Bag Limit (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

I hesitated to bother Frank Dayan on a Sunday morning. The frenetic newspaper publisher burned up the sidewalks six days a week trying to keep the
Posadas Register
alive and well, and any questions I had for him about Posadas County politics could wait for Monday. Instead, I went home, planning to spend some time putting the house in order for the imminent Guzman invasion.

What I could do about that order was a mystery, since Maria Ibarra, my housekeeper, thought far ahead of any meager efforts I might make. She hadn’t done any grocery shopping, though, and neither had I. My son was taking care of that. He’d even taken the money I’d forced on him and stuffed it into his son’s shirt pocket. Tadd would attend to the culinary end of things, I was confident. Evidently, Buddy didn’t share my assumption that when hungry, the Guzman kids could just truck on down to the Don Juan de Oñate Restaurant for a Burrito Grande.

The guest rooms were ready, including a whole zoo of stuffed animals that Maria had dragged from a closet. She used them to populate the single beds where little Francisco and Carlos Guzman would snuggle and giggle. I didn’t even remember that I’d kept the damn animals, originally part of my youngest daughter’s collection. The critters had been jammed away in the dark years ago and then forgotten.

I stood for a while in the doorway of that bedroom, looking at the beasts while their ancient, wise button eyes stared back at me. One small black dog, fur worn by the years of roughhouse handling, had advanced halfway down the bedspread. He stood facing the doorway, small ears at attention.

They should have brought a smile to my face, I suppose. Instead, a great, crashing wave of melancholy swept over me, and I turned away. Part of the melancholy was that I didn’t know what Estelle and her husband planned. Despite our telephone and E-mail conversations since they’d moved to Minnesota the previous spring, I knew only that their stay in the northland had had its setbacks. A talented vascular surgeon, Francis Guzman had managed to severely injure his left hand in a biking accident while riding to work. Estelle had told me that much. Whether the young physician was now discovering that tying the tiny, intricate stitches in some patient’s ballooning aorta were beyond the limits of his crippled hand, I didn’t know.

And only when I’d pressed her about the missing
FOR SALE
sign had she told me that they’d taken their house on Twelfth Street in Posadas off the real estate market because they weren’t sure of their plans. My hopes soared, naturally, knowing that Posadas continued to be a possible option for them.

In one recent communication, Estelle had reported that Francis’ aunt, Sophia Tournal, was visiting from her home in Mexico. I’d met Ms. Tournal a time or two, and at the first meeting knew instantly why she was such a successful attorney in her home state of Veracruz.

All of that gave me reason to suspect that the Guzmans’ trip to Posadas that November was more than just the opportunity to watch election returns. After all, a card of congratulations or commiseration to Bob Torrez and a “Happy Retirement!” card for me would cover those bases.

Part of Estelle’s charm—and sometimes, when she’d been working for the Posadas County Sheriff’s Department, what frustrated the hell out of the rest of us—was that the world, beyond mother, husband, and children, operated on a need-to-know basis.

I was godfather to the Guzman children. I knew that Estelle trusted me as unequivocably as I trusted her. I’d saved her life on more than one occasion, and she’d done the same for me. All of that, though, wasn’t an admission ticket to her inner circle. That’s just the way she was. Join the club with the rest of the six billion.

Shortly before eleven Sunday morning, Robert Torrez stopped by briefly to tell me that he was headed for Regal, and that his sister would be home by two that afternoon.

“I didn’t tell her too much when I talked to her on the phone,” Torrez said. “But she’s upset. I could tell.”

“You told her about the license?” We stood at the front door, the undersheriff refusing to come inside. I noticed that he was driving his “tank,” an ancient Chevy pickup truck burdened with several decades of junk that filled the back. Wrought-iron curlicues protected the back window from a shifting load. Unshaven and dressed in a bright red and yellow flannel shirt, down vest, and jeans, he looked like a hunter just finishing a week out in the bush.

He shook his head. “No.” He regarded Buddy’s Corvette impassively. “But she knows that I wouldn’t bother to call her like this if it wasn’t something important. You know how she gets.”

I didn’t, but nodded agreement anyway, figuring I’d find out soon enough.

“I asked her to meet us at the MVD office at three this afternoon.”

