“Jim and I met with the sheriff a couple of hours ago and explained what happened here last night and how Merianos was mishandling things in general,” Bo began.
“Bo, you shouldn’t have done that. It could get you fired,” Joe said, feeling his stomach take a concerned tumble.
“I suppose it could have, but it didn’t,” Bo responded with a characteristic grin. “It did, however, get Merianos taken off the case.”
“More than that,” Jim chimed in. “He’s no longer a detective.”
“I can’t say I feel bad about that,” Joe said as he digested the information with a now more settled stomach.
“Yeah, he was treating Joe really badly,” Melia added. “Detectives shouldn’t act like that.”
“Yes, he was doing things that he shouldn’t have. That’s for sure,” Bo said. “And we don’t know for sure why he did what he did, although publicity was part of it. Apparently the sheriff had received complaints about him before. He said he was not going to allow it to continue.”
“So who’s going to take over for him?” Joe asked hesitantly. “I hope it’s somebody who will look at other suspects besides just me.”
Jim spoke up. “It is, Joe. I’ll be assisting Detective Bo Buckley.”
Joe was shocked, and his face showed it. “But the sheriff wanted you off the case because we’re related, Bo.”
Bo shook his head. “No, Merianos was who really wanted that. The sheriff said that he trusts Jim and me to be totally objective. So that’s why we’re here. We want to go over everything with you. I’m hoping we can convince the prosecutor to drop the murder charges against you. Don’t think that it will happen automatically, because it won’t. Jim and I need to dig deep and find who actually murdered Emil and why. A lot of evidence in your house has been destroyed now that could have been helpful, such as fingerprints. But we do have the tracks of whoever was out back when . . . well, you know . . . when we were worried about Herc being sprayed with Mace. We don’t have much helpful evidence from your house, but Jim and I will do all we can. You have my word on that.”
“And mine,” Jim added, punctuating his words with a firm nod of his head.
Joe felt huge relief, and he felt bad for thinking Bo may have thought he was guilty. Joe knew now that wasn’t true and never had been. Bo was an honest man and would follow the evidence. Right now, that evidence was very much against Joe. But he was sure Bo would keep digging until he found the truth. “So what are you guys going to do now, Bo?”
“First, I want to ask you some questions,” Bo said. He turned to Melia. “I noticed that you drove your grandpa’s truck here. We’re going to be a while. You might not want to stay.”
“Yeah, I’d better get home,” she agreed. “Joe, I’ll see you when you come to the farm in the morning. You are coming, aren’t you? Or better yet, why don’t you stay with us again tonight?”
“I’ll be there in the morning, Melia,” he said firmly. “I’ll be fine staying here tonight. Thanks for following me over. I’m glad you didn’t have to help me clean up more. You’ve worked too hard today.”
She smiled at Joe, making his toes tingle, and a moment later, she left.
Bo then had Joe sit down as he and Deputy Grizzel did the same. “Tell us where and when you first met Emil,” Bo started.
Joe scrunched his eyes and thought for a minute. “It was the day after I turned twenty-one. Like an idiot, I went to a bar.”
“We had a party for you on your birthday. Isn’t that right?” Bo asked.
“Yes, you and Rosina and her roommate,” Joe said.
“But you went to a bar the very next day? Why?” Bo asked.
Joe hung his head. “Cause I could, I guess. Cause I was old enough. I know it was stupid.”
“Not necessarily. Lots of people go to bars. I’ve gone a few times myself, but of course, I don’t go anymore. Is that where you met Emil?”
Joe nodded. “He was sitting at a table with another guy. I felt lost and out of place in there, so I kind of wandered around for a minute,” Joe said. “I decided to leave, but when I started toward the door, a guy came up behind me, touched my shoulder, and asked, ‘Are you new here?’”
“Was that guy Emil?” Bo asked.
“Yes. He introduced himself and led me over to his table. He sort of introduced me to a guy who was sitting there,” Joe said. “He didn’t actually tell me his name. Then he asked me to join them.”
“Do you have any idea who the other man was?” Bo asked.
“I thought he was a friend of Emil’s, but as it turned out, he was not a friend, more like an enemy. But I didn’t learn that until after the guy got up. He said something about Emil leaving his customers alone or he would regret it. Then he walked out of the bar. The dark, angry look on the guy’s face told me he was a long way from being a friend. The guy had left his drink untouched, so Emil pushed it toward me and told me to drink it. I picked up the glass, looked at it for a minute, and took a sip. It burned, and I coughed, splattering some on the table. Emil laughed and said something about it being my first time. I told him it was, and he told me to try it again. He said it would grow on me.”
“Did you try it again?”
Joe grinned sheepishly. “Yes, but it wasn’t any better that time than the first. I did manage to swallow a little, but I told Emil that I didn’t care for it and that I thought I’d go home.”
