The Tamarack Murders

by Patrick F. McManus

“Good. I would have lied if necessary, but I happened to check my watch just before he was shot.”

  Susan shook her head and stashed the notebook back in her shoulder bag.

  Lurch took a dozen photos of the body and the surrounding scene.

  “Good enough, Lurch,” Tully said. “Now see if you can find that bullet, because afterwards I need you to hike up to the ridge.”

  “Wonderful!”

  The two attendants rolled the body onto the stretcher, covered it with a sheet, and strapped it down.

  “Not much I can do here,” Susan said. “We’ll head on in. Better put some more wood on your fire.”

  Tully’s radio squawked.

  “That’s probably Pugh,” he told Susan. “Maybe he’s found something.” He pressed a button on his radio. “Yeah, Pugh.”

  “We’re ready to head down, boss.”

  “Wait! Lurch will be up there shortly.”

  Tully turned and yelled down the slope. “Hurry up, Lurch. I’ve got another job for you.”

  He spoke into his radio. “Brian, I’m sending the Unit up right now. Point out the tracks you want him to cast. Oh, I just remembered something. Have Lurch shoot some photos of the elk tracks over by Chimney Rock. They’re right next to the rock.”

  “You got it, boss! Tell Lurch to get the lead out. I’m sending Ernie down. His chattering teeth are getting on my nerves.”

  Susan smiled and shook her head. The two attendants hoisted the stretcher and started carrying the body down to the road. Susan followed. Below them, Tully could see the Unit squatted down and brushing the ground. He held something up.

  “I got it, boss!”

  “Great, Lurch! Now get back up here!”

  “I was going to check the car!” the Unit yelled.

  “No!” Tully yelled back. “Check it later! You go up and see what Thorpe and Pugh found and take pictures of everything! Make a cast of all tracks in the snow and dirt that don’t belong to Thorpe or Pugh! Photograph any you can’t cast!”

  Going down, Tully met the Unit as he slogged back up the mountain. Lurch handed him a tiny white envelope with a hard lump inside. “Looks like seven millimeter, boss. Hollow point.”

  “Good work, Lurch. From the damage to the vic, that’s what I expected. I’m going to check out the car, but I want you to go over it for prints when you get it back to the department garage. Now head straight up through the grove of trees and you’ll run into Pugh and Thorpe on the other side of the ridge. Pugh says he’s found some ATV tracks over there. I’m pretty sure the shooter took out our vic from a spot somewhere in the patch of woods. See if you can find any sign of him in there. If you do, leave it for the tracker.”

  Lurch smiled and nodded. “Right, boss.”

  “Shoot some pictures of the ATV tracks. I hope you’ve got some of that stuff you spray into the snow so you can make casts of the shooter’s tracks?”

  “Right, boss. Snow wax, a clear acrylic hardening spray. It hardens the snow before I pour in the plaster.”

  “Excellent. The bullet, footprints, and ATV tracks may be the only evidence we have of the shooter. I’ll wait for you in my car.”

  “Be careful, boss. You don’t want to catch cold.”

  “Get going, Lurch, or you may have to walk back to town.”

  A breeze had come up and seemed to push the chill all the way through to Tully’s bones. He tried flapping his arms, but the effort failed to warm him. He continued on down the mountain.

