“He works in the area, true. But he lives in Deming. Now, you said that he arrived at the scene when Matthew Baca was killed. He apparently spent a good deal of the night in the area, with or without his partner. He was first at the scene when Robert called for assistance the next morning…not at his home in Deming, or not at the field office. And if he’d been on duty with what’s-his-name that night…”
“Bergmann.”
“With Bergmann, then he wouldn’t have been assigned to work the border crossing the next morning. But there he was. And he was around, still using a government vehicle, when you guys chased Dale Torrance into the Broken Spur.”
“Sure. I thought about all that. And it makes sense to me.”
“It does?”
“Sure. He’s an eager young cop. He works long hours. So what?”
“Sir…you work hours like that because you can’t sleep, and because this entire county is as much home to you as your adobe house on Guadalupe Terrace. But follow it through. Who is sitting in the dark behind the church in Regal in the middle of the night? Isn’t that when you said you and Buddy talked to him?”
“Yes. After Jackie Taber saw him drive through the village.”
“And he’s going on a hunting trip with his sister and stepfather the next day? He’s going to be in great shape for that. He’ll spend the day sleeping under a tree somewhere.”
“What are you telling me, Estelle?”
“Scott Gutierrez is looking for something.”
“That’s been my assumption. And it only makes sense that it has to do with the license. Why else would he be interested in anything Matt Baca is up to? Why would he go inside their house? A neighbor claims to have seen his vehicle there, when he had no reason to be on the property at all. And when I told him that we’d found a fake driver’s license, he left Regal. What’s that sound like to you?”
“That he knew what was going on,” Estelle said. “That he was looking for the license.”
“And now tell me why.”
“Too many possibilities,” Estelle said, and I scowled with frustration. “The one that comes to mind first is that he’s protecting his sister. If Connie issued that license, and if Scott can find it first, then she’s off the hook. It’s just the say-so of witnesses that Matt Baca used a fake ID.”
“That thought had crossed my mind,” I said, but I shook my head. “All this for one stupid fake license? I don’t believe it. She’d lose her job and God knows what all else. Scott Gutierrez would lose his…and God knows what all else, too. All for some smooth-talking little punk who convinces Connie that if she issues him a fake ID, the whole world will spin faster and truer? Jesus.”
Estelle smiled, and even in the poor light, it appeared to me that maybe there was a trace of sympathy there.
“People do stupid things, we both know that. Why were you chasing Dale Torrance?”
That prompted a loud laugh, the sort that reduced my blood pressure a couple of points. “Because he stole eighteen head of cattle so that he could buy his girlfriend a diamond ring or make a payment for her on a new pickup truck, or whatever the hell the money was for,” I said. “And he’s too stupid to realize that the love of his life wasn’t just all that impressed. And he’s too thick-skulled to figure out that if he stops for gas at a neighborhood station, someone might remember him?”
Estelle held up her hands in surrender. “You see what I mean.”
“Clearly.”
“There’s one other possibility that we need to explore, though.”
I stood up and brushed the fender dust from the back of my pants. I didn’t bother to correct her use of the “we.” “What’s that?”
“Suppose that the license that was issued to Matt Baca wasn’t the only one.”
I looked hard at Estelle for a minute. “That thought has crossed my mind.”
“Exactly.”
I slumped back against the car. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” I said.
Chapter Forty
The undersheriff was in the process of pouring a carafe of water into the coffeemaker when we walked in. Maybe it was just my glasses that needed cleaning, but the water appeared amber, as if it had been used more than once.
With practiced ease, Torrez slid the empty pot under the drip and motioned for us to join him in his office. “I want to show you something,” he said. That was an improvement over sitting in a blue funk. Inactivity didn’t suit the man.
As he rounded the corner of his desk, he pushed the computer screen so that it turned to face us.
“I finally figured out what I wanted to look for,” he said. “This is for the past twelve months.”
Estelle scanned the screen-load of data far more quickly than I, but she didn’t have bifocals to deal with. “I don’t follow,” I said. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“How many arrests were there statewide for fraudulent or altered driver’s licenses, sir?” Torrez asked. He sat down behind the desk.
“Six, it looks like.”
“That’s six in an entire year, for the entire state.”
“Right. That’s what it says. Not something that happens all that often.”
“What the numbers tell us,” Estelle added, “is that there were only six instances when the perpetrator was apprehended. Not necessarily the number of times the violation occurred.”
“Well, sure,” I said. “We don’t know how many attempts there were. Or for that matter, how many successful operations.”
Torrez smiled grimly. “Even more interesting…how many incidents were there of an illegal license being issued by a MVD office?”
“Not one.”
He leaned forward and turned the screen partially back so that he could view it. “Not one.”
“Your sister showed us how it might be done,” I said. “All a clerk would have to do is void the thing from the permanent record. Then you’ve got the license in hand, but with no record of it on file.”
“And…” Torrez said, rising from his chair. He held a pencil in both hands, and I could see the wood bending as he pursued the thought. “Suppose an officer stops John Doe for a traffic violation, and asks to see a license. Let’s say that Mr. Doe has a fake license, just like the one that my cousin had.”
“Unless the cop knows him, or has some reason to suspect the license, he’s going to accept the license as long as the photo matches. As long as it’s an official license from a MVD office, there would be no reason to question it,” I said.
“Exactly,” Torrez said. “In point of fact, there is no way for the officer to question it, at the time of the stop. We can’t access Motor Vehicle Division records through normal channels. We can’t just punch in the number on the license to make sure it’s what it seems to be.”
“You could call a MVD office on the phone and ask,” I said. “But who’s going to bother to do that. Unless something tipped off the officer that it might be necessary.”
“Right. And those records there”-and he nodded at the state compilation of violation statistics-“indicate that’s not happening.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“What I got to thinking,” Torrez said, “was pretty simple. What if my cousin’s little prank wasn’t just an isolated thing? What if he got the license not because it was an original idea with him, but because he knew that he could? Maybe he knew somebody else who had one, or heard about it. Family or not, I’ll be the first to tell you-my cousin wasn’t exactly a rocket scientist.”
I sat down and looked at Estelle. “That’s what you were thinking, isn’t it? That Matt might not have been alone in this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A risky business,” I said.
“Well, not really,” Torrez replied, and pointed at the screen. “That shows how risky it is, right there. They’re not being apprehended, that’s for sure.”
“If it’s happening at all. The lack of numbers may mean just that, Roberto-that we’re dreaming up a problem that doesn’t exist. Give me a better reason.”
“Money,” Torrez said promptly. “What if you could sell a license for, say, five hundred or a thousand bucks a pop. That’s a nice little bit of tax-free budget helper.”