The Blight Way (24 page)

“I think so. And then there's the overall operation. It came to me while I was getting a haircut.”

“Maybe you should get a haircut more often. And here people think you're not smart enough to solve these murders.”

Tully looked over at the old man. “But they know I've got you along.”

“Why, there you go!”

Tully dug out his cell phone and called Daisy.

“What's up, Bo?”

“First, I want you to call Ed Grange's wife up in Famine and inform her that her husband has been arrested. Tell her the station is under police surveillance. Tell her that her phone is tapped and that if she calls anyone or leaves the house she will be arrested.”

“Is that legal?”

“I don't know. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Anything else?”

“Yes, but I can't think of it right now. Don't leave the office, don't go out for lunch. I need you right there. Order in a sandwich or something.”

Tully could tell from the sound of her voice that she was pleased.

“You got it, boss. Where are you now?”

“We're right outside Ed's Gas-N-Grub in Famine. But we're heading out to Dave's House of Fry.”

“Are you going to arrest Dave, too?”

“No, not yet, anyway. One way or another, this whole thing is going to be a done deal sometime tonight, if we can manage to keep the lid on it a little while longer.”

He hung up.

Pap scratched the white stubble on his chin. “You know, Bo, the word is out by now, about the arrests and all. There's some real bad folks out there who have got themselves busy as bees. They could be packing up to beat it out of the county even as we speak. And we don't have a clue who they are. You might be able to squeeze some names out of Ed, but I imagine he's a whole lot more scared of the bad guys than he is of us.”

“Ed is one of the bad guys. I figure he's the one who set up the ambush.”

“You mean the guy in the right back seat?”

“That's the one. I had Lurch run a little test on the Jeep Grand Cherokee.”

“A test?”

“Yeah. Those fellows rented the Jeep at the Spokane Airport at ten
P.M.
They drove down to Blight. It takes nearly a whole tank of gas to get here from Spokane. There's no gas station open that late at night between here and Spokane. We know the ambush took place exactly at three thirty-eight in the morning, because the one guy had his wristwatch clipped by a bullet. The Jeep rolled forward in drive and hit the berm across the Last Hope Road. So the engine continued to run from three thirty-eight in the morning until a little before we found it. Remember, the engine was still hot?”

“That's right, it was. You hooted like a scalded owl.”

“So they had to get the gas tank filled up somewhere.”

“Ed filled the tank?”

“There's no other place. No other person.”

“But what makes you think Ed set up the ambush?”

“He had to be waiting for them at the station. So my guess is he's the one that led them out to the Last Hope Road. Who else?”

“I think you may be right. But I'm not at all sure all this stuff you're doing is legal.”

“Hey, it's the Blight way. Isn't that what you used to say, Pap?”

The old man shook his head. “I appreciate you saying that, Bo. Just don't get yourself killed tonight. More important, don't get me killed.”

Bo laughed. He put the Explorer in drive and pulled out onto the main street of Famine. The town was quiet. Too quiet, he wanted to say, but wasn't up to Pap's ridicule.

They pulled into the House of Fry parking lot. It was nearly empty. Dave was standing on the front porch.

“Paying customers, I hope,” he said as they walked up.

“Always,” Tully said.

“I could use some lunch,” Pap said.

“Yeah, maybe we'll eat something,” Tully said. “We're not likely to get much chance later.”

“I don't know what you've been doing,” Dave said, “but you're ruining my business.”

“I arrested Ed Grange,” Tully told him. “Along with Cindy Littlefield and the new so-called cook, Dana Cassidy.”

“I can't believe it. Cindy! What charge?”

“Dana has an outstanding warrant for dealing drugs. Got Cindy for harboring a fugitive.”

Dave shook his head. “You're liable to have all of Famine in jail.”

“I'm beginning to think so.”

“C'mon in,” Dave said. “I'll have the cooks fix you some lunch. It's not as though they're overworked right now.”

Tully selected a table in back, where they could talk without being overheard.

Carol came over and took their orders. Tully and Pap each ordered the World Famous House of Fry Burger along with the Endless Fries and coffee.

“If I don't get done with this case soon,” Tully said, “the cholesterol alone will kill me. So where's Deedee?”

“Gone,” said Dave. “Along with most of my customers. Deedee moved to Blight City. I guess the pay is better down there, and they don't pinch as hard. Don't
know what happened to my customers. Maybe they're afraid somebody will show up and spray the place with machine guns. I'm beginning to think that could be a distinct possibility.”

Pap looked around the café. “Maybe you should lock the front door.”

“Yeah, that would help business a lot.”

“I meant just while Bo and I are here.”

Dave gave him an exasperated look. “Anyway, Bo, I got the info you wanted.”

Pap looked at Tully. “What info is that?”

“I sent Dave up to the Last Hope Mine to put his tracking skills to use.”

“Like you told me,” Dave said, “I went up in the morning, about nine o'clock. Hiked up from the berm. There were the tracks you made when you went up there with Susan, both going up and coming back down. You were right about the other tracks. The ones coming down don't match the ones going up.”

“Good. I had Lurch make casts of them.”

“There wasn't a soul around, either at the dam or the mine.”

Carol brought a coffeepot, poured them each a cupful, then left. She made the rounds of the few other diners, refilling their cups. The three men at the table watched her, as if Carol were on an important mission.

“The mine entrance was blasted shut thirty, forty years ago,” Pap said. “So what's your interest in it?”

