Chapter Eighteen

Lucas Soto, like Emil’s killer—whose identity Lucas still didn’t know—used disguises to sneak around the area in an attempt to see what the cops were doing and was not happy to find that his girl, Nattie, had teamed up with Joe and Joe’s employer. He had seen them at his house, which had been ransacked, but not by him. He’d taken his clothes and a few things he needed earlier. He did not know who had come later and trashed his house. He’d watched Nattie, the cops, and the others leave his house and go to the Brady farm. His hatred for Joe increased. Joe had interfered in Lucas and Nattie’s relationship once before, and now he was doing it again in a much bigger way. That would not do.

The following night, Lucas had been watching Joe and had witnessed him being abducted. He didn’t know what that was all about, but he made a decision at that point that he should be more careful than ever to not be seen by whoever that person was. He was afraid of the real killer. If Joe disappeared permanently, would Lucas be blamed for the murder? It was increasingly clear to Lucas that the killer was determined someone else would pay for killing Emil. But Lucas was more determined than ever that it would not be him.

Lucas began to scheme. One of his concerns was that Nattie might try to accuse him. She had never been totally loyal to him the way he’d wanted her to be. Perhaps he needed to do something to convince her that he was not the killer. He just wasn’t sure how to go about it. He just needed to do some thinking. He’d figure something out.

He slunk away from his vantage point near Joe’s house late that night after all the cops had left. He still hadn’t figured out what to do about Nattie. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he also didn’t want her to blame him for something he did not do. So if he had to, he would do something to her, even if it pained him to do so.

Bo and Jim didn’t learn anything new at either Bryan Bayle’s house or Lucas Soto’s. Not that they had expected much. Bo couldn’t get Melia’s sad face out of his head when he’d told her that they were stumped over Joe’s abduction but hoped for the best. She broke down and cried, and finally, they had to leave while Ron and Nattie were both trying to comfort her. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she’d kept saying over and over again.

“What now?” Jim asked as they sat in the Explorer outside of Lucas’s house.

“It could be either Lucas or Bryan Bayle who has taken Joe,” Bo said thoughtfully. “But perhaps we need to look elsewhere.”

“Like where?” Jim asked.

“I’m thinking about Leonardo Augur. We need to find out where he lives and pay him a visit,” Bo said. “I’m sure you’re tired, Jim, and if you want to go home and get some rest, go ahead, but I’m going to keep at it until I drop. Joe’s my cousin. I have to do everything I can to find him.”

“I’m with you, Bo,” Jim said.

Bo was touched by his loyalty. “Then let’s see if we can find Leonardo.”

“Here’s what you’ll write.”

Some time had passed since Joe had, despite his best efforts, passed out and rolled onto his side again. His tormentor had splashed water in his face, waking him up, and then had pulled him to his bound feet and sat him at a small table. At that point, the blindfold came off, as did the ropes that bound his hands, but the threats continued as his abductor stood behind him.

Joe took the offered pencil in his hands, but they were numb and when he tried to place the point of the pencil on the paper, it dropped. “You are such a weakling,” his captor complained.

“I can’t feel my hands,” Joe said weakly.

“Then I guess I’ll have to give you a few minutes. But don’t think that stalling will get you out of writing your admission to killing Emil in cold blood, which is what you did,” the killer said.

Joe didn’t have the energy to argue. So for the next few minutes, he sat there as Emil’s killer paced behind him, muttering and cursing the entire time. It was all Joe could do to listen to the man’s filthy language, but he kept quiet as he slowly felt the numbness leave his hands.

Eventually, his captor stopped pacing and cursing. “It’s been long enough. I’m sure you can write now. So let’s begin.”

Joe picked up the pencil, and the killer slid the paper to where he could write on it. “Here’s what you’ll write. Write it exactly as I tell you or I’ll bash your head in.”

The guy was capable of that, as Joe had already learned. He couldn’t figure out a way to avoid writing the confession without enduring serious injury, but at the same time, he was constantly trying to figure out a way to escape.

