The Tamarack Murders (3 page)

Tully told Dave about the flagging tape that marked the spot where the getaway car was dumped in the ditch. He pointed toward the woods. “I'm pretty sure the shooter was up there waiting for him. The kid probably thought the tape marked the spot for him to make his getaway. Instead, it marked the spot for him to get killed.”

Dave studied the woods. “How about the loot?”

“Gone. No sign of it.”

As they came to the wooded area, Dave turned and ask if Tully was sure the shot had come from there.

“Had to be,” Tully said. “It knocked the victim flat and straight downhill. The shooter had to be directly above him.”

“Sounds about right.” Dave turned and looked back at the spot where the victim had fallen. He scanned the ground ahead of him as the two of them moved slowly up through the woods.

“Nothing,” Tully said.

The tracker turned and smiled. “Not exactly.” He took Tully by the arm, led him back down through the woods, and pointed to a couple of small indents in the tamarack needles, tiny mounds of black dirt pushed up from them. “The killer made a sitting shot from right here, his arms braced on his knees to steady the rifle. Or it could have been a pistol, if the guy is a terrific shot. The little mounds of dirt are where his heels dug into the ground.”

Tully shook his head in amazement. “You're right! Why didn't I see that! Even worse, why didn't Lurch see it?”

“Because you and Lurch aren't trackers,” Dave said. “If you look carefully you'll see where the shooter's rear end made an impression in the needles.”

Tully stared. “I see it! You're amazing, Dave! I think I'll get Lurch up here to make a cast.”

Dave laughed. “Does the FBI keep a collection of rear-end impressions?”

“Probably.”

“Think they would make one of Angie's for me?”

“I doubt it. They probably have a rule against catering to perverts. I wouldn't be surprised if Angie is sent back here to investigate the bank robbery though.”

“In that case it may take several days for me to unravel this mystery for you, Watson.”

“How did I ever guess that, Holmes? I suppose now you might even want to be paid.”

“That would be refreshing.”

They made their way up to the ridge, without Dave indicating any more signs. When they reached the skiff of snow, Tully walked in Dave's tracks. He told Dave, “Lurch made casts of the only set of tracks that didn't belong to him, Brian, or Ernie.”

The three deputies had marked their own tracks with twigs, and Lurch, presumably, had taped notes to the twigs identifying the tracks of each deputy.

Dave pointed to the ATV tracks in the bare ground under the overhang of a tree, one coming up and the other going down. “Interesting,” he said.

“Really?” Tully said.

“Yeah.” Dave squatted down and examined each track where it crossed through the bare dirt. “From what you told me, I assumed an accomplice had driven an ATV up the trail and picked up the shooter.”

“That's what I thought,” Tully said.

“If you look at the two tracks closely you'll see there was only one rider coming up and one rider going down.”

Tully squatted down to examine the two tracks. “And your reasoning is?”

“Quite simple, Watson. If the ATV had one rider coming up and two riders going down, the two-rider track would leave a deeper impression.”

Tully thought about this. “On the other hand, Holmes, suppose two riders came up and two riders went down. Wouldn't the two tracks be of the same depth?”

Dave rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Yes, Watson, but I had already taken that into account.” He pointed. “That set of tracks in the snow is where Ernie came up and that set is where he went down. This other set is where Brian came up and over there is where he went down. The third set over here is where Lurch came up and that is where he went down. We are left with only one other track, the one coming up. The shooter had to come in from the road below or from up here before the snowfall. If he came in from below, he had to be dropped off on the road by someone. If he rode the ATV up, he would have had to come in before the snowfall and had a long cold wait for the target to show up. My guess, he was dropped off on the road before the robbery, climbed up to the grove of trees and waited until his intended target started to climb the mountain, then shot him. That's why there's a track coming up, but none going down through the snow. The shooter escaped on the ATV. He probably brought it in the night before, then walked down the mountain to be picked up on the road.”

Tully squatted down to study the tracks. “Sounds about right. You got any idea how many people might be involved in the robbery?”

