The Huckleberry Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery

by Patrick F. McManus

  “From whom, may I ask?”

  “Your deputies, of course. They come in here to get patched up.”

  “I’m not surprised. They’re a careless bunch. So you’re the famous redhead. I can see now the boys haven’t been exaggerating.”

  She laughed. “They’re pretty nice boys, Sheriff.”

  “Call me Bo, please. Everybody does, even my criminals.”

  “I hear you’re quite the fly fisherman, Bo.”

  Tully nodded. “Yeah, but I’m mostly a catch-and-eat kind of guy. Wet a fly now and then. That way I don’t catch so many fish it becomes a distraction. I know some great fly-fishing streams, by the way, if you’re interested in taking up the sport.”

  “Is that an invitation, Bo?”

  “It definitely is. I’d be most happy to give you a few lessons.”

  She laughed. “Really? My father started me out with a fly rod when I was eight years old, if those are the kind of lessons you had in mind.”

  “They most certainly are. You probably can give me some lessons, Scarlett. Let’s see, my mind seems to have gone blank for a second. Oh, yeah, I was going to say that right at the moment I’m tied up with some crimes and stuff like that. But I should be free in a couple of weeks. I’ll, uh, be in touch. But back to business. You may have had a kid about twenty come in here to get a wound in his arm treated. Would have been the last few days.”

  “Sure, I remember him. I helped patch him up. He said he had fallen on a sharp stick but both the doctor and I thought it was a bullet wound. We cleaned it up, put in a couple stitches, and gave him a shot of penicillin.”

  “He give you a name and address?”

  She shook her head. “He did but they were both obviously fake. He didn’t have any ID on him. Called himself something like Bill Brown. I can look up the name and address for you if you want.”

  “Naw. They’d both be phony. Maybe if the wound gets infected he’ll come in again. Give me a call, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  “One other thing, Scarlett. My deputy Brian Pugh . . . ”

  “I know Brian.”

  “Of course you do. He was supposed to bring in a not-so-young lady earlier. Is he still here by any chance?”

  “I haven’t seen him leave. Hold on a sec, I’ll check.” She punched a couple of buttons and spoke into a speaker. “Is Brian still back there?”

  Brian? Tully thought. So he’s that well known around here.

  “Yeah,” a voice said. “Who wants him?”

  “His boss. At emergency reception.”

  “He’s on his way.”

  Brian came striding out. “So you tracked me down, Bo. What’s up?”

  “I was just checking on our two patients.”

  “They’re going to keep Bev a couple of days for observation. She was hurt a lot worse than anybody at Slade’s knew or let on. She’ll be all right, though. J.D. apparently had a bruised kidney or something like that. Probably got it from a fall. But he should be out tomorrow.”

  “Good. J.D. will probably be politer to strangers in the future.”

  “I suspect so.”

  Brian nodded at the nurse. “I see you’ve met Scarlett.”

  “Bo and I may go fishing together in a couple of weeks,” she said.

  Pugh laughed. “I told you he works fast.”

  “Actually, Brian, I think I was the one who worked fast.”

  Scarlett was about to add something when her phone rang. She picked it up and said, “Blight City Emergency.” She listened. “Yeah, Tim, he’s still here.”

  She handed the phone to Tully. “Tim Doyle.”

  Tully took the phone. “Hi, Tim. What’s up?”

  “Bo, we just had a shooting outside the K-Bar convenience store on the north side. I think it’s something you might be interested in. I’m on my way there. You want to swing by?”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, Tim. Thanks for the call.”

  Scarlet looked up at him. “Business, I bet.”

  “Afraid so.”

  “You need me, boss?” Pugh said.

  “Naw, I’ll handle it.”

  “Good,” Pugh said. “I’ve invited Scarlett out for a late-night snack after her shift ends.”

  Tully gave the nurse a wink. “Watch out for this guy. He’s got a bad rep.”

  She laughed. “Don’t you all?”

  “Well, sure, but Brian is one of the worst.”

