“Yeah,” she said. “You see the circles under my eyes?”
“Please tell me you recognized him,” Tully said.
“No, I didn’t. It’s dark at that end of the hall. I didn’t want to follow him. Who knows, he could be the murderer!”
“There you go, thinking of yourself again,” Tully said. “You’re just like all my other deputies.”
“But it’s something, isn’t it, Bo?”
“I’m kidding you, Lindsay. It is in fact a lot. We’ll figure out who this chap is sooner or later. And you’re right, he could be our murderer. But tonight I want you in bed no later than nine. You do have black circles under your eyes.”
“I’ll come tuck you in, sweetheart,” Pap said.
“You will not,” Tully said. “She will tuck herself in.”
“But Pap is my buddy,” Lindsay said.
Tully rolled his eyes heavenward. Pap grinned.
Dave said, “Pap and I checked out the footbridge like you asked, Bo. There are so many tracks going back and forth, it’s almost impossible to find a sign worth anything. There was one small area protected from the wind by a post and we could make out a section where the snow had been flattened by something. Right next to it was another flattened area, maybe two inches deeper. That mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Good,” Pap said. “It didn’t mean nothing to us either.”
34
TULLY FOUND THE FOUR WSU frat boys playing cards in the lounge. He stopped at their table. They looked up at him belligerently.
“I understand you guys beat up one of my men?”
The belligerent looks faded. “You mean the Indian?” one of the boys said.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Me neither,” said another one, shaking his head. “It was Lance.”
The largest of the four, the bruises still showing on his face, said, “I didn’t beat him up, he beat me up. I never knew Indians were so fast. He’s lucky he didn’t kill me.”
“You’re the lucky one,” Tully said. “Dave doesn’t have an off switch if he gets mad. So you’re lucky he didn’t get mad. Even so, he starts something, he finishes it. I guess he was only playing with you. He’s not really an Indian anyway. He pretends to be, so he can get his own casino. Now the only reason I’m bothering even to talk to you four thumb-suckers is Mrs. Wilson told me you like to think you’re into extreme sports.”
Lance said, “We were going to climb the back side of Mount Blight, but the avalanche threat up there got too high. Just because we’re not stupid doesn’t mean we don’t like extreme sports.”
“You’re not stupid? I was hoping you were, because I have something I want you to do. The lodge owner has asked me to think up an exercise for you, something to keep you out of her hair. And her bar.”
“Like what?” Lance said.
“Follow me.” Tully led them over to the 3-D map. “I assume you’re all fair skiers.”
Lance, who seemed to be the leader of the group, said, “We’re great skiers!”
“Excellent,” Tully said. “I need four guys with an exaggerated opinion of themselves. Now, pay attention.” He pointed at the map and explained the exercise he had thought up.
“Piece of cake,” Lance said.
“Finally you ski back to the lodge. You should complete the exercise in less than six hours.”
“How do we do that?”
“I’m glad you asked that, Lance, because now I’m going to tell you.”
He told them.
“Anyone ever do that before?” a kid asked.
“Don’t pay any attention to Rodney,” Lance said. “What’s in it for us, Sheriff?”
“I thought you might ask that, Lance. A hundred dollars each, if you’re back within six hours. Nothing if you’re late. In any case, it will give Mrs. Wilson a day without your company.”
“A hundred bucks is chicken feed,” the one called Wiggy said. He was thin and wore glasses and appeared somewhat more intelligent than the others.
“I thought it might be,” Tully said. “But that’s as high as I go.”
“Sounds like a lot of work for not much,” the kid known as Turk said. What appeared to be a diamond stickpin pierced one of his eyebrows. Tully imagined the adornment pleased the kid’s rich father enormously. “I’d rather sit around here all day and drink,” Turk added.
“That’s part of the problem,” Tully said. “Tell you what? You guys do this for me, and I’ll let you participate in a murder trial. How does that sound?”
“Hey, cool!” the four said almost in unison.
“Now it is possible the exercise can’t be done in six hours,” Tully said. “Maybe one of you falls and breaks a leg or something. In that case, I don’t want any of you to leave him. I assume you all have cell phones.”
“Yeah,” Lance said.
“So in case of an accident, you call the Sheriff’s Department at 911, and I’ll have it arranged so a helicopter picks you up.”
“If the guy is dead, it’s okay to leave him, isn’t it?” Lance said.
“Well, yeah,” Tully said. “If you’re sure he’s dead.”
35
AT EIGHT-THIRTY THE NEXT MORNING, Tully and Grady towed the four frat boys on their skis up to the top of the ridge with a rope tied to the back of the Sno-Cat. The four were in rowdy good spirits.
“You’re probably wondering, Grady, what I have planned for these young men. Basically, I want them out of the lodge for a day. They have become an enormous irritation to Blanche. And, more important, to me.”
“Yes sir,” Grady said. “To me also. There’s some pretty rugged terrain up here. They could get themselves killed if they’re not careful.”
“Yeah, but there’s always a downside. Keep in mind that we send young men like these off to war all the time to get them wounded and killed and their heads messed up. That’s what we old men do to young men, don’t you know that? It’s our revenge for them being young.”
