The Blight Way (27 page)

“No, we got it covered,” Tully shouted back at him. “Keep guarding the entrance.”

He grabbed a rifle and handed it to Pap, who threw his shotgun on the ground. Tully grabbed a portable spotlight and a portable bullhorn out of the Explorer.

The three of them ran down over the bank toward the reservoir. When they came to where the rock walls
dropped sharply down into the canyon, they stopped and sat down. The water was low, far down on the dam.

Pap was wheezing. “Okay if I build myself a smoke?”

“Go ahead,” Tully said. “If you can build it and still hold a rifle.”

“Sure. I could roll a cigarette paper with my toes if I had to.”

It seemed colder close to the reservoir, particularly after the warmth of the mine. Tully turned up the collar on his jacket.

“Just exactly what are we supposed to be looking for?” Dave said.

“If I'm not mistaken,” Tully said, “any minute now three or four men are going to come paddling a rubber raft out from the side of this cliff. Or maybe they'll have a motor on it.”

“A raft?” Dave said. “How do they get through a rock wall?”

“I guess what happened was, when the dam was put in, the pressure of the water backing up must have burst through the rock into a lower tunnel of the mine. It would have hollowed out kind of a cave. During the spring and summer, when the dam's full, the cave would be underwater. But this time of year, after the summer drought, the lake drops down to the cave level and they can run a boat or raft back in there.”

Pap said, “I kind of remember that blowout now. I think there was even something in the paper about it.” He blew a stream of smoke out into the cold night air. Tully shuddered. For a moment, a cigarette seemed almost appealing. Pap was a bad influence.

“They probably got a dock and everything back in that cave,” Dave said. “Pretty slick.”

“It is,” Tully said. “I suspect they have the dock right below the shaft that goes to the lower level. Then all they have to do is winch the bales of marijuana down to the dock and load them onto a boat or raft.”

Pap said, “This probably explains the scuba gear at the hotel, too. When the water's too high for a boat or raft, a couple of fellas in scuba outfits can drag the bales out underwater.”

“Sounds about right to me,” Tully said.

He motioned for silence. There had been an increase in watery sounds coming up from below. The three men leaned forward so that they could see better over the rock edge.

Then, as if by magic, a large rubber raft suddenly emerged from the side of the cliff. Tully hit it with a beam from the spotlight. Three men were in the raft, two in front paddling and one in back. The one in back held a weapon of some kind.

Tully handed the bullhorn to Pap.

“Pap Tully speaking.” His voice boomed up and down the canyon. “The first quick move you fellas make will be your last. You there in the back, very slow and careful, lay that weapon in the bottom of the raft.”

The man swung his weapon up toward the sound of Pap's voice.

Lem Scragg yelled from the front of the raft, “Throw down that gun, you fool, or he'll kill us all!”

The man with the weapon threw it to the floor of the raft.

“Shucks,” Pap said. “It's a terrible thing when a man gets such a reputation.”

“I know how disappointed you are,” Tully said, taking back the bullhorn.

“Okay, now,” he boomed through it, “I want you fellows to paddle up to where the road cuts down to the reservoir. And don't even accidentally touch a gun with so much as your toe, because you won't hear the shot that kills you.”

The men started paddling.

“You okay, Pap?” Tully asked.

“I'm great, Bo. If this is still my birthday party, it's the best I ever had!”

“I'm glad. Consider it a thoughtful gift. As opposed to an expensive one. Now, can you walk along the road and keep these guys covered?”

“You bet.”

“In that case, Dave and I will go get some vehicles and meet you down there.”

Two Idaho State Police cruisers followed them down the road to the water. The ISP guys took the men out of the raft and cuffed them. As Tully expected, two of the men were the same two he had met at Littlefield's ranch, Robert Mitchell and Harry Kincaid. The man who had swung the weapon up at them had been Kincaid.

The State Police loaded the Littlefield crew into their vehicles. Tully carefully collected two Uzis from the bottom of the raft. He was pretty sure both guns would contain the fingerprints of Mitchell and Kincaid. The guns would match the casings used in the killings at the car.