  • • •

  Tully pulled into the K-Bar lot and parked. The lot was crowded with police cars, an ambulance, and a fire-station emergency team. Several police officers were standing around a pickup truck. Tim was standing next to Willy, who was still drunk but an interested observer of the crime scene. Tim glanced in Tully’s direction and then started to walk over. Tully could now see the side of the truck. He groaned. The driver’s-side window was a spiderweb of glass, with portions completely missing. He could see bullet holes in the blue door on the red truck. He’d told Lennie, “You can’t be dumb.” But did he listen?

  Tim walked up. “We checked for the guy’s ID. He hasn’t got any on him.”

  “His name is Lennie Frick, Tim. He lived at Four-oh-five East Sharp.”

  Tim took out his notebook and wrote the name and address down.

  Tully said, “He did a bit of time a while back. He wasn’t a bad guy, just a dumb one. He might have seen whoever did the killings up on Scotchman.” He nodded toward the truck. “This pretty much proves it.”

  Tim looked up from his notebook. “So you think you know who did it?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I don’t have any names, though. Not to mention proof.”

  “Things are pretty bad when a kid goes out for a six-pack of beer and gets blown away.”

  “Acme?”

  “How did you know?”

  “I’m psychic.”

  “Looks like the shooter used a .22,” Tim said. “Very small bullet holes. I counted six. No casings anywhere. So it was probably a revolver. Strange thing is, nobody we’ve talked to heard any shots.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Tully said. “I suspect the killer used a silencer.”

  “A silencer! Sounds like Blight City is getting into the big time.”

  • • •

  Tully slept most of the day on Saturday. That night he called Pete Reynolds. “Pete, any chance you could take me for a spin in your airplane tomorrow?”

  “Why, sure, Bo. For some reason I had the idea you hated flying.”

  “I do, Pete, but there’s some stuff I need to check out from the air. Just a hunch I have.”

  13

  SUNDAY MORNING, TULLY had no trouble containing his enthusiasm for the flight. He stopped at McDonald’s and had his usual Egg McMuffin and coffee, then drove out to the airport. Pete was already there, tinkering with something on his plane.

  “Doing some major repairs, I see.”

  “Naw, nothing major. A bolt here, a nut there, that sort of thing. Where we headed today, Bo?”

  “I’m trying to solve a crime. People are getting killed for no reason I can figure out. I could understand if they were bankers or lawyers or people of that ilk, but they are just poor dumb kids scarcely twenty years old, if that. Anyway, I think Scotchman Creek may hold an answer.”

  Pete tossed a wrench back in his toolbox. “I haven’t fished Scotchman in years but I can tell you the lower part of that crick is one unholy mess. The beavers run a series of dams crisscrossing each other all through there. It’s impossible even to find your way to the crick anymore. Beavers helped turn it into one giant swamp. Some places the water comes up to your armpits, and that’s if you ain’t standing in quicksand. It was that way thirty years ago and probably a lot worse now. I imagine the beavers flooded hundreds of acres since then. Some mighty fine timber locked away in there but the beavers made getting it out more expensive than it’s worth.”

  “I guess beavers aren’t totally useless, then.”

 
“Easy for you to say, Bo.”

  A few minutes later they were on the tarmac, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the plane’s cockpit. As far as Tully could tell, the plane didn’t bother to taxi but jumped into the air from a standstill, hurling him back into his seat.

  “What kind of motor you got on this thing anyway, Pete?”

  “The most powerful money can buy. No sense flying an underpowered aircraft, I always say. I tell you what, Bo, we’ll circle around Scotchman Peak to warm up, and then cruise back down the crick away from the mountain. You see that clearing in those trees down there? Well, I had a chopper back then and had to put it down in that very spot a couple summers ago.”

  “Wow! That clearing doesn’t look anywhere big enough to land a helicopter in.”

  “Shoot, until I landed, there wasn’t any clearing there at all! Flipped over and mowed down trees like tall grass.”

  “I see.”

