Between Two Promises (28 page)

He shouted louder, his neck stretching with each pronunciation of Kevin’s name.

Daniel’s head reeled. Who and what was he dealing with?

Despite the uncertainties, one thing was clear: Aiden, wherever he was, was scared and alone. And Kevin Hassler, who had said he’d dropped Aiden off at Champaign’s airport, was responsible.

He was about to leave and head to Kevin’s home outside of town when the middle-aged man’s figure appeared through the blurry window. Kevin looked to be scurrying for his desk and reaching for a phone. He was on the verge of dialing when Daniel’s face appearing in the window froze him.

Daniel tore one of his hook-and-eyes off his shirt, elongated the fastener, and used it to pry open the lock. He flung open the door, nearly tearing the heavy chrome frame off its hinges. Kevin set down the receiver and edged toward the back room.

Little doubt now. The lid on the shoebox, filled with the labels Kevin Hassler had printed for his mother, with the same handwriting as the threats, including the most recent from the Harvest Sunrise Inn. Kevin had been the one behind them all. Guilt stained his entire trembling face.

“Why did you do it? Why did you threaten Aiden?” Daniel whispered.

From the start he detected Kevin had been drinking. Drinking heavily. Daniel smelled the bourbon everywhere. The stench hit him like a blast from a hose. He winced, pushed aside the irritation.

Kevin stumbled. He pulled himself up by the printer stand and inched backward like a frightened hound.

“Stay… stay away from me,” he said.

“Why? Why?” Daniel pushed back a swivel chair and shoved aside the two desks as if they were made of plasterboard instead of sturdy medal. “Why did you want to frighten Aiden?”

“Frighten? What do you mean?” Kevin’s voice was high-pitched, his gray lips twitching.

“You know what I’m talking about. Don’t play games with me, Kevin Hassler.”

“What… what games?” His glasses teetered from his nose. He straightened them. Daniel wanted to knock them off his pale, treacherous face.

“I want to know. Why did you do it?” he said again.

“I… I haven’t done anything.”

“That’s a lie. I know you wrote those threatening messages. I know all about it. You can’t lie to me. You probably even tossed that pumpkin at his house last year.”

“I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now keep back.”

“Do you know where he’s run off to? Do you?”

“I already told you on the phone, I dropped him off at Willard Airport, I even helped him inside with his bags. I don’t know where he flew to.”

“His bags? He only had one.”

“Well, you know what I mean. It’s just an expression.”

Like the snowmelt gathering at his boots, everything fell into place. Certainty no longer eluded him. The gnawing visions haunting his mind were real. It was far more horrific than what he had assumed. Kevin Hassler had done something to Aiden.

“Have you put your dirty clutches on him, Kevin Hassler, have you?”

Daniel kicked aside a wastebasket, spilling its contents, and stepped closer to Kevin, mere inches from his quivering face.

“I haven’t done anything to him.” Kevin sniveled. “Please, I didn’t do anything.”

“Tell me where he is—now.”

“I don’t know, I swear.”

“Your swears mean nothing to me.” The rage boiled up in Daniel, steaming the inside of his heavy jacket. He never recalled experiencing so much hatred, so much fury, toward one human.

Daniel seized him by his shirt collar. Kevin’s breath was sour and rancid with booze. Badly, he wanted to strike him. Kevin was a revolting man. He’d never liked him, never trusted him. Now, he knew why. Yet years of being taught pacifism made doing what he yearned to do, what seemed to be welling from the pit of his stomach, impossible. He had never struck another human being in his life. His upbringing won. Daniel released Kevin’s collar and eased off. Kevin slumped over the printer stand.

Suddenly Kevin heaved out his stomach and sputtered daring words, as if Daniel’s backing off was a victory for him.

