The Tamarack Murders

by Patrick F. McManus

  Tully thought about the bank job. He knew places in the world where a person could live in luxury forever just on the money from the bank. He didn’t know exactly how much money that was, but enough almost to fill a trash bag.

  Danielle said, “Maybe after I unload Grid’s stupid place, I’ll move to Boise. At least its got some great restaurants.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Oh, by the way. Grid told me to give you the ATV. So it’s yours, whenever you want to pick it up.”

  Tully stood there, stunned by this announcement. What if Lurch matched the ATV track on the mountain to Grid’s machine? He suspected a sinister joke by its absentee owner. This would take some thought. “By the way, Danny, do you have any idea where Grid might be right now? Did he ever mention a particular country he might head for?”

  She thought for a moment. “Well, he talked a lot about Australia and all the different birds there. He has a thing about birds, I don’t know why. I personally think birds are about as boring as it gets, but for some reason Grid is crazy about them.”

  Tully scratched his jaw and stared off into the distance. “So right now, Danny, you think Grid may at this very moment be on a plane headed to Australia?”

  “This very moment? Naw. At this very moment he’s eating lunch at Slade’s. After that he’s driving his Caddy to Arkansas. You ever heard of something called an ivory-billed woodpecker?”

  “I have. Thank you very much, Danny. I’ll see if I can catch up with Grid at Slade’s. In regard to the ATV, I couldn’t personally accept it. The whole county would interpret it as graft. On the other hand, if it were used in commission of a crime, the department could confiscate it as evidence. But thanks for the offer.”

  Slade’s was relatively quiet. A group of the usual unemployed were shooting pool in the back. Joey was minding the bar. Shanks was sitting at a table by himself, munching a hamburger with fries. Tully pulled out a chair and sat down across from him.

  “Why, hi, Bo,” Shanks said. “What brings you to Slade’s this time of day?”

  Tully said, “Let me think a minute. Oh, it’s you I was looking for, Grid. I might be here to arrest you.”

  “Arrest me? For what? You got any kind of evidence I committed a crime, Sheriff?”

  “Grid, it’s Blight County. I don’t need evidence. It’s simpler if I do, of course.”

  Shanks laughed. “You know me, Bo. I’m always happy to help out the law when I can.”

  “Well, let’s see. There’s the matter of two killings up at Round Top lookout. The victims were shot with a gun we’ve tied to you.”

  Shanks smiled. “That’s probably a gun I sold to a fellow passing through. He shot somebody in a lookout, you say? I have no idea who it could have been. Maybe he was in on the bank robbery with Dance and Beeker. I assume the reason you hunted me down, you found my fingerprints at the scene of the crime.”

  “No, we didn’t turn up any fingerprints belonging to you, Grid. We also didn’t find a large garbage bag stuffed with loot from a bank robbery.”

  “Okay, Sheriff, suppose I shot Beeker and Dance. I would have shot them in self-defense. I’m sure Beeker and Dance must have been armed.”

  “Yeah, we saw that. We also noticed the loot had disappeared.”

  Shanks picked up a french fry and munched it. “You don’t think I’d still be sitting around here if I had picked up the loot, do you, Bo? By the way, if I killed them, it would have been because they killed the old couple. I couldn’t think of any reason they wanted to kill them, except maybe to conceal their track to the lookout or the fact the lookout even existed. I was furious with them for killing the old lady and her husband, but mostly because the loot had disappeared. I figured the reason they killed Harold and Alma, was to to keep them quiet about something they saw. Say, I have to hit the john. You mind?”

  “Give me your word you won’t try to split out the back, because I don’t escort men to the restroom.”

  “You’re so easy, Bo. Yeah, you have my word. Besides here comes the FBI.” Shanks got up and walked into the restroom. Angie stopped and glowered down at Tully.

  “Sheriff, you just let Gridley Shanks walk into the restroom by himself! He’s my main suspect, and he could be a block away by now!” She pulled a gun from her shoulder bag and charged into the restroom. A man inside yelled, “Whoa! Lady! Watch it with the gun! I ain’t the one what done it, whatever it is!”

