The Tamarack Murders (4 page)

Daisy consulted her pad. “This should be of interest to you. Your fortune-teller is back in town.”

“You're kidding! Etta is back?”

“Yes indeed. She wants you to give her a call.”

He studied Daisy for signs of irritation, found none. She was an ace secretary. So much so, he had promoted her to deputy and issued her a department gun, a .38-cal. revolver. On the target range, at least, Daisy could now outshoot all the deputies except Pugh. On the other hand, Etta Gorsich, perhaps ten years older than Daisy, could make his heart stop merely by putting her hand on his chest.

Daisy stared at him. “What's wrong, boss?”

He didn't want to say he was involved with too many women. “Nothing. It's just that we've got this weird case. I have no doubt our shooting vic is one of the bank robbers, but we haven't found the loot. He wasn't carrying it when we tracked him up the mountain. There was no place for him to hide it. And there was no gun. He was like a decoy.”

“That's weird,” Daisy said. “How much did the bank say he got away with?”

“I don't know. I suspect the FBI is all over it by now.”

“You bet,” Daisy said. “They've got half a dozen agents on it. Flew them in. Guess who one of them is.”

“I have no idea.”

“Your little friend, Angela Phelps!”

Tully started to smile but caught himself in time. “Oh no, not her!”

“I know she can't be as bad as you let on, boss.”

Tully shook his head. “She's a whole lot worse than I let on, Daisy. I'm a person of great restraint when it comes to Angie Phelps.”

“Well, she's the SAC.”

“Angie's the special agent in charge? I guess she's moving up in the bureau. Probably picked up a lot of investigative techniques from me.”

“She no doubt picked up a lot of techniques from you, boss, but you were probably doing most of the investigating.”

“Very funny. Now beat it, Daisy. I've got to make some phone calls.”

Daisy grinned as she gently shut the door behind her.

Tully grabbed the phone book and looked up the number of the bank. He dialed. A husky female voice answered.

“Carla, it's Bo Tully. I need to talk to one of the FBI agents. Her name is Angela Phelps. She'll be the best looking agent there.”

“The other agents are men,” Carla said. “And one of them is pretty cute, Bo.”

“Well, I'll have to check him out. But right now I need Agent Phelps.”

While he waited for Agent Phelps, Tully swiveled around in his chair so he could look out the window at Lake Blight, but he couldn't actually see the lake because his window had been painted over. One of his local criminals had tried to shoot him from a boat bobbing about on the lake, an impossible shot, but he had missed Tully and Daisy by only about half an inch. The close-call had resulted in his unfortunate affair with Daisy.

Carla came back on. “Bo, Agent Phelps said she'll call you in a few minutes.”

Tully thanked her and dialed the head janitor for the courthouse.

“Abe, get somebody up here to scrape the paint off my window. I've decided I prefer a view of the lake to the relative safety the paint provides.”

“Okay, Sheriff, but we ain't painting it again.”

“Tell me one more time, Abe, which of our corrupt county commissioners got you your job?”

“Harry Pulver. But he ain't as corrupt as Commissioner Phipps.”

Tully smiled. “I guess you're right about that. I get confused over our commissioners' varying degrees of corruption. Which one had that county dirt road paved all the way out to his ranch in the mountains?”

“That's was Bob Lust. But he retired after he got the road paved.”

“Right. I forgot. I guess the level of corruption must have taken a drop after Lust left.”

“Clyde White replaced Lust.”

“Ahh! That's why I didn't notice a decline. Anyway, Abe, I'd appreciate your getting the paint off the window sometime today.”

“You got it, Bo.”

Tully hung up, drummed his fingers on his desk and thought about calling Etta Gorsich. Being a psychic, Etta was probably already aware he was busy solving a bank robbery.

Somebody knocked on his door. Lurch stuck his head in. “You busy, boss?”

“Yeah, but come in anyway.”

His phone rang. “Sheriff Bo Tully.”

He motioned for the Unit to take a chair.

“Sheriff Bo Tully, this is FBI Agent Angela Phelps. I understand you had a call in for me.”

“Angie! Great to hear you've been promoted!”

“Hey, it's still Blight City, Bo.”

“True. But you weren't a SAC your last visit.”

“Yeah, I made sure the FBI got most of the credit for solving the huckleberry murders. So what do you think about our bank robbery?”

