Free Bag Limit by Steven F. Havill Page A

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