Circles in the Snow

by Patrick F. McManus

  Daisy took a swig of her wine. “Yeah, I think I’m following you, Bo.”

  “My point is, if you date someone who was born in Blight, raised in Blight, and lived his whole life in Blight, he will be a Blighter. His whole world is Blight, except for the images on the wall of the cave or, in the Blighter’s case, maybe television or the movies.”

  “Okay, I get your point. I think maybe Socrates was right. My question to you is, since you escaped the cave of Blight, why did you come crawling back into it?”

  Tully frowned. “Good question. ‘Crawling’ seems a bit extreme, but I guess it was because I understood Blight. I feel more comfortable with what I understand, bad as it might be, than with what I don’t. I can talk hunting and fishing and chain saws and ­double-bitted axes and huckleberries with the best of the Blighters.”

  Daisy stared off into the distance. “Well, I went to secretarial college for one year and came back to Blight, too. I still can’t talk hunting or fishing or chain saws. Blight does grow on you, though. Or you on it. Oh, here comes Lester.”

  The waiter arrived with two large bowls of salad, each heaped with chunks of dark meat. “Grilled-steak salad!” he said, placing the salads in front of them.

  “Lester!” Daisy exclaimed. “It smells delicious!”

  “I must admit that it is.”

  Tully stared at his salad. “Crabbs must be coming up in the world.”

  Lester smiled. “It’s not a hard climb, Bo, when you’re already the finest restaurant in all of Blight City.”

  After the waiter left, Daisy said, “Once again, you have managed to avoid answering my question.”

  “What question is that, Daisy?”

  “I asked you what you thought about us getting back together again. I know that a while back you and Jan Whittle went off to dinner in the Seattle Space Needle, a two-day trip, as I recall. I assume that was the reason she and Darrel got divorced.”

  “I don’t think so, Daisy. The reason for the divorce is that Darrel is a turnip. The reason for our little trip, Jan was just paying off a debt, mainly for my risking my life to trudge up into the mountains to find that miserable runaway kid Glen Cliff for her. I can assure you nothing of consequence happened on the Space Needle trip, but Jan told me she and Darrel already planned to divorce. Our little trip, Jan’s and mine, was just like when we were boyfriend and girlfriend back in grade school. Nothing of consequence ever happened back then, either. As I recall, we never even spoke. That’s the way grade-school romances went back then.”

  “Did you speak on your Seattle trip?”

  “Just what I told you. But Jan has no interest in getting married or even having a serious relationship again. She makes a good living as principal of the grade school and loves the work. And she wants to enjoy her freedom from the turnip. But to answer your question, yes, I’ve been thinking a great deal about you and me getting back together again. Jan and I even talked about that. So there.”

  “Really? You talked about us getting together again?”

  “Well, yeah. I didn’t want her to get any ideas while she was out there overnight with someone like me.”

  Daisy burst out laughing.

  Tully frowned but went on. “I have been thinking how nice it would be if someone got up on ice-cold mornings and built my fire, so I could get up to a warm house.”

  Daisy smiled. “Maybe you should take in a boarder. Oh, by the way, Leroy Fagan called while you were out investigating your murder.”

  “So what does our district attorney want with me now?”

  “He didn’t say. But I got the impression it was something involving Blight County judges. He mentioned something about the FBI and said he wanted to talk to you as soon as you had the chance.”

  Tully forked a piece of grilled steak into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. “Do you suppose somebody thinks Blight County judges might get paid off by trial attorneys simply wanting to win cases? What is the world coming to? Judges have to eat, too.”

  “Our county judges get paid exceedingly well, I think. Fagan didn’t say why he wanted to talk to you, but that would be my guess. He just happened to mention the FBI.”

  “Paying off judges is an age-old tradition in Blight County,” Tully said. “I can’t imagine why Fagan or the FBI would get excited about that now. Are they going to let cases be decided by law? Now that is something really scary. There go a few more of our beloved traditions.”

