Steven Havill - Bag Limit

“And she told you this when?”

“Last week. She was scared, sir. Walsh had a good thing going. An easy place to get the right paperwork.”

“Why did he do it?”

“Money for one thing. For another, it was easier to sell ’em a car if they’re citizens. A lot of ’em wanted it registered in this country.”

“Banks fall for that?”

“No. It was used cars and trucks. He carried the papers. Right at the dealership.”

“So Connie panicked and told you about all of this?”

“Right. I thought maybe I could just nose around, you know, and straighten things out. I guess I thought wrong.”

I felt a presence behind me and heard the curtain. I turned to see the nurse hovering. “Give us just a few more minutes, all right?” She retreated after closing the curtain. Scott took another deep, careful breath. “Walsh was coming up here to go hunting. He’s done that for a long time. This time, though, he probably figured to calm Connie down. Tell her she had nothing to worry about. And then the thing with Matt happened. She flipped out when she heard about it. And then Matt’s father on top of it.”

“Were you involved in that?”

“Yes. I saw Sosimo walkin’ on the road. I thought maybe I could go in and get the license back. I didn’t count on old…old Sosimo having a thing about the U.S. Border Patrol.”

“You mean he didn’t let you in?”

“Oh, he accepted the ride, and he let me in the house. I had to promise to drive him into Posadas so he could get his old truck. But when I asked him if I could look for Matt’s license, he went ballistic. We struggled a little, but it was mostly me just trying to calm him down. He lost his balance and broke the window in the back door, and then he popped. That was it.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this?”

“I thought there might still be a chance to find that license. If I had that, then there was no evidence for you guys against Connie. But you told me you’d found it, so…” His right hand moved slightly in lieu of a shrug. “But she heard what had happened down in Regal, and went off the deep end.”

“With all that, you decided to go hunting anyway.”

“Sir, it’s the truth. We figured that we’d get out of town, just the three of us, and work it out. We’d just explain to Walsh. We didn’t have to involve any of the authorities. I told Connie…” He stopped and raised his hand to his head. “Jesus, this hurts,” he whispered. “I told Connie that I’d just lay the cards out on the table. The license deal was over. He’d stop pushing Connie about it, and I wouldn’t go to the authorities.”

“He didn’t go for that?”

“He would have. It was Connie who couldn’t handle Matt’s death, and then the old man’s dying on top of that. It’s just something that she couldn’t handle. It was obvious to me. It would have been obvious to Walsh.”

“So he thought a hunting accident was going to work?”

“Stupider things have been done, sir. He must have seen the two of us arguing, and took a chance. I think he wanted to hit her, but it worked out even better than he planned. He knew he didn’t hit Connie, so now he could say that she fell. He’d nail me, and that’s it. Self-defense.”

“But you never fired.”

“No. He could have climbed up to where we were, and fired my rifle a couple of times. He could have done that.”

“Had his heart been in it,” I said. I stood silently for a while, looking down at the young man. “Scott,” I said finally, “somebody’s going to ask this. It might as well be me.” The silence lingered for another few seconds.

“Walsh said that he saw you push Connie off the rocks. That he heard you two arguing. He saw you push her, and he then yelled at you. We know you didn’t fire your rifle. But what about Walsh’s claim that you pushed your sister?

Scott Gutierrez remained silent.

“How would you answer that, Scott? If Dan Schroeder puts those questions to you?”

He lifted his right hand, making a pistol out of his thumb and index finger. “I didn’t push my sister off that rock, sir. If everyone thinks I did, then I wish this had been a couple of inches farther back.” He put his index finger to his skull just above the ear and dropped his thumb. When I didn’t respond immediately, Gutierrez stretched out his right hand toward me. I took it, and his grip was surprisingly strong.

“You haven’t talked to Connie yet, have you?”

“No. I haven’t. She’s in Las Cruces. It’s going to be a while.”

“Oh, Christ,” he murmured.

I gave his hand another squeeze. “You hang in there, Scott. Give us a chance to work this thing through.”

“I guess I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“Do you believe him?” Undersheriff Robert Torrez waited by my front doorstep while I thought through my answer. There were too many angles still to be explored, but my intuition had made up its mind.

I’d had all afternoon and evening to think about Scott Gutierrez, his sister Connie French, and their stepfather, James Walsh. I knew what my gut feelings were, but I didn’t want to bulldoze over the soon-to-be-sheriff’s investigation. He had his men placed where he wanted them, and he’d proceed with his investigation at his own speed.

He didn’t need me barking at his heels for the next few hours. If he was good enough to lead the charge up through the rocks without knowing if a high-powered rifle was trained his way, then he could manage the wrap-up, too.

In fact, all Robert Torrez really needed from me was to make sure that I voted the next day.

The undersheriff had driven to my home on Guadalupe late that evening. I hadn’t crossed paths with him all Monday afternoon. I didn’t want to leave messages for him at dispatch, interrupting his day just so that I could tell him, “Hey, I think this,” or “Listen, I think that.”

Even if I were completely wrong, even if I were hoodwinked by sincere-sounding answers from behind the convenient mask of Scott Gutierrez’s bandages, neither he nor his sister were going anywhere. Deputy Jackie Taber was keeping Connie French company in Las Cruces, along with assistance from the Las Cruces Police Department. At four that afternoon, Deputy Tony Abeyta had relieved Howard Bishop outside the Posadas ICU. It had been at that point that I stopped hovering and went home.

I held the door open and gestured for the undersheriff to step inside. “Come on in, Roberto.” He did so, and as he stepped past me, I said, “And for the record, yes, I do. I believe him. I think he was genuinely concerned for her welfare.” I closed the door. “The last thing he’d do is push her backward off some rocks. It would serve no purpose.”

Torrez took off his Stetson and rolled the brim in his hands, frowning at it. “Unless she was threatening to blow the whistle on him. If the license thing was his scam all along, then we’ve got a problem. That’s our sticking point.”

I shrugged and held up my hands. “Did you make any progress with the Del Rio authorities?”

“Nothing yet, but they arranged a court order putting a lock on all of Walsh’s papers-everything at his home or at his dealership. We’re going to do some sifting and see what we can come up with.”

“I think Scott was just in a bind, Robert. He couldn’t just arrest Walsh, because he’d have automatically implicated his sister. And he may have had no proof against the man. He didn’t want to do that, if he could get away with it. I didn’t ask him flat-out, but my guess is that Scott was looking for some way to put Walsh out of business, at least as far as Connie was concerned, without going to the law.”

Estelle and Francisco appeared in the hallway, and the little kid craned his neck to look up at the six-foot-four Torrez. “We had hamburgers for dinner. You shoulda been here,” he said without preamble.