Points West (A Butterscotch Jones Mystery Book 5)

It hurt. It hurt so much, the cramping in the belly, the
pain in his neck and arm. It was all he could do to stay on top of the
snowmobile and keep the damn machine on the trail. But he had to tell someone.
The information had taken too much effort to gather.

His life was running out—last breaths, lost blood, lost
time. Whatever the hell those injections were, it wasn’t the youth serum she
said she was working on.

He didn’t think that she had been the one to tear his
apartment apart though. That was someone else, someone violent,
someone
in a rage.
But who?
There
were so many candidates.

The man gave a breathless laugh. Well, it was bound to have
happened eventually. He served too many masters who all believed that they were
the Lord and that he should have no other god before them. And being vengeful….

It would be nice to know who had done this though. It
couldn’t just be an accident. Maybe Chuck Goodhead would figure it out. Dudley
Do-Right was clever and if his precious Butterscotch Jones was in danger he
would be motivated.

And for their reward, he would leave them with his files—all
the details on everyone who had ever paid him a dirty dime. He had thrown those
in as a bonus after he duped all of her research. Let it be someone else’s
trouble now. He was done.

It was late March, technically spring, but most days the
cold would crack you like an ice cube in hot coffee if you were out in it too long.
Max and I were going to risk it though because the cabin reeked of sweet and
sour lemon oil. Spring-cleaning fever had overcome me as soon as I finished
doing taxes for those who bothered to pay them.
Mostly Big
John and the Braids, neither of whom could add a column of numbers to save
their lives.
One and one would sometimes make two, but just as often
three or zero. We were a town beyond the laws of man and apparently also beyond
the laws of mathematics. And that just goes to show you that owning a ledger
makes one an accountant like my standing in the forest makes me a tree.

Anyhow, with their paperwork finally in order and their
inadequate ledgers finally doing something useful out in the compost heap, I
had turned my eyes to home and the accumulated fireplace dust and grime that I
had ignored all winter.

The smudge and soot wasn’t confined to the hearth, though
they were worst there, and Max’s rug was gritty with inattention. The windows
nearest the fire were also smoked a soft shade of amber that made me think less
of the holiday candles I’d been burning and more of a smoker’s stained fingers.
Disgusted with my slovenliness, I had broken out the vinegar and lemon oil and
began slopping buckets of it around with reckless abandon until Max had started
whining and rubbing his nose.

“Sorry, Max. You’re right. Enough is enough.”

I pulled off my rubber gloves and rubbed some cold cream on
my face. It’s some kind of an udder balm for cows with chafed teats. It made me
feel like I was covered in lard and then wrapped in plastic wrap but it
prevented chapping and windburn, which was important because my nose was only
just recovered from ten rounds with a cold virus and was still rather red and
sore.

Max began to dance excitedly as I opened the jar because I only
put on cream when we are going outdoors for a long walk.

“Calm down. I’m hurrying.”

I had just pulled on my parka when Max began growling. I
thought maybe it was because of the sound of an approaching snowmobile, though
usually he is fine with engines of any sort and happy when people visit.

A moment later the engine stopped and about thirty seconds
after that there was a thump on the door, like someone had tossed a heavy sack
against it.

Wondering if it could be the Wings with a new box of books,
but concerned by Max’s continued growling, I pulled open the door slowly. Well,
slowly at first. The weight of the body leaning against it pushed the door wide
open.

The man was a stranger. He was also almost dead. In fact, he
breathed his last only seconds later without saying a word. He died with me
looking into his bloodshot eyes, eyes whose whites were completely blood red.

“Oh damn,” I said to Max, who had stopped growling and was
staring with what might have been surprise.

I dropped to my knees and started looking for a pulse, which
was dumb because I was wearing gloves, but the wide eyes, gray skin, and
stilled breath told me I was too late.

“Butterscotch!”
The voice belonged
to Wendell Thunder. He began jogging towards me. He wasn’t wearing snowshoes
which meant he’d been in town, probably at the pub. Old Thunder had passed away
in January and Wendell had been spending more time in town. “What’s happened?”

“Fetch the Bones quick!” I called, waving him away from the
cabin. “But I think he’s dead so bring a tarp too.”

“Who is it?” he called over his shoulder, already pushing
his way across the street. It had snowed the night before and since no
vehicles—besides the snowmobile—had been about, the street was still knee deep
in snow.

“I don’t know. It’s a stranger.”

Wendell redoubled his pace. The news of a stranger in town
was more alarming than a mere corpse on my doorstep. It’s that way in the
Gulch.

Max had left the body and was sniffing at the snowmobile. He
wasn’t showing hackle, just curiosity, so I left him to it while I went through
the gesture of trying heart massage.

While my hands worked at chest compressions, my mind was
making note of several things. The man had sandy hair, was about six feet tall
and probably in his thirties, though with his extreme pallor it was hard to
say. His navy coat was new; in fact, it still had a sales tag on it. I
recognized the store. They had a branch in Winnipeg. The rest of his clothes,
excepting his snow boots, were worn, though not worn out. He had no luggage, at
least none he’d strapped to the snowmobile, a rental vehicle that I thought I
recognized.

