Steven Havill - Bag Limit

“Any sign of Scott?”

“That’s negative. A little patch of blood, though.”

“Is there any way to tell what direction he might have gone?”

“Negative, sir. And the way this terrain is, he could be anywhere.”

“Make sure nothing is disturbed. Linda’s on her way up. One of you guys needs to be with her.”

“Yes, sir.”

I holstered the radio. Down below, I could see Linda Real standing beside one of the county units, waiting for me. I glanced at my watch. I had twelve minutes before Judge Lester Hobart would expect me in his chambers. If I hurried, I could be halfway back to the trucks by that time.

“Linda?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have Gayle give Judge Hobart a call. Advise him of the situation, and tell him that Cliff Larson will be attending the hearing this morning instead of me. If that’s not going to work, he’ll just have to reschedule.”

“It’s a hell of a good time for somebody to rob a bank,” I said to Bishop as I turned to start down the mountain.

“Use lots of film,” I said to Linda as she drew near. I was sitting on a rock a third of the way down-and her rapid progress up the canyon was an acute reminder that this was a young person’s game. She paused, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, the massive camera bag slung over her shoulder.

“I want details of the spot where Connie was standing when she fell, and anything else in the area. They say they’ve found her stuff, so that will be important. And”-I nodded back up the hill where Howard Bishop was waiting patiently-“that spot there, where we found Mr. Walsh.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m on my way.”

“Take your time,” I said. I was talking more to myself than to her, since there was no reason for a healthy, hearty twenty-six-year-old to take her time with something as insignificant as a little mountain and a few boulders. I stood up and started downhill again, rediscovering for the umpteenth time that if I held my head just right, the lower portion of my bifocals blurred the rocks so that I couldn’t see a damn thing.

“Sir, we found his rifle,” Tom Pasquale’s voice was sharp and excited. I had just broken out onto the stretch of relative level ground by the vehicles, and I turned to look back uphill. It wasn’t clear who Pasquale was talking to, but that didn’t matter.

“Don’t touch it,” I said.

“No, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“No, sir. It looks like the rifle was dropped, sir. He didn’t just lean it against a tree. It’s jammed down between an old tree stump and some rocks.”

“Let Linda get pictures before you touch it or move it,” I said. “Are there any scuff marks that might show which direction he went?”

“It’s solid rock here, sir. Wait a sec.” I did, and then Pasquale added, “It looks like a blood smear, maybe. I don’t know for sure.”

“Robert, do you copy?”

“Sure do. And, sir, we’ve done all we can for the girl. Doug is going to stay with her and assist the EMTs when they get here. If you could get someone to light a fire under that helicopter, it’d be appreciated.”

We both knew that magic couldn’t be counted on, but it never hurt to hope just a little. It was more than eighty miles to Las Cruces as the Jet Ranger flew. If the state police pilot had been strapped in with fingers poised to throw switches when he got the call, that still meant that Connie French had an hour of agony to wait. It would be just as well that she was unconscious.

A steady stream of law enforcement personnel continued to arrive until the campground looked like a goddamned discount store parking lot. We had a string of Search and Rescue civilians, state police, Forest Service, Game and Fish, and Posadas County sheriff’s deputies daisy-chained across the lap of the San Cristobal Mountains, scouring the rocks for some trace of Scott Gutierrez.

The list also included three grim-faced members of the United States Border Patrol. One of them was Taylor Bergmann, and I beckoned him off to one side.

“So, tell me,” I said, “do you know anything about this?”

Bergmann’s icy blue eyes surveyed the mountainside, and the various specks of color that inched across its face.

“Clueless,” he said and shrugged. “We’d only met a few days ago. In fact, the night of the accident when the kid got killed? That was the third time I’d met him.”

“You had no knowledge that his sister might be involved in something? Or that he might be?”

“No, sir, I did not.”

I turned to see a Suburu station wagon wending its way into the symposium. Frank Dayan leaned forward against the steering wheel, eyes big. I waved him to a spot where he wouldn’t block the ambulance.

“What we need to do, Agent Bergmann, is find Scott Gutierrez. He’s up there somewhere, he’s hurt, and he’s the one with all the answers just now. Undersheriff Torrez is right about there,” and I pointed past Bergmann’s shoulder. “They’re right at the base of that thing that looks like a petrified ballistic missile. Check in with him, and he’ll tell you what he wants you to do.”

Bergmann responded with a curt military nod and set off up the hill at a fast jog trot.

“What the hell’s going on?” Dayan asked. He had a camera with a large lens hanging from his neck. The light cotton jacket, polo shirt, and chinos would work just fine, but his penny loafers would serve him for about thirty seconds up on the rocks.

“Frank, we’ve got a mess. One man is dead from a heart attack.” The newspaper publisher pulled a small notebook from his back pocket. “Where’s Pam?” I asked, referring to the stout girl who served as his editor.

Dayan looked pained. “Who’s the victim?”

“His name is Jerry Walsh. We haven’t even had time to check his license for the correct spelling of his name. He suffered a coronary, and died while we were talking to him. The second victim apparently fell a distance of about thirty feet. She’s in bad shape, and we’ve ordered a helicopter from Las Cruces.”

“Med-Evac?”

“No. State police. Right now, the problem is getting her down off the mountain. Then we’ll transfer to Med-Evac at Posadas.”

“How did she fall?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I said. Dayan looked up quickly, his pencil poised. “I’m not sure yet,” I repeated.

“And that’s it?” He scanned the mountainside as if counting all the people.

“Evidently not,” I said. “Ah, thank God.” The heavy whup-whup-whup of the Jet Ranger’s blades carried for miles.

“Where is she?” He squinted and leaned forward. “Over by that group of people up there?”

I nodded. “It’s going to be a trick.”

“I need a picture of that,” Dayan said. “Can I go up there?” I looked down at his shoes. “I’ve got some gear in the car,” he said quickly.

“Have at it, then.”

As the helicopter approached, I realized I was hearing two aircraft. Coming in from the west, a Cessna Sky-Master, that strange hybrid beast with one engine pushing and the second pulling, moaned over the top of the mountains and settled into a wide orbit over the area. It was a state police unit as well, and his cautious approach told me that he was already talking to the helicopter pilot.

I turned up the state police radio in the Bronco just loud enough that I could hear the conversation, and then settled against the fender of the unit to watch the show. There wasn’t much I could do except watch-and wonder where the hell Scott Gutierrez was hiding.

Jerry Walsh had called 911 just about the time I took my first bite of pancakes. Dispatch had logged the call at 7:02. It was hard to choreograph the skirmish, however it had happened, with the little information we had, but while domestic disputes may brew for days, weeks, even years, the actual violence that culminates is initiated and concluded in a matter of seconds.