Lurch handed him a slip of paper. Tully perused it: Vergil Thomas Stone, 27, 1204 W. Hemlock St., Blight City. Tully groaned. “Oh, I hate this job!” He looked up at Lurch and put his hand over the phone's mouthpiece. “I don't suppose you would go tell the widow Stone her husband is a suspect in a bank robbery, and, incidentally, was murdered today.”

“Way over my pay grade, boss.”

Tully turned back to the phone. “Angie, I've got a couple of things I need to take care of.” He told her about the fingerprint on the tape and that Lurch had found a match. “I'll go out to visit the owner of the print first thing in the morning. This guy may be involved in the bank robbery someway. You want to come along and study my interrogation technique?”

“Are you kidding me, Bo? I wouldn't miss it for the world.”

“Great! I'll I pick you up at your hotel at eight.”

Tully shoved himself up from his chair and walked over to Daisy's desk. “I'm gone for the day, babe. Maybe for good.”

“Why so glum, Bo?”

“I have to tell Mrs. Vergil Stone her husband is a bank robber, but she's now also a widow. You want to come along for moral support?”

“For her?”

“No, for me!”

“Not a chance!”

Tully rang the doorbell at 1204 W. Hemlock. The house was small and white with one scraggly tree alone in the middle of the yard, half a dozen brown leaves desperately clinging to it. A few neighboring lawns had toys scattered about, but this lawn was bare except for the tree and weeds. He hated reporting fatalities to the survivors, but at least this victim wasn't a teenager who had wrapped the family car around a utility pole. A pretty young woman opened the door, her thick blond hair tied back in a ponytail with a limp blue ribbon. Tully held up his badge. Her mouth gaped. “Oh no! Vergil's in trouble, isn't he?”

Tully identified himself and said, “Let's go inside, Mrs. Stone, and I'll tell you about it.”

She led him into a small but comfortably furnished living room. Tully sat down in an easy chair and Mrs. Stone sat on a sofa across from him, leaning forward, her hands on her knees.

“Vergil's been arrested, hasn't he?”

“Well, no, I wish it were nothing more than that, Mrs. Stone. He's been murdered.”

“Murdered!” She stared at him in disbelief, her mouth gaping.

Tully didn't know what to do. How do you handle this sort of thing? He thought maybe the department should hire someone who knew how to do it. The only way he knew was to blurt it out. Still, he thought he detected a sense of relief in Mrs. Stone. Perhaps murder was better than an arrest.

“What happened?” she asked.

“He was shot,” Tully said.

“Shot! Why on earth would anyone want to shoot Vergil? Everybody liked Vergil!”

“He was shot from a considerable distance. It could have been a hunting accident, but I don't think so.”

Mrs. Stone seemed to be sinking into the couch, growing smaller by the minute.

Tully asked, “Do you have children?”

She shook her head no. She was pretty but seemed tired, already worn down by something other than the murder of her husband. Tully put her age at about twenty-five.

“Do you work, Mrs. Stone?”

“I go to the community college. I'm in my second year of the nursing program, and I work weekends at Evergreen Assisted Living.”

“How long have you and Vergil been married?”

She thought for moment. “Going on three years. We did all right for a while, until Vergil lost his job at the bank. He was the last hired and first fired when they had to cut back. He didn't like the job anyway. The manager said he would hire him again as soon as the economy picked up. Vergil hasn't had a job since he left the bank. I've been supporting us with my meager salary, but I have a well-to-do friend who's been paying my college tuition and books and even giving us some extra money. I had the feeling Vergil was going to do something stupid with some of those ratty friends of his. He was getting desperate. When he didn't come home the last few nights, I knew something was up.”

Tully was still stuck on the fact Vergil had worked at the bank. “I hate to tell you this, Mrs. Stone, but I think Vergil was involved in a bank robbery.”

Her eyes widened. “A bank robbery! Vergil? I can't believe it! Whatever faults he may have, Vergil is no bank robber. He doesn't have the nerves for it, Sheriff. He won't even set a mouse trap!”

Tully held up his hands. “At this point, Mrs. Stone, Vergil is only a suspect. Right now we have no proof he was in on the robbery. The money has yet to be found, but he was spotted on a mountainside near what appeared to be the getaway car. Did he own any guns, Mrs. Stone?”