Tully handcuffed Lem and put him in the back of his Explorer. He drove back to the parking lot at the new tunnel entrance. His deputies had all the workers out of the mine and standing in the parking lot. Some of the women were still crying. Tully felt sorry for them.

Ernie Thorpe walked over to the Explorer. “They all had ID of some kind, Bo. You count a library card as ID, don't you?”

“It's one of the best, Ernie. Load them all onto the bus and take them to their homes. We don't have room in the jail for practically a whole town. I doubt they'll be running off.”

Ernie told the group they were going back to their homes in Famine. Some of the women stopped crying, but otherwise the announcement didn't provoke any outburst of joy. That's the problem with arresting folks who live in Famine, Tully thought.

Ernie brought Lister over and put him in the back seat of Tully's Explorer with Lem. One of the medics had bandaged up the rock cuts on his head. The top of his shirt was dark with blood and he still seemed a bit dazed.

Tully told Herb to escort the man in the earflap cap back to jail. “I'll talk to him in the morning.”

He drove down the Last Hope Mine Road to the spot the berm had once occupied. Tully parked the car in nearly the same place where the Jeep Grand Cherokee had been shot up.

“Here's the way I think the shooting went down,” Tully said. “I figure you and Lister were the shooters. One of you stood over there and the other one stood
there. The Jeep comes up and stops at the berm. You spray automatic fire into the front seat, Lem.”

“Close, but not close enough,” Lem said.

“Lister has to wait,” Tully went on, “because the guy who is setting them up is sitting on the right in the back seat. This guy opens the door and rolls out of the car. Lister then blasts the back seat. But because Lister hesitated, the guy in the left back seat, Holt, manages to get out. He's shooting wildly and manages to hit someone standing back in the woods. Holt then takes off running and is tracked down and shot by either you or Lister.”

Lister shook his head, very gently, as if he had a terrible headache. Lem laughed.

“That is a remarkable piece of crime deduction,” Lem said. “Basically, you got it right. But there are a couple of things wrong with it. First of all, Lister and me weren't the shooters.”

“Easy for you to say,” Tully said.

“I ain't going down for no murders,” Lister whined.

“We were home that night,” Lem went on. “But we knew all about the setup, okay? If we'd tried to stop it, they would have shot us. Not that we had any such foolish intention. Right, Lister?”

“Right.”

“All you got to do is check the fingerprints on the Uzis in the boat,” Lem said. “The only prints you find on them will be those of the guys that used them, Mitchell and Kincaid. They wouldn't let anybody else touch those guns, not even Lucas. The bullets in the bodies will match up with the Uzis.”

Lem was almost cordial, giving the impression his whole purpose in life was to ingratiate himself with the sheriff. Thank goodness for sociopaths, Tully thought.

“Lucas?” he said. “You mean the guy in the earflap cap who sometimes works at the gas station for Ed Grange?”

“I don't know if ‘work' is the right word. But Lucas Kincaid is one mean guy. Even Bob and Harry are scared of him.”

“Lucas Kincaid?”

“Yeah, he's Harry's old man. He's a terrific tracker.”

“He's the guy who tracked down Holt and killed him?” Tully said.

“He's the one. He did a lot of trapping, shooting coyotes for their pelts, that sort of stuff, until Grange started paying him a lot better money.”

“So Mitchell and Harry Kincaid handle the marketing?”

“Mitchell does, anyway. I think Harry mostly kills people.”

“So who shot Buck?”

“Lucas Kincaid. Shot him with his coyote gun. I think it's a two-twenty-three. The guy you found dead over Dad's fence emptied his gun and then threw it away. Lucas found it. It's a nice pearl-handled forty-five.”

“We've already got it and the coyote gun. So who was the guy standing back in the woods?”

“Guess,” said Lem.

“Vern Littlefield,” Tully said.

“You got it! I don't think anybody knew he was
standing back in there. He apparently snuck out to see for himself how this thing was going to go down. They found him after the shooting.”

“What did you do with the body?”

“We, me and Lister, didn't do anything with the body. We weren't there. I think Harry and his dad hauled it away. But there are a lot of prospect holes around. Be tough to find the one they dropped Vern into. And a whole lot tougher to get him out.”

