The Double-Jack Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) (13 page)

“And two skeletons,” Tully said.

“Skeletons?”

“Yeah, Dave, those rags along the edge of the mine, they were clothes with two skeletons underneath.”

Dave ran his hand back through his hair as if clearing something from his mind. “Somebody blasted rocks down over the mine and trapped them in there,” he said. “What a miserable way to die!”

“No way is good as far as I’m concerned,” Pap said.

Dave said, “So you think somebody blew the mine shut and left them in there to die?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I can’t imagine Tom and Sean wouldn’t have noticed somebody drilling up above them on the cliff. Also, I don’t think they would just have lain down together and waited to die. I’m going to call my
Crime Scene Investigations Unit and get it up here to see what it can figure out.”

Dave looked puzzled for a moment. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. Your CSI unit consists of only one guy.”

“Lurch is good, too,” Pap said. “Solves most of Bo’s crimes for him.”

“I wouldn’t say most,” Tully said. “But he’s pretty good.”

Tully took out his cell phone and dialed Daisy.

“Hi, Daisy. It’s Bo, and I—!”

“Bo! About time you called in! I—We have been worried sick about you!”

“You could have called me if you were so concerned!”

“You may remember telling me never to call unless there’s an emergency I can’t handle!”

Tully winked at Dave. “Oh, good. So there hasn’t been an emergency. I’ve been gone less than a week and no emergency. That must be a record.”

“There have been emergencies, but nothing I couldn’t handle!” Daisy said. “I’ve been spending night and day with your mom, and I think she’s getting pretty sick of me.”

“It’s okay for you to get back to the office and do some work. You can sleep at home, too.”

“The Kincaid business is over?”

“I’ll tell you about it later. I should be back in a couple of days. Do you know where Lurch is?”

“Yeah, he’s at the office. I just talked to him.”

“Thanks.” He dialed Lurch’s number.

“Hi,” Lurch said. “How’s it going, boss?” Apparently nobody but Tully ever called the unit.

“It just got interesting, Lurch. I need you up here pronto. Bring your kit and throw in a metal detector. I’ve got a couple of skeletons in pretty bad shape, and I want you to figure out what caused them to become skeletons. Bring something to haul them back in.”

Tully told him how to get to the Finch Mine. Lurch said he would meet them at the mine’s chain in two hours.

TULLY DROVE DOWN
to the chain to wait for Lurch, but the unit was already there. They drove their vehicles back up to the Finch Mine and unloaded two plastic cases from Lurch’s Explorer. Lurch said they would be used to put the bones in. He would take them back to Blight for more careful analysis.

Lurch pointed to the various structures of the Finch Mine. “It looks kind of creepy. Like all the workers disappeared yesterday, but it’s been shut down sixty years or so, right?”

“Right,” Tully said. “It’s like it has been frozen in time.”

They put one plastic box in the other and Lurch’s gear in that one and hauled it down the scree, Tully carrying the front end of the boxes, Lurch the back. Wearing only oxfords, the CSI unit wasn’t happy about having to tramp down the steep
grade on loose rocks. Going down the hole on a rope made him even more unhappy. “I don’t like the looks of this!” he yelled up from the bottom.

Tully came down on the rope. He pointed at the small opening into the mine and gestured for Lurch to crawl through. The unit shook its head.

“Oh, all right,” Tully said. “If you’re going to turn chicken on me, Lurch, I’ll go first. Remember, once we’re inside talk only in a whisper.”

“Oh, great,” Lurch said.

Pap and Dave lowered the CSI kit and first plastic case down with the rope. Tully reached out and pulled the first one into the mine. He gave the rope a tug. Pap or Dave pulled it back up and the second case came down. Then the unit.

Tully pointed at the rags. “That’s where the skeletons are.”

Lurch took two pairs of latex gloves from his kit and handed one pair to Tully.

“I don’t need gloves,” Tully whispered, “because I ain’t touching anything! I’m just here to hold the flashlight.”

“Yes, you’re touching!” Lurch whispered, snapping on his own gloves. “I’m going to need your help to lift the skeletons into the cases, if we want to get them out of here in any shape resembling the original.”

It soon became evident that the skeletons would make it into the cases in several pieces. Lurch picked up a gray skull and examined it. “This guy was pretty young. The teeth are perfect. He picked up the other skull. “Ditto here. Not much
chance of getting a definite ID. Like none at all.” He turned the second skull over in his hands.

“There are two belt buckles here,” Tully said. He held them up. “What about those?”

“They’re pretty fancy,” Lurch said. “Big fancy buckles. They must have been cowboys.”

“Kind of, I suppose. What I was thinking, Agatha has photographs of the two of them. Maybe we can use a magnifying glass to check their belt buckles in the photos.”

“Good idea! Might work. I can tell you one thing right now about how they were killed.”

“So tell me, Lurch.”

“They were both shot in the back of the head. They were both lying facedown with their hands tied behind them and their feet tied together. They were executed with shots to the head. Pretty terrible, if you ask me. Why tie them up? Why not just shoot them?”