  A large man with a gray beard and mustache charged out of the restroom, looking back over his shoulder. A few seconds later, Angie came out tugging Grid by the front flap of his jacket, her gun in the other hand.

  Her lips quivering with rage, she said, “I can’t understand you, Bo, letting a man we know committed two murders disappear into a restroom by himself!”

  “It’s the Blight way,” Tully said. “I don’t accompany men to the restroom, Angie. That’s all. And he gave me his word he wouldn’t break and run. Besides, the windows in there are way too small for him to wiggle through.”

  Angie shoved Shanks into a chair and sat down next to him. She put her gun away but didn’t zip the shoulder bag.

  Shanks said to Tully, “I hope you don’t mind the wet stain I have running down my pant leg.”

  “Not at all,” Tully said. “I practically have one myself.”

  Shanks said, “Anyway, those window are so dirty I couldn’t bring myself to touch one of them.”

  “Yeah, Grid, I figured that would also be the case. So let’s hear your theory about the murder of the old couple.”

  Shanks sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I’d been trying to track down Beeker and Dance and went to the library to see if I could find a map of the area around Famine. A little old lady came over to help and told me she had written a history book on Blight County. We got to talking and she told me about the Beeker Ranch and the annual picnics Beeker threw on Round Top and the lookout up there. I started putting two and two together.”

  Angie gave Tully a hard look. “I had to find out from Daisy you were over here interrogating a murder and bank-robbery suspect.”

  “Well, I was thinking of Grid here more as a doublemurder suspect. We know he killed Beeker and Dance.”

  She shook her head. “Can I be satisfied that he will be safely confined in the Blight County jail for tonight?”

  “By all means.”

  Angie got up and left.

  Shanks shoved what was left of his fries out into the middle of the table. “Help yourself, Bo.”

  “No thanks. I’ve eaten here before.”

  “I know what you mean. So, you want to hear my theory about the murder of the old couple?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Well, killing them seemed a bit extreme even for Beeker and Dance. I couldn’t think of any reason to shoot them, except just out of meanness. They probably tossed the guns in the river, so I doubt you can prove they killed them either.”

  “You’re pretty sure Dance and Beeker killed them?”

  “Yeah. You think I killed Beeker and Dance and took the loot. Well, the loot wasn’t there. If it had been, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.”

  “It wasn’t there?”

  “No. If it had been, right now I’d be hanging out with Sil in some ritzy hotel in Australia.”

  “So why aren’t you?”

  “Because I don’t have the loot! Here’s what I think happened. You want to hear?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “They didn’t want the loot to be found with them, so they hid it.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s in the old Beeker mansion, isn’t it?”

  Shanks rolled his eyes. “Why I let myself get drawn into conversations with you I have no idea. But, yes, I think that’s where the money is. But that’s only a guess. I think Harold and Alma saw either Beeker or Dance carry a bundle into the mansion and come back without it. They may have been old, but the bank robbery was all over th
e radio, and they wouldn’t have to think too hard about what was in the bag. Why does someone hide something in a burnt-out old mansion? The old couple weren’t stupid. So Beeker or Dance sees them watching out a window and walks over and shoots them.”

  Tully glanced at his watch. “You want to go for a ride right now, Grid?”

  “We split the loot fifty-fifty, if we find it?”

  “You sound like my father. But the answer is no. If we find the loot and return it to the bank, it may do you some good in front of a jury, but I can’t promise anything.” He took out his phone and dialed Angie.

  “What, Bo?”

  “How would you like to take a ride out to the old Beeker mansion?”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah. Maybe to find the bank loot and solve the murder of the old couple.”

  Angie was silent, apparently turning all this over in her mind. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the Blight way, does it, Bo?”

  “The Blight way? What’s that? Grid and I will pick you up in twenty minutes at your hotel. I’ve got to stop by the office first.”