  The plane swept up and around Scotchman Peak. At some points, the vertical rock slabs of the peak looked close enough for Tully to reach out and touch.

  Pete pointed to the base of a sheer granite wall. “You see that little lake down there, Bo? You ever fished it?”

  “No. I didn’t even know it existed.”

  “Hardly anybody does. It’s haunted.”

  “Haunted? I’ve never even heard of a haunted lake.”

  “I hiked in there, oh, it must be twenty-five years ago now. Had my youngest son, Alan, with me. It was one heck of a hike and we planned to spend a couple of days in there, camping and relaxing. Alan was about fourteen. You see how the trees are thick as fur on a dog’s back and how they come right up to the edge of the water? Oh, shoot, we’ve gone too far. I’ll take us around again.”

  Tully shook his head. “It’s okay, Pete, I saw the trees!”

  The plane had already leaned over on its side as it made a sharp turn around the peak and back over the lake. Tully could now look straight down out his side window and see how close the trees came to the lake.

  Pete tapped him on the shoulder. “You see, Bo? I can always take us around again.”

  “I see, Pete!”

  Pete seemed to scratch an itch somewhere on his back while leveling off the plane. “Well, when Alan and I got to the lake, trout was rising all over it but the trees come down so close to the water we couldn’t back-cast. There was a big snowbank at one end of the lake, almost like a glacier. So Alan fights his way through the trees and climbs out on the snow and then he’s got plenty of room to cast, and right away he starts hauling in fish. I got a little frantic because I can’t stand for one of my sons to outfish me. But then I found this narrow log stretching out into the water and I was able to walk out three-fourths of its length. The water was shallow under the log, maybe six inches deep, crystal clear, the stones on the bottom sharp as a picture. I make three or four casts and don’t get a hit. Then I notice this little wake, like maybe a tiny, invisible shark fin traveling through the water. It starts out in the middle of the lake, makes a wide half circle, and comes right up under my feet. I’m looking straight down into that little wake, Bo, and you gotta believe there wasn’t nothing in the middle of it, nothing making it that I could see. It was like an invisible finger had drawn it through the water. Well, I stood there a couple of seconds, trying to think what might make the thing, and I look out into the lake and another little wake has formed. And this one swings around in the opposite direction of the first one and comes right up under my feet! And Bo, I ain’t makin’ this up! There was nothing in the middle of that one either!”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I yelled at Alan, ‘We going home, son! Grab your gear!’ He yells back, ‘How come, Pa?’ and I yells, ‘’Cause this lake is haunted!’ ”

  “You’re telling me Alan didn’t even question you about the lake’s being haunted?”

  “Nope, he never said a word about it, just packed up and started down the trail. Maybe it was mostly because he didn’t want to be that far back in the mountains with a lunatic, I don’t know. You’re the only other person I’ve ever told about that lake being haunted. Alan’s never mentioned it either.”

  I wish you hadn’t told me, Tully thought.

  “Later I heard the Indians wouldn’t go within ten miles of that lake.”

  “I’m with the Indians,” Tully said. “You don’t suppose the haunt reaches this far up, do you, Pete?”

  “Good point, Bo.”

  Pete leveled the plane and headed down Scotchman Creek, swooping in low over the trees. Because of the wings on the plane, Tully couldn’t see much of the creek below. He pulled his camera out of his kit. “Can you tilt the plane so I can see below the wing, Pete?”

  “Tell you what, Bo. I’ll circle the peak again and then turn her up on her side. That way you can photograph the whole of Scotchman Creek. You snap pictures like crazy and then you can examine them in comfort when you get back to the office.”

  “Sounds like a deal.”

  Pete revved up the engine, circled the peak, and brought the plane back over the creek on its side. Tully snapped pictures for all he was worth.

  “You want to do that again?” Pete asked, leveling out the plane.

  “No!”

  “Good! My old flight instructor used to tell me never to do that. Said planes can drop right out of the air when you do. It’s never happened to me, though, except that one time.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it!”