“I take it you didn’t,” Bo guessed.
“Actually, yes, I did leave the bar, but so did Emil. He followed me to my truck and said that if that stuff wasn’t to my liking, he had something better. I asked him what it was. He told me it was pot, and he said he knew I’d like it.”
“Did he sell you some right then?” Bo asked, his eyebrows creased.
“No, but he told me to follow him to his house, and he’d let me try some for free. So like the idiot I am, I followed him.”
“And he gave you a joint?” Bo asked.
“I smoked it in his house,” Joe admitted. “I guess I sort of liked the feeling it gave me, so he gave me some more but said I’d have to pay for it. I asked him how much, and he said a hundred dollars, so I bought it.”
“Did you leave then?” Bo asked.
“Not for a while. Me and Emil talked a little, and then he mentioned the guy that he’d been with in the bar. He told me I would do well to stay away from him.”
“Why did he want you to stay away from him?” Bo asked.
“He said the guy was dangerous, sold pot that was poor quality, and threatened people if they tried to find a new source. Emil claimed the guy came into the bar that night looking for him. I guess Emil must have sold some pot to a customer of this other guy, and he didn’t like that,” Joe explained.
“Did the other drug pusher threaten Emil?” Bo asked.
“Yeah, he did, at least according to Emil. He said the guy told him just before I came into the bar that if he ever sold to one of his customers again he’d kill him. Well, let’s see,” Joe said as he squinted thoughtfully. “No, he didn’t say that exactly. I think Emil said that the guy told him he’d need a burial plot in the graveyard if he did.”
“Sounds about the same to me,” Deputy Grizzel said.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Joe agreed. “Anyway, I told him I wouldn’t buy from the guy. Emil told me I’d better not.”
“Did Emil threaten you then?” Bo asked.
“No, but I got the message,” Joe said. “I was his customer now and had to stay that way. I left right after that.”
“Who was the other pusher? Did Emil ever tell you his name?”
Joe thought for a minute, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his chin. “I didn’t ever hear a last name, but I’m pretty sure the first name was Leonardo. I only remember that because that was the name of a character in a book I was reading at the time. Anyway, the guy approached me in the grocery store a few days later and told me he needed to talk to me. That made me nervous, but I agreed to meet him outside after I got my groceries.”
“So did you?”
“I didn’t want to, but he was waiting by my truck when I came out with my groceries. I asked him what he wanted, and he said something about how I should buy my pot from him because Emil was overpriced and had low-quality product.”
“Joe, had you bought more from Emil by that time?” Bo asked.
Joe lowered his eyes. “Yeah, I had.”
“Where did you meet Emil to buy more pot?” Bo asked.
“At his house in Price.”
“Could this Leonardo guy have seen you go to Emil’s house?”
“I suppose, but I don’t know.”
“Did you ever buy any from Leonardo?”
“Yeah, I did that day because the guy was pushy and scary. But it was only a couple of joints. I told him I didn’t want to buy more from him, and he told me I should think seriously about that.”
“He threatened you?” Bo asked.
“I guess, sort of. It felt like a threat. It wasn’t so much his words as his eyes and the way his voice sounded.”
“Did you ever buy more from him?” Bo asked.
“No.”
“Did you ever see or talk to him again?” Jim Grizzel said.
Joe looked at him and frowned. “Yes. He forced me to stop one day right after I left Emil’s house. That time he really did threaten me. He said I would wish I hadn’t gone to Emil’s place and that if he ever saw me there again, I’d wish I hadn’t. I guess he’d been watching Emil’s house or else how could he have known I’d been there?”
“That’s a good question. Joe, can you describe Leonardo to us?” Bo asked.
“Oh yeah, that’s easy,” Joe said. “He’s taller than me but probably not quite six feet. He’s pretty heavy.”
“As in fat or obese?” Bo asked.
“No, just big. He has big muscles and lots of tattoos on his arms and his neck. And I remember a scar on his cheek. His left cheek, I think.”
“Let me guess,” Bo said. “He has black hair, which he usually wears in a ponytail. His eyes are very dark, almost black. He has a flat nose.”
“Yeah, Emil says the nose is flat from being in fights,” Joe revealed. “Do you know him?”
“I’m afraid so. He’s a nasty actor. We’ve had him in jail a few times. He spent a couple years in prison a few years back.”
“I know he’s bad. When I went to Emil’s one time to buy some marijuana, Emil didn’t look so good.”
“Are you telling me you went back to Emil’s again after Leonardo threatened you?” Bo asked.
“I told Emil on the phone what had happened, and he said to ignore the guy, that he was all bluff. He didn’t look like bluff to me, but anyway, that one night, Emil had a black eye and bruises on his face. I asked him what happened, and he said that he’d had a run-in with Leonardo. I asked him what it was about, and he said that Leonardo accused him again of selling to some of his customers,” Joe explained.
