The Huckleberry Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (14 page)

“Yeah! I really could, Sheriff!”

Tully nodded. “I bet you could, Viral. If you ever get the urge, you come see me over in Blight City and we’ll talk about it. Now about Box Two-eighty-one. Can you tell me anything about it?”

“Yeah, an old guy rented it a year or two ago. Ma can get you his name. He don’t stop by to check it very often. See, it fills up with junk mail and we have to empty it out and put all the overflow in one of those big boxes over there on the side. We stick a key to the big box inside the little box. When he takes the mail out of the big box, the key stays stuck in it. Ma’s got a way of taking the key out so we can use the big box again. Sometimes he has a younger guy pick up his mail. Probably his son. We don’t see them very often. They must come mostly at night.”

His mother came back and handed Tully a piece of paper. “I wrote his name down there, Sheriff.”

Viral said, “The sheriff says he could use me in law enforcement, Ma.”

“That’s nice, dear. As you can see, Officers, the old fellow who rented the box, his name is Poulson, Orville Poulson. For a couple of months, he would stop in and pick up his mail. I think he travels a lot. I don’t recall seeing him in a long while now, but somebody empties out both the boxes about once a month. He probably comes in at night.”

Tully folded the paper and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Thank you very much, m’am. You’ve been a big help. By the way, would you mind looking to see if there’s anything in either box?”

She walked around behind a partition and apparently checked the box. “Other than a couple of local ads, both boxes are empty.”

“Thank you, m’am.” Interesting, he thought. There
should have been at least one envelope for Crockett containing a Social Security check.

He and Angie walked out to the Explorer and got in.

Angie said, “You were kidding, weren’t you, about hiring Viral as a deputy?”

“Not at all. There’s always a place in law enforcement for dumb. Right now I’m pretty low on dumb. They tend to get killed, rushing into situations the smarter deputies avoid.”

“I see. You’re really a softhearted kind of guy, aren’t you, Bo?”

Tully started the car. “Indeed I am, Angie. I’m pleased you noticed.” He nodded at the other side of the parking lot. “Now I want to talk to somebody at the bank over there. I see they have a couple of drive-ins.” He drove across the parking lot.

Angie stayed in the car while he went in the bank. Tully assumed she was bored with practical police work. A perky young woman at a round desk asked if she could help him.

“I hope so,” he said. He showed her his badge.

Her mouth gaped. “Maybe I should get the manager, sir.”

“That won’t be necessary. My question is very simple. I see you have a young fellow working the drive-in window. Now if someone drove up in that farthest station, the teller wouldn’t be able to see the customer all that well. Now, suppose that customer sent a check in through that brass vacuum tube over there. Would the teller cash it?”

“Oh, not without proper ID.”

Tully put his badge and ID back in his jacket’s inside
pocket. “Suppose the customer slid his driver’s license into the carrier with the check.”

“The teller would see if he had sufficient balance in the checking account to cover the check. If so, and the ID looked authentic, the teller would cash the check.”

“Suppose it was a Social Security check.”

“I think you had better talk to the manager about that.”

“Oh, there’s no need to bother him.”

“It’s a her.”

“Sorry. You’ve been a great help, miss. Oh, I suppose the customer wouldn’t have any problem depositing the Social Security check, if he had the proper deposit slip.”

“I shouldn’t think so. The teller would check the account, though, and ask the customer if he or she wanted a balance on the account. I know because I sometimes work the drive-in.”

“I see. I bet you do a first-rate job, too.”

She laughed. “Oh, you have to!”

“I hope you don’t mind my saying, but you are an extremely attractive young lady.”

She blushed. “Why, thank you. That’s very nice.”

“Oh, by the way, I don’t suppose you could check your computer and see if a Mr. Orville Poulson has an account here.”

“Oh, no. That would be strictly against our policy! I could be fired for that, I’m sure.”

“In that case, I guess I will have to talk to the manager.”

The girl punched a number on her phone. “Betty, there’s a sheriff here at the front desk who would like to talk to you.”
She listened briefly and hung up the phone. “She’ll be right out, Sheriff.”

