“Not much. Things are pretty quiet. I see you and Pap have a couple of nice looking women in your rig.”
“Yup. If they’d lift up their wrists you could see the cuffs.”
“No fooling! Why, the one is Cindy Littlefield! How come you’re arresting them?”
“They’ve been bad.”
“Bad! How bad?”
“At this moment, I don’t rightly know that Cindy has been bad at all. But as I always say, hey, why take chances? Arrest everybody in sight and sort it all out later.”
“You’re starting to sound more like Pap every day.”
“I expect so. I’ve been hanging out with him far too long.”
The station bell rang. Tully looked up from his paper. Another red sheriff’s Explorer had pulled in next to the gas pumps. Young Ernie Thorpe stepped out and came into the station.
“Howdy, Mr. Grange,” he said. “Sheriff, you wanted me up here this morning?”
“You bet I did, Ernie. I got some prisoners for you to take back to the station.”
“Those ladies sitting with Pap?”
“They’re not exactly ladies, Ernie, as I’m sure you’ll soon learn. And then there’s Ed here.”
“What!” said Ed. “You’re kidding, right, Bo?”
“Afraid not, Ed. Put the cuffs on him, Ernie.”
“I can’t believe this! What’s the charge?”
“I’ll have to think about that, but I’m sure I can come up with something good. Don’t worry about your station, Ed. I’ll lock it up when I leave.”
The deputy shoved Ed out through the door and put him in the front seat of the Explorer. He reached down and pulled up a chain fastened to a bolt in the floor. He snapped a lock on the end of the chain through Ed’s cuffs. He then fastened Ed’s seat belt.
Tully watched out the window. Then he glanced at the girl. She looked as if she was ready to faint. “Don’t be upset,” he said. “All this will work out fine. But I have a big favor to ask. Don’t tell anybody what you just saw here, okay?” The girl nodded. “Good,” he said. “Because if you talk at all about this, I would find out, and then you would be in big trouble.”
“I won’t say anything,” she said.
“I’m sure you won’t. Now put on your coat and go home.”
The girl left. Deputy Thorpe got the two women out of Tully’s SUV and put them in the back seat of his Explorer. Wisps of hair hung down Cindy’s face. She looked as if she had been crying. Dana made an unfriendly gesture to him out the window with both hands. It’s so hard to be popular, Tully thought. Ernie fastened Dana’s seat belt and then walked around the car and fastened Cindy’s. He locked all the car doors with his remote and walked back into the gas station.
“Nice work,” Tully said.
“Thanks. I guess you want me back up here this evening.”
“That’s right. We might have some pretty heavy lifting around midnight. Keep it to yourself, though. Eliot will fill you in.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“I’m sure it will be. But don’t expect any overtime pay.”
“I haven’t seen any yet.”
Tully laughed. “Good boy!”
Ernie started back to his vehicle.
“You be careful with our prisoners,” Tully said. “They could be a whole lot worse than I think they are.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tully watched Ernie’s Explorer pull out and head back toward Blight City. He waved at the occupants. They didn’t wave back. Then he walked around inside the station opening cupboards and drawers. Nothing of interest caught his attention. He went through the side door into the attached garage. He looked at the steel-topped workbench along one wall. Underneath were grimy drawers for tools and supplies. Tully opened them one by one and found only tools and supplies. The last two large bottom drawers had padlocks on them. Tully looked around the garage until he found a bolt cutter. He walked back and snipped off the lock of the first one. The drawer was packed with hundred-dollar bills. “Bingo!” he said. He picked one up and sniffed it. Then he put it back and snipped the lock off the other drawer. It contained small packages of marijuana. He went out to his car and returned with his camera. He shot several photos of the open drawers and then several photos of the workbench with the drawers still open. In the front office, he found a rack with new locks sealed in plastic on cardboard. He took two of them off the rack, tore them open and dropped the keys in his pocket. He walked back to the garage, closed the drawers and put a lock on each one. He rolled down the large doors of the garage and locked them. Then he put the Closed sign on the station’s front door, and locked the door as he went out. Opening the rear of the Explorer, he dropped the bolt cutter into the cargo area. It simply was not a good idea to leave bolt cutters anywhere near padlocked drawers.
When he got back to the Explorer, Pap was asleep in the front seat, his head leaning against the window.
Chapter 46
Pap jerked awake when Tully opened the car door. He managed to fight off a yawn. “I see you sent Ed off in cuffs. Any particular reason?”
“There is now. I found a big drawer full of hundred-dollar bills.”
“Does this mean we’re rich?”
“No!”
“I was afraid you’d say that. I hate to break the news to you, Bo, but it ain’t against the law to have a drawer full of bills. Stupid, yes, but not illegal.”
“Next to that drawer I found a drawer filled with packages of marijuana, retail-size packages, like you’d sell to individuals for their own use.”
“Sounds as if Ed had the corner on Famine dope sales,” Pap said.
“That would be a reasonable assumption. I think he’s also involved in a much larger scheme.”
“What got you zeroing in on Ed?”