  He stopped at the getaway car to look it over. The driver’s door was wedged against the high inside bank of the ditch. The driver would have had to climb out on the passenger side. Since the victim was wearing gloves when he was shot, he probably had been wearing them driving the car. Not much chance of Lurch finding useful prints. Odd, the victim didn’t appear to be the kind of person who knew how to steal a car. One thing about car thieves, they tend to look the part. And they don’t bother stealing vehicles on their last legs, or tires, as the case may be. There was only one reason for robbers to steal a car this old. He wrapped his hand in his handkerchief, opened the right front door and reached in far enough to grab the ignition key and pull it out. He checked the grooves in it, then shoved the key back into the ignition. Strange thing for bank robbers to use. You had to wiggle a shaved key around until it engaged with the right grooves and turned on the ignition. He couldn’t imagine robbers rushing out to their getaway car and wiggling a key around to get the old thing started and their escape underway. The key suddenly caught the right groves and the car sputtered to life. He shut it off. He looked up through the windshield. A length of orange flagging tape dangled from a tree branch directly in front of the car. Odd that the car would be dumped right by the tape. He walked back to his Explorer, started the engine and let it warm up while he waited for Lurch. Once the car was comfortable he shut off the engine and dozed. He awoke just in time to see the Unit trudging off the mountain with his CSI kit. Lurch opened the hatch door of the Explorer, set his kit in the cargo space, and closed the door. He walked around and opened the passenger door. “I got casts of the tracks, boss, both from the ATV and what must be those of the shooter when he went up through the snow. Can I ride back to town with you?” He held his hands out toward the cold heater. “Pugh and Thorpe are on their way down.”

  Tully started the engine and the heater began to blow out warm air on Lurch’s hands. He said, “I’m waiting for the tracker to show up. Pugh and Thorpe should be down any minute, but I want you to ride back with the wrecker, just to make sure nobody gets inside the getaway car and messes up anything. Check for prints when you get it back to the department garage. Now go cut down that piece of flagging tape. There’s something odd about its being right where our vic dumped the car.”

  “You suppose the flagging tape will last until I thaw out my hands, boss?”

  “No! You’re such a wuss, Lurch. Be careful when you cut it down, because there should be some fingerprints on it. Don’t add any.”

  The Unit sighed, pulled on latex gloves, got out, walked over and grabbed the tip of the tape, pulled it down until he could reach the branch and break it off. Holding the tape by the edge, he rolled it up, put a rubber band around it and walked to the back of the Explorer, opened one of his CSI kits, put the tape in a clear plastic envelope and sealed it. After climbing back into the passenger seat next to Tully, he bent over, removed his latex gloves and put his hands practically on the heater.

  Tully shook his head. “You definitely are a wuss, Lurch. But you’re in luck. Here comes the tow truck to haul the getaway car to the department garage. But I just thought of something. A herd of elk walked through right up next to chimney rock. I need closeup photos of those tracks.”

  “Ha! I’ve already got them, boss! Pugh told me to shoot them. What do elk tracks have to do with this killing anyway?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.”

  Chapter 3

  Dave Perkins drove up next to Tully’s car shortly after noon. Tully walked over to Dave’s big white pickup truck and climbed in beside him. “About time you got here.”

  Dressed in wool pants, a thick wool shirt, a lambskin coat, and lambskin hat, the tracker was sliding his hands into matching lambskin mittens. Tully thought it would be a good idea for the county to buy its sheriff a similar outfit, if he had to investigate any more crimes out in the cold.

  Dave said, “As always, the minute I got Daisy’s call I dropped everything and walked out the door. Nevermind that my restaurant goes to pieces while I’m gone. Anyway, about our murder, I just hope you and your people haven’t messed up the murder scene so much that finding the killer will be impossible.”

  “The murder scene is pristine, Sherlock. So find me the killer.”

  “Then let’s get to it, Watson.”

  Tully led the tracker up to where the shape of the body had been marked off in yellow crime-scene tape. Lurch had placed rocks on the tape to hold it down.


  “Our victim was hit right here,” Tully said. “The shot came from up there in the woods. Pugh and Thorpe were with me when he got hit. Knocked him flat, straight downhill. The hollow point came from a big-bore rifle. Turned out to be a seven millimeter. Hit the vic in the back and practically blew away his chest. My theory is he was shot to keep him quiet about his accomplices in the robbery and maybe to glomb his share of the loot. Even if we hadn’t been hot on his heels, I think he would have been shot.”

  Tully told Dave about the flagging tape that marked the spot where the getaway car was dumped in the ditch. He pointed toward the woods. “I’m pretty sure the shooter was up there waiting for him. The kid probably thought the tape marked the spot for him to make his getaway. Instead, it marked the spot for him to get killed.”

  Dave studied the woods. “How about the loot?”

  “Gone. No sign of it.”