“And did he admit that he had?” Bo asked.
“Yes, he did, but he said that one of them was me and another one was a guy he called Lucas, but he said that me and Lucas were both his customers, not Leonardo’s. He told me that he wasn’t afraid of Leonardo and that the next time he came around, the guy would be looking at his gun barrel.”
“He didn’t kill Emil; he just beat him up,” Jim said thoughtfully. “Sounds like he had it in for Emil. That doesn’t sound like someone who bluffs.”
“You sure picked some dangerous guys to buy pot from,” Bo said.
“I know. I wish I’d never gone in the bar that night. Trouble is, I thought I liked the stuff.”
“Where did Emil meet Leonardo’s so-called customer, the one he called Lucas, when he sold him some marijuana?” Bo asked.
“It wasn’t marijuana. He sold meth to Lucas,” Joe revealed.
“Whoa. So Emil dealt with the hard stuff too?” Jim asked.
“Yes, he and Leonardo both did. He tried to get me to try some heroin or meth, but I didn’t. In fact, I was thinking then that I needed to quit smoking pot and try to avoid those guys. I owed Emil some money, and I didn’t want to get in any deeper. Anyway, I was thinking that I didn’t need to use that stuff to be happy. I had my job at the farm, and I liked being around the animals. Plus, I had Herc and you and Rosina,” Joe said honestly.
“Joe, when did this happen, this fight between Emil and Leonardo Augur?” Bo asked.
“About two months ago, I think. Maybe it wasn’t quite that long ago.”
Bo looked at Jim. “I think we need to take a closer look at this Augur guy.”
“Do you think he killed Emil?” Joe asked in alarm.
“I’d say it’s possible, wouldn’t you?”
“But he doesn’t know where I live,” Joe said.
“Did Emil?” Bo asked.
“Yeah,” Joe said. “I was scared to go to his house to get more of the stuff after that day. He followed me home so he’d know where I live and started to bring pot to me there in the evenings. He was getting pushy, and that’s when I started to dislike the guy. But he kept giving me more pot than I could afford. He’d say he needed more money and then push more stuff on me.”
“I see,” Bo said.
“Yeah, and a few days before he was killed, he told me that I needed to pay up right away.”
“Did he threaten you then?” Bo asked.
“He just said that it would be best for me if I did. That’s all, but it was the way he looked at me. I can’t explain it, but I knew then that I needed to pay my debt to him and then refuse to let him give me more on credit.”
“Okay. So Leonardo Augur could have followed Emil there while you and I were fishing, killed Emil, and set you up.”
Joe felt a faint tremor and licked his lips nervously. “He must have watched Emil’s place other times too.”
“I was just thinking that same thing,” Bo said. “We’ll have a visit with him. He could be the one who left the notes too.”
“This makes me nervous,” Joe admitted.
“As well it should,” Bo said seriously. “You had better be careful. I don’t think you should stay here tonight.”
“I’ll see,” Joe said, but he intended to, even though he knew it wasn’t smart.
“We’ll see if we can figure out who Lucas is,” Bo said. “Can you think of any other people that Emil might have been selling to?”
“Well, yeah. I happened to go to Emil’s one night when there was another guy there. I could tell that they’d just made a deal,” Joe said.
“Tell us about him,” Bo said.
“Emil called him Bryan. He didn’t say a last name. Bryan seemed upset. I remember him saying something about Emil charging him too much. I think Emil told the guy that he was a businessman and had to make a profit.”
“Describe Bryan for us.”
“He is probably in his thirties. He’s a big guy, even bigger than Leonardo, but with less muscle,” Joe said. “He’s about the same height, probably around six feet. Let’s see . . . he wore a short scruffy beard the same color as his hair, which was brown, long, greasy, and messy. He was really dirty and smelled bad. I remember that. I’m pretty sure he had brown eyes. And he had kind of a round face.”
“That’s a pretty good description, Joe. Can you think of anything else about him that might help Jim and me find him?” Bo asked.
“Yeah, the way he talked. He had a lisp. He was a little hard to understand.”
Jim and Bo looked at each other. “That’s got to be Bryan Bayle,” Jim said decisively.
“You guys know him too?” Joe asked in surprise.
“Carbon County is not that big, Joe. We get to know most of the less upright citizens at some point,” Bo explained. “Can you think of anyone else who we might need to locate and speak with?”
“I’ve never seen the guy and I don’t know his name, but whoever Emil buys from had been putting pressure on him to pay up. Emil let that slip when he told me I had to pay him real soon.”
“But you have no idea who it is?” Bo asked.
“I’m pretty sure he isn’t from around here,” Joe said as his phone began to ring.
He excused himself and answered the second he saw the call was from Melia.
“Joe, I need help.”