The evil man spoke slowly, and Joe wrote every word very carefully. He’d been thinking about how he might use some kind of code to make sure that not everyone would believe he meant what he wrote. The only thing he could think of would be to spell some of the words wrong, hoping that his captor wouldn’t notice or would think the spelling errors were unintentional. If either Bo or Rosina or even Ron were to see the confession, they would know the spelling errors were intentional; they knew Joe was an excellent speller.

“Okay, read it back to me,” the killer said from behind when Joe had finished.

Joe read it.

Dear Sheriff Hermock,

I am riting this leter to you to cleer up the mater of the murdur of Emil Ifler. I’m sorry I lied to your oficers about it. I admit that I shot him with my own pistal and put his body in my trunk. He was making me get drugs from him when I didn’t want two. Then when I codn’t pay he was gong to take my stuf. I am not comng back to let you put me in prisan. But you can quit lokking for anybode else. I did it myself. But he had it comin.

Joe Whalen

As he read it, he worried that he might have made too many spelling errors. But his kidnapper took the letter from him, staying out of view, and then started to laugh. “You should have gone to school, you idiot,” he said. “You can’t even spell. What did you do, drop out of elementary?”

“I never could spell, but I did not drop out of elementary. I made it clear to the eighth grade,” he lied, trying to sound ashamed.

“Well, you sure are a dumb guy. You shouldn’t have killed Emil. They’ll hunt you down and lock you up for the rest of your life,” he said with an evil laugh. “Okay. I’m putting the blindfold back on you, and then I’ll tie your hands up again.”

“What are you going to do to me? They’ll be looking for me.”

“Let them look. They’ll never find you. As for what happens to you, I still haven’t decided for sure. But I’m kind of leaning toward suicide. That would clinch your confession, and it would save you from having to spend the rest of your miserable life in prison.”

“How are you going to get my confession to the sheriff?” Joe asked.

“That’s a good question. I guess I need a stamp and an envelope, and then I’ll mail it,” he said. “But I’ll mail it from someplace a long way from Price. I’m not stupid like you are, you know.” The killer put the blindfold on Joe, and then he put the ropes back on his wrists and tied his hands to his belt so Joe couldn’t reach up to take off the blindfold.

Joe kept talking, hoping to distract the killer to the point that he wouldn’t get the rope too tight. It wasn’t just chitchat, though; he was begging for his life and for his freedom. “You can take me clear across the country if you want to,” he said at one point. “I’ll never come back, I promise. I don’t want to die.” On and on he went, blabbering and begging.

It worked, for when the killer finished, the ropes were not very tight, and Joe had some hope. It was a slim hope, but hope nonetheless.

“I gotta go get an envelope and a stamp and look up the sheriff’s address,” Joe’s abductor said. “I’ll need to drive pretty far to get this letter in the mail. Don’t go anywhere until I get back.” With that, the guy laughed loud and long. “As if you could,” he concluded.

“Hey, I’m hungry, and I need to use the bathroom,” Joe wailed. Both were true.

“Maybe I’ll bring you a burger,” the killer said. “And maybe I won’t. Either way, you gotta hold it till I get back. You’re a big boy. You can do that.”

A minute later, Joe could hear a door open and then slam shut. He was sure it was locked, but he didn’t waste any time before starting to work at the ropes that bound his wrists.

It took a while, but Bo and Jim found the place where Leonardo Augur was believed to be living. It was a nice home with a neatly kept yard in Castle Dale, a town to the south of Price in Emery County. “This is weird,” Bo told Jim. “I can’t see a drug pusher like him having a nice yard. It doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe we have the wrong place after all,” Jim suggested. Bo rang the doorbell and knocked but got no response.

“It may be the wrong place, but I don’t think so. Maybe we should check with some of the neighbors,” Bo suggested. “But before we do, let me call the sheriff’s office here and let them know we’re in town and what we’re doing.” While Bo called, Jim looked around the front yard a little bit.

