Alan Perrone? No, why?”

  Torrez glanced back toward the two cars. When he turned back, he lowered his voice. “He’s got some interesting preliminaries for us. In a nutshell, he thinks that Sosimo was struck, maybe more than once.” He put his hand on his own belly, just under the ribs. “And he thinks that at least one of those blows may have contributed to the rupture of an existing aortic aneurysm.”

  I frowned. “He’s sure?” It was a pointless question, since I knew damn well that the sober, methodical Dr. Alan Perrone didn’t make wild guesses or jump to unfounded conclusions.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I took a step backward and leaned against the rear tire of one of the county’s tractors parked beside a set of welding tanks. I regarded the polished brass valves of the welder, but my mind wasn’t there. “So very likely there was a struggle in the kitchen, like you said. They bang around, smash the window in the back door, and somehow Sosimo breaks away and plunges outside, taking part of the screen with him. And by that time, if the aneurysm burst, he’s already dead on his feet.” I held out my hands. “And that’s it.”

  “Could be.” Bob Torrez’s face was its usual, noncommittal mask, and he waited while I fumbled with the pieces of the puzzle.

  “You have thoughts otherwise, Roberto?”

  He shook his head. “That’s the way I see it. We just don’t know who was there.”

  I thrust my hands in my pockets. “Let me ask you something. I know they’re family and all, but Clorinda and the other ladies…they’re quite a crew. Could one of them be involved somehow?”

  A faint smile cracked Torrez’s face. “Sir, my aunt Clorinda can make up some of the wildest stories. But it’s against her nature to hide things, or try and cover-up. I think that if she had to hold a secret for any length of time, she’d explode.” He shook his head. “No, if Clorinda knew anything, she’d tell me. And she’d tell everyone else, too. I really think that what she says happened is just about what did happen, as far as she or the other ladies know. Sosimo left the house to find his truck, or just to get away from them…and when he did that, they left the house, too. There was nothing else for them to do there, with everyone else gone. And that’s all they know. They didn’t see Sosimo return. The next time they plug into events is when Elva Lucero telephoned them with the bad news.”

  “We’ve got a goddamn fifteen-minute gap, maybe half hour,” I said. “A gap when nobody knows what the hell went on.” I pushed myself away from the tractor and nodded across the building where Linda Real continued burning up film. “And you didn’t call me over here to tell me about Perrone’s findings. What gives with my car?”

  Torrez beckoned and I followed him through the litter of hoses, tools, and cartons full of who knows what.

  “Deputy Pasquale had an idea,” Torrez said as we reached the front of the car, and he looked sideways at me.

  “Oh-oh,” I said.

  Pasquale heard us and turned around. He’d been using the roof of the car as a desk, filling out the plastic evidence bag label with a black marker. Surgical gloves clad his hands. He grinned at me and stepped away from the car. The backseat cushion had been removed and leaned up against the wall.

  Torrez didn’t add to his explanation, and I looked quizzically at Pasquale. “So tell me,” I said.

  “Sir, we were searching the residence down in Regal, and I was going through the couch in the living room, looking under the cushions and what not. It was at that time that I realized that none of us had turned the car.”

  “Turned the car,” I murmured, amused at the young deputy’s tendency to turn to Hollywood for his phraseology. The brief flash of amusement was replaced by the familiar sick, hollow feeling of seeing the broken window and having my mind replay the events of the night before. “So what did you find?” I leaned inside. Lying amid five years’ worth of dust and litter was a shiny, plastic laminated driver’s license. Catching the light, Matt Baca’s photo looked up at me.

  “I’ll be damned,” I said and glanced up at Linda. She stood by the left rear car door, camera at the ready. “You were able to get all this?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Thomas, you knew this was here before you moved the seat?” I straighted up with an audible popping of joints.

  “No, sir. But I got to thinking. It made sense to look every place that Matt Baca had spent some time. We knew that he had some sort of fake ID, and that he had to stash it somewhere. It wasn’t in the house, unless he plastered it inside one of the walls. And he didn’t have time to do that.”

  “No fresh plaster,” I said.

  “No, sir,” Pasquale said, taking me dead seriously. “And then I remembered that you said that you arrested him when he was lying on the couch. If he had a fake ID, he wouldn’t want to be caught with it. You said that it wasn’t in his wallet, which is the logical place to keep it.”

  “That’s where his regular license was-the legitimate one,” I said.