  “Okay, but we take Pap and the tracker along. I don’t trust either you or Grid as far as I can throw you.”

  “I doubt Dave can make it, but I’ll give him a call.”

  He stopped by the office and called Pap from there. He told the old man to get himself armed and that he and Angie would be pick him up in half an hour.

  “What’s up, Bo?”

  “You, Angie and I are going on a treasure hunt with Gridley Shanks.”

  “What about Dave?”

  “For heavens sake, Pap, don’t you think we can handle one measly desperado without the tracker?”

  Pap was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I guess that way we can split the loot four ways instead of five. What are you waiting for, Bo? Let’s go!”

  Tully walked down to the garage. He had left Shanks handcuffed to the steering wheel of the Explorer. Unlocking the cuff, he said, “You make a run for it, Grid, I’ll shoot you dead.”

  Shanks frowned. “That seems terribly rude, Bo. I can assure you I have no intention of making a run for it, at least until we find the loot.”

  The sun went behind a cloud just as they arrived at the mansion, giving the burnt-out structure an even more ominous look. Tully was reminded of the dark threat Etta had sensed hovering around him. He wondered if it had anything to do with Shanks. He said, “Grid, I hope this treasure hunt isn’t some ruse you thought up so you could slip away into the mountains.”

  Shanks said, “What I know is, I didn’t find the loot with Beeker and Dance at the tower. I killed them because they tried to kill me. Self defense. Also for them killing Harold and Alma. I couldn’t think of any reason for them to kill an old couple like that, except for pure meanness or to keep them quiet about the lookout. But now my guess is they saw Beeker and Dance haul something into the mansion and come back without it. Maybe one of them saw Harold or Alma staring out the window, so he killed them, just to be on the safe side. All we have to do is find the hiding place, and we’ve got the bag of loot.”

  Tully said, “You make it sound easy, Grid.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “There are a lot of hiding places in that old building,” Angie said. “We’ll probably get killed trying to find them.”

  Tully stared up at the mansion. The structure was even creepier than he remembered. The four of them walked over to the entrance and peered in.

  The inside of the mansion was in a greater state of ruin than Tully had even guessed.

  Shanks said, “Be careful where you step or you could find yourself zooming down through a floor or two. Everything that’s not burnt is rotten from one end to the other. The staircase looks like it’s in halfway decent shape, so Pap and I will work our way up to the second floor. You and Angie take the first floor.”

  Pap scratched his chin as he stared up the blackened staircase. “Looks haunted to me, Grid. Worse, the timbers that ain’t burned through are rotted. If we see a ghost, I doubt any of them would give me traction.”

  Grid laughed as they started up the stairs. “Walk on the edge of the steps, Pap. You step in the middle of them, you may take an express elevator into the basement.”

  Tully watched them make their way to the second floor and disappear into the darkness of a vast room off to one side.

  While Pap and Shanks searched the second floor, Tully and Angie searched the first, the beams of their flashlights seeming to disappear into the blackened walls. As they worked their way into what might once have been a nursery, Pap shouted down to them.

  “Bo! We just found the piano Richy and I heard when we canoed down the river! It’s huge!”

  Tully turned to Angie. “I still suspect the piano music they heard came from the caretakers’trailer house.”

  Angie laughed. “I still prefer the idea of a ghost playing a ghost piano.”

  Suddenly, they heard a great crash from upstairs. The whole mansion seemed to moan.

  “What now?” Tully yelled, suspecting that Pap and Shanks were now back on the first floor.

  There was a long moment of silence upstairs. Then Pap yelled down, “Grid just lifted the lid off the piano and threw it on the floor.”

  Tully shouted at them. “You two are making me a nervous wreck! Don’t lift anything more! Come back downstairs!”

  Angie said, “Bo, I just found the door to the cellar. That would be a great place to hide the loot.”

  Tully walked over and looked down the steps. The walls on both sides were draped with spider webs. Ugly smells drifted up.

