“A matchstick I may want you to send to the Idaho Crime Lab to see if they can pick up any DNA off of it. Also, I’d like the lab to see if they can give us a match between that pool of blood in the woods and the patch of blood on the skid trail.”
“Anything else?”
“Not much. I’m pretty sure drugs are involved with this whole scene, but I haven’t figured out how. Anyway, would you consider having dinner with me tonight? We could kick this whole thing around for a while.”
“Sure. I’m not going to get wrapped up with work over here until about seven, if that’s okay.”
“Where can I pick you up?”
“I don’t have an apartment yet. Right now I’m staying at the Goddard Bed and Breakfast. I assume you know where that is.”
Bad news. Tully had once dated Carol Smiley, back before she had married that clown, Rich Goddard. “You bet. How does eight sound?”
“Super. That will give me time to shower.”
She at least left Tully with a pleasant image, one that could go a long way toward erasing his images of her carving up dead bodies. But not quite.
He hung up his jacket and eased into his rocking chair with one of the Danielle Steels. He read three chapters and then started thumbing through the book, looking for useful advice. Then he saw it: “He looked at her warmly.” Nothing too smarmy, just a look. This has to be it, he thought. Just a look, a way of looking. He couldn’t remember ever looking at a woman warmly. Hungrily, perhaps, but not warmly. He walked into the bathroom and tried out his warm look in the mirror. It was harder than he had expected. He practiced it a few times, until he had it down. Someday he’d read more of the Danielle Steel, but so far he had found it almost painfully boring.
He phoned the office. Daisy said there were no new developments, except the usual reports of prowlers and chainsaw thefts. He told her to get hold of Buck and have him return to Blight City for the night. Then he showered and shaved and put on fresh clothes—gray slacks, a black shirt and his black leather jacket. He slipped into his black loafers, which felt surprisingly light and comfortable after his boots. Tying a length of paper towels around his neck, he trimmed a few unruly hairs from his mustache and eyebrows. His hair was a bit long. He checked his watch. Four o’clock. He still had time to stop by Clyde’s Barber Shop for a trim. He held his hands up to the bathroom light. The knuckles of his right hand were bruised and cracked. Well, nothing he could do about that.
Chapter 22
Clyde Swartze and Everett Barnes were sweeping up the barber shop when Tully walked in.
“Got time for a quick trim?” he asked.
“Always got time for the sheriff,” Clyde said. He indicated his chair. “Have a seat, Bo. How come you’re all dolled up? Off on one of your infamous dates?”
“None of your business, Clyde. Just give me a nice neat trim and watch out for the ears.”
Everett sat down in his own chair and began to read the paper. He was about twenty-five and skinny and already going bald.
Clyde tied a paper slip and a big blue barber’s cape around Tully’s neck. “How’s your murder investigation going up in Famine, Bo?”
“It’s going, Clyde. That’s about all I know.”
“You figure it’s got something to do with drugs?”
“Maybe, but we’ve never had much of a drug problem in Blight.”
“A lot of money in the drug industry,” Clyde said.
“Yeah,” Everett said, “I seen in the paper where the cops up in Spokane busted some wealthy housewives for growing pot in their houses with grow lights. I guess the cops figured out the women were using about five times as much electricity as they should have been. You’d think some of the folks around here would show that kind of initiative.”
“I hate to crush your hopes, Ev,” Tully said, “but Blight County is too cold for much of a drug industry.”
“It’s always something,” Clyde said.
A story about food stamps in the paper caught Everett’s attention. “Boy, if there’s one thing I hate to see, it’s people using food stamps.”
“Why is that, Ev?” Tully asked.
“If they’d get out and get a job, they wouldn’t need food stamps. They’re just lazy. I hate like the devil to be supporting them.”
“I know what you mean,” Tully said. “I ever tell you my theory about poverty, Ev?”
“I don’t think so, Bo.”
“I’ve heard it,” Clyde said. “And I bet I’m going to hear it again.”
“Yes, you are, Clyde. It goes like this. First thing we need to do is to withdraw all support from poor people. If they can’t earn their own way, they starve.”
“I’m for that,” Everett said.
“Of course,” Tully went on, “we wouldn’t want women and children and babies and old people starving to death out in public, all bony and their eyes bulging out and like that. I mean that would be disgusting. It would be uncivilized, don’t you think, Ev?”
Ev nodded mutely, no longer looking at his paper but staring out the shop’s front window, as if imagining people starving to death on Blight City’s Main Street.
“No, sir,” Tully went on, “what we would need is some kind of warehouse, out in the country maybe, where we could put the poor people who were starving to death, get them out of sight, for heaven’s sake, don’t you think, Ev?”
Ev said, “I don’t think I’d go that far.”
Tully glanced in the mirror. “Maybe a little more off the top, Clyde.” He looked over at the young barber, who was still staring out the front window.
“Hold still, Bo,” Clyde said.
“Sorry,” Tully said. “I just get carried away every time I hear about food stamps. You don’t like the warehouse idea? That’s awfully hard, Ev, awfully hard. You’d just let the folks starve to death out there in the street?”
“No, I mean I don’t like the idea of letting them starve.”
“I never said curing poverty would be easy. And I wouldn’t look forward to hauling starving poor folks off to the warehouse. But I would do it. It would just be too disgusting having them die out here in public. By the way, Ev, you’re not one of them bleeding-heart liberals, are you?”
Everett shook his head no.
“Good.”
“You want any cream or anything on your hair, Bo?” Clyde asked.
“Maybe just a tiny bit of tonic, Clyde. Not too much, though, because I’ve got a business engagement tonight.”
“Anyone I know?” Clyde said.
“I hope not,” Tully said.
Clyde undid the cape and paper strip from around Tully’s neck. “There you go, Bo, good as new. That’ll be eight bucks.”
“Eight bucks! Boy, speaking of folks getting robbed!”
He gave the barber a ten, slipped on his jacket and started out the door. He stopped suddenly and turned back toward the young barber. “You sure you’re not one of them liberals, Ev?”
Everett was still staring out into the street. He shook his head no. “But I’m not totally against food stamps,” he said.
Chapter 23
The restaurant was packed. Fortunately, the owner, Charlie Crabb, had reserved Tully’s usual table for him off in a quiet corner. A small lamp shaped like a lantern threw a red light over the tablecloth. Crabbs was the only restaurant in town with actual tablecloths. Both Charlie and Tully thought it gave the place a touch of class. Tully didn’t much care for the waitpersons, who seemed to project an attitude that the diners had been granted a considerable privilege to spend their money at Crabbs.
“I thought there would be crab on the menu at Crabbs,” Susan said, obviously disappointed.
“Afraid not,” Tully said. “As you can see from the menu, this is basically red-meat country. I do recommend the prime rib, though.”
“Thanks,” she said, “but I’ve had enough red meat for one day. Maybe I’ll go with the catfish.”
“Good choice,” Tully said. Susan’s red-m
eat image had taken the edge off his appetite. “I think I’ll have that, too.”
“So what do you think that business at the Last Hope Mine Road was all about?” she asked.
“I don’t have much of an idea yet,” he said. “The clothes, the money, the fact that all the dead guys were from L.A., make me think drugs had to be involved. But we’ve never had much of a drug problem in Blight County. For one thing, most folks here are so poor they can’t afford drugs. Maybe that’s the reason they have such a dim view of them. A known drug dealer here would not be viewed highly. Blight is still pretty much back in the fifties, particularly in regard to dope fiends.”
“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?”
&
nbsp; “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.”
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