The Bones came quickly. It was too early in the morning for
him to have started in on the serious drinking so he was fairly spry, though
his dog-sized dewlaps were red with exertion and cold. There are people older
than Doc in the Gulch but only in the cemetery.

Linda
Skywater
, his assistant and
practical nurse, was with him. She looks a bit like Cher, only a decade older
and thirty pounds heavier. They had brought a stretcher and Doc’s bag filled
with medical instruments that were the height of medical advancement in 1952.
Wendell brought up the rear of the anxious parade. He had a tarp and some rope.
A black tarp isn’t the classiest of shrouds, but tarps are practical in that
they clean up.

“Well, who’s dead this time?” the Bones demanded
querulously. “Why can’t these outsiders have the courtesy to die somewhere
else?”

“How do you think I feel?” I snapped. “I just mopped my
floor!”

Wendell blinked at this outburst and Linda began laughing. I
was instantly ashamed.

“
Hmph
!”
Doc leaned down and felt for a pulse. This was for form’s sake. He was also
wearing gloves and stood almost at once.

“Well, let’s get him loaded up. I don’t expect you want to
take him inside your house, it being newly cleaned, and I’m damned if I’m going
to rile up my rheumatism by examining him out here in the snow! We’ll put him
in the woodshed.”

Some of the shock and pressure fell away. I have never been
sure that I actually know how to give chest compressions. It was just as well
that this man had arrived beyond all hope.

“If you can take care of this I’m going to give Chuck a
call. I have a bad feeling about this,” I said and then whistled for Max.

“Aye, that’s best. No point in sleeping with the law if he
can’t make himself useful,” Doc muttered.

I disagreed with the Bones because there were definitely
other reasons to have relations with the Mountie, but it was hardly the time to
enumerate them.

“There’s some brandy on the kitchen table. Why don’t you all
have a drink
first.
It’ll help keep out the cold and
we’ve all had a shock.”

Doc began to look more cheerful. Linda shook her head at me
but Wendell only grinned.

“Come on, Max. We’re going to see the Flowers.”

Chuck wouldn’t be home at this time of day, but I could
leave a carefully worded message on his machine. Big John would also know where
the Wings
was
. If luck favored us, he would already be
in Winnipeg, but if not he would have to make a special run. Instinct was
telling me that this outsider wasn’t just some hiker or hunter that had gone
astray. Whoever the hell he was, he had bypassed other cabins on the way to
town and had come right to my door.

Chuck saw the light flashing on the answering machine the
minute he walked in the door. Since no one except Butterscotch called him at
this number, and she rarely called unless there was trouble, Chuck took a
moment to brace
himself
before pressing the “Play”
button.

“Hi, Chuck. How are you? No frostbite I hope. Sometimes it
seems like winter will never end.” Butterscotch was doing her best to sound
normal since they were unsure about whether Chuck’s calls were still being
monitored, but he could hear tension in her voice. This wasn’t one of the rare
social calls. “It’s been colder than usual here and I’m afraid we’ve had
another bear attack. I don’t know if it’s the same bear as last time. It could
be, because they have a habit of sticking to a territory once they find food,
the damn things. By the way, the Wings
is
in town.
He’s picking up supplies for the pub and said he hoped he’d see you. Anyhow, I
miss you and hope you can visit soon. Big John says ‘hi’ and Max sends his love
too. Bye.”

Chuck exhaled and pushed the “Erase” button.

A bear attack. Someone—an outsider—had been murdered then,
or at least died under suspicious circumstances. Thank goodness it was Friday.
He could be gone for a couple of days without taking time off. Taking time off
without a convincing case of leprosy or broken bones wasn’t advisable. It
excited too much interest in certain quarters and led to extra paperwork.

It didn’t used to be that way, but times had changed after
9/11. Somewhere inside every law enforcement organization there is a paranoid
who believes that someone—or everyone—is out to betray him or the agency. They
usually end up in charge of internal security. Somehow Chuck had ended up on
the paranoid’s list and was monitored constantly. And when he failed to fall in
completely with Big Brother’s new plan he had been labeled an obstructionist.
Which he had eventually become, in fact and not just in name, by
defending the people of McIntyre’s Gulch.

He didn’t regret his choice, but now he spent much of his
time wondering if his phone was tapped and whether he was still being followed
by government watchers or under electronic surveillance. Paranoia had become a
regular way of life. Some nights it was all he could do not to check under his
bed. The thought circus opened the big top around one in the morning when his
neighbor with the motorcycle pulled into the parking lot. Usually Chuck could
avoid the worst paranoid sideshows on the fairway of his imagination and fall
asleep again, but not always. Not since his first visit to the Gulch. It had
changed his view of the world and made him question what was right and what his
employers would be willing to do.

Some other person might have blamed Butterscotch for getting
him involved in the affairs of McIntyre’s Gulch, but Chuck knew better. He had
been disenchanted with his job for a while, and it wasn’t the residents of the
Gulch who had asked him to get involved in their troubles, to choose what was
just over what was legal.

Still it had caused a lot of trouble, and trouble, like
interest, tended to compound. And who could he share these thoughts and woes
with except Butterscotch?
Certainly not his father.
His dad would think he had turned into a conspiracy theorist, one of those
lunatics who blamed everything on the CIA or alien invaders.