The Blight Way (15 page)

“Dope fiends! It's been a long time since I've heard that term.”

“It's one of my favorites.”

“So you're also an artist?”

“Yes. Actually, I like to think of myself as an artist working as a sheriff.” He took a sip of his water. One thing about Blight City, it still had good water.

“That seems reasonable,” Susan said. “So what kind of artist are you?”

“Painter,” Tully said. “Oils and watercolors.” He didn't like to discuss his art, particularly on a first date.

“The folks around Blight must be pretty impressed at having a sheriff who paints.”

“I wouldn't say that. I get a chance, I head up along the West Branch with my watercolors. Sometimes when I can get away, I'll camp out up there for a week and do nothing but fish and paint.”

“Sounds nice.”

A waitress came to take their drink orders. Tully ordered a bottle of white merlot. “You want anything?” he asked Susan.

She laughed. “I think I'll just drink some of your merlot.”

“Two glasses then,” he told the waitress.

“Vern Littlefield,” he went on, “is apparently switching from cows to grapes. We may soon have our own Blight County Winery.”

“Sounds like a step in the right direction,” Susan said.

A waiter came and permitted them to order dinner. Susan ordered the catfish with garlic mashed potatoes. Tully said, “Same for me.” They both took the salad bar. When they returned from the salad bar, Susan dipped a carrot stick in a pool of ranch dressing and munched it daintily, her brow furrowing up with a question. “So what's the plan?”

“Plan?” Tully said.

“Your plan. Everybody should have a plan. Like, do you plan to be a sheriff forever or are you going to be an artist?”

Tully laughed. “It may surprise you to learn that most of the folks in Blight County don't have a plan. It never occurs to them not to stay right here doing what they do or don't do forever and never to change if they can help it.”

“Does that include you?”

“I don't know. I like sheriffing and I like painting. I suppose if I became famous, I mean
when
I become famous, I might move somewhere else, but it's very, very
hard to become famous in Blight County. Folks here are pretty much denied their fifteen minutes of fame.”

“Well, do you ever sell your paintings or do you just keep them piled up in a back room? Or on the walls of the courthouse?”

Tully munched a piece of his catfish. “One thing about Charlie Crabb, he knows how to cook catfish. How's yours?”

“Lovely. But I asked if you ever sell your paintings?”

“Yes, I do. Every year I sell a few more. There's a gallery in L.A. that sells two or three a year. One of these days, the gallery is going to give me a one-man show. Every year I go down to L.A. for a week or so and hobnob around the art circles. The owner of the gallery introduces me to the L.A. arty folk, who seem to find it amusing that the sheriff of a little Idaho county is also a painter. Maybe one day I'll give up sheriffing and paint full time, if I can find a rich woman to support me. By the way, Susan, are you rich?”

“Nope. Sorry. My folks are pretty well off, though. They sent me to Stanford, where I majored in chemistry. Then I went to medical school, where I specialized in forensic medicine. And here I am.”

“How about your plan?

“If I can find a rich man to support me, maybe I'll stay home and fuss about in my garden. Right now, I don't have either a home or a garden, or for that matter a rich man to support me.”

“Sounds like a pretty sad situation to me,” Tully said.

“You don't happen to be rich, do you?” Susan said.

“Afraid not. But I do have hopes of someday discovering a nice little gold mine.”

Susan laughed. “Be sure to look me up as soon as you find it.”

Tully thought this was the perfect moment to try out his warm look. He leaned forward and gave it his best shot.

Susan looked startled. “Are you all right, Bo? Are you sick?”

Tully instantly shut off his warm look. “I'm fine, I'm fine. Just caught something in my throat.”

“You looked terrible there for a second. I thought you were going to erp all over the table.”

Chapter 24

Tully got into the office at eight sharp. He was carrying a paper sack.

For once there was some hot coffee and a couple of fresh doughnuts. He answered a few questions and issued some orders to his deputies before they headed out on assignments. He glanced over at the corner of the briefing room, but Lurch was out. Herb Eliot came over and stood in the sheriff's office doorway while Tully checked the window for flies. A couple of mediums were up near the top of the glass. Tully popped one of them, caught it with the swatter in mid-fall and rolled it out on the sill. He stood his finger on the sill. Two sharp raps with the handle of the swatter brought Wallace scurrying out. He stopped in front of the finger. Tully examined him. He looked a little peaked.

“Daisy, you been feeding my spider?”

“Yes,” she yelled back. “I fed him, didn't I, Herb?”

“Is that right, Herb? You wouldn't lie to me now,
just to protect a pretty girl from a serious spanking, would you?”

“Hmmm. Would I get to watch the spanking, Sheriff?”

“That could be arranged.”

“Tell the truth, Herb!” Daisy said.