“Buck did. We were in the station when I told you we were going to head back to Blight City. Ed was standing right there, the only person in the station with us at the time, as you pointed out. I decided to stop at the Little-fields’. Buck must have passed us. The sniper on the hill had to think Buck was us. And somebody had to tip him off, so he could get in position.”
“Or it could have been Ed himself.”
“It could have been, but I don’t think so. There’s another thing, too.”
“What’s that?”
“The Jeep Grand Cherokee itself.”
“You’ve got Ed and the Jeep tied together?”
“I think so. And then there’s the overall operation. It came to me while I was getting a haircut.”
“Maybe you should get a haircut more often. And here people think you’re not smart enough to solve these murders.”
Tully looked over at the old man. “But they know I’ve got you along.”
“Why, there you go!”
Tully dug out his cell phone and called Daisy.
“What’s up, Bo?”
“First, I want you to call Ed Grange’s wife up in Famine and inform her that her husband has been arrested. Tell her the station is under police surveillance. Tell her that her phone is tapped and that if she calls anyone or leaves the house she will be arrested.”
“Is that legal?”
“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Anything else?”
“Yes, but I can’t think of it right now. Don’t leave the office, don’t go out for lunch. I need you right there. Order in a sandwich or something.”
Tully could tell from the sound of her voice that she was pleased.
“You got it, boss. Where are you now?”
“We’re right outside Ed’s Gas-N-Grub in Famine. But we’re heading out to Dave’s House of Fry.”
“Are you going to arrest Dave, too?”
“No, not yet, anyway. One way or another, this whole thing is going to be a done deal sometime tonight, if we can manage to keep the lid on it a little while longer.”
He hung up.
Pap scratched the white stubble on his chin. “You kno
w, Bo, the word is out by now, about the arrests and all. There’s some real bad folks out there who have got themselves busy as bees. They could be packing up to beat it out of the county even as we speak. And we don’t have a clue who they are. You might be able to squeeze some names out of Ed, but I imagine he’s a whole lot more scared of the bad guys than he is of us.”
“Ed is one of the bad guys. I figure he’s the one who set up the ambush.”
“You mean the guy in the right back seat?”
“That’s the one. I had Lurch run a little test on the Jeep Grand Cherokee.”
“A test?”
“Yeah. Those fellows rented the Jeep at the Spokane Airport at ten P.M. They drove down to Blight. It takes nearly a whole tank of gas to get here from Spokane. There’s no gas station open that late at night between here and Spokane. We know the ambush took place exactly at three thirty-eight in the morning, because the one guy had his wristwatch clipped by a bullet. The Jeep rolled forward in drive and hit the berm across the Last Hope Road. So the engine continued to run from three thirty-eight in the morning until a little before we found it. Remember, the engine was still hot?”
“That’s right, it was. You hooted like a scalded owl.”
“So they had to get the gas tank filled up somewhere.”
“Ed filled the tank?”
“There’s no other place. No other person.”
“But what makes you think Ed set up the ambush?”
“He had to be waiting for them at the station. So my guess is he’s the one that led them out to the Last Hope Road. Who else?”
“I think you may be right. But I’m not at all sure all this stuff you’re doing is legal.”
“Hey, it’s the Blight way. Isn’t that what you used to say, Pap?”
The old man shook his head. “I appreciate you saying that, Bo. Just don’t get yourself killed tonight. More important, don’t get me killed.”
Bo laughed. He put the Explorer in drive and pulled out onto the main street of Famine. The town was quiet. Too quiet, he wanted to say, but wasn’t up to Pap’s ridicule.
They pulled into the House of Fry parking lot. It was nearly empty. Dave was standing on the front porch.
“Paying customers, I hope,” he said as they walked up.
“Always,” Tully said.
“I could use some lunch,” Pap said.
“Yeah, maybe we’ll eat something,” Tully said. “We’re not likely to get much chance later.”
“I don’t know what you’ve been doing,” Dave said, “but you’re ruining my business.”
“I arrested Ed Grange,” Tully told him. “Along with Cindy Littlefield and the new so-called cook, Dana Cassidy.”
“I can’t believe it. Cindy! What charge?”
“Dana has an outstanding warrant for dealing drugs. Got Cindy for harboring a fugitive.”
Dave shook his head. “You’re liable to have all of Famine in jail.”
“I’m beginning to think so.”
“C’mon in,” Dave said. “I’ll have the cooks fix you some lunch. It’s not as though they’re overworked right now.”
Tully selected a table in back, where they could talk without being overheard.
Carol came over and took their orders. Tully and Pap each ordered the World Famous House of Fry Burger along with the Endless Fries and coffee.
“If I don’t get done with this case soon,” Tully said, “the cholesterol alone will kill me. So where’s Deedee?”
“Gone,” said Dave. “Along with most of my customers. Deedee moved to Blight City. I guess the pay is better down there, and they don’t pinch as hard. Don’t know what happened to my customers. Maybe they’re afraid somebody will show up and spray the place with machine guns. I’m beginning to think that could be a distinct possibility.”
Pap looked around the café. “Maybe you should lock the front door.”
“Yeah, that would help business a lot.”
“I meant just while Bo and I are here.”