  Tully sniffed. “If the loot is down there, it will have to stay there, unless you want to go down and prowl around, Angie.”

  She swept the beam of her flashlight across the floor. “I would, but it looks like at least a foot of water down there.”

  “I think I see something swimming in it,” Tully said. He walked over to a room that must have been a library. Lining the walls were dozens of shelves, some of which contained blackened blobs of things that must once have been books.

  “This is a surprise,” he said. “Old Beeker must have been quite the literate fellow, particularly for Blight County.” He picked a copy off a shelf and opened it to see if he could read the title. The book collapsed in his hand. “Well, I’ve had enough of this.”

  He and Angie worked their way slowly through two other large rooms. In the last one, the floor under Tully started to collapse and Angie jerked him back to safety. “That’s enough of this,” he said. “If the loot is here, the ghosts can have it.” They walked back to the entryway.

  “Hey, Pap!” he called. “Let’s get out of here, before the place collapses on one of us.”

  No answer.

  “Pap! Grid!”

  Still no answer.

  He heard a noise at the top of the stairs. Pap was standing there, rubbing the back of his head. He took a tentative step down the stairs and seemed about to fall. Tully rushed up the steps and grabbed him.

  “Grid hit me in the back of my head with something. Knocked me cold. I saw him head for the stairs. He wasn’t carrying anything but I think he may have tossed something out a window. I was looking inside the piano when something whacked me on the back of the head.”

  “You okay, Pap?”

  “Yeah, just help me down the stairs. I think Shanks tossed the bag of loot out the window. Go get him, Bo!”

  “I intend to do just that.”

  Angie came up the stairs and put her arm around Pap. “I’ve got him, Bo. Go get Shanks.”

  Tully started down the stairs.

  “One thing, Bo!” Pap called after him.

  “What’s that?”

  “He took my gun!”

  Tully felt himself sag. He stepped out on to the porch. No sign of Shanks. It would have been easy for him to make it to the woods. He took out his gun and fired two shots in the air.

  “What was that for?” Angie said. �
��To warn him he’d better come back?”

  “Yeah,” Tully said. “I’m done fooling around with Gridley Shanks.”

  He came back and helped Pap to the Explorer and inserted him into the back seat of the Explorer. He grabbed a bottle of water out of the luggage area and handed it to the old man.

  “Stop fussing with me, Bo! Go get him! He’s got the loot!”

  Tully rushed back to the front of the mansion. Angie was standing there, her gun out. “This reeks of the Blight way, Bo!”

  Tully stared at the woods. Then they heard a shot. They looked at each other. “I think he shot himself,” Angie said. “Maybe he figured there was no way out.”

  “I hate this job,” Tully said.

  Angie shook her head. “We should go look for the body.”

  “I suppose,” Tully said.

  They crisscrossed back and forth through the woods for an hour. Finally, he found Angie, her gun hanging limply from one hand, her forehead resting against a tamarack. The needles had drifted down and turned her hair a bright yellow.

  She straightened up when she heard Tully. “Couldn’t find the body?” she said.

  “A bear must have dragged it off.”

  “Bears are hibernating by now,” she said.

  “In that case, wolves. A pack of wolves could have dragged it off.”

  Angie sighed. “Strange how fast a person becomes an it.”

  “Yeah.”

  Just then the quavering howl of a wolf came drifting through the woods.”

  “See what I told you,” Tully said. “A wolf got him. We may as well head in.”

  “You’re giving up, Bo?”

  “Yeah, we’ll let the wolves have Shanks.”

  They headed back toward Famine, each of them absorbed in thoughts they didn’t care to share. Pap sat in back smoking one of his handrolleds. Tully didn’t even bother to yell at him.

  As they approached the intersection of Beeker Road and the Old River Road, Angie pointed up ahead. Pap straightened up and peered out the windshield. “That looks like Dave’s big, old, white truck.”

  “It does, all right,” Tully said. “Wonder what brought him out here?”