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Letty thought:this is something: “Yes, we did.”
“That man you were looking for, in the Subaru? He drove past me a little while ago. Maybe twenty minutes, or a little more? I didn’t think to call until I was sitting here eating my eggs. I was out in the garden when I saw him. I’m almost sure it was him, though he changed his Subaru for an old Chevy truck. I think he was headed for Joe’s house.”
“Oh my God. Listen to me carefully,” Letty said. “You may have seen on television the situation in Taos?”
“I saw something…”
“This is the man we are hunting for. He is incredibly dangerous,” Letty said. “He will kill you if he thinks you recognized him. Stay in the house, lock the doors. A whole bunch of police cars will be therein a few minutes. They may ask you to ride with them to show them where Joe’s house is at.”
“I will lock the doors and wait for them,” Oaks said. “I have a gun and I know how to use it.”
“When the police come, don’t go out with the gun,” Letty told her. “Don’t let them see a gun. Just go out and wave at them. You have a red roof…”
“Yes. I will wait.”
Letty never considered going to Lamy: too far away, an hour or more. She called the state police commander, told him what Oaks had said. He said, “Wait one.”
She waited more than one—more like five. The commander came back and said, “We’re sending everything we got within range. We have an officer there, Duane Rogers, and he’s not responding, but GPS says his car’s still in the yard there.”
“Then he may be in trouble. The best way there…” She told him the best route to Cross’s house, and about the old lady with the red roof who could show them the shortest way in. He said, “Our first car is fifteen minutes out. We’re running without sirens. If something happened to Duane…”
—
Letty called Cartwright,got her up, and called Hawkins back from his scouting trip, told him what had happened. “It’s five minutes or so from Oaks’s house to Cross’s. That means if it’s Scott, he was there twenty minutes ago. If he…took out the cop…and is making a run for it, it’s an hour from Cross’s house to here. He’d be here in forty minutes or so.”
“What’s he driving?”
Letty shrugged: “Don’t know. Maybe an old Chevy truck.”
Hawkins: “He’ll run into the police on his way out, won’t he?”
Letty said, “I don’t know. He might have to go by Oaks’s house again.”
“Call her,” Cartwright said.
Letty called Oaks, who picked up on the first ring. “The police are on the way,” Letty said. “It’s possible that Scott will come back out past your place. If he does, don’t let him see you at the window, but call me and tell me if he’s still driving that truck. Tell me anything else you know about it.”
“Old, it’s dark, maybe dark brown but I don’t think black, could have been old dark blue…I’m locked in and I’ve been peeking out the window since we talked, and he hasn’t gone by. He could have gone by while I was eating breakfast. There is a back way out from Joe’s house, a shortcut to the highway…”
Letty was looking at it on her iPad. “I’ll call and tell the police about it,” she said. “They’re coming fast, should be there in ten minutes or less.”
She called the police commander and told him what Oaks had said, and he promised to pass it along to the converging cop cars. “Still no answer from Duane,” he said.
Letty hung up and said to Hawkins and Cartwright, “I’ve got a feeling that Duane won’t be answering. Ever.”
Twenty minutes passed and the state police commander called and said, “We’re there, and so is Duane’s car, but there’s no sign of Duane or Scott, either one. We’re gonna start walking the place.”
“What about that dark truck?”
“That’s still there. It’s possible that he saw us coming and took off on foot.”
“When we were out there, Cross’s Jeep was still in the garage. I don’t think anybody moved it—is it still there?”
“Wait one.”
This time, Letty didn’t wait one, or five, but more like ten. The commander came back: “Duane’s dead, shot in the head. Found his body out in back of the house. He’s got a wife and two kids.”
“Jeez, I’m so sorry,” Letty said. “This guy, he’s a maniac. If you see him, kill him.”