“That’ll work,” I said. “Do you mind if I bring Estelle along? If she’s here by then, that is?”

He grinned, started to say one thing, and then changed his mind. “No, I don’t mind.”

“That’s if she wants to,” I said. “She may be pooped from the trip. But I have a resident kid-sitter with my grandson being here, so Estelle could break away for a little while.”

“Sure, if she wants to.”

“I talked to Betty Contreras, by the way. She was being a good witness, telling us what we wanted to hear.”

Torrez frowned. “Sir?” he said, looking sideways at me.

“She admits that she isn’t sure that it was Scott Gutierrez who drove by at eight on Saturday morning. She isn’t sure who it was. In fact, she has no idea at all. She mentioned Scott’s name to me because she’d seen him drive by
the night before
. His name just came to mind. She didn’t mention him to Tony, like she told me she had.” I shrugged. “She’s embarrassed, needless to say.”

“Well, duh,” Torrez said with a straight face, sounding more like my grandson than the undersheriff. “What time did she see Scott Friday night, did she say?”

“About eight forty-five or so.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean squat,” he said. He turned to his truck, rested a hand on the hood, and kicked the left front tire pensively. “See you at three?”

“You got it,” I said. “And by the way, Judge Hobart asked me this. Are you planning on announcing who you’re going to name as undersheriff before Tuesday? Not that it’s any of my business—or his. But voters might like to know.”

Hand still on the truck, he twisted and looked at me, one eyebrow cocked. “You want the job?”

“Oh, sure.” I laughed.

He returned his scrutiny to the front tire, looking down at the gnarly tread, idly digging at one of the huge cleats with the toe of his boot. “It’s not something that I want to rush into,” he said. I couldn’t remember an occasion when Robert Torrez had rushed into anything. “Did you hear who Leona Spears asked?”

“No. But then again, I’m not on her ‘tell first’ list, either.”

“Eddie Mitchell called me from Bernalillo County. She gave him a buzz.”

“She has more brains than I thought,” I said. Mitchell had left Posadas the previous spring, and I knew he’d already passed his lieutenant’s exam in Bernalillo. “He’d do a fine job.”

“Yes, he would. I was thinking the same thing.” He sighed and straightened up, pushing away from the truck. “It’s a long four months until January, too. We’ll see what happens.”

“Let me know what I can do,” I said.

“I will. Right now, I’m just going to Uncle Sosimo’s place. Sit and think. There’s got to be something. There’s a couple other things I want to check out, too, while I’m down that way.”

I patted the faded fender of the Chevy. “We’re short of vehicles?”

He grinned. “Nah. It’s that time of year.”

I knew exactly what he meant. The scoped .308 rested in its back window rack, ready to train its sights on a trophy desert mule deer. “You be careful,” I said, and stepped back from the truck. I knew the cloud of fumes that would issue from it the moment he hit the starter. “Happy hunting.”

“We’ll see,” he said, and I knew from his expression that he wasn’t talking about mule deer.

Chapter Thirty-five

I had never been a hunter. Or a golfer. Or messed with model railroads or patiently fitted stained glass. I didn’t have the patience of a fisherman. At odd moments, I sat down with a book that had something to do with military history, but even then, the collection that overflowed my living-room shelves held many more volumes than I had actually completed…or ever would.

The nearest I came to a consuming hobby was consuming at the Don Juan—and my thoughtful grandson had made sure that wouldn’t be necessary for several hours.

Two o’clock on that Sunday afternoon seemed weeks away instead of hours, and that was only if the damn airlines were on time. Mercifully, Buddy and Tadd returned shortly before noon. “Do you think they’ll already have eaten?” Tadd asked even before he set the three heavy plastic bags on the kitchen counter. I grinned. The kid was a true Gastner in everything but appearance—and that part was just as well.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “No matter what they do, the two youngsters will be starving. And I’ve never known Francis to turn down a meal, either.” I paused and glanced at the slow-moving clock. “And then there’s me.” That brought a wide grin from my grandson. “I’ve got a meeting at three, by the way.”

“You’re kidding,” Buddy said in wonder. “No, I guess you’re not.” He thumped a heavy wrapped cut of meat onto the counter. “We’ll get you fed in time for that.” He turned with his hands on his hips. “Come Tuesday night, is it like somebody suddenly throws a big light switch? Do you suddenly get your life back? The phone stops ringing, all that sort of thing?”