“Littlefield's vehicle would have still been at the mine,” Tully said.

“Yeah, Mitchell called me early the next morning and said I'd probably find Vern's truck parked up there. He told me to drive it up to Vern's hunting camp and leave it there. Lister picked me up at the camp.”

“The idea, I suppose, was everyone would think Vern got himself lost in the mountains hunting elk?” Tully said.

“Right.”

“So your footprints will match the casts my CSI unit made of the tracks going up the mine road?”

“Yeah. Hey, what do you mean, CSI unit? You have a CSI unit?”

“One of the best,” Tully said. “So who was the guy in the right rear seat who set all this up?”

“You're not going to believe this,” Lem said.

“Ed Grange,” Tully said. “Ed of Ed's Gas-N-Grub.”

“You're right! How did you guess that?”

“Just lucky,” Tully said. “Got him in jail already.”

“Yeah, Ed ran the whole local operation. Littlefield put up the money, Bob and Harry flew the weed south.

You think the judge will go easy on me and Lister if we testify against them?”

“You never can tell. You and Lister aren't exactly the best witnesses in the world.”

“Who else you got?”

“Good point. Okay, a couple more questions, Lem. Lucas Kincaid shot Buck, right?”

“Yeah, it was Lucas. You check out his rifles, you'll find the one used on Buck.”

“I know. But who gave the order, Ed Grange?”

“I don't think Ed orders Lucas around, but he probably told him it would be a good idea for him to kill you. I imagine Kincaid took it from there.”

“Did Lucas think he was shooting at me?” Tully asked.

“Yeah, Ed was mighty upset when he found out Lucas had hit Buck instead. He likes Buck. Anyway, I guess you gave Ed the impression you had this whole mess pretty well figured out.”

Tully tugged on the corner of his mustache. “Yeah, I must have let that slip out. We won't have much trouble proving it was Littlefield killed back in the woods. The DNA from the pool of blood in the woods will match the DNA on the hairs from Vern's hairbrush. Apparently Lucas doesn't watch much TV. Otherwise, he'd know about shell casings and that the ejection and firing-pin marks on them are as individual as finger-prints.”

“He probably doesn't even have a TV set,” Lem said. “He lives so far back in the woods the sun don't shine there. But you sure don't want him on your trail.”

“How about Cindy Littlefield? Was she in on this little caper?”

“Naw. She found out what was going on and apparently didn't like it. Mitchell was afraid the ranch hands might stumble on to something, too, and blab about it. So he fired them. But he couldn't fire Cindy. That's why Dana Cassidy was brought in from L.A., to keep an eye on her. Even before that, they hardly ever left her alone. If Mitchell went somewhere, he took her with him. I figure she had a date with a prospect hole herself.”

“No doubt. By the way, Lem, what were you doing that night at the hotel?”

“What hotel?”

“Littlefield's old hotel on his ranch. The night after the killings.”

“I've never been in that old hotel. For one thing, I hear it's haunted.”

“Haunted!” cried Lister. “Nobody ever told me that!”

“A really stupid person may have been poking around there,” Lem said. “But I have no idea who it might have been.”

“I ain't stupid!” Lister said.

“I rest my case,” Lem said.

“So, Lister, exactly what was your reason for being in the hotel?”

“Wasn't nothing, really. I just wanted to have a look at the pearl-handled forty-five that Holt fellow dropped. I was curious about it is all. Didn't plan on stealing it or anything. But the door was locked.”

“Good thing you were just curious. Otherwise, you might be facing a murder rap for killing Littlefield.”

“You think I didn't know that? But listen, the guy you should be arresting is the pervert hanging out in that hotel!”

“Pervert?” Pap said.

“Forget it,” Tully said. “Now, Lem, here's the Sixty-Four-Thousand-Dollar Question. What was the reason Holt and the other two guys from L.A. were set up?”

“That's pretty obvious, don't you think? They were making so much money wholesaling and retailing the weed in L.A., they figured they could make a whole lot more if they cut themselves into the production side, too. You got to admit, the dam and the mine were a pretty sweet combination. Who would ever have figured that?”