“Darn it all to heck, Sheriff, she did feed your spider.”

“You could spank me anyway,” Daisy said.

Tully laughed and raised his finger. Wallace raced in, grabbed the fly and hauled it back into his den behind the filing cabinet.

“So how was Batim country?” Eliot asked.

“Pretty bad, actually. A bit too much killing, even for Pap.”

“That bad, hunh? Well, we've certainly been mobbed by the press about the murders.”

“Mobbed! Really?”

“Three newspaper reporters, plus Barney from the
Blight Bugle
. A Spokane television station sent down a photographer and a reporter, a girl. I gave her an interview. Hope that was okay.”

“He did really good, Bo,” Daisy said.

“You mention to the reporters how long before you had the murders solved?” Tully asked.

“I probably did,” Eliot said. “Actually, I was so nervous I can't remember what I told them. Maybe I said I had already solved them.”

“What did you look like on TV?”

“We don't get that channel down here, but I must have looked pretty good. How could I not? So, did the
Scraggs have anything to do with that mess up in Famine?”

“Don't know. It's possible. Which reminds me, first, call the LAPD and see if they've got anything on our three vics. When you get around to it, find somebody who can tell you what the average snowfall has been for, say, the last five years.”

“Will do. You worried about that Cliff kid?”

“Who?”

“The Cliff kid. Ran off to the mountains again. Probably already got quite a bit of snow up where he's hiding out.”

“Yeah, well, I can find him anytime I want. Right now I've got other stuff to worry about. Where did they put that car the wrecker hauled in from the Last Hope Mine Road?”

“The city garage. Nobody knew what to do with it, so I said put it there.”

“Good enough. Lurch go over it anymore?”

“Yeah, he's over there right now. I think he's running some experiment you wanted him to do.”

Tully set the paper sack on his desk. “Good. I'm heading back up to Famine. When Lurch gets in, have him check the stuff in the sack for prints. There's also some samples there that need to go to the crime lab for DNA analysis. I've got them all marked, but Lurch will know which is which.”

“You got it.”

“Daisy, call Pap and tell him we're going to head back up to Famine. I'll pick him up in about an hour. Exactly one hour.”

“Okay, but I don't think he likes me very much.”

“Don't worry about that. His bite is a good deal worse than his bark. Just don't let him get close enough to bite.”

“You want him armed?”

“He's always armed, sweetheart. It was foolish of me to think differently.”

Chapter 25

Tully walked over to the medical examiner's office. Susan was sitting at a large wooden table looking over some photographs. He avoided looking at the photographs, just in case he decided to have a late breakfast. He walked up behind her and touched her on the shoulder. She jumped.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

“These murders have got me jumpy, I guess. What brings you over here?” she asked.

Tully was still a little embarrassed from his failed attempt at a warm look. “So what have we got now?”

“I'm not sure how interesting it is. About the same as I told you on the phone. Holt was killed by two two-twenty-three-caliber bullets, both from the back. The bullets had exploding tips, but the base on each was in good shape, good enough to be matched to a rifle. The shooter was pretty good. He knew what he was doing.”

“How about time of death for Holt?”

“Really hard to be accurate about that, but we can pin it to about a half hour after the shooting at the car.”

“Any of the slugs in the bodies at the car in good enough shape that we can get a positive identification of the guns that fired them?”

“No, the car door messed them up too much.”

“That's okay, we have the shell casings. Now all we have to do is find the guns in possession of whoever did the shooting.”

“Got any idea who that might be?”

“Not a smidgen. In any case, Pap and I and Buck are headed back up to Famine today. There's something very strange going on up there. You want to come?”

“I'd love to, but I'm totally beat. Besides, I've got to find an apartment or some other place to live.”

Tully wondered to himself if she was hinting that she move in with him.

“No,” she said. “I wasn't hinting that.”

He had to remember to stop tugging on his mustache while he had deep thoughts in front of perceptive women.

Chapter 26

Pap was sitting in the rocker on his front porch when Tully pulled up. He had his pack and his cooler alongside him. The old man must have had enough of the cold, because he was wearing his old red mackinaw, black wool pants and a black wool watch cap. Tully was pretty sure he also had his red long johns on.

After once again going through the business with the seat belt, and Tully fastening it for him, Pap got himself settled into the Explorer and started making himself a cigarette. Tully no longer bothered to complain.

“You got it all figured out?” Pap said.

“Making some headway. One way or another, Vern Littlefield is involved. But maybe he's just another victim.”

“You don't think he's the fourth man?”

“He could be. Here we have these three guys from L.A. letting themselves be steered up the Last Hope Mine Road in the middle of the night. Why? It must be that they were going to be shown something. Or at least
thought they were. It's pretty clear they were being lured out to that road on some pretext, and that the ambushers were waiting for them.”