“I could use an ejection seat,” I mumbled, and Buddy laughed. There was no easy way, but by swinging a leg out and then pretending I was going to fall on my face in the gutter only to save myself at the last moment, I managed to exit the beast.
Mears ambled down the driveway, wiping his hands on a rag. He was a small, slender blond-haired man whose twin brother was a loan officer at Posadas National Bank…and at first glance looked more at home there than Tom did in the deputy’s uniform. But looks were deceiving. Mears had been with the department for nearly fifteen years, a good, steady, levelheaded cop.
He extended a hand. “Commander,” he said to Buddy. “Nice to see you again.”
Buddy flashed a smile. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s quite a memory you’ve got.”
Before I had a chance to walk around the car, Mears had introduced my son to Tony Abeyta. “And as I remember,” Mears said, “the commander flies things considerably faster than this.” He patted the Corvette’s left rear haunch. I frowned, embarrassed to think there had been a time when I had talked enough about my family that Tom Mears would remember all the details.
“I need to chat with you guys for a minute,” I said.
“If it’s to decide who gets to use this new undercover car first, it’s my turn,” Mears said instantly.
“No, no.” I waved a hand in dismissal. “Tom Pasquale’s already called it.”
“Oh, shit no.” Mears burst into laughter.
“Let’s go in there,” I said, nodding at the garage. “Out of the wind. And where the neighbors won’t ogle.”
For the next few minutes, we chatted about the Mears racing stable, and then I lifted a small toolbox off the seat of a ratty metal folding chair and sat down. “Tony,” I said, “yesterday morning, you and Scott Gutierrez talked to Betty Contreras down in Regal, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I did too, a little bit later in the morning. There’s something that she said that kind of bothers me, and I should have followed up on it.” I shifted my feet and leaned back in the chair until I felt it start to flex under my weight. “Betty told me that when she was talking to you guys, she mentioned to you that she saw a vehicle drive by on Saturday morning.”
Both deputies looked puzzled. “This would have been about eight o’clock. She said that she was outside, hanging up clothes or some damn thing. No…she was feeding the cats. That’s what she said. While she was doing that, she recalls seeing a vehicle drive by. She said it was white with a touch of green. She told me that she assumed it was the Border Patrol. They drive through there all the time. When she said that to you guys, Scott Gutierrez told her that it was probably him.”
Abeyta frowned. He looked down, regarding the front right tire of the sportster.
“You remember that conversation?”
“No, sir, I don’t.”
“You don’t recall Mrs. Contreras mentioning the white and green vehicle?”
“She didn’t mention it,” Abeyta said. “Not to me.” He lifted the Dallas Cowboys cap off his head and scratched his scalp, trying to agitate the memory cells. That didn’t help. He shook his head. “I don’t recall her saying anything like that. And as far as I remember, Scott never said a word, all the time we were there.”
“Huh,” I said. “Maybe she was dreaming.”
“I would have remembered, sir. That’s the time period we’re interested in, and if I knew that Scott Gutierrez, or anybody else, had driven through the neighborhood just then, I sure as hell would have asked them about it. And Scott would have said something, for sure.”
“Was there ever a time when she was alone with Scott, and might have mentioned it then?”
Tony Abeyta shook his head emphatically. “No, sir. We went in together, talked to her for a little while, and left.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why did Gutierrez go with you in the first place?”
Nonplussed, Tony Abeyta turned to Mears. “I don’t know. I guess we just sort of fell into teams, you know.”
“Rick Knox went with me,” Tom Mears said, naming one of my least favorite state troopers. “Tommy and Bob were busy in the house and stuff. You and Schroeder were together until the DA left. That’s just the way it worked out.”
“It was kinda good talking to Scott,” Abeyta added. “He’s real savvy. He knows a lot of people. He gave me a lot of good ideas to follow up.”
I shook my head and stood up. “I’m not debating that, Tony. And I’d be the last person to object. It’s just that I’ve known Betty Contreras for the better part of thirty years. I’m trying to puzzle out why she’d lie to me.”
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 th
e 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.
Chapter Twenty-six
“Just hold on a minute,” I said quietly. “Give him a chance to run the plate.” And sure enough, in another minute, the spotlight flicked off, and I heard the door open.
“Everybody’s kind of nervous around these parts,” my son observed. He rested his right hand on top of the steering wheel, with his left arm on the windowsill.
“Evening, gentlemen,” a voice said, and at first I didn’t recognize it.
“Good morning,” I replied. The Corvette’s roof line was so low that all I could see was a green uniform from the belt down, outlined in the harsh glare of the headlights.
The Border Patrol agent bent down and I saw that it was Taylor Bergmann. “Sheriff Gastner, we met earlier yesterday. I’m Agent Bergmann.” He spoke with the rigid formality of the rookie trying to make sure he did everything just right.
“Right. I remember. Thanks for your help, by the way. This is my son, Commander Bill Gastner.” I figured a little formality in return couldn’t hurt.
“Commander,” Bergmann acknowledged. He bent down a little farther so that he could look directly across at me. “This is the latest thing in unmarked cars, sir?”
“Absolutely. It’s the new Stealth unit. Doesn’t show on radar.” I shifted in my seat a little so that I could talk without busti
ng my neck. “So what are you hunting, Agent Bergmann?”
“I’m trying not to get lost,” Bergmann said with a grin. “So far, I’m doing pretty good. I came in from the west, on the Douglas highway, and I thought I would swing up around here, through town. Agent Gutierrez drove me through Regal the other day, but you know how that goes.”
“A blur,” I said. “Who’s riding with you?” A solo Border Patrol agent was unusual, especially a rookie. Their patrons tended to arrive in groups, and a single agent was at a distinct disadvantage, especially at night, and especially in the back border country. Why a single deputy sheriff in the same territory was perfectly acceptable with county commissioners I had never been able to figure out.
“Agent Tomlinson is riding along tonight,” Bergmann said. I looked into the tiny rearview mirror on my side, and apart from the ominous message that OBJECTS MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR etched into the mirror’s glass, I could see nothing but the dark shadow mountain of the Expedition. I would recognize Agent Gordon Tomlinson on the street if I saw him in uniform, but that was it.
“Scott’s off?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. He took a couple days annual leave.”
“Well deserved. He gave us a hand this afternoon…make that yesterday afternoon now. We had us another little problem to resolve.”
“That’s right. I heard about that. And I thought that since there had been an unresolved situation here on top of that”—he stopped in midsentence as my cellular phone chirped, and then added as I opened the gadget—“that it wouldn’t hurt to cruise through the area.”
“Sure enough,” my son agreed, and Bergmann straightened up away from the window.
“Gastner,” I said into the phone.
“Sir,” Jackie Taber said, “the vehicle now parked behind you came in from the west. The other vehicle is still behind the church, as far as I can tell.”
“Okay. Thanks. We’ll wander over that way when we’re finished here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay put.”
Bag Limit Page 18