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p; “Yes, sir.” Without the least apology, he added, “When I was a kid and carried a fake ID, I always just slid it into my back pocket. Takes too long to fumble in a wallet.”

  “Is that right?” I looked at him with amusement.

  “That’s what got me to thinking about Matt. If he had a fake ID, he might just have slipped it into his other back pocket where he could get it easily. If he didn’t do something about it, we would have found it when he was processed for the detention center. And down at his house, he might not have had the chance to slip the fake license out of his pocket just then. You were watching him every minute.” Pasquale looked at me expectantly.

  “But he did have the time once he was inside the car,” I said. “Lying on the backseat, with me busy driving. It’s dark, and he’s got lots of opportunity to work out his problem. He sticks it down behind the seat. And what are the odds that anyone would look there?” I regarded Tom Pasquale with interest. “Your prior education is coming in real handy, Thomas.”

  Tom’s eyes flickered over to Bob Torrez, who remained studiously silent. “Just outstanding, Thomas,” I said. “Don’t you have to unbolt the seat to move it? It doesn’t just flip up like the seats in the SUVs, does it?”

  “No bolts, sir. It just lifts up and out. Takes just a second. No problem.”

  I frowned and turned slowly to the undersheriff. “Was Matt smart enough to figure all this out?”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “Slip the license down behind the seat. And we can take it one step further. Is he smart enough to kick out the window, knowing that the car will end up in the shop? When it does, he can come grab the license.”

  Torrez looked skeptical. “I don’t think so, sir. It’s possible, but I don’t think so.”

  “Does he know anyone who works here?”

  “I imagine he does.”

  “Well, then…maybe that’s it. But why run, then? That doesn’t make sense.” I turned to Tom Pasquale. “And you didn’t feel down in there first? Before you moved the seat?”

  “No, sir. It’s too snug. And if there was something there, I didn’t want to touch it. I knew that we’d want photos. And I knew that it’d be easy for something to slip down where I couldn’t feel it anyways.” He shrugged. “So that’s what I did.”

  I turned and grinned at Torrez, then reached out and took Tom Pasquale by the shoulder to rock him back and forth. “Wonderful, Tom,” I said. “Just outstanding.” I bent over and peered at the license again. “Damn, you’re good.”

  “If Linda’s through, let’s get it out of there,” Torrez said, and Tom Pasquale jumped to it as if he’d been stuck with a cattle prod.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The discovery of the license did a lot for my mood. I was impressed as hell that somebody had thought to look behind the seat of the car in the first place. I certainly hadn’t. And I was doubly impressed that Deputy Tom Pasquale hadn’t just rummaged behind the seat and grabbed the thing without thinking-as he would have done just a couple of years before. He’d been methodical and careful, and it had paid off.

  The license provided a new piece for the puzzle. Everything on it was right, too right-except Matt Baca’s birthdate. That had been sealed in plastic as December 13, 1979. With that in hand, Matt had grown up fast.

  Discovery of the fake license restored my faith in Tommy Portillo, too. Under normal circumstances, I had occasion to visit his convenience store a dozen times a month. It would be nice to be able to wish him a pleasant day and mean it.

  A high-quality forgery of a state license was no small crime, and it wasn’t something Matt Baca could do in his bedroom with a rubber stamp and lettering kit. Someone who could make such a fine copy would see no reason to stop at just one.

  With any luck at all, the smooth plastic would reveal some high-quality fingerprints-Baca’s, Portillo’s-and if we held our breath just right, maybe some surprises.

  But even if luck smiled on us, a whole landslide of unanswered questions remained. On top of all that, Dale Torrance was still enjoying the profits from his recent foray into cattle rustling, and that needed resolution.

  On the way out of the county barn, I explained what I knew of the case to Torrez, and he shook his head in wonder. “Give me a couple hours to finish up a few odds and ends, and we’ll take a run out there,” he said. “Something else you might want to check, by the way-you know who Dale is trying to impress, don’t you?”

  “Impress? Stealing cattle is a hell of a dangerous way to impress somebody. Who?”

  “He hangs out around Christine Prescott a lot.” He grinned. “At least his tongue hangs out a lot. What better reason to want a wad of cash, don’t you think?”

  “And how do you have this gem of information?” Remembering Torrez’s habit of bar-baiting, I could picture him watching the Broken Spur from his parking spot east by the windmill, binoculars in hand. The undersheriff grinned, and I waved a hand in protest. “Better yet, don’t tell me. Holler at me when you’re ready to go on out. We’ll pick up Cliff on the way.”