“No! Vergil hates guns!”

“Some of his friends may hunt. They must have guns. Can you give me the names of his friends, Mrs Stone?”

“No, not really. Not the ones he's been hanging out with at a poolroom, staying out all hours of the night. I don't know where they live, but sometimes he doesn't bother to come home two or three nights in a row. Vergil mentioned them from time to time, but I can't recall any names. It's so strange. Vergil never had anything to do with that kind of people before.”

“You're speaking of fairly recent friends?”

“Yes. I think they moved to the area in the past couple of weeks. I don't think they stay in Blight but in an abandoned cabin somewhere. Vergil told me he would like to see the cabin sometime because it sounded really interesting. Apparently it has a wonderful view, probably on the lake somewhere.”

“Any other friends you can think of?

“Yes, old friends of his, but he doesn't have much to do with them anymore. When he did come home, I could tell he'd been drinking. He's been so upset about money I didn't bother him about that. I assume his friends paid for the drinks. You may wonder why I'm not more emotional about him being killed. I hate that he was murdered, but we were headed for a divorce, and I guess I'd already detached myself. Part of the problem, we had practically no money, but the big thing was, Vergil changed. It was like he was off somewhere with another life, maybe even another woman. Everything was simply coming apart for us and had been for a long time.”

Tully stood up. “I'm sorry to bring you bad news, Mrs. Stone. Do you have someone to stay with you tonight? If not, my secretary is a very nice person, and I'm sure she would be delighted to spend a few nights with you.”

“Oh, I'll be all right, Sheriff. I have someone to stay with me, but thank you for offering your secretary.”

Tully stood up to leave. “One last thing, Mrs. Stone. Do you have a picture of Vergil I can borrow?”

“A picture? I don't think so. We've never been much for pictures. Oh, we do have a wedding photo. I'll see if I can find it.” She got up and walked into a hallway.

Tully had dozens of photos of his wife, Ginger, and many paintings of her. They always said that when they got old they would look back at the photos and laugh, but Ginger never had a chance to get old. He thought maybe he was just more sentimental than the Stones.

Mrs. Stone came down a hall from the back of the house and handed him a studio photograph. It had been cut in half, leaving only the husband. He studied it. Vergil Stone was the man killed on the mountain, all right. “I'll get the photo back to you, Mrs. Stone, as soon as I can.”

“No hurry, Sheriff. I don't need it back.”

Tully stopped at the door. “Mrs. Stone, what is your first name?”

“Danielle.”

“By the way, Danielle, did Vergil own a black overcoat?”

“Why, yes, he does. It's the only warm coat he has.”

Tully thanked her and walked back to his car. Danielle clearly wasn't one of those overly sentimental types.

O
n the drive out to Gridley Shanks's place the next morning, Angie filled Tully in on the robbery investigation. “It was a professional job. The robber had perfect timing and knew exactly what he was doing.”

Tully glanced at her. “I don't believe it.”

“What don't you believe?”

“That our victim on the mountain knew what he was doing.”

“Just listen to me for a minute. The manager typically shows up at the bank at a quarter to ten. The cashiers and other employees arrive at nine. The assistant manager shows up a little earlier than the tellers. The time lock on the safe goes off at nine-fifteen. The cash is counted out and distributed to the cashiers. When the manager arrives, he checks out the vault, and if he's satisfied, he closes it and the time lock resets. The vault can't be opened until after the bank closes for the day. All a robber can get is what's in the cash drawers.”

Tully stopped at a stop sign before pulling onto Highway 95 and waited for a truck loaded down with Christmas trees to lumber by.

Angie thumbed through a notebook on her lap. “Yesterday morning a man stepped up to the manager just as he got to the bank door and stuck a gun in his ribs. They walked into the bank together. The manager did as he was told. The robber yelled for everybody else to lie down on the floor and shut their eyes. The vault was still open. Some of the employees peeked and saw the robber step into the vault and sweep blocks of cash off a counting table into a big black plastic trash bag until it was over half full. Then he slung the bag over his shoulder and walked out the door. Several employees jumped up and saw an old tan-colored car, probably a Datson, roar out of the parking lot. One of them got a partial plate number and called your office with a description. There were two people in the car. We don't know yet exactly how much cash he got, but it was a lot.”