Dave gave him an exasperated look. “Anyway, Bo, I got the info you wanted.”
Pap looked at Tully. “What info is that?”
“I sent Dave up to the Last Hope Mine to put his tracking skills to use.”
“Like you told me,” Dave said, “I went up in the morning, about nine o’clock. Hiked up from the berm. There were the tracks you made when you went up there with Susan, both going up and coming back down. You were right about the other tracks. The ones coming down don’t match the ones going up.”
“Good. I had Lurch make casts of them.”
“There wasn’t a soul around, either at the dam or the mine.”
Carol brought a coffeepot, poured them each a cupful, then left. She made the rounds of the few other diners, refilling their cups. The three men at the table watched her, as if Carol were on an important mission.
“The mine entrance was blasted shut thirty, forty years ago,” Pap said. “So what’s your interest in it?”
“Think about it,” said Tully. “Suppose they started using the mine again.”
Pap shook his head. “The Last Hope ran out of gold decades ago. That’s why they blew the entrance, keep kids and people from fooling around in there.”
“What if they made a new entrance?” Tully said.
“That’s exactly what they did,” Dave put in. “Sometime in the last few years. It was a devil of a thing to find, too, not much bigger than a rabbit hole. I found a bunch of fresh rock dumped down over the edge of the road, and then I was pretty sure it had come from a new tunnel. Took me almost all day, but I found it. The entrance was covered with a slab of shale, or at least something that looks like shale. I didn’t go in, of course, but judging from its location the new tunnel is about twenty feet long and cuts into the mine behind the old entrance. Nobody would even notice it, unless that was what they were looking for.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” Pap said.
“I should hope so,” Tully said. “A mine makes a perfect year-round growing environment. The U.S. Forest Service has been growing tree seedlings up in a Kellogg mine for years. The mine has water and warmth. All they have to do is pipe in daylight. So our bad guys set up grow lights, run power to them from the dam, and nobody notices a sudden surge in the use of electricity.”
“Right,” Dave said, “and an abnormal increase in the use of electricity is one of the giveaways, if, say, you’re growing large crops of marijuana with grow lights. That’s the main reason I haven’t done it.”
“But Littlefield has his own electricity,” Pap said. “His dam is in the same canyon as the Last Hope.”
“Just to be sure,” Tully said, “I checked on Little-field’s sales of electricity to Central Electric. Four years ago it dropped to half the usual amount, with a normal rainfall and a normal snow pack in the Hoodoo Mountains during all those years. So what happened four years ago? Vern started himself a huge underground greenhouse in a mine.”
Chapter 47
Back in the Explorer, Pap rolled himself another cigarette and lit it. “You know, Bo,” he said, “I’m not too fond of the idea of crawling through that twenty-foot tunnel into the mine. They could have some guy guarding it, just waiting to blast us.”
“So what other options do we have?”
“Let’s see now. Well, we could chuck a stick of dynamite into the little tunnel and seal ’em all up inside.”
“Then what?”
“What do you mean, then what? We seal them up inside.”
“And leave them?”
“Of course. Think of all the money it would save, the trials, prison time, feeding and entertaining them and like that. Of course prison time is assuming you get a conviction in the first place. Hey, it’s the Blight way.”
“Yeah, it would be that, all right. But forget it. We’re going in. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“Ah, Bo, I was just pulling your leg. Of course I’m going in. I don’t have any
thing else to do. Except maybe live.”
“Good. I need at least one person along I know isn’t bothered by shooting other human beings.”
“Thanks. I appreciate you saying that.”
They drove back through Famine. Half a dozen people were gathered in front of the General Store. They were in serious, animated conversation. When the sheriff’s red Explorer approached, they stopped talking and stared.
Tully lowered his side window. “Howdy,” he said. “How you all doing?”
No one responded.
Tully ran his window back up.
“You don’t seem too popular around here,” Pap said.
“Don’t seem to be.”
“Where are we headed?”
“Out to the old Littlefield hotel.”
“I’m sorry I asked. That place is a bit too spooky for me.”
“There weren’t any spooks. The guy I saw out in the hallway made a tremendous racket getting away. I assume ghosts don’t make any racket when they run down a flight of stairs.”
“You should have shot him.”
“I was reaching for my gun when he got away.”
“You said you couldn’t recognize him, right?”
“Right. It was too dark. But there was something about him that seemed kind of familiar. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and I’ve got a feeling it was Lem Scragg. He was long and skinny like that.”
Pap ground out the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray. “He obviously didn’t know we were sacked out in there.”
“I don’t think he did. That’s why I had the vehicles put in that shed. But he was up there for some reason.”
“If it was Lem, that means he probably was tied in with Littlefield some way.”
“Yeah,” Tully said. “And that’s odd, because the Littlefields and the Scraggs have been enemies practically forever. But I don’t know for sure it was Lem. I’ll ask him, if we run into him tonight.”
“You think the Scragg brothers were the shooters on the Last Hope Road, don’t you?”
“Don’t you?”
“Yeah. I just didn’t want to say so.”
Tully’s cell phone buzzed. It was Susan. “Is this a bad time, Bo?”
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