  Tully ate another piece of his steak. It was surprisingly good. Something was going on behind the scenes at Crabbs. Then he said, “So Leroy is bothered by payoffs to judges? Maybe he hasn’t been getting his cut. I’m not sure I want to get involved in our judges’ haggling over their payoffs. Not that I would suspect them of such a thing. Haggling, I mean.”

  “Well, the FBI apparently does. They’ve sent an agent up to check into the complaints.”

  “Not . . . ?”

  Yes, Angie Phelps. She’s in charge of the whole northern part of Idaho now.”

  “Just my luck!”

  “Right. Nothing you hate worse than having to work with a smart, pretty, shapely female FBI agent.”

  Tully rubbed his jaw and thought about the pretty agent. They had worked several crimes together.

  Daisy glared at him. “Stop thinking about Angie, Bo.”

  Chapter 16

  Tully clumped up the long steep flight of wooden steps to Etta Gorsich’s house, an old, gray, creepy-looking structure perfectly suited to a fortune-teller. It was perched on a hill overlooking Blight City. He never paid much attention to Etta’s warnings, but several of them had proved to be right-on. If he counted all the warnings Etta had come up with, he figured she had guessed correctly on a couple of them. Fortune-tellers apparently worked on percentages. He glanced up. Etta was standing on her porch watching him. He gave her a weak little wave. The steps seemed greater in number than usual. He stopped and rested, turning to gaze out over the city, as if he had just thought of something he had better observe there. Etta called down to him.

  “Bo, I’ve told you before, you’re getting much too old to be sheriff of a place like Blight County!”

  “Just enjoying the view, Etta!”

  He plodded on up the steps. Etta spread her arms for him and he stepped into them, giving her a squeeze to keep from collapsing.

  “Oh, Bo, it’s so good to see you. Come on in. I have a pot of tea ready.” She opened the door and he stepped into the sumptuous living room: polished hardwood tables, pink silk covering a large plump sofa with matching chairs, large windows overlooking the forestlands to the west, a silver tea set resting on a coffee table in front of the sofa. Apparently, the fortune-­telling business was a bit more than lucrative, even in an economically depressed area like Blight County. The room always came as a bit of a shock to Tully, particularly after having experienced the exterior of the home.

  He walked over, eased himself down on the sofa, and slid in behind the coffee table. “So, Etta, what’s this dire warning you have to give me?”

  She sat down in a chair across from him and poured the tea. “Two spoonfuls of sugar, as I recall.”

  Tully nodded. Etta never forgot anything. She had the finest mind of anyone he knew and had no reason for the pretense of being a fortune-teller. Her advice to business tycoons came from her intellect and knowledge of the markets. Fortune-telling was only a cover, because tycoons couldn’t believe a woman could possibly be as smart as Etta.

  Tully sipped his tea. Perfect, as always. “So what’s this threat I’m supposed to be so concerned about?”

  She frowned. “You know somebody named Fletch, don’t you?”

  “Fletch! How do you know about Fletch? He’s locked up in prison. Been there for the past five years. Be another five before he has a chance to get out. His real name isn’t Fletch, anyway. It’s George Mahoney. The gang he ran with just called him Fletch.”

  “Oh,” Etta said. “I didn’t know he was in prison. My sources just
told me he made a serious threat against you and for you to be wary.”

  Tully smiled. “Etta, it will be so long before Mahoney gets out of prison, I get this ridiculous dream of him and me. He’s chasing me down the street, both of us shooting at each other and we’re both in wheelchairs.”

  Etta looked puzzled. “My source didn’t mention prison, Bo. I’m sorry. I certainly wouldn’t want to worry you for no reason.”

  “Not a problem. I’m sure your sources meant well and tell them I appreciate their concern. No doubt Fletch has been saying quite a few mean things about me.”

  They chatted and sipped tea for a few minutes and then Etta said, “Do you think you and I could at long last make that trip up through Idaho we’ve talked about for years? It’s such a beautiful state and I would love to see the rest of it.”