“Yes sir.”
“We do it mostly to poor young men.”
“Yes sir.”
“These are rich young men, of course. On the other hand, this isn’t a war.”
“Yes sir.”
When they arrived at the top of the ridge, Tully had Grady drive down to where the Sno-Cat had turned around previously. The frat boys skied up to Tully. He checked his watch. “It’s almost nine. You have to be back at the lodge before three.
“I’m in charge, right, Sheriff?” Lance said.
“You’re in charge, Lance. If you get hurt or killed, then Rodney takes over.”
A cheer went up from the other two.
“That sort of thing happens to me all the time,” Tully said. “Too bad you don’t have someone to watch your back, Lance.”
Tully checked his watch as the quartet of skiers swept down the slope past the snowy sculptures of buried trees. “Three o’clock!” he yelled after them. “Don’t be late!”
“You think it can be done?” Grady asked him.
“I don’t know. The main thing is it keeps them out of my sight for a day.”
“You have something against fraternity boys, Sheriff?”
“Yes, I do, Grady. I was an independent in college. The frat boys were the ones who got all the good-looking girls in the sororities.”
“I never went to college,” Grady said.
“You didn’t miss much,” Tully said. “If you were a frat boy, it was fun. You majored in PE or pre-law or something else that didn’t require a whole lot of study that might interfere with your fun. If you were an independent, you had to major in something where you could get a job after you graduated. So you had to take something hard. If it was fun or easy, like psychology, everyone would major in it and you would have all that competition for a job after graduation. Something hard could be pure torture.”
“What did you major in?”
“Art.”
“That sou
nds like a lot of fun to me, Sheriff.”
“It was. Why do you think I ended up as a hick cop for a hick county?”
“Yes sir, I did wonder about that.”
“You can stop wondering.”
“Yes sir.”
36
WHEN HE GOT BACK TO the lodge, Lois was seated at her desk in the office.
“Mind if I borrow your phone a minute, Lois?”
“What if I said yes?”
“I would use it anyway.”
“That’s what I thought. I really don’t mind, Bo. Use it all you want. Would you like me to step out of the office?”
“Not this time, Lois. Just don’t go blabbing anything you might hear.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Tully dialed. Daisy answered. “Boss, if you’re not back here soon, I think I’ll quit!”
“You can’t quit, Daisy. You have to give thirty days notice, and I’ll be back by then. What’s the problem anyway?”
“Nobody knows what to do! I try to tell them, but of course they won’t listen to me.”
“Herb is supposed to be in charge.”
“Oh, you know they don’t listen to Herb either. Besides, he’s gone most of the time checking on some stuff you gave him.”
The general state of confusion in the office actually made him feel better. Maybe he was important to the operation after all. That would certainly be a motive for anyone trying to kill him. Maybe the person who set off the avalanche knew what he was doing. With Tully gone, the murders would no doubt go unsolved. Killing Pap as a bonus was probably a good idea, too, because otherwise someone would die for the murder of Bo Tully. It might not be the right person, but somebody would die. Pap was a sentimental kind of guy.
“Listen, Daisy, is Herb around there now?”
“He just came in, boss. I hope you chew on him good!”
Tully covered the earpiece while Daisy yelled at Herb to take line one.
“Hi, Bo,” Herb said. “Hope you’re not paying any attention to Daisy. She’s been flipping out ever since you’ve been gone. You don’t have something going with her, do you?”
“Not yet, Herb. She’s in the middle of a divorce.”
“Well, I imagine Albert the Awful won’t be too upset to be rid of her.”
“So what do you have for me, Herb?”
“Nothing much, Bo, except I’ve been running a real tight ship while you’ve been gone.”
“That’s great, Herb.”
“Do I get a raise?”
“No. I assume you have disposed of Clarence.”
“I’m working myself up for it.”
“You don’t have to work yourself up for it. Just do it.”
“Right, Bo.”
“Now get me back to Daisy.”
Daisy picked up. “What now, boss?”
“I just wanted to make sure Brian Pugh is out taking care of the little task I assigned him.”
“It’s taken care of. Lurch told me and I told Brian. He’s out there right now handling it. I made sure of that.”
“Good.”
Daisy loved ordering people around.
Tully hung up. “I forgot you were sitting there, Lois. Don’t tell anyone what you heard.”
“All I could make out of interest, Sheriff, was that you might be dating some woman called Daisy who is getting a divorce.”
“That’s the part I don’t want you to tell anyone.”
Lois said, “I hope you don’t think Blanche had anything to do with the murder of Mike Wilson.”
“What I think doesn’t amount to anything, Lois. It’s only what I can prove. And right now I can’t prove a thing.”
37
TULLY FOUND THE HANDYMAN IN his shop. “You ever know Mike Wilson to buy dynamite, Grady?”
Grady thought for a moment. “He was going to blast a new channel for that crick that meanders through the meadow down the road. I never knew anybody that wanted to straighten a crick before, but that’s the kind of person Mike was. He liked everything nice and tidy, even cricks. You’ll notice in the shop, there’s a place marked out on the pegboard for every tool. If he found a tool that hadn’t been put back in its proper place, he’d blow a fuse.”
