“I sympathize,” I said, thumping the windowsill of the Durango with both hands. “It takes a while for things like that to heal-if ever.”
“You still don’t know why he tried to run?”
I shook my head. “The only thing I can figure is that he was afraid of his cousin. They’ve had more than one set-to over the years, and Bobby’s a little tough on the boy. I’ve been running it through my mind, and that’s all I can come up with. Just before he popped the window, I radioed the office and said I was bringing the kid in. At that point, Matthew was behaving himself. I made the comment that the dispatcher might want to contact Undersheriff Torrez and let him know. That’s when the kid went berserk.”
“Huh,” Gutierrez said. “That might make sense, Sheriff. You stopped your unit and we pulled in on the shoulder behind you. With all the lights on, the kid couldn’t tell one unit from another. Bergmann’s a big fella. If the kid caught sight of him backlit by all the flashing lights, maybe he thought it was Torrez, comin’ to thump on him. So he bolted.”
“Maybe so. At any rate, we got one thing cleared up. One of the deputies found a fake license that Baca had been using as an ID.”
“No shit?” Gutierrez raised an eyebrow. “You mean a fake driver’s license?”
“Sure enough. The little rat had stuffed it down behind the seat of the patrol car. And that makes sense, when you think about it. That’s the last thing he wanted any of us to find on him.”
“I thought you looked in his wallet. I know Taber did. I saw her do it.”
“We don’t think it was in his wallet, Scott. He had it stashed somewhere else.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Yep.” I pushed away from the truck. “Well, we best be heading back to town.” I stopped. “Oh, by the way, Tony Abeyta probably asked you about this already. When you drove through Regal yesterday…no, when the hell was it. Saturday morning? Before the ruckus? You didn’t see any vehicles that looked out of place?”
Gutierrez’s eyebrows knitted together. “I didn’t drive through Regal on Saturday morning. I was at the crossing talking with one of the Customs guys, and caught the call on the scanner. That’s the first I heard about it. I heard the call, and drove over. Hell, it’s what, a little more than a mile? Half the town was there by then, already.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding in comprehension. “Somebody’s got their timing screwed up. I was told that you had driven around the village earlier.”
Gutierrez shook his head. “Not me. I know that Taylor Bergmann is fascinated by this place. It might well have been him. Or maybe one of the other guys. It’s kind of on our route.” He flashed a sudden smile. “Bergmann’s from St. Louis. There are more cars at a single traffic light at any given moment on an average day than in all of Regal.” He scoffed. “He thinks Regal would be the ideal place to live.”
“It might be,” I agreed.
“Who told Abeyta that I drove through?”
“That’s a good question. Maybe I heard him wrong.” I grinned. “We’ve heard a different story from every resident of the village. Makes a fascinating set of reports.” I reached in and tapped him on the shoulder with my index finger. “Don’t be dozing off now. Some illegal would really be tempted by this buggy. I’d hate to have to break the news to your stepfather that you’d been hijacked to Mexico.”
“See, that’s what he expects,” Gutierrez said with a laugh. “That would-how does Bergmann put it-‘validate all his arguments.’ You guys have a good night. Keep it slow and easy.”
Practice was paying off. When I settled into the Corvette this time, it almost qualified as a modern dance routine.
“All set?” my son asked.
“Yep.” I slammed the light fiberglass door and struggled with the seat belt. “It’s one of the Border Patrol officers, undercover in his stepfather’s truck.”
“Well”-Buddy laughed-“you’re undercover in your son’s car, so that makes it even, right?”
He backed up a couple of paces and cranked the front wheels to clear the Durango’s chrome back bumper. Despite his best egg-under-foot efforts, the wide back tires of the Corvette kicked a little gravel as we swung wide.
“Where to, sahib?”
I had the phone in hand and pointed up the hill with it. “I want to talk with the deputy. Make sure she hasn’t been inhaling the funny smoke or something. Somebody sure as hell is making up stories.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
From her vantage point just south of the pass, Deputy Jackie Taber could see the entire village of Regal, and beyond the vast, yawning blackness that was Mexico. A single group of lights twinkled on the southern horizon, the tiny Mexican village of Tres Santos.
“If you swing around and point downhill, we can park door to door, and I can talk to the deputy without getting out of this thing.”
“That’s not going to work too well,” my son said, “but we’ll take a shot at it.” Cops become expert, over the years, at those door-to-door conferences. You can pass coffee and donuts back and forth, or hand over paperwork, or chew the fat-all those good things that we did while we waited for something exciting to happen.
That didn’t work this time. When I turned my head and looked out the window, I’d be looking right at the bottom of the sheriff’s star on the driver’s door of Taber’s unit. Fortunately, the young deputy had anticipated that very problem, and as we rolled in, she got out of the truck to meet us.
She knelt down beside my door. “Good morning, sir.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “Have you met my son? Commander Bill Gastner Junior, this is Deputy Jackie Taber.”
“Pleasure,” Buddy said.
“Nice car, sir.” Jackie grinned. She stroked the top of the door with light fingers. “What did you find out down below?”
“First of all, that’s Scott Gutierrez hanging out down there,”
I said.
“Really?”
“Really. He’s driving a vehicle from his father’s dealership. The old man’s up visiting for a few days, and Scott decided to find some fresh air.”
“Ah,” Jackie said. “Okay, that makes sense.”
“I’m glad it does to you. This is a long way to drive just to get out of the house. Of course, like the rest of us, Scott’s got Matt Baca on his mind.”
“Other people have been known to roam the county with no particular destination in mind, sir,” Jackie said, and grinned across at my son. She shifted her weight to favor the other knee. I motioned her away from the door.
“Let me get out of this thing so we can talk without torture,” I said. Buddy switched the car off. The mountain was silent, just the faintest of winds itching the vegetation along the highway. My son got out with practiced ease.
“Scott is staying with his sister for the weekend,” I said. “They’re going hunting.” I leaned against the Bronco’s front fender, the hood just the right height for my elbow. “I don’t think I know her.”
The deputy nodded. “His sister Connie lives in Posadas, over on South Twelfth Street. About a block south of the Guzmans’ place.”
“Scott said he took a drive to get away from the old man for a while. But Connie…do I know her?”
The deputy smiled, an expression that didn’t wrinkle her smooth, serious face too often. “I would imagine that you do, sir. Connie French? She got divorced last year from Mike French, the guy who runs the Chevron station on the east end of Bustos. She’s living with somebody else right now.” Her brow wrinkled. “He’s a custodian at the high school. I can’t recall his name. She works for the Motor Vehicle Division with the undersheriff’s sister. I’m sure you’ve met her.”
“You’re getting to be a regular gazetteer of Posadas.” I laughed. “And I’m sure I have. But the memory is a leaky bucket these days.” By stepping around the front of the Bronco I could look out into the darkness. “You say that you can see Sosimo Baca’s house from here? And enough detail to guess at the color of a vehicle?” The village was a sprinkle of lights, no more than half a dozen.