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 the 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.