Steven Havill - Bag Limit

When she had gone, I took a long sip of the coffee and then said, “You heard about the nine o’clock meeting with Schroeder?”

Torrez nodded. “I told Brent to give him a call. I didn’t want the DA hearing it from some other source.”

“Have you been out to see the old man?” Sosimo Baca was ten years younger than I was, but his love of alcohol in any form as long as it was in quantity had his family counting Sosimo’s birthdays in dog years.

“I went out about four or a little bit before. I woke up Father Anselmo and had him go along.” Torrez grimaced. “Father said he’d been expecting something like this for a long time. He calls Matt el cachorro impetuoso . ”

“Meaning?”

“A wild pup. Roughly.”

“And when you two went to Baca’s, are you sure that Sosimo understood what you were talking about?”

“It appeared so. I made sure that the two girls were awake, too, just to be sure. Sosimo still smelled like a brewery, but the kids understood. I tried to keep it simple.” Torrez paused and took a deep breath. “I said that apparently Matt had kicked out a window in the patrol car, and that during the process of transferring him to another unit, he bolted into the path of traffic.” He shrugged. “Father Anselmo was still talking to them when I left. Matt’s two sisters seemed to take it all right. Maybe with enough coffee in him, Sosimo will be able to understand what happened. By noon or so. I was planning to go back down in a little bit.” He glanced at his watch. “Talk to my uncle again. I’d like to look through Matt’s private stash and see what I can find.”

“Want me to come along?”

“That’s not necessary.”

I leaned forward and lowered my voice so that the coffee urn wouldn’t hear me.

“I’ve been playing this thing over and over in my mind. I can’t get a handle on it.”

Torrez shook his head. “From what Gutierrez and Bergmann told me, there wasn’t much you could do. Not much anyone could have done.”

I waved a hand in dismissal. “I don’t mean that. Sure, if I’d been a bit quicker, I could have grabbed him. Hell, so what. If that had happened, maybe he’d have dragged both of us in front of that truck…and then I’d really be pissed. No”-and I shook my head-“that part I can live with, all right. What I don’t understand is his determination, Robert.”

“How do you mean?”

“On the highway, as soon as you turn on the red lights, he runs. Up on the hill, he crashes into me, and then takes off into the trees. All right, I can understand that. He’s scared, as any stupid kid would be. He knows that if you catch him, you’re probably going to beat the crap out of him. At least he thinks that you are. And maybe the fact that he stumbled on home, right where you knew he’d be, just goes to show how really drunk he was.”

“He couldn’t have wanted to get away very badly,” Torrez said. “Unless he was just too sloshed to know better.”

“Right. So we chalk up the first episodes to being young, stupid, and drunk. I come in and slap the cuffs on him. He’s had a couple or three hours to sleep, and some of the booze has worn off. He should be able to put two and two together, with a little fresh air to help wake him up.”

“And instead, he kicks out the window.”

“Right. Now what’s that going to gain him?”

Torrez pushed his coffee to one side. “Nothing, but he doesn’t know that.”

“What, he thinks that I’m going to stop the car, and he’s going to have a chance to run off into the night again? In the middle of nowhere, with handcuffs on?”

Torrez shrugged. “We don’t know what he was thinking. But that’s exactly what he did. Or tried to do.”

“Well, it’s true. We don’t know what he was thinking. But regardless of what his addled little brain was concocting, wouldn’t you think he’d put it all on hold when two Border Patrol cops show up? I mean, I’m old and fat, and I know it. And Matthew knew it too. But Gutierrez and Bergmann aren’t. So why did he pick that time to bolt?”

With his elbows on the table, Bob Torrez folded his hands together as a support for his chin. He thought for a long time, his gaze taking in the dimly-lit details of the room. About the time my impatience was about to prompt me to ask if he’d forgotten the question, he said, “I don’t think it was a rational thing.”

“I’ll agree to that. But it was a desperate thing, Roberto. And there has to be a reason. Why would seeing a couple of Border Patrol agents trigger that reaction?”

“We don’t know that’s what triggered it, sir.”

“No, we don’t. I never mentioned them. If he was listening, all he heard was my call to Sutherland, to tell him I was inbound.”

Arleen Aragon appeared with two generously heaped plates billowing steam and fragrance.

“That’s some breakfast burrito,” Bob said, and leaned back while Arleen coasted the platter in for a landing.

“That’s our dinner burrito,” Arleen corrected. “The sheriff doesn’t do those dinky little things on the breakfast menu.” The second plate landed in front of me with a heavy thud. “It’s hot, so be careful.”

“Brain food,” I said. “Maybe something will occur to me.”

“When he sobers up, Sosimo might have some answers,” Torrez said.

“Don’t hold your breath.”

District Attorney Daniel M. Schroeder looked like a lawyer-perfectly fitted and pressed dark suit, spit-polished black wing tips, gold wire-rimmed glasses, a bulging, old-fashioned top-opening leather briefcase, and a gold Cross pen that flicked indecipherable notes on a fresh yellow legal pad.

He was sitting by himself in the Public Safety Building’s conference room when I returned. With him looking so damned formal, I was glad I’d taken a few minutes to go home, shower, shave, and spruce up. Not that Dan would have cared how I looked. Over the course of twenty years, I’d come to the conclusion that District Attorney Schroeder was an interesting fellow, one of those rare folks who didn’t immediately transfer what he thought about the world to other people as a requirement for what they should think.

Still, I had to admit to a certain small uneasiness. No matter how the story was told, no matter how the excuses fell, it was my fault that Matthew Baca was dead. The kid had been in my custody. With that in mind, I had a personal interest in what conclusions the district attorney reached.

Schroeder looked up from his pad when I entered the room, and his round face cracked in a neutral smile. “Morning,” he said as he pushed the chair back and stood up. Not “good morning,” or “rotten morning,” or “how are you.” Just the single word into which I was free to read whatever I liked. We shook hands, and his grip was neutral, too-not forced hearty, not perfunctory or limp.

“Do you want the undersheriff here for this?” I asked.

“Ah,” he said, and looked down at the legal pad. “Not right away. Let’s just you and I talk for a bit.” I started to pull out a chair, but he was already gathering up his things. “Let’s use your office,” he said. “We might have fewer interruptions there.”

Interruptions weren’t the issue, but I appreciated the gesture and didn’t object. If I had to be grilled, it was more comfortable to be well done on home turf. I appreciated an unspoken second gesture, too. Donald Jaramillo, the assistant district attorney who generally worked Posadas County, was not present. I didn’t care for the little weasel, and Schroeder knew it.

As I closed my office door behind us, I said, “Go ahead and use the desk.”

“This is fine,” he said, and settled in one of the two leather-padded captain’s chairs.