The manager came striding out of her office. She wore a nice gray suit, a businesslike white blouse, and rimless spectacles. She was quite attractive for a professional type, as Tully had expected. She held out her hand and Tully grabbed it and held it lightly in his grasp. She gave his hand a tug, but nothing Tully took for a serious effort. After a moment, he released her hand, but not until a slight blush appeared on the manager’s cheeks. “Yes?” she said. “I’m Betty McFarland, the manager of the bank. May I be of help, sir?”

“I’m sure you may. This nice young lady here has provided me with all the information she thought proper, and you should be very proud of her. She has refused to tell me if you have an account for a particular person, though. That is certainly sensible, but since I am law enforcement, I thought maybe you could provide me with that information.”

She asked to see his ID. Tully showed it and his badge to her. “What is the name, Sheriff?”

“Orville Poulson.”

She turned to the desk attendant. “Check for an account under that name, please, Janet.” The manager looked over her shoulder at the computer screen. “Yes, we do have a checking account under that name.”

“Excellent!” Tully said. “You’ve been a huge help.”

They both beamed at him. Tully briefly thought maybe he should open an account there.

When he got out to the car, Angie was slipping her cell phone into her shoulder bag.

“How did that go?” she asked.

“Perfect. I’m beginning to see how Ray Porter, alias Crockett, has been pulling this off.”

“Great,” she said. “By the way, would you like to talk to Craig Wilson’s uncle—one Ted Wilson?”

Tully stared at her. “How on earth . . . ”

“I won’t bother you with the details, but I do have my connections. Right at this moment he’s crossing the Indiana border into Illinois, hauling a generator the size of a small house on the back of his truck.”

“You’re amazing, Angie!”

She smiled. “You don’t think the bureau would send a rank amateur to deal with the famous Bo Tully, do you?” She handed him a slip of paper with a number written on it. “I’ve been on the phone with Ted while you were fooling around in the bank, Sheriff. I saw you working your magic on those two ladies. The one is much too young for you, though.”

Tully shook his head and dialed. A gruff voice answered. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Wilson?”

“Yep. You’re the young lady’s associate, I take it.”

“Associate? Yes, that sounds about right.”

“She sounds pretty nice on the phone. Don’t ask me how the devil she hunted me down, but I’d hold on to that one if I was you.”

“I’ll definitely try to, Mr. Wilson. What I need to talk to you about is your nephew Craig.”

Wilson swore. “What’s he done now, he’s got a sheriff after him? That boy will drive me crazy.”

Tully could hear honking and the sound of cars whizzing by.

“I don’t know anything he’s done, Mr. Wilson. The reason I’m looking for him, I think he can help me solve a serious crime. For that same reason, I think the people who committed the crime may be looking for him, too. His life is in danger.”

Wilson was silent for a long moment. “Sheriff, I haven’t laid eyes on him all summer. I let him stay at my house in Spokane but he’s been working over in Idaho on a farm or something. If he’s his usual industrious self, he’s probably not making much money. I told him in case of emergency I’d stuffed two hundred dollars up in the toe of one of my shoes in a closet off a bedroom he sometimes uses. It’s for him and he knows where it is. The next-door neighbors have a key to my house. Get it from them and go check the shoe. If the money’s gone, he came back and took it. Usually it’s the police after him for some fool thing he’s done. He’s not smart enough to be a criminal and I hope he’s finally realized that.”

“You have any idea where he might be?”

“Like you said, he’s on the run from somebody. Go check the garage. There’s a set of shelves on one side with camping gear on it. He loves backpacking. If the red backpack is gone, that’s his.”

“You got any idea where he might be?”

“What Idaho county you sheriff of?”

“Blight County.”

“I’m sorry. Anyway, you familiar with Scotchman Peak?”

“You bet.”

“Well, you drive up into the Hoodoo Mountains and there’s a trailhead twenty miles north of Scotchman. It goes up to a little lake about straight down from the peak, the sheer side of the peak. You get an old Forest Service map, the trail should be marked on it. The trail is old. Used to go up to a lookout tower a few miles north of Scotchman. The tower’s gone now, but you hit the top of that ridge, the going should be pretty easy until you drop down to the lake. There used to be a trail from the ridge down to the lake. There’s half a dozen switchbacks leading down to the lake, with a lot of down timber across the trail. I don’t think anybody ever goes into the lake anymore, but Craig and I fished it once. It would be a good place for Craig to hang out. I doubt anybody else would hike in there.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“That’s my best guess, Sheriff. I think maybe Craig might have hit out for it and—wowee! Almost squished a hybrid. Bet I loosened up that fellow a bit. What was I saying? Oh, yeah, I’ve heard Craig talk about hiking in to the lake. If the money’s run out of that job in Idaho and he’s got the cops looking for him, I’d bet ten to one that’s where he’s gone. Nobody would think to find him in there.”