The tracker thought for a moment. “My guess is a minimum of three, counting your dead guy. Could be a fourth. Your victim probably brought the ATV in the night before. That way he would know the ATV was up here for him to escape on. Unless he was totally stupid, he wouldn't leave his means of escape to somebody else. If in fact the victim was totally stupid, maybe the shooter brought the ATV in the night before, walked down the mountain and was picked up on the road. The shooter seems to be the kind of guy who would want to be sure of his means of escape.”

Tully stood up and stretched. “So what happened to the loot from the bank?”

The tracker scratched his jaw. “Let's see now, one of the robbers got shot, but he didn't have the loot.”

“That's right,” Tully said. “There wasn't any sign of the haul from the bank.”

“The shooter wasn't a participant in the robbery itself. Otherwise, he couldn't get in position quick enough to shoot the victim. The victim didn't have the loot. The robbers leave the bank with their ill-gotten gains. So somewhere between the bank and the ditched getaway car the loot had to get handed off. It couldn't get handed off to the shooter, because he would be waiting for the victim up on the mountain. That means there has to be at least one other person involved in the robbery.”

Tully thought about this. “You think there was a hand-off?”

“Had to be, don't you think, Bo?”

“Yeah, the loot went somewhere. I suppose the actual bank robber could have jumped out of the getaway car and into a vehicle left along the road and driven off with it and the loot. Now you mention a handoff, Dave, there was an old farm pickup pulled over to the edge of the road, apparently to get out of the way of the pursuit vehicles. Looked like a farmer in the driver's seat and some bales of hay in the bed. The reason I noticed the truck at all, I almost ran into it.”

Dave stroked his chin, apparently turning something over in his mind. “So let's say we have three guys involved in the robbery. Two of them come roaring out of town in the getaway car, skid to a stop by the pickup, one of them jumps out with the loot, leaps into the truck and starts it. The driver takes off. After the pursuit vehicles go by, the driver of the pickup pulls out and heads in the direction of town. He meets up with the shooter at some prearranged location, maybe where the pack trail comes down off the mountain. What's your guess, Bo?”

“Sounds workable. I still prefer a fourth robber sitting in the pickup alongside the road with the motor running. That way the first robber could leap into the bed of the pickup and be out of sight in no time. This sounds so good maybe we should take up bank robbing.”

Dave laughed. “It's tempting, Bo, but I'm much too old for that kind of business. Might be fun though.”

He was silent for a moment. “You know for certain the victim was one of the robbers?”

“He was climbing the hill above the getaway car, which was no doubt stolen. It's an old Datson with a shaved key in the ignition.”

“Shaved key, you say?”

“Yeah.”

Dave took off his sheepskin hat and scratched his head. “In that case, unless all these guys were total amateurs, they left a guy in the getaway car to keep it running. No one robs a bank and then starts wiggling a key to make his escape. Guy number one robs the bank, guy number two keeps the getaway car running. Guy number three is waiting on the mountain to shoot guy number two.”

“Right,” Tully said. “And if there is a guy number four, he's waiting in the handoff vehicle to drive away with the loot and the guy who robbed the bank. Looks to me as if there has to be a fourth guy. He's the one taking the least risk. So I suspect he's the mastermind behind the whole robbery.”

He pointed toward the large chimney-shaped rock that formed the peak of the mountain. “ I have one more set of tracks over there I want you to look at, Dave, before I'm frozen solid.”

He led the tracker over to Chimney Rock and showed him the elk tracks. “You make out anything significant from them?”

Dave laughed. “I'm enjoying this way too much. For a brief moment I even thought about not charging the county for my services.”

Tully said, “Yeah, a very brief moment I bet. So, anything you can tell me about those tracks?”

Dave squatted and took a close look. “Well, one of the elk was a lot larger than the others, the last in the line, a big bull. I'd guess a royal.”

Tully smiled and shook his head. “Okay, okay, you passed the test. Dave, you are absolutely amazing!”