  14

  BY THE TIME Tully got to the office Monday morning, his pulse had almost returned to normal. He walked over to Lurch and handed him the memory card from the camera. “See what you can do with these photos, if there are any. I haven’t been able to make myself look at them.”

  “I’ll run them through Photoshop, boss, and get them sharpened up.”

  “Good. Call me when you’ve got them ready. If they don’t turn out, we may have to do the shoot over. You like to fly, Lurch?”

  The Unit gave an exaggerated shudder. “You know I hate it!”

  “I don’t care. If the photos don’t turn out, you’re going up!”

  Lurch slid the memory card into his computer. “Take my word for it, boss, they’ll turn out.”

  Lurch’s fingers began to fly over the keyboard. “And now somebody whacks Lennie Frick. No way Lennie ever did anything to anybody to get taken out like that.”

  “You’re right, Lurch. I don’t know what’s going on.” Tully walked over to Daisy’s desk. She was hunched over her computer, frowning in concentration. “You believe in water spirits, Daisy?”

  “Hunh?” she said, glancing up.

  “Never mind.” He walked into his office.

  He picked up his phone and dialed the Social Security office. A woman answered. “Social Security, Jennifer speaking.”

  “Jennifer, this is Sheriff Bo Tully.”

  “Hi, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve been thinking of switching sides and taking up crime. Now, suppose I stole my old father’s Social Security check. How would I go about cashing it?”

  Jennifer went into a brief description of how the crime might be pulled off. She explained that as soon as the legal recipient of the check notified Social Security he or she hadn’t received the check, an investigation would take place to determine if and how the check had been stolen. “It would be very hard to cash the check without proper ID, Bo.”

  “Suppose I killed Pap. Then he couldn’t complain. I now use his ID to cash the check at a bank drive-through. How about that?”

  “In that case, you might get away with it for a while, as long as the victim couldn’t complain and you had the proper ID, say Pap’s driver’s license, that you could send into the teller.”

  “Thanks, Jennifer. I’d appreciate you not mentioning this call to anybody, just in case I decide to kill Pap for reasons other than his piddling Social Security check.”

  “I won’t tell a soul, Bo. So, when are you thinkin
g of switching over to crime?”

  “I’ll see how this week goes, sweetheart.”

  He hung up, slid his chair back, and propped his feet on his desk. He sat there tugging on his mustache while he thought about Orville Poulson and Ray Crockett. Orville had supposedly gone off on his endless trip in January, leaving Crockett in charge of the ranch. If Crockett had killed him, he could have buried Orville anywhere on the ranch and there would be no way to find the body. The ground would be frozen in January, though—impossible to dig a grave. He supposed Crockett could have hidden the body under some hay in the barn and let it freeze. Then he could have waited for the ground to thaw in the spring. Tully thought he might follow Etta Gorsich’s suggestion and look under the house. The ground there wouldn’t have been frozen in January. It might be tough to get a search warrant for a body when you don’t even know if there is one. Still, maybe he could get a search warrant from Judge Patterson. As Daisy liked to point out, Patterson was the best possible kind of judge: old and senile and one who would give Tully anything he asked for. And some people thought the justice system had gone to hell. What did they know?

  Lurch opened his door. “I’ve got those photos up on the computer, boss. You want to come take a look?”

  Tully got up and walked with Lurch back to his computer. The photo on the screen was surprisingly sharp, considering the circumstances in which it had been taken.

  “What’s that thing hanging down in front of the lens?” Lurch asked.

  “Probably my tongue.” Tully could make out a large patch of swamp below. He switched to another photo and then worked through the series. “Perfect! Just as I suspected.”

  “What did you suspect, Bo?”

  Just then Daisy walked across the room and said in a low voice, “An Angela Phelps to see you, boss.”

  Tully glanced across the briefing room. A woman stood there, tapping her foot in a way that suggested impatience. He vaguely wondered why Daisy hadn’t simply yelled across the room in her usual fashion. She apparently read his mind.

  “FBI,” she whispered.