  Tully took a sip of tea while he thought about this. “Etta, beginning in June, I have a month off. If you can make it then, I’m all for it. I may have to check with Daisy first, though.”

  “Your secretary? Why on earth would you have to check with your secretary?”

  “Daisy keeps track of what I have to do. If she didn’t, I’d have to, and I already have too much work.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing you have Daisy, then. You have more than enough work, Bo. Sometimes you look exhausted.”

  Tully laughed. “I fake that, Etta. It gets me a lot of sympathy. Well, actually, it doesn’t get me any sympathy, but I keep hoping it might. Anyway, thanks for telling me about Fletch. I’m sure he takes my name in vain and makes threats of all kinds while he’s doing his time. Your informants are probably just picking up on that.”

  “I hope so, Bo.”

  Tully sipped the last of his tea and stood up. “I’m sorry to sip and run, Etta, but I’ve got to get back to the office. Crime waits for no one.”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t, Bo. Just be careful.”

  Chapter 17

  By the time Tully got back to the office, the night shift was arriving—eight deputies, the night supervisor, and the jail staff. Daisy was clearing her desk. “Oh, Bo! I didn’t expect you back. How was your fortune-teller?”

  “Etta was fine, thank you. Beautiful as ever, very smart, and intensely interested in me.”

  Daisy smiled. “Too bad she’s over sixty years old.”

  “Oh yeah, there’s that. So anything of interest going on here?”

  “I’m afraid so. We got an alert from the state police. George Mahoney faked a heart attack, managed to slip out of the prison hospital unit, and made his escape.”

  Tully could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

  “Gee, Bo,” Daisy said. “I didn’t mean to shock you.”

  “It wasn’t you, Daisy, and it wasn’t George Mahoney. So Fletch is on the loose. I’d better swing by Slade’s on my way home and have a talk with what remains of his old gang, if they’re still hanging out there.”

  Daisy put on her coat and grabbed her purse. “Speaking of Slade’s, your two knife fighters got a clean bill of health from the hospital. No concussions from accidental contact with your blackjack.”

  “Good. I didn’t mean to hit them as hard as I did. It wasn’t a blackjack, anyway. Just a bag of lead shot I use for loading my own shotgun shells. Maybe for the moment I was simply overcome by their monumental stupidity and went a little berserk. So what’s their status now?”

  “They’re both in separate cells downstairs, whining to be released.”

  Tully thought about this. “I’m the one who made up the charges against them, assault with intent to kill. Why else get into a knife fight? Oh, right, stupidity. But if stupidity were a crime, we would have half of Blight County in jail. I’ll drop down and have a talk with the boys before I head out, and maybe I’ll see if the judge will drop the charges. What are their names, anyway?”

  Daisy checked a folder on her desk. Felix Burdock and Milton Fry.

  “What?” Tully said. “Give me their names again.”

  Daisy did. “Felix and Milton.”

  Tully sighed. “Men by the names of Felix and Milton don’t get into knife fights. Are you sure those are their real names?”

  Daisy said, “Bo, these days I’m not sure of anything. I imagine the arresting officers checked the ID in their wallets, if they had any.”

  Daisy left and Tully walked over to the elevator, enjoying as always the sound his three-thousand-dollar boots made on the marble-chip floor. So few pleasures in life, he thought, you have to appreciate any that happen along. He got out of the creaky old elevator on the basement floor, which housed the jail. Lulu, the elderly jail matron, was on duty behind her desk. A steel-barred door and a double row of cells stretched down a corridor behind her.

  “Good evening, Lulu,” he said, greeting the stout little lady. Her gray hair was tied in its usual bun.

  “Bo, how nice to see you! What brings you down to the dungeon this time of day?”

  “Oh, I just felt like having a chat with two of your inmates, Felix and Milton.”

  Lulu laughed. “Aren’t those the two most awful names you ever heard for jailbirds?”

  “They are indeed, Lulu. I heard you had the good sense to put each in a cell by himself. A cellmate would have felt obligated just out of self-respect to beat up a person named Milton or Felix. Those names are usually reserved for dentists and librarians. Can you believe these two characters were arrested for a knife fight?”