Dave laughed. “Quite so, Watson, quite so. Furthermore, the tracks also tell me that a herd of deer passed through here sometime before the elk. The elk trampled most of the deer tracks, but I can still make out a few of them. In fact, the snow was still falling when the deer went through. The few deer tracks I can make out have only a bit of fresh snow in them. So the snow stopped shortly after they went through. Any significance to the deer tracks?”

“None I can think of.”

“How about the elk tracks?”

Tully shoved his hands deep into his pant's pockets in an effort to thaw out his fingers. “I guess the tracks show I didn't imagine the herd of elk.”

Dave said, “Well, now that I've solved your robbery and murder for you, I guess I'll head back to the House of Fry.”

Tully tugged on the corner of his mustache. “I must have missed something, Dave. Who did you say the robbers were and where I can find them and the loot?”

“Details, details. I'll leave those to you, Bo. You're the sheriff.”

T
ully met the Unit in the courthouse parking lot, and they walked back to the office together.

Lurch told him that the M.E. had lifted the victim's prints, and he had just picked them up. “If the owner of them has any kind of record, I should be able to get you some identification on him.”

“Great, Lurch. That'll give us a start anyway.”

Florence, the radio person, stuck her head out of her office as they walked in. “I just made a fresh pot, boss, and filled your coffee pump.”

“Thanks, Flo. Don't know what I'd do without you.”

Lurch frowned at her. “How about me, Flo?”

She smiled. “I don't have to suck up to you, Lurch. See what's left in the troop pumps.”

Tully greeted Daisy Quinn and was rewarded with a nice smile before she went back to her computer. Lurch followed him into his glassed-in office and slid into a chair across the desk from Tully, who had flopped into his office swivel chair. “How about the flagging tape, Lurch? You get the prints off of it?”

The Unit laughed. “You expect me to have checked the tape already?”

“Yeah. What did you find?”

“You're unbelievable, boss.”

“That's what people tell me. So what did you find?”

“One partial print.”

Tully frowned. “One partial? That's odd. How could a person cut off a piece of flagging tape and tie it to a limb without getting more than one partial print on it?”

“Maybe he wore gloves,” Lurch said, rocking his chair back against the sheriff's steel gun safe. “Maybe he wiped the tape for prints?”

Tully stared at him. “Who wears gloves to put up flagging tape? Who wipes it for prints?”

“I guess someone who doesn't want his prints found on it,” Lurch said. “Even though I got only the partial, it was enough for me to get a match.”

“No kidding! You got an ID!”

“Yep, one Gridley Shanks, who lives out on Route 2, about five miles from town. He doesn't have much of a record, but he was once arrested for beating three bikers senseless. Charges were later dismissed when witnesses reported he had been attacked first. He was carrying a concealed weapon at the time of his arrest, but he had a permit. There was no record it had ever been used in a crime. The gun was returned to Shanks after the charges were dismissed.”

“Beat up three bikers! They must have been the kind of bikers who pedal.”

Lurch shook his head. “Nope, the other kind. He's apparently a formidable individual.”

“And this Shanks belongs to the partial print?”

“Right.”

Daisy came and stood in the doorway. “So, boss, we've got another murder on our hands, not to mention a bank robbery?”

“Afraid so.” Lurch gave Daisy his chair and went back to work.

Tully took a sip of his coffee, eyeing Daisy over the top of it. They had concluded a messy affair a few weeks before, but she seemed back to her same perky self—white shiny blouse, short tight black skirt, curly black hair bobbed short, a very compact and cute little number.

Daisy said, “Somebody should call in a stolen vehicle report on the getaway car, don't you think?”

Tully shook his head. “Probably not on this car. The owner is no doubt glad to be rid of it. It was easy pickings for the guy who boosted it.”

“You don't think the victim stole it?”

“Maybe. But he doesn't look like a car thief.”

“I didn't know car thieves had a special look.”

“It's more that people who don't boost cars have a look. And the vic had that look. Anything else going on?”