  I slid into the Bronco, fumbling for a moment before I found the keys. The old engine settled into a fitful rumble. It sounded as tired as I felt. I dug out the cell phone and auto-dialed dispatch.

  “Gayle, I’m going to be home for a little bit. If Cliff Larson calls there, have him come over to the house. Otherwise, I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

  My plans called for a fresh cup of coffee, a shower, and a Saturday afternoon nap. I’d been running for the better part of thirty hours without conking out, and was acutely aware that the gears in my inner clock were starting to slip and miss.

  I wasn’t one of those fortunate souls who could catch a little shut-eye at the office or in the car. The previous sheriff had been fond of referring to me as “badgerlike.” Whether that referred to my disposition or to my preference for diving back into my own private hole when I needed rest and relaxation I wasn’t sure, but I preferred the latter.

  The thick, carved door of my rambling, dark adobe home on Guadalupe Terrace locked out the world’s noises and the eighteen-inch mud walls muffled them into silence. It was a good place to think.

  South of the interstate exchange, I turned the grumbling Bronco off Grande onto Escondido, then took the hard right onto Guadalupe. Parked directly in front of my garage door was a blue Corvette, one of those models with the enormous humpy fenders and pointed shark nose. I idled the Bronco in behind it, close enough that I could read the Texas license.

  Puzzled, I climbed out and walked the length of the car, pausing to rest my hand on the hood. It was still warm. A sticker on the front bumper allowed parking at Chase Field Naval Air Station in Beeville, and I grinned. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I said aloud, and turned toward the house.

  The front door was locked. I finally sorted out the right key and let myself in. The interior air lay undisturbed. I walked quickly back to the kitchen, confirming that no one was inside. It was when I paused for a moment that I heard the faint voices, out behind the house.

  The adobe, a vast, sprawling structure built room by room until everyone had run out of ideas, sat on the front edge of five acres. Those five acres separated me from the interstate and from neighbors. The acreage’s location made it perfect for a truck stop or motel, and I knew with grim satisfaction exactly what the land was worth.

  I stepped to the back door, shot the bolt, and pulled it open. The five acres were a mini-wilderness, choked with whatever would grow without attention. Immediately behind the adobe, a series of enormous cottonwoods presided, their canopies stretching autumn-bare branches over the house. The thick carpet of leaves crackled underfoot.

  “Hey!” A shout from off to my right drew my attention, and I turned and watched two men walking toward me from the rear of the property. I’d been told a number of times that my youngest son looked more like me than I did. He scuffed through the leaves with his hands in his pockets, turning his shoulders just enough to dodge a brambl
e or low-hanging limb. Wide through the shoulders and thick-waisted, William C. Gastner, Junior, was going to have to work hard to avoid tipping the scales a little more each year until the copy of his father was complete.

  I couldn’t recall just then if his son Tadd was a junior in high school or if Tadd was a senior and some other grandchild was the junior. Whatever the case, this grandson towered over his father by a good three inches, taking his height from his mother’s side of the family. He smiled broadly as they approached, a pleasant, open face with the clear, olive skin inherited from his grandmother’s Peruvian blood.

  Without a word, Buddy took his hands out of his pockets and bulldozed into me with a powerful hug. About the time I knew I was turning blue, my grandson said, “Okay, it’s getting late. Time to go.” My son and I stepped apart, and the kid added, “My turn.” He opened his arms wide and clamped me in his own version of a vise hug. His mother’s side of the family hadn’t contributed much padding to his frame.

  “I’ll be damned,” I said finally, looking at the two of them. “Isn’t this something. What’s the occasion?”

  Buddy shrugged. “Tadd here talked me into stretching the beast’s legs on Interstate Ten.”

  “That’s a hell of a stretch, but what a great idea.” I thumped Tadd on the arm. “That’s quite the car you have there. What time did you leave?”

  “We pulled out of the driveway at oh three hundred hours, right on the dot,” Tadd said. He scrutinized his watch, one of those enormous things with all the knobs, buttons, and dials. “Eleven hours and twenty-five minutes.”

  “That’s not bad for seven hundred and fifty miles, counting stops.”

  “Seven hundred eighty-one miles in six hundred eighty-five minutes,” Tadd said instantly. “That’s sixty-eight point four miles an hour, on the average.”

  “On the average.” I laughed. “I wish I’d known you were coming. I could have had a brass band out front, or something. Or a checkered flag. Come on inside.” I turned toward the door. “Did you call dispatch, or what?”