“I fervently hope so,” I said. “In theory, the sheriff-elect takes office in January. But I told Robert that when he wins the day after tomorrow, he gets the keys to the executive washroom right then and there. Tuesday night. That’s it. It’s his.”

Buddy laughed. “And what if what’s-her-face wins?”

“Leona Spears? She’s not going to.”

“Famous last words.”

“They would be, too. If she won, I’d be intensely unhappy, because I’d have to rethink the whole thing. I’m not sure I’d toss the keys to her. I might have to wait until the last second on January twentieth, and in the meantime, hope for an earthquake or something of the sort.”

“We’re going to eat at exactly two-thirty,” Tadd said, not one to be easily derailed from his mission with talk of politics. “If the Guzmans’ plane is late, that’s tough.”

“He has spoken,” Buddy said. I watched his son poke at the fresh leg of lamb as if seeking out a weak spot.

“You’re not going to have time to cook that whole thing between now and two-thirty,” I said, but I should have known better.

Tadd picked up a package of eight stainless-steel skewers. “Lamb ka bobs,” he said, beaming.

“Christ, you bought those, too?”

“No. You had ’em inside the grill,” Tadd said. “The package had never been opened. Neat-o.”

“Neat-o,” I said. “I didn’t know I had ’em. Anything else you need?”

“Just a really good knife,” Tadd said. “So I can hack this thing up.” He patted the leg of lamb affectionately.

I turned and pulled open a drawer, viewing the helter-skelter of implements lying at rest. “Define ‘really good,’” I said.

“Something that won’t snap halfway through a cut and shear off his thumb,” my son said, and I detected a note of parental concern. Apparently it was one thing to have a teacher tell you that your son was a culinary arts genius, and another thing entirely to turn over to the kid all the edged weapons without a single apprehensive pang.

Tadd chose a big old heavy thing that had been his great-grandmother’s, then settled in with the knife and the sharpening steel to bring the edge up to his specifications.

Buddy and I retired to the living room, with nothing to do but talk and watch the clock…and perhaps keep one ear cocked toward the kitchen in case a sudden gasp from the chef alerted us to a missing digit.

At 12:30 the phone rang, and for the next twenty minutes I talked with my eldest daughter, Camille. More accurately, I listened to the high-powered recitation of life in Flint, Michigan.

Somewhere in midparagraph, I realized that she had asked me a question.

“Pardon?” I asked.

“I said, have you heard from Kerri and Joel?”

“Ah, no. But then it’s early. Probably tomorrow. Or maybe even Tuesday,” I said. My youngest daughter Kerri would find a working phone only with difficulty in the Peruvian village where she lived—less than ten miles from where her mother had been born and raised.

My oldest son Joel and I didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, and it wasn’t just because as president and CEO of BetaComp International, he was on the other end of the income spectrum from Kerri. It’d been nearly two years since I’d last heard the sound of his voice…and even on that occasion, his secretary had put me on hold for ten minutes. Hopefully, Joel Gastner was finding happiness peddling whatever computer component it was that BetaComp manufactured.

“Big doings planned for Tuesday night?” Camille asked.

“Not if I can help it.”

“What”—she laughed—“no victory burrito at the Don Juan?”

“Nope. They’re closed all day Tuesday, the bastards. But we’ve got the last laugh. Tadd’s here, and he’s cooking up a storm. You want to talk to him while he’s still got all his fingers?”

“Sure, but put Buddy on first,” Camille said. “I need to talk to him before I forget what I wanted.”

“Buddy,” I said, and held the phone out to him. “It’s Camille. She wants to talk to you.”

“Of course she does,” my son said, and took the phone into a quiet corner of the living room.

“Anything I can do?” I asked Tadd, bending over his shoulder as he labored.

He shook his head. “Just havin’ fun,” he said.

“Well, I’m glad you are. Tell your dad when he gets off the phone that I’m out back. I’m going to get some air.”

The kitchen door opened without a pry bar, and I brushed aside a couple vines that had spent all summer trying to come inside the house. As I stepped outside into the cool air, I saw that the back door of the garage was ajar. The grill had been hauled outside to sit in the sunshine, lid open to allow the spiders a chance to escape before Tadd touched off the gas.

