“Thank goodness. That’s one less thing to worry about,” Glenn said when Joey called to let him know Nate had been found and was going to be alright. “Did he see the perp?”
“No. He said he glanced up from where he was standing in the street and saw something on the edge of the parapet that looked like a rifle barrel to him, just like we thought. He was going to sneak up the stairs to the roof to see who was there but the perp must have seen or heard him because he surprised Nate at the bottom of the stairs, hit him over the head and that’s the last he remembers until he came to in the basement. He tied him up ‘like a Christmas turkey’ according to Nate, and left him in the dark. He tried to get to his phone but couldn’t so he just lay there and hoped someone would find him before he starved to death.”
“Okay, so I’m still working blind.”
“Glenn, this isn’t your job. Now that we know Nate’s safe the chief’s got us all on the lookout for the man with the Ranchero. He’s sending some of the guys back to checking the rest of the vacant properties outside of town.”
“Joey, this is anyone’s job that has the skills and the know-how, and I’m one of them,” Glenn retorted.
“Yeah, but…”
“I’ll be fine.” He paused for a second. “You did good. I’m proud of you.” Before Joey could reply he hung up and then turned his phone off.
So either you’ve been in town for at least a few days, to know that house was empty at the moment, or you’re working for someone here in town. I’m betting it’s the former.
He wasn’t certain why he thought that, mostly instinct he figured. If the man had been around for a few days he’d have cased the area for a safe place to go to ground until he’d finished the job. Obviously he wasn’t staying at the house where he’d left Nate. From what Joey had said the cops went through the place and found nothing to say he’d done more than dump Nate there.
For sure you didn’t drive around after you took him looking for a vacant house. You headed straight there, got rid of him and then… Where did you hide the car? Not too far away I’m betting. It’s too distinctive. Why the hell did you...?
Glenn snapped his fingers. Stupid, stupid. Turning his phone on again he called Harv.
“You’ve got the in,” he said as soon as Harv answered. “You said you’d never seen the Ranchero before, but what if someone had it stashed away. You know, like working on it, or just some relic from their past?”
“Possible…” Harv replied slowly. “It’s more likely someone had it in their garage, just storing it. If they were working on it they’d have noticed it was missing. I’ll make a couple of calls and see what I come up with. You want me to tell Chief Leades what I’m doing?”
“No. I want the word to sort of leak out that I’m the one interested in the information, not the cops.”
“Hang on a second. You taking this on on your own?”
“Yes. My gut says this guy’s after me. I want to draw him to the house, not have him taking potshots at me here in town where other people might get hurt. If he knows I’m getting close, hopefully he’ll do his best to find out where I’m living.”
“What makes you think he doesn’t know already?”
“If he did he’d have already shown up there. I suspect whoever sent him knows my general location but that’s it. Our perp could have been in and out of a lot of the towns around here before he hit on this one. Chances are he got lucky and saw me when I came into town a couple of days ago and now he’s winging it more or less.”
“Joey’s going to kill you when he finds out you’re going all ‘lone wolf’ on this.”
“Hopefully he won’t know until after it’s over.”
“Right,” Harv said with a small chuckle. “Okay, I send out feelers and make it unobviously obvious you’re behind them.”
“Thanks, Harv.”
Now I have to figure out how to get Joey out of the house long enough to make this work. And that is going to be the biggest problem of all.
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