  As they came to the wooded area, Dave turned and ask if Tully was sure the shot had come from there.

  “Had to be,” Tully said. “It knocked the victim flat and straight downhill. The shooter had to be directly above him.”

  “Sounds about right.” Dave turned and looked back at the spot where the victim had fallen. He scanned the ground ahead of him as the two of them moved slowly up through the woods.

  “Nothing,” Tully said.

  The tracker turned and smiled. “Not exactly.” He took Tully by the arm, led him back down through the woods, and pointed to a couple of small indents in the tamarack needles, tiny mounds of black dirt pushed up from them. “The killer made a sitting shot from right here, his arms braced on his knees to steady the rifle. Or it could have been a pistol, if the guy is a terrific shot. The little mounds of dirt are where his heels dug into the ground.”

  Tully shook his head in amazement. “You’re right! Why didn’t I see that! Even worse, why didn’t Lurch see it?”

  “Because you and Lurch aren’t trackers,” Dave said. “If you look carefully you’ll see where the shooter’s rear end made an impression in the needles.”

  Tully stared. “I see it! You’re amazing, Dave! I think I’ll get Lurch up here to make a cast.”

  Dave laughed. “Does the FBI keep a collection of rear-end impressions?”

  “Probably.”

  “Think they would make one of Angie’s for me?”

  “I doubt it. They probably have a rule against catering to perverts. I wouldn’t be surprised if Angie is sent back here to investigate the bank robbery though.”

  “In that case it may take several days for me to unravel this mystery for you, Watson.”

  “How did I ever guess that, Holmes? I suppose now you might even want to be paid.”

  “That would be refreshing.”

  They made their way up to the ridge, without Dave indicating any more signs. When they reached the skiff of snow, Tully walked in Dave’s tracks. He told Dave, “Lurch made casts of the only set of tracks that didn’t belong to him, Brian, or Ernie.”

  The three deputies had marked their own tracks with twigs, and Lurch, presumably, had taped notes to the twigs identifying the tracks of each deputy.

  Dave pointed to the ATV tracks in the bare ground under the overhang of a tree, one coming up and the other going down. “Interesting,” he said.

  “Really?” Tully said.

  “Yeah.” Dave squatted down and examined each track where it crossed through the bare dirt. “From what you told me, I assumed an accomplice had driven an ATV up the trail and picked up the shooter.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Tully said.

  “If you look at the two tracks closely you’ll see there was only one rider coming up and one rider going down.”

  Tully squatted down to examine the two tracks. “And your reasoning is?”

  “Quite simple, Watson. If the ATV had one rider coming up and two riders going down, the two-rider track would leave a deeper impression.”

  Tully thought about this. “On the other hand, Holmes, suppose two riders came up and two riders went down. Wouldn’t the two tracks be of the same depth?”

  Dave rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yes, Watson, but I had already taken that into account.” He pointed. “That set of tracks in the snow is where Ernie came up and that set is where he went down. This other set is where Brian came up and over there is where he went down. The third set over here is where Lurch came up and that is where he went down. We are left with only one other track, the one coming up. The shooter had to come in from the road below or from up here before the snowfall. If he came in from below, he had to be dropped off on the road by someone. If he rode the ATV up, he would have had to come in before the snowfall and had a long cold wait for the target to show up. My guess, he was dropped off on the road before the robbery, climbed up to the grove of trees and waited until his intended target started to climb the mountain, then shot him. That’s why there’s a track coming up, but none going down through the snow. The shooter escaped on the ATV. He probably brought it in the night before, then walked down the mountain to be picked up on the road.”

  Tully squatted down to study the tracks. “Sounds about right. You got any idea how many people might be involved in the robbery?”

  The tracker thought for a moment. “My guess is a minimum of three, counting your dead guy. Could be a fourth. Your victim probably brought the ATV in the night before. That way he would know the ATV was up here for him to escape on. Unless he was totally stupid, he wouldn’t leave his means of escape to somebody else. If in fact the victim was totally stupid, maybe the shooter brought the ATV in the night before, walked down the mountain and was picked up on the road. The shooter seems to be the kind of guy who would want to be sure of his means of escape.”