  “It’s hard to imagine, Bo. I understand you coldcocked both of them with a single stroke of your blackjack.”

  “Yes, I did, but that was without knowing their names. I was simply responding to the monumental stupidity of two persons engaging in a knife fight in this day and age. Since they are regulars at Slade’s Bar & Grill, however, I’ve been thinking they might have some useful information for me. Where’s your assistant hiding out, anyway?”

  She pointed to a door at the end of the room. “Oh, Bert disappeared into our restroom about an hour ago. He probably fell asleep in there. You can either flush him out yourself, Bo, or just flush him, makes no difference to me.”

  Tully thought about this for a moment. “I’d better let you flush him out, Lulu.”

  She put her hands to her mouth and shouted, “Get your business done in there fast as you can, Bert, and get that butt out here! Sheriff Tully is after you!”

  The tall, skinny Bert burst through a door at the end of the room and came scurrying over. “A man don’t get a moment’s peace around this joint, Sheriff.”

  Tully scratched his chin to keep from smiling. “Sorry to disturb you, Bert, but I need you to put Burdock in the interrogation room. I want to have a little chat with him.”

  “You want him cuffed, Bo?”

  “Bert, his name is Felix.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot for a second. Hope I didn’t offend you, Sheriff.”

  “No offense taken.”

  A few minutes later, Bert had Felix in the tiny interrogation room. Tully opened the door, stepped in, and closed the door behind him. He sat down at a small table. Felix peered back at him from the other side. He was a large man but soft in appearance, with dull eyes and a glum expression.

  “How are they treating you here, Felix?”

  “Not bad, I guess, for jail.”

  “Lulu and Bert haven’t been beating on you or anything like that, I take it.”

  “Nope.”

  “I suppose they’ll leave that to the big boys. They like the newcomers to get a chance to feel comfortable for a while.”

  “What do you mean, ‘the big boys?’”

  “Oh, the rest of the inmates. They’re always hungry for some new entertainment.”

  “Entertainment?”

  “Oh, don’t get me started on that, Felix. I haven’t eaten supper yet. Now here’s the deal I’m going to offer you. You give me truthful answers, something that helps me, and I’ll talk to the judge and see if I can get you two guys sprung on your own recognizance.”
<
br />   “My what, Sheriff? I’m not sure I got one of those.”

  Tully stared at him. “Let’s just say I’ll try to get you released. I’m not promising anything. The judge and I don’t exactly get along, but I’ll try. Good enough?”

  “Yeah, go ahead and ask.”

  Tully pondered his best approach, then said, “You recall your old friend Fletch, right, Felix?”

  “Yeah, we had some good times together, Fletch and me. Then you sent him to the pen.”

  “Yes, I did, but you have to remember good times don’t last forever, particularly when you are threatening to shoot people and rob them blind, entertaining as that might be.”

  “I never done none of that. Fletch liked to work alone.”

  “I know, Felix. That’s why you’re not in prison with him. Well, actually, Fletch isn’t in prison himself at the moment. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  Felix stared at him, his eyes blinking. Tully smiled and cracked his knuckles. “My question to you is this. Have you heard from Fletch since he broke out of prison?” He could practically see the wheels turning in the man’s head. “Stop trying to think up a lie, Felix, and tell me the truth.”

  “Yeah, I heard from him right after he busted out.”

  “And?”

  “He’s holed up in the house of a friend of his. The guy who lives there used to rob banks, but after his stretch in prison, I think he retired. He got released not too long ago.”

  Tully turned this over in his mind. “So maybe Fletch isn’t far from the prison, if he’s staying with his bank robber friend?”

  “Yeah, but he’s hot to get back to Blight. Says he has a debt to settle here. His problem, he ain’t got a car. So he’s going to hang out with his pal till he can figure out something.”

  Tully smiled. “Well, shoot, maybe I’ll save him the trouble and drop down there for a visit. This bank-robbing friend of his have a name?”