The dry cottonwood leaves crackled overhead and underfoot. There had been no ripping wind whistling around the house to do my raking for me, and the leaves made a nice, deep blanket over the patio bricks. With hands thrust in my pockets, I ambled out away from the house.

The first cottonwood stood less than thirty feet from the back door. Fully four feet in diameter, its trunk bulged in a series of nodules and carbuncles as if the very weight of the tree was compressing the lower wood. The tree shed limbs regularly, some of them crashing onto the roof of the house. I craned my neck and looked up. The limb that hung thirty feet over the kitchen was gunmetal-gray and without a stitch of bark. At its base, it was more than a foot in diameter.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Buddy asked. He let the screen door close gently in deference to the rusted hinges.

“That limb.” I pointed. “It’s drawing a bead on the kitchen.”

“That’ll be exciting,” he said, glancing up. “Camille’s telling Tadd how to make an instant marinade for the lamb,” he added. “Anything is possible, apparently.”

“Your son is amazing, Buddy.” I touched his shoulder. “Take a walk with me?”

“Sure.” The two of us strolled out into the wilderness of my backyard. A trail of sorts took us through the grove of cotton-woods. Far enough away from the house that roots couldn’t reach the waterlines, the vegetation became a hodgepodge of whatever could survive—grasses mixed with New Mexico locust, elm, cholla, creosote bush, three or four species of acacia, and stunted juniper.

“This makes a nice buffer for your place,” Buddy said. “Gives you some privacy.”

“I guess it does,” I said, and stopped at a small grove of twisted oaks, none more than twenty feet tall.

“I remember when those were just sprouting,” Buddy said. “Me and Billy Spaulding used to shoot the tips off with our BB guns.”

“The two Wild Bills,” I said. “Whatever became of him, anyway?”

“Don’t know,” Buddy said. “We graduated and that was that.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. It was too easy to slip into a quagmire of reminiscence. The last thing I wanted to do was spend three maudlin days letting the past take over my life.

“Do you have any objections if I sell this land?” I said suddenly.

Buddy looked surprised and followed me through a thick grove of elm saplings. “Why would I mind?”

“I just thought I’d ask, is all. No sentimental attachments?”

Buddy laughed. “Attachments? No. Other than that this is where you live. If you move somewhere else, that’s fine.” He chuckled again. “You can run, but you can’t hide, Dad.”

I didn’t tell him that was the second time in forty-eight hours I’d been told that—the first time by a pretty bartender at the Broken Spur. I stopped within view of Escondido Lane, the village street that circled the back of my five acres. Just beyond was the embankment that rose up to the interstate. The earth along Escondido was still freshly torn up after the village had put in a new water line to service the neighborhood to the east of me.

“This property is probably pretty well situated for some business,” I said. “I sure as hell don’t need it all.”

“If you don’t mind someone moving in close by,” Buddy said. “But hell, you don’t need the money. Just keep it. As long as you’re living here. Why worry about it?”

“I’m not worried. Just thinking, is all.” I flashed a smile at him. “Scheming.”

“Well, scheme away, Dad. Put in a helipad while you’re at it, and I can scoot over for a visit now and then, when things get slow.”

He meant it as a joke, but mention of helicopters crystallized an image in my mind so powerfully that Buddy frowned at the expression on my face. A comic-book panel would have had a huge yellow lightbulb hovering over my head.

“What?” he asked.

“The hospital doesn’t have room for a helipad,” I said. “They have to drive out to the airport, and that’s a long way.”

“You’re thinking here instead?”

“Why not? With five acres, there’s enough room for a clinic, parking, helipad…whatever the hell we want. We’re three minutes from the hospital.”

This time, the look of enlightenment spread over my son’s face. “Ah,” he said. “That’s ambitious. I didn’t know that Francis was serious about relocating back here.”

I took a deep breath, surprised that I had been so transparent. “I don’t know if he is or not, Buddy. If he is, then maybe some readily available land is just the ticket.”

“You think he has the financing to set up his own clinic?”

“He can get it,” I said.

My son regarded me with amusement. “No ulterior motives here, though.”

“Of course not.”