  Tully stood up and stretched. “So what happened to the loot from the bank?”

  The tracker scratched his jaw. “Let’s see now, one of the robbers got shot, but he didn’t have the loot.”

  “That’s right,” Tully said. “There wasn’t any sign of the haul from the bank.”

  “The shooter wasn’t a participant in the robbery itself. Otherwise, he couldn’t get in position quick enough to shoot the victim. The victim didn’t have the loot. The robbers leave the bank with their ill-gotten gains. So somewhere between the bank and the ditched getaway car the loot had to get handed off. It couldn’t get handed off to the shooter, because he would be waiting for the victim up on the mountain. That means there has to be at least one other person involved in the robbery.”

  Tully thought about this. “You think there was a hand-off?”

  “Had to be, don’t you think, Bo?”

  “Yeah, the loot went somewhere. I suppose the actual bank robber could have jumped out of the getaway car and into a vehicle left along the road and driven off with it and the loot. Now you mention a handoff, Dave, there was an old farm pickup pulled over to the edge of the road, apparently to get out of the way of the pursuit vehicles. Looked like a farmer in the driver’s seat and some bales of hay in the bed. The reason I noticed the truck at all, I almost ran into it.”

  Dave stroked his chin, apparently turning something over in his mind. “So let’s say we have three guys involved in the robbery. Two of them come roaring out of town in the getaway car, skid to a stop by the pickup, one of them jumps out with the loot, leaps into the truck and starts it. The driver takes off. After the pursuit vehicles go by, the driver of the pickup pulls out and heads in the direction of town. He meets up with the shooter at some prearranged location, maybe where the pack trail comes down off the mountain. What’s your guess, Bo?”

  “Sounds workable. I still prefer a fourth robber sitting in the pickup alongside the road with the motor running. That way the first robber could leap into the bed of the pickup and be out of sight in no time. This sounds so good maybe we should take up bank robbing.”

  Dave laughed. “It’s tempting, Bo, but I’m much too old for that kind of business. Might be fun though.”

  He was
silent for a moment. “You know for certain the victim was one of the robbers?”

  “He was climbing the hill above the getaway car, which was no doubt stolen. It’s an old Datson with a shaved key in the ignition.”

  “Shaved key, you say?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dave took off his sheepskin hat and scratched his head. “In that case, unless all these guys were total amateurs, they left a guy in the getaway car to keep it running. No one robs a bank and then starts wiggling a key to make his escape. Guy number one robs the bank, guy number two keeps the getaway car running. Guy number three is waiting on the mountain to shoot guy number two.”

  “Right,” Tully said. “And if there is a guy number four, he’s waiting in the handoff vehicle to drive away with the loot and the guy who robbed the bank. Looks to me as if there has to be a fourth guy. He’s the one taking the least risk. So I suspect he’s the mastermind behind the whole robbery.”

  He pointed toward the large chimney-shaped rock that formed the peak of the mountain. “ I have one more set of tracks over there I want you to look at, Dave, before I’m frozen solid.”

  He led the tracker over to Chimney Rock and showed him the elk tracks. “You make out anything significant from them?”

  Dave laughed. “I’m enjoying this way too much. For a brief moment I even thought about not charging the county for my services.”

  Tully said, “Yeah, a very brief moment I bet. So, anything you can tell me about those tracks?”

  Dave squatted and took a close look. “Well, one of the elk was a lot larger than the others, the last in the line, a big bull. I’d guess a royal.”

  Tully smiled and shook his head. “Okay, okay, you passed the test. Dave, you are absolutely amazing!”

  Dave laughed. “Quite so, Watson, quite so. Furthermore, the tracks also tell me that a herd of deer passed through here sometime before the elk. The elk trampled most of the deer tracks, but I can still make out a few of them. In fact, the snow was still falling when the deer went through. The few deer tracks I can make out have only a bit of fresh snow in them. So the snow stopped shortly after they went through. Any significance to the deer tracks?”