I stood in the doorway and regarded Torrez. He was leaning back in his swivel chair, one black boot on the corner of his desk, the other flat on the floor. One hand was poised over the keyboard of the nearest IBM, the other balled into a fist under his chin.
His dark brown eyes shifted to look at me. Other than that he didn’t move a muscle. His brow was locked in a frown, and after a long moment-during which I wasn’t able to tell if he was angry, tired, or just plain frustrated-he puffed out his cheeks and then slowly exhaled.
“That bad, eh?” I said. I hadn’t expected to hear a dissertation from Robert Torrez, but a simple “good morning” would have been nice.
Torrez nodded and his eyes flicked back to the computer. He jabbed at the keyboard with his index finger, swung his leg off the desk, and let the chair slam forward. If he hadn’t had an elbow on the desk, he would have fallen on his face.
I reached out a hand for the door. “You want this closed?”
He shook his head, then stood up, still leaning on the desk with one hand. “Coffee or something?”
“I’ll wait for breakfast,” I replied. “My treat.”
Torrez grimaced. “I don’t feel much like eating right now, thanks.”
“That’s bad, Roberto,” I said, although it was an accomplishment of sorts to have goaded him into a complete sentence.
“Uh-huh.” He sat back down, and I unloaded a stack of newspapers from one of the leather-bottomed chairs. He waved a hand at the top of one of the filing cabinets, and I thumped the newspapers there.
“So…explain why I’m paying you so much overtime,” I said.
“Don’t I wish,” Torrez replied.
I tried to squirm myself comfortable in the straight chair, and gave up. I held up both hands, waiting for an answer.
He nodded, leaned back again, and clasped his hands over his belly. “That license that Matt had? The one we found under the seat of the unit?” He stopped there.
“Pasquale’s triumph. Any ideas yet about where Matt dug that up?” I asked, and no sooner were the words out of my mouth than a synapse or two fired inside my brain, faces snapped into place, and I knew exactly what was troubling the undersheriff.
“Your sister Melinda works in the Motor Vehicles Division office. She and Connie French. Melinda is the office manager, if my memory serves.” Torrez nodded ever so slightly, watching me, no doubt waiting to see what conclusions I had reached. After a moment he opened his desk drawer and pulled out the plastic evidence bag that contained the driver’s license.
“It’s the real thing, sir.”
For a moment I misunderstood. “I thought you said that Matt…”
“No.” He cut me off. “The dates are fake. Other than that, the license is real. It’s not made-up.”
“You mean it’s not something that was just pasted together out of bits and pieces, and then maybe run through a plastic laminator at school or something,” I said.
Torrez nodded. “I think that was issued by some MVD office. By one of their machines. It’s got the seals, the holograms or whatever you call ’em, the whole bit. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been tampered with. It’s not something that somebody would just hack together with a home computer.”
“But we don’t know which office issued this, do we. They don’t put the office location code on them anymore.” I twisted the license this way and that, looking for its secrets. Both of us were silent for a bit, and then I looked up at Torrez. I saw the dark shadows under his eyes and knew why he wasn’t home snug in his bed.
“What does Melinda say?”
“I haven’t talked to her about it.”
“Are you going to? And you know-she’s not the only one in that office, Roberto. Like I said, Connie what’s-her-name works there too. Scott Gutierrez’s sister.”
A flicker of irritation surfaced and was as quickly hidden. “Yes, sir. Connie French. I don’t think so.”
“I know that we automatically think the worst, but in point of fact, there would be nothing to prevent Matthew from driving to Deming or Lordsburg or even Albuquerque for a license,” I said. “Anywhere in the state where there’s a field office. But…”
“But what?”
“I’m sure you remember the incident a couple of years ago where some MVD clerks got in trouble for making fake IDs. The state cracked down on that, and with the computerized systems, it’s not as easy as it was. I think it would be tough to find a clerk now who’d just take a kid’s word for his age, and run him through the licensing process just on his say-so.”
“There’s too much risk,” Torrez said. “And with a kid like Matt, there would be no big money involved.”
“Exactly.”
He fell silent again, brooding at the computer screen.
“It’d be easier if he knew somebody in the office,” I said. “Obviously, it’d be a lot easier.” Torrez didn’t respond. We both knew that one step better than knowing someone in the office was having a blood relative there. Matthew Baca was first cousin to the Torrez clan, with the undersheriff and his younger sister right on top of the list.
“What have you got there?” I prompted, nodding at the computer.
“I was trying to pull up something about the MVD,” he said. “I don’t even know what I want.” He poked at the keyboard. “Or where to start.”
“You need your own personal hacker.” I laughed. “And don’t look at me. Your wife always bails me out with the complicated stuff. Like how to turn the damn thing on.” The corners of the Torrez’s mouth didn’t even twitch. He was in no mood for humor.
He looked up at the small wall clock above the filing cabinets. “She’ll be in at seven-thirty,”
“Did you mention any of this to Gayle yet?”
He nodded slowly, rocking his head for about ten oscillations as if he didn’t have the energy to stop the motion once started.
“And she said…” I added, feeling like a dentist trying to extract an impacted wisdom tooth.
“She doesn’t think either Miranda or Connie are involved.”
I had known Gayle when she’d been Gayle Sedillos in high school. I’d hired her the summer of her senior year as a clerk trainee and on the first day knew I had a rare one in my charge. If Deputy Bob Torrez had noticed the almost exotically attractive teenager that first day, he hadn’t let anyone know it. It had taken eight years for their relationship to grow deep enough for him to pop the question. Gayle had been a study in patience.
As much as she loved her husband, I couldn’t picture Gayle Torrez avoiding the truth about a Torrez relative just to save her husband some pain.
Torrez twisted away from the computer, dropped his hands in his lap, and regarded me. “I just don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you what bothers me,” I said. Torrez raised an eyebrow. “Your cousin was scared of you. Do you know that?”
He nodded. “We’ve had our encounters. He knew that if I caught him, I’d take care of him first. And then it’s the rest of the family’s turn.”
“So there you go,” I said. “Can you imagine Matt Baca doing something so foolish as tricking a fake license out of the local office, and running the risk of having you find out?”
Torrez rested his chin on his fist again. “Sure,” he said. “It’s called ‘rubbing my nose in it.’”
“Meaning?”
“His nickname for me is Big Bad Bob.”
I laughed. “Not to your face, I don’t imagine.”
“Oh, yes. He thinks…thought…that he could run faster than me.”
“So you think that he’d pull something like this, just to tweak you?”
“What better time to do that than when Triple B is running for office. Hell, why not. Pull this shit right under my nose. He was a clever kid.”
“Almost clever enough,” I said. “Almost. Look.” I leaned forward and held out a hand as if to stop Robert from doing something rash. He hadn’t moved. “Look. How about if I talk with Melinda? Hell, I’ve known her just as long as I’ve known you. She’s covered for me on more than one occasion when I’ve forgotten to renew my license. Let me talk to her.”