“Think about it,” said Tully. “Suppose they started using the mine again.”

Pap shook his head. “The Last Hope ran out of gold
decades ago. That's why they blew the entrance, keep kids and people from fooling around in there.”

“What if they made a new entrance?” Tully said.

“That's exactly what they did,” Dave put in. “Sometime in the last few years. It was a devil of a thing to find, too, not much bigger than a rabbit hole. I found a bunch of fresh rock dumped down over the edge of the road, and then I was pretty sure it had come from a new tunnel. Took me almost all day, but I found it. The entrance was covered with a slab of shale, or at least something that looks like shale. I didn't go in, of course, but judging from its location the new tunnel is about twenty feet long and cuts into the mine behind the old entrance. Nobody would even notice it, unless that was what they were looking for.”

“I see where you're going with this,” Pap said.

“I should hope so,” Tully said. “A mine makes a perfect year-round growing environment. The U.S. Forest Service has been growing tree seedlings up in a Kellogg mine for years. The mine has water and warmth. All they have to do is pipe in daylight. So our bad guys set up grow lights, run power to them from the dam, and nobody notices a sudden surge in the use of electricity.”

“Right,” Dave said, “and an abnormal increase in the use of electricity is one of the giveaways, if, say, you're growing large crops of marijuana with grow lights. That's the main reason I haven't done it.”

“But Littlefield has his own electricity,” Pap said. “His dam is in the same canyon as the Last Hope.”

“Just to be sure,” Tully said, “I checked on Little-field's sales of electricity to Central Electric. Four years
ago it dropped to half the usual amount, with a normal rainfall and a normal snow pack in the Hoodoo Mountains during all those years. So what happened four years ago? Vern started himself a huge underground greenhouse in a mine.”

Chapter 47

Back in the Explorer, Pap rolled himself another cigarette and lit it. “You know, Bo,” he said, “I'm not too fond of the idea of crawling through that twenty-foot tunnel into the mine. They could have some guy guarding it, just waiting to blast us.”

“So what other options do we have?”

“Let's see now. Well, we could chuck a stick of dynamite into the little tunnel and seal 'em all up inside.”

“Then what?”

“What do you mean, then what? We seal them up inside.”

“And leave them?”

“Of course. Think of all the money it would save, the trials, prison time, feeding and entertaining them and like that. Of course prison time is assuming you get a conviction in the first place. Hey, it's the Blight way.”

“Yeah, it would be that, all right. But forget it. We're going in. You don't have to if you don't want to.”

“Ah, Bo, I was just pulling your leg. Of course I'm going in. I don't have anything else to do. Except maybe live.”

“Good. I need at least one person along I know isn't bothered by shooting other human beings.”

“Thanks. I appreciate you saying that.”

They drove back through Famine. Half a dozen people were gathered in front of the General Store. They were in serious, animated conversation. When the sheriff's red Explorer approached, they stopped talking and stared.

Tully lowered his side window. “Howdy,” he said. “How you all doing?”

No one responded.

Tully ran his window back up.

“You don't seem too popular around here,” Pap said.

“Don't seem to be.”

“Where are we headed?”

“Out to the old Littlefield hotel.”

“I'm sorry I asked. That place is a bit too spooky for me.”

“There weren't any spooks. The guy I saw out in the hallway made a tremendous racket getting away. I assume ghosts don't make any racket when they run down a flight of stairs.”

“You should have shot him.”

“I was reaching for my gun when he got away.”

“You said you couldn't recognize him, right?”

“Right. It was too dark. But there was something about him that seemed kind of familiar. I've been thinking
a lot about that, and I've got a feeling it was Lem Scragg. He was long and skinny like that.”

Pap ground out the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray. “He obviously didn't know we were sacked out in there.”

“I don't think he did. That's why I had the vehicles put in that shed. But he was up there for some reason.”

“If it was Lem, that means he probably was tied in with Littlefield some way.”

“Yeah,” Tully said. “And that's odd, because the Littlefields and the Scraggs have been enemies practically forever. But I don't know for sure it was Lem. I'll ask him, if we run into him tonight.”

“You think the Scragg brothers were the shooters on the Last Hope Road, don't you?”

“Don't you?”

“Yeah. I just didn't want to say so.”

Tully's cell phone buzzed. It was Susan. “Is this a bad time, Bo?”

“No. Any time you call is a good time. Pap and I are driving down the highway right at the moment.”

“I don't mean to bother you,” she said. “First, though, I'd like to apologize for flaking out on you after the delicious dinner the other night.”

“It was probably the foot massage.”

“Foot massage?” she said.

“Never mind. Pap's getting all excited here.”

“That'll be the day,” Pap mumbled, “that I get excited over feet.”

“I really had a wonderful time,” Susan said. “I'm just sorry I flaked out. I was totally exhausted.”

Tully had been so tired he could scarcely remember much about the evening himself.

“I completely understand,” he said.

“Now I have a favor to ask.”

“Shoot.”

“Could I stay at your place tonight? I know you'll be gone all night. I just can't stand to stay at the B and B any longer, and my apartment won't be ready until tomorrow.”

“You want to move into my place?”

He could practically see Pap's ears prick up.

“No, I mean only for tonight,” Susan said, obviously embarrassed.

“I just said that for Pap's benefit,” Tully told her. “He gets so few thrills anymore I couldn't resist. Sure, it's okay. Stay as long as you like. My bedroom is the one on the left. Don't even look in there. The guest room is the one on the right.”