“Thanks, Mr. Wilson. I’ll check out the shoe and the garage.
If I find Craig, I’ll give you a call. Try not to squish any hybrids. Ford Explorers are okay, unless you come across one marked ‘Sheriff.’ ”

Wilson gave Tully the address to his house and then beeped off.

Tully smiled at Angie. “Thanks to you and Mr. Wilson, we may have a lead. What do you think about a little backpacking, Angie?”

AS THEY APPROACHED Blight City, Tully pulled into the long paved driveway that led up to Pap’s castle. Tully believed Pap had built the huge house on a hill so that he could look out his front windows and survey what he regarded as his domain, a broad expanse that stretched out over much of Blight County, bordered on one side by Lake Blight, on another by the Snowy Mountains, and on another by the Hoodoo Mountains.

“Good heavens!” gasped Angie. “This is gorgeous!”

“Yes, it is. You might want to keep in mind, if you ever start looking for real men again, that when Pap dies I inherit all of this. Just thought I’d mention it.”

She smiled. “I’ll definitely keep it in mind, Bo.”

“On the other hand, the way Pap is going, smoking and
drinking and carousing all over the county, I suspect he’ll never die, if for no other reason than just to torment me.”

Angie laughed. “How old is he?”

“Just turned seventy-six. He stole a gorgeous young waitress from Dave’s House of Fry about a year ago. Claims he hired her as his housekeeper. Turned out Deedee is now boss of the place and runs Pap around like he’s a lowly servant. I love it.”

“The House of Fry? I’ve heard it’s the best restaurant in the county to eat.”

They approached a wide parking area lit by several large lights on high poles. “It probably is. Claims to have the world’s biggest and best chicken-fried steak. I’ve never found fault with the claim. The place is owned by a somewhat mysterious friend of mine, Dave Perkins. Dave pretends to be an Indian, but only because he wants to turn the House of Fry into a casino operated by his tribe of one.”

Tully parked his battered old red Explorer next to Pap’s most recent Mercedes, a small silver convertible that all by itself filled his son with unquenchable envy. And Tully didn’t care that much about cars in the first place.

Angie dug a tube of lipstick out of her shoulder bag and, using the mirror on the back of the visor, refreshed her lips. The makeover completed, she examined it this way and that, shoved the visor back up, and said, “Your friend Dave sounds interesting. Why mysterious?”

“I’ll give you one example. A while back we were eating in a little café up north, and a couple of young lumberjacks
came in. They said we were eating at their table. Dave seems to be a mild-mannered guy, and he politely told them there were lots of other tables, choose one of them. The jacks told him they would move him to one of the other tables. One grabbed Dave around the neck and the other grabbed him around the waist and they started to lift. The next thing I knew, both men were lying on the floor behind Dave, both of them out cold and bleeding about the face. I was seated directly across from him and never saw him move. He was nibbling on a cracker. Now is that mysterious?”

“I would say it meets the definition. Do I get to meet him?”

“Before we get our recent murders taken care of, we’ll no doubt bring him in as backup. I don’t like to use him until a situation gets dangerous.”

“You think this situation will get dangerous?”

“I’m sure of it.” He jerked his thumb at the house. “Well, Angie, this is it. I might as well take you in and introduce you to Pap Tully. Don’t expect too much.”

“Oh, Bo, don’t be silly. I’m sure meeting your father will be a treat.”

Deedee answered Tully’s knock on the door. “Oh, Bo! This is so great.”

He introduced Angie. “She’s an FBI agent.”

“An FBI agent!” Deedee exclaimed. “My goodness, I’ve never met a real FBI agent before.” She was shaking hands with Angie when Tully heard the rustle of paper, a piece of furniture knocked over, and the back door opening and slamming shut.