“Did he ever straighten the creek?”
“No, sir, he never did.”
“What happened to the dynamite?”
“Can’t rightly say. Never heard Mike mention it or the crick again.”
“When did he purchase the dynamite?”
“How come you’re so interested in dynamite, Sheriff? Somebody blow something up?”
“Maybe. So when did Mike buy it?”
“Last summer sometime, when he got all fussed up over the crick wasting so much of the meadow. To tell you the truth, I like the crick the way it is.”
“Me too,” Tully said. “You’re sure he purchased the dynamite?”
“Pretty sure. He said he did. Said it made him nervous, driving it back up to the lodge in the back of his car. Apparently it is the kind of dynamite that a sudden jolt can set it off, like if another car rams you from behind.”
Tully said, “Back when I was a kid, it was called ditching dynamite. Don’t know what they call it now. It doesn’t seem to me to be the sort of thing you want to have lying around.”
“You’re making me nervous, Sheriff.”
“Hope so, Grady. You might take a look around the shop, see if you can turn up any.”
“Yes sir!”
Tully met Pap and Dave for lunch. “Looks as if this might be our last free meal,” he told them. “You better order the most expensive dish they’ve got.”
“Glad you told us,” Pap said.
The waitress came to take their orders. Pap and Dave each ordered the T-bone steak.
“Oh,” the waitress said, “those are served only for dinner in the evening.”
“This is an emergency,” Tully told her. “My men need T-bone steaks right now. Otherwise, I can’t be responsible for what they might do.”
The waitress smiled. “Okay, Sheriff. I have orders to give you anything you ask for.
“Anything?”
“In the way of food,” she said, laughing. “But I would be happy to discuss any other matters you might have in mind.”
“That’s a discussion I’ll look forward to,” he told her. “Otherwise, today has been nothing but one disappointment after another. I’ll take the soup and salad combo.”
The waitress left, smiling. Not bad, Tully thought.
“Soup and salad,” Dave said. “Bo, that doesn’t give you anywhere near your daily requirement of cholesterol.”
“I know,” he said. “But I’ve got at least ten pounds I have to drop. Then I’ll stop by your House of Fry and order one of your chicken-fried steaks.”
“Gain all ten pounds back in one meal,” Dave said.
“That’s my plan. Anyway, here’s what I have up till now. I know the avalanche was deliberately set off by ditching dynamite. The marks are still up in the snow on the ridge where the avalanche started. From that point, you can clearly see the road down below, and it would be easy to see the red Explorer coming up the road. I just found out from Grady that Mike bought some ditching dynamite last summer. He had to have a permit from Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to do that, and he had to fill out a form to get the permit. When we get back to town, we’ll get a copy from ATF.”
“You have any evidence of the dynamite, Bo?”
“Just the marks in the snow and the holes. I think Mike buried the dynamite at the top of an old rock-slide. I’ll hunt somebody down with a digital camera and see if I can get some pictures.”
After lunch, Tully found Lindsay in the lounge playing chess with Marcus. The boy gave Tully a sheepish look.
“You should be out of here tomorrow, Marcus,” Tully said. “Then you’ll have the chance to explain to your daddy how you drowned your BMW.”
“I already explained it to him over the phone. I thought
it would be safer that way. And I would just as soon you didn’t talk to him, Sheriff, because I may have modified the facts a little.”
“That’s certainly what I would have done, Marcus. I think you may have the makings of a fine lawyer. Now I need to borrow your partner here for a private consultation.”
He led Lindsay into the 3-D map room.
“What’s up, Bo?”
“Tell me you have a digital camera with you.”
“Sure, you want to borrow it?”
“No, I’m not much of a tech freak. I need you to shoot some pictures for me.”
“Great!”
“And then you’ll probably get to testify as a witness in a trial.”
“Cool!”
“Yes, it is. I’ll pick you up out in front of the lodge in an hour. Come bundled up.”
“Where are you going now?”
“I have to arrange transportation.”
Janice was still eating lunch. “A passenger!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah,” Tully said. “But she doesn’t weigh much. The extra weight may slow the mutts down a bit, but that’s all.”
“Calling them mutts isn’t helping you one bit to get that ride. Who is the passenger?”
“Lindsay Blair.”
“That hot little fox!”
“Hey, there’s nothing between us. She’s just a kid.”
“When did that ever stop you? I was a kid once, too, you may remember.”
“And then you married Tom. By the way, did he ever turn up?”
“Yeah, his aunt Margaret died and he drove up to Lewiston for the funeral.”
“See, just what I told you. And you thought he was having an affair!”
“Men lie.”
“Oh, sure, there’s that. Anyway, are you going to haul me and my passenger up the ridge again? I could ask Grady, but I’d just as soon he doesn’t know what I’m up to.”
“Is he a suspect?”
“Everybody is a suspect.”
“Am I a suspect.”
“Sure. But not of murder.”
Janice smiled. “Good.”
38
“COOL!” LINDSAY SAID WHEN SHE saw the sled and dogs.
Avalanche: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) Page 13