The Blight Way (23 page)

They drove north toward Famine. The sun was out and there was a brisk wind, and the cottonwoods along the river were growing ever more bare, the last of the Cadmium Yellow Light leaves trailing out from them. Tully did not much care for cottonwoods. More than one person had been killed on a hot summer day by their huge dead limbs dropping soundlessly from high above. Then there were the sticky, bloody little buds that coated the feet of pets and their humans to be tracked into the carpets of houses. He did enjoy the smell of cottonwoods, in the fall, with their wet leaves on the ground.

Pap appeared to doze off as they roared through the morning sunshine. Tully was relieved when the old man roused himself and dug the makings of a cigarette out of his jacket pocket.

“So this thing is going down tonight?” he said.

“That's my plan, such as it is,” said Tully. “I had Dave out doing some work.”

“Dave the Indian?”

Tully laughed. “Yeah, Dave the Indian. He is a terrific tracker.”

“He is that,” Pap agreed.

“So if he found what I expected him to find, we go tonight, about midnight.”

“Be careful you don't tell nobody about what you expected him to find,” Pap grumbled.

“Don't worry. I won't.”

As they approached the Littlefield ranch, Tully slowed down.

“We stopping here again?” Pap said. “I think you've got a thing for one of these ladies. Maybe both of them. If it's that Cindy Littlefield, though, it'll be a good lesson for old Vern.”

“Cindy's pretty darn nice, all right, but it's the other one I got my eye on.”

Tully pulled up in front of the Littlefield house, walked up to the door and rang the bell.

Cindy answered it. “Sheriff! Why, this is a surprise. Vern's still not back and I haven't heard from him.”

“It's not Vern I'm here to see. It's your new cook.”

“Dana? For heaven's sake, why?”

“I need to see her for a second.”

Dana walked into the living room. She seemed surprised to see Tully at the door. “Sheriff Tully! What brings you back so soon?”

“I need to talk to you for just a moment.”

Dana walked over and stood next to Cindy. “What is it?”

“Would you hold your wrists out like this?” Tully showed her how to hold her wrists.

“I guess so. You want me to hold them like this?”

“Perfect.” Tully took a pair of handcuffs from the back of his belt and snapped them on her wrists.

Both Cindy and Dana stared down at the cuffs.

Dana blurted out a four-letter obscenity.

“What is this?” Cindy said. “Are you arresting her?”

“Yes, I am. Now, Cindy, if you would hold your wrists just exactly as Dana was so nice to do.”

Cindy put both of her wrists behind her back.

“What are you arresting me for?”

“Harboring a fugitive from justice,” Tully said.

“A fugitive from justice?”

Tully nodded at Dana. Cindy's mouth gaped open.

Dana asked how Tully had reached that conclusion, throwing in several very serious obscenities in the process.

“Your fingerprints on the Danielle Steel,” he said. “We folks here in Blight County are generally pretty slow, but we do have a fairly sophisticated fingerprint-identification system.”

Tully told Cindy the ride to jail would be a lot more comfortable if her hands were cuffed in front of her. She reluctantly held her wrists out and Tully snapped the cuffs on. He pulled both women through the door and took them out to the Explorer. He inserted them into the back seat and fastened a seat belt around each of them.

Pap had turned in his seat to study the prisoners.

“Howdy, ladies,” he said. “My, this is quite a surprise. Bo seems to have developed a more direct approach with women than I ever did.”

Both women told him what they thought of his observation.

“My, such language! You know, Bo,” Pap said, “I can remember a time when even bad girls didn't talk that way. I think I preferred it.”

“Me, too,” said Tully. “But these may be bad-bad girls.”

“Oh? In that case, I guess it might be all right.”

“You all wait here a minute while I lock up the house,” Tully said.

Once inside, he walked around until he found the den. As he expected, Vern Littlefield's gun case was there. All the slots were full. Tully squatted down so that he could read the calibers. The Remington .270 was there. It was possible, of course, that Vern had another .270 for elk, but Tully thought that extremely unlikely. And just as unlikely was any call from Vern on his cell phone, or any expectation that Vern would ever be coming home from his elk hunt. He looked around for Oscar the ferret, but the animal was apparently hiding. There being little chance the ferret had a criminal past, Tully took a carton of milk out of the refrigerator and poured some in a bowl. He put the bowl in the sink. He took a package of German sausages out of the refrigerator and dumped them into the sink alongside the bowl of milk. Next to the bowl of milk, he put a pan of water. He had no idea what pet ferrets ate, but figured he couldn't go too wrong with German sausages and milk. After taking care of Oscar, he walked into a bathroom that seemed to be part of Vern Littlefield's domain. There was a hairbrush
on the counter containing several hairs. He spread a hand towel out on the counter and, using part of the towel to cover his hand, he picked up the brush and wrapped it in the towel, making a note to himself to obtain a warrant for search of the Littlefield residence for a hairbrush and a .270 rifle.

The little town of Famine seemed even quieter than usual as they drove down the main street. Tully parked alongside Ed's gas station.

“I have to run in here for a few minutes,” Tully said to Pap. “Can you keep an eye on our prisoners and make sure they don't escape?”

“My pleasure,” said Pap.

This was followed by an outburst of imaginative obscenities from the back seat.

“There's one I haven't heard in a while,” Pap said. He took out the makings and started work on one of his hand-rolleds. This brought more obscenities from the back seat.

Tully walked into the station, plopped down in one of the chairs and put his feet up on another one. The girl at the counter smiled at him, and he smiled back. He picked up the day's copy of the
Lewiston Morning Tribune
and was perusing it when Ed came in from waiting on a customer.

“How's it going, Bo?”

“Pretty fair, considering.” He didn't look up from the story he was reading. “Anything happening in Famine, Ed?”

“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?”