After the call, Bo told his partner, “We’re fine to go ahead, but the officer I spoke with said they didn’t have anything on Leonardo that he knew of. But he said he’d check with the drug task force—they might have heard of him.”

“Maybe he does all of his distribution away from his hometown,” Jim suggested.

“He must because we have definitely heard about him in Carbon County, although we don’t have anything on him that we can arrest him for. Anyway, I was told that if we need help to call back. Hopefully we won’t need to do that.”

“I agree,” Jim said.

“Let’s split up. You hit a few houses across the street, and I’ll knock on the ones near him on this side.”

Bo knocked on the door of the next-door neighbor to the west of the house they believed belonged to Leonardo. A middle-aged lady with long dark hair and a pretty face answered the door.

“Hello. I’m Detective Bo Buckley with the Carbon County Sheriff’s Department. Do you have a moment?”

“Sure. I’m Lucy Gibbons. What can I help you with?” she asked.

“I’m wondering how much you know about your next-door neighbor, Mr. Augur,” Bo said.

“Is that his name?” she asked. “We really don’t know him. We seldom see him. Sometimes he has visitors late at night, but most of the time he’s gone. We do see his gardener quite often. I wish we could afford to hire him to help with our yard. He seems to be good at what he does. Of course, there’s no gardening going on this time of year, but the fellow comes by if there’s even the smallest amount of new snowfall and shovels and sweeps until there’s not a single flake left on the walks in either the front or rear. And you should see the flowers in the summertime. The guy’s a genius.”

“That’s nice to know, but are you saying you don’t know your neighbor’s name?” Bo asked.

“No, I’ve never heard it. I guess we aren’t very good neighbors,” Lucy said.

“Or he isn’t,” Bo suggested.

“Well, yes, he does keep to himself. We’ve left notes for him, inviting him to a couple of block parties, but he’s never showed up to one. He’s lived there two or three years. You’d think we’d have had a chance to get to know him, but he is very reclusive.”

“What does he drive?” Bo asked.

“Seriously? You’re here asking about him, but you don’t know what he drives?” she asked with raised eyebrows. “Is he wanted for something?”

“We’re just checking,” Bo said. “We’ve heard some things and wanted to make sure they either are or are not true.”

“Could I ask what kind of things?” she asked. “Now I’m getting nervous.”

“No need for that, Lucy. Again, what does he drive?” Bo asked.

“It’s a tan Nissan pickup, very new. He drove a Toyota pickup, a small one, until just a few months ago.”

“So it has Utah plates?” Bo asked.

“Oh yeah. The other pickup had been wrecked the last time we saw it here. It was drivable but pretty bashed up on the entire passenger side. I guess he’d been in a wreck. At any rate, it was gone and replaced with this new one within a couple days,” Lucy said.

“Do you know if any of the other folks in the neighborhood are friendly with him at all?” Bo asked.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“What’s the gardener’s name?”

“Hank. I only know that because my husband managed to strike up a conversation one day, but usually, Hank just comes, does his work, and leaves.”

“What does he drive?” Bo asked.

“He has an older white pickup. I honestly don’t know the make. It’s full of snow shovels and brooms this time of year and shovels and rakes and such as that in the spring, summer, and fall. He works hard when he’s here. Like I said, my husband talked to him that one time, and when he did, he asked if he was interested in helping out with our yard.”

“I take it he wasn’t.”

“He said he had all the customers he could handle,” Lucy said.

“Is he here every day?”

“Oh no. He only comes once or twice a week except for winter. Then he comes when it snows and takes care of things. Why are you asking about him?”

“We’d like to locate the gardener and speak with him. We’re just trying to figure Mr. Augur out. Does he have a wife or girlfriend?”

“I’ve never seen a woman around his place except for a cleaning lady who comes once a week or so, so no, I don’t think he does. At least if he does, she lives somewhere else.”

“Thanks for your time, Lucy,” Bo said, and she stepped back into her house.

Bo checked several more houses, but he didn’t learn anything more. It appeared that Leonardo was very reclusive, lived alone, was gone much of the time, and had occasional late-night visitors.