“I know about all your secrets, Daniel Schrock,” he said, smirking up at him from his exaggerated stance. “I know about you and Aiden. Wouldn’t it be something if everyone else learned the truth, huh? How would you like that? I’m a newspaperman. I can tell everyone anything I want. I can even fudge the truth some, how would you like that? How would you like it if I printed everything Aiden found during his investigation, but instead of pointing the finger at the Reverend Yoder, I indict you? I can do that, you know? I’m a newspaper man. Watch how fast the community believes it. People believe anything they read. All they have to do is see it in print, and it’s as good as God speaking to them. And when they find out you’re a queer, they’ll convict you without thinking twice. Your life will be over. You’ll never see your family again.”

Daniel battled against using every ounce of his masculine strength to overtake the little man. His threats of blackmail meant nothing to Daniel. He despised him more than the devil.

Holding back his fury, he dashed from the office and unhitched Gertrude, shouting for her to get moving even before he hopped in the buggy and grabbed for the reins. This time Daniel ignored the English traffic lights. He had Gertrude galloping off in such a hurry her forelegs nearly brushed her hip straps.

Her shoes kicked up chunks of snow at the buggy’s window. Instinctively, Daniel switched on the battery-operated windshield wipers. Despite being out most of the day with Samuel and the recent gallop into town, Gertrude raced down the snowy lanes like a champ, but when Daniel steered her down one lane, she hesitated. She was confused. She had never been down this part of the county before.

“Get, girl, get!” Daniel jerked the reins, near standing in the buggy.

She seemed to sense her driver’s urgency and pushed through the wall of cold. Thick shots of steam curled from her flailing nostrils. Daniel encouraged her faster.

For an instant, he pictured Aiden dimly in his mind, standing like a statue with an arm raised, as if to wave goodbye. The vision was strange, but it raced by him as fast as the snow-covered trees and white picket fences of the farmhouses.

He must call 911 to have the police arrest Kevin. Whatever had happened, whatever connection Kevin might have to Aiden’s disappearance and the threats, the police would help find answers. And help find Aiden and put an end to the agony that had stalked them both for more than a year.

He reached into his jacket. Switching the reins from hand to hand, he groped around inside the pockets. Frustrated, he shoved his hands into his pants pockets. Where was that boogered cell phone?

In a flash, he visualized the phone sitting where he had last left it. On the night table, back in David’s bedroom. Chastising himself for leaving it behind and for needing modern technology, he grabbed the reins with both hands and shouted Gertrude onward with more force in his voice. He squeezed the reins so tight his nails dug into his palms.

They came to an impasse. The buggy skidded to the side, spewing a wave of snow and gravel. He jerked Gertrude to turn around. Kevin lived down one of these streets. But which one? They all looked alike.

Tire tracks from buggies and a few English vehicles cut into the snow-covered lane. He was certain one of the tire tracks belonged to Kevin’s sturdy Buick. They were fatter and deeper than the other two tracks. Few English lived in that part of the county.

He urged Gertrude onward, keeping a sharp eye on the fat tire tracks he figured must belong to Kevin. He passed a slow-moving automobile, something he had never done before while driving a buggy. He worried for a moment he was following the wrong trail, but he realized the Honda Accord had tires almost as trim as a buggy’s.

Down another bend, another lane, panting, wheezing, snow-packed gravel spitting up from Gertrude’s hooves and the buggy’s wheels. Finally, Kevin’s farmhouse lay ahead. He recognized the newspaperman’s small green barn, the only barn he’d ever seen painted such an absurd color.

He steered Gertrude into the driveway. After setting the brake, he grabbed a woolen horse blanket from the back and draped it over the mare’s lathered midsection, steaming from the strenuous gallop. A knot tightened his throat. He looked around for Kevin’s Buick. Two separate tire tracks crisscrossed halfway up the driveway from cars pulling in and out. Both tracks he recognized from the lane coming off the main thoroughfare. The slimmer pair of tracks looked fresh. He ran his bare finger along the imprints. He was unsure, but he thought he could detect a slight whiff of unleaded gasoline.

Glancing around, he suppressed disgust at the farm’s decay. Even with the snow covering the small field, clearly no one had cultivated the land in many years. Tawny cocklebur and other weeds pushed through the snow. Kevin lived there merely to have space, space he didn’t even use as God intended. Death permeated that fallow field.

