Free The Huckleberry Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery by Patrick F. McManus Page B

“Don’t you all?”
    “Well, sure, but Brian is one of the worst.”
    •  •  •
    Tully pulled into the K-Bar lot and parked. The lot was crowded with police cars, an ambulance, and a fire-station emergency team. Several police officers were standing around a pickup truck. Tim was standing next to Willy, who was still drunk but an interested observer of the crime scene. Tim glanced in Tully’s direction and then started to walk over. Tully could now see the side of the truck. He groaned. The driver’s-side window was a spiderweb of glass, with portions completely missing. He could see bullet holes in the blue door on the red truck. He’d told Lennie, “You can’t be dumb.” But did he listen?
    Tim walked up. “We checked for the guy’s ID. He hasn’t got any on him.”
    “His name is Lennie Frick, Tim. He lived at Four-oh-five East Sharp.”
    Tim took out his notebook and wrote the name and address down.
    Tully said, “He did a bit of time a while back. He wasn’t a bad guy, just a dumb one. He might have seen whoever didthe killings up on Scotchman.” He nodded toward the truck. “This pretty much proves it.”
    Tim looked up from his notebook. “So you think you know who did it?”
    “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. I don’t have any names, though. Not to mention proof.”
    “Things are pretty bad when a kid goes out for a six-pack of beer and gets blown away.”
    “Acme?”
    “How did you know?”
    “I’m psychic.”
    “Looks like the shooter used a .22,” Tim said. “Very small bullet holes. I counted six. No casings anywhere. So it was probably a revolver. Strange thing is, nobody we’ve talked to heard any shots.”
    “I’m not surprised,” Tully said. “I suspect the killer used a silencer.”
    “A silencer! Sounds like Blight City is getting into the big time.”
    •  •  •
    Tully slept most of the day on Saturday. That night he called Pete Reynolds. “Pete, any chance you could take me for a spin in your airplane tomorrow?”
    “Why, sure, Bo. For some reason I had the idea you hated flying.”
    “I do, Pete, but there’s some stuff I need to check out from the air. Just a hunch I have.”

13
    SUNDAY MORNING, TULLY had no trouble containing his enthusiasm for the flight. He stopped at McDonald’s and had his usual Egg McMuffin and coffee, then drove out to the airport. Pete was already there, tinkering with something on his plane.
    “Doing some major repairs, I see.”
    “Naw, nothing major. A bolt here, a nut there, that sort of thing. Where we headed today, Bo?”
    “I’m trying to solve a crime. People are getting killed for no reason I can figure out. I could understand if they were bankers or lawyers or people of that ilk, but they are just poor dumb kids scarcely twenty years old, if that. Anyway, I think Scotchman Creek may hold an answer.”
    Pete tossed a wrench back in his toolbox. “I haven’t fished Scotchman in years but I can tell you the lower partof that crick is one unholy mess. The beavers run a series of dams crisscrossing each other all through there. It’s impossible even to find your way to the crick anymore. Beavers helped turn it into one giant swamp. Some places the water comes up to your armpits, and that’s if you ain’t standing in quicksand. It was that way thirty years ago and probably a lot worse now. I imagine the beavers flooded hundreds of acres since then. Some mighty fine timber locked away in there but the beavers made getting it out more expensive than it’s worth.”
    “I guess beavers aren’t totally useless, then.”
    “Easy for you to say, Bo.”
    A few minutes later they were on the tarmac, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the plane’s cockpit. As far as Tully could tell, the plane didn’t bother to taxi but jumped into the air from a standstill, hurling him back into his seat.
    “What kind of motor you got on this thing anyway, Pete?”
    “The most powerful money can buy. No sense flying an underpowered