When Jim rejoined him, he reported the same type of information from the few people he was able to talk to. Leonardo Augur, it seemed, was a man of mystery. “Jim, I think we should try to find out who the gardener is and have a chat with him.”

“How do we do that?” Jim asked.

“Let’s drive around town for a little while to see if we can spot an older white pickup with snow shovels in the back,” Bo suggested.

“I can’t seem to reach Joe on his cell phone,” Dr. Scanlon said. “His dog is doing much better and is recovering faster that I would have ever expected. He’s a strong dog if I’ve ever seen one. So I see no reason he can’t go home today. He’ll just need to be watched closely. Could you get the word to Joe for me?”

“I wish I could,” Ron said. “Joe vanished last night, and the sheriff’s department suspects foul play, as do I.”

“Oh no!” the veterinarian exclaimed. “First the dog and now the young man! What is this world coming to?”

“There are lots of problems in the world. That’s for sure, Dr. Scanlon. Listen, if it’s okay with you, I’ll come out, get Herc, and keep him here at my place until we locate Joe,” Ron said.

“I could keep him longer if need be, but I hate to run up the expense on Joe,” the vet said.

“I understand. I’ll come for him. Thanks for saving the dog’s life,” Ron told him. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, and I’ll bring my checkbook to cover the costs for Joe.” Ron was thinking—and he didn’t like his thoughts—that Herc may need to make a permanent home on his farm with Ace.

Ron pulled on his warm coat and gloves, stuck a hat on his head, and pulled on his boots. Then he headed outside. He walked past his truck in the garage and went to the barn. He found Melia and Nattie hard at work there. He’d tried to talk the girls into staying in the house all day, but they had insisted on working. He’d gone out with them for a while, but he was soon exhausted. Melia had asked him to let her keep the pistol until they finished what needed to be done, and he’d agreed. If she hadn’t asked, he’d have insisted.

“Hey, Grandpa. We’re okay,” Melia said when Ron walked into the barn where they were cleaning stalls again. “You didn’t need to check up on us.”

“Actually, I came out to ask you girls to help me,” he said.

“With what?” Melia asked.

“Help me drive to the vet’s and pick up Herc. Dr. Scanlon said he’s doing so well that there’s no point in running up Joe’s bill by keeping him there any longer.”

“That’s great,” Melia said. Then her eyes began to water up. “I wish Joe were here to go get him.”

“But he’s not, and we need to take good care of Herc until Joe gets back,” Ron said, having a difficult time keeping his voice from breaking with emotion.

“I can stay here and keep working,” Nattie said. “You two go.”

Ron shook his head. “I’m not leaving you here alone, Nattie. We’ll all go.”

Nattie started to protest, but Melia interrupted. “You’ve been telling me how afraid you are of Lucas now.”

“He’s probably glad to be rid of me,” Nattie replied bitterly.

Ron shook his head. “I doubt that. I promised to keep an eye on you, and I haven’t done a very good job today, but there is no way I’m leaving you here alone. Let’s go get that beautiful dog.”

Lucas had debated with himself all day. The longer he thought about Nattie running off with his unborn baby, the angrier it made him. He hadn’t wanted a girl, but she had no right to run off. It was, after all, his baby girl, not just hers. He knew that he needed to get away from Price, but there was no way he was going without Nattie. If she didn’t want to come, he’d make her anyway. He’d even thought charitably that he would promise her he wouldn’t use drugs anymore. That was always their biggest problem—as if he could manage such a thing. He was already feeling the withdrawals coming on. He desperately needed a fix.

He was watching from his usual secluded spot through his binoculars. He knew the two girls were alone in the barn. With Joe gone and the farmer in the house, it should be easy enough to grab Nattie and leave.

Or at least that was the thought that had been on his mind when he’d seen the old farmer leave the house and go to the barn. The old guy had his rifle with him. Lucas swore. He didn’t like that at all. The longer he stuck around, the more dangerous it was for him. But now he would be forced to wait a little longer. Still, he would get his girl, and they would leave whether she liked it or not.