Something compelled him to step to the broken-down wooden fence and gaze over the snow-blanketed field. What was he looking for? Deer tracks crossed the snow. In the distance, a buck that had survived the hunting season fed on the cocklebur. The buck paused and looked up, peering at Daniel across the field.

Shaken, Daniel jerked himself into action and jogged to Kevin’s detached garage. Rattling open the overhead door, he was relieved to discover it unlocked and subsequently empty of any cars. After a careful scrutiny inside and finding nothing curious, he hurried to the small green barn.

Snowdrifts pushed against the swing door. No one had opened the barn door in a day or two. Smooth human prints and elongated grooves indicated someone had been stomping by the door before the latest snowfall. He cleared a snow path with his boots and bare hands. Clenching his fists by his sides, he kicked open the door. He was even more disgusted than before. Like the neglected field, the dim barn was in total disarray, hardly used for any purpose. The smell of livestock had long faded. Only the fetid odor of decay remained.

Hay piles rotted in a corner near the old stalls, most likely left from the previous owners before Kevin had bought the place ten years ago, after he’d moved back to his hometown from Indianapolis. Allegedly to flee from big city corruption. Daniel kicked aside the old farming tools and decomposed oats oozing from equally decayed canvas sacks. A rabbit hutch lay in tatters in a heap of lumber. Rusty modern farming equipment in various states of disrepair was scattered across the battered ground. Snow fell from the tattered roof.

Rustling in the rafters overhead spooked him. He looked up, his heart sputtering. Nothing but a flock of nesting ravens. He noticed a huge spider web in a corner of the loft glinting in the fading daylight. Egg sacs, heavy with larva, were waiting to release thousands of spiderlings in the spring. Dismayed by the rot, he squeezed his eyes to adjust to the dimming light. He knew searching for a usable light switch would be pointless.

He had no idea what he was looking for. Clues? Anything to help him sort out what might’ve happened to Aiden. His thoughts were as disorganized as inside the barn. He should probably find a way inside Kevin’s house, at least use the phone to call the police. Kevin was likely close on his trail.

The moment he was about to turn for the house, something from the fetid, loose pile of hay snatched his attention. He cocked his head and, yanking on his beard, edged closer.

A strange color materialized from inside the pile, unlike what hay should look like, even in its most decomposed state. It was greenish, maybe blue, in color. A manmade color. Nothing God or nature would have created that would hide itself in a pile of rancid hay in the midst of winter.

Dropping to his knees, he dug through the pile. Immediately he hit something hard and rounded. Grabbing onto it, he pulled it from the pile. Why should someone want to bury a new-looking snow shovel? A dried brownish stain near the blunt end perplexed him. He set the shovel aside and dug through more hay toward the strange green-blue color.

Damp, smelly hay flew into the air like the stalks from a threshing machine. The ravens squawked overhead. Sweat flowed from his pores despite the cold. His breath came in shots of steam.

He froze. He could hardly believe his eyes. No accounting for the horror wrenching up in his chest.

Vomit near raced into his throat.

His hands trembled unrecognizably, as if they were touching death itself.

Slowly, he dragged from the pile of hay a duffel bag. A black duffel bag with an annoying turquoise stripe. Aiden’s duffel bag.

Chapter Twenty-Five

H
IS
instincts had been right. Kevin Hassler had not taken Aiden to the airport. The newspaperman had brought him to his home—against Aiden’s will. He had done something horrible to him and had aimed to cover his tracks.

Daniel stared at the duffel bag, as if he were gazing upon Aiden himself. He wanted to look inside, yet he hesitated.

A horrible odor pushed him back, nearly onto his haunches. The odor was unmistakable. The stink of death. Decomposing flesh. He had smelled that stench many times, growing up on a farm. An overpowering rancid odor of the animals that had died overnight, or from one of the many deer in the area that lay struck on the side of the roads from Englishers’ vehicles.