“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 busting 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.”