“Whoever did it probably didn’t think that far ahead. After he had them tied up, he couldn’t figure out what to do with them. Maybe he thought the kind thing to do was shoot them. So he shot them. You know, Lurch, it’s possible these bones don’t belong to Agatha’s father or the O’Boyle boy. Maybe we’ll just give them to the family and say that’s who the bones belong to. How could they tell? It will give them something to bury, anyway.”

“Gee, I don’t know about that.”

“Don’t get picky on me now, Lurch. Besides, maybe we’ll get IDs from the buckles.”

“Yeah, I’d prefer that to the Blight Way. So are we done here?”

“Not quite,” Tully said. He walked over to the entrance hole, knelt down, and stuck his head out. In a loud whisper, he said, “Pap, send down the metal detector.” A few minutes later the metal detector came down on the rope.

“Ah,” said Lurch. “You want to look for the bullets.”

“Actually, I want
you
to look for the bullets. I myself try to avoid learning how to operate any machine I don’t have to. If you’re right that Tom and Sean were shot right here while lying facedown, the bullets have to be here someplace.”

Lurch clicked on the metal detector and began sweeping it back and forth over the rubble. Almost immediately, the instrument began to beep. He took out a flat wooden stick and began to dig down through the rocks. Picking up a small object, he blew it off. Tully leaned over his shoulder to get a better look.

“What is it, Lurch?”

“Just what you wanted—one of the bullets that killed our vics here.”

“Not likely there would be any other bullet right at this spot. Can you make out any striations on it?”

Lurch spit on the object and wiped it off. “Yeah, enough to identify the gun it was fired out of. Here’s something weird. It’s green! Good luck finding that gun, after, what, about eighty years?”

Tully squinted at the bullet. “Spit on it again, Lurch, and see if you can identify the caliber. I’m always amazed by your advanced technology.”

“Weird,” Lurch said. “You ever heard of a green bullet, Bo?”

“Yeah, half my bullets are green. They get old and wet, the brass turns green. This one has to be brass-covered. What kind of weapon fires it?”

“Don’t know. I’ll have to check it out back at my lab.”

“You don’t have a lab.”

“I just say that to fool people. I do have some resources available to me, though, stuff I’ve scrounged, stolen, and bought with my own pitiful earnings.”

“If you’re done whining, Lurch, let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

They sent the cases with the two skeletons up on the rope, and followed them with the CSI kit. Then Lurch climbed out. Tully took what he hoped would be a last look at the mine. He hated to leave gold behind, but he knew the tunnel would have to be blasted shut for good. One stick of dynamite would bring the whole thing down. He probably could get Buck Toole to light the fuse and then scramble up through the scree. As he liked to say, there was always use for dumb in law enforcement.

LURCH TOOK THE
skeletons and bullets back to Blight. Tully, Pap, and Dave drove to the Quail Creek Ranch. Agatha and Bernice came out to greet them. “Any luck?” Agatha asked.

“We found the remains of a couple of victims,” Tully said. “I think they probably belong to Tom and the O’Boyle boy. They were right in the range we guessed at from judging the time and gait of the horses. In any case, they were murdered, just as you suspected. All we have that might identify them is a couple of belt buckles. I know you have photos of the two of them. If we can make out the belt buckles in the pictures, that’s as close as we can come to IDs.”

Bernice gave Agatha a hug and then she came over and gave Tully a kiss on the cheek. “I knew you could do it, Bo!”

Ernie Thorpe and Bunny came out of the house. What were the two of them doing in there unsupervised? Tully thought.

“Oh, Bo!” cried Bunny. “Did you solve the mystery for Aunt Agatha?”

“Solved part of it, I think. Haven’t pinned down the murderer yet.”

Agatha said, “I want to bury the remains right here on the ranch, Bo. Can we do that?”

“I’m sure it can be arranged, if they happen to be your dad’s.”

“Even if they aren’t, I’d like to bury them here!”

“Fine with me,” Tully said. “What about the O’Boyle boy, if the remains turn out to be his?”

“I don’t know of any O’Boyles who live around here anymore. If you can’t find any family who want him, we’ll take Sean, too, right, Bernice?”

“Right, Agatha. We’ll find beautiful resting places for both of them. I’ll weld each of them up a nice marker, too.”

Pap said, “If everybody is done yakking, let’s go see if we can identify the two of them from a photo. Also, I’d be interested to know if you have a beer lurking around your refrigerator, Agatha.”

“I’ve been expecting you back at any time, Pap. Of course I have a beer waiting for you. A whole case, if you want it.”

“That sounds about right. I been dying of thirst ever since Bo drug me off on this adventure.”

They all went in the house. Agatha turned on the light over
the dining-room table and dug out two well-worn photo albums. She placed them on the table. Tully laid the two belt buckles side by side next to the albums. Agatha stared at them for a moment, as if thinking about the last time they had been buckled. Then she started flipping through pages of the album. She came to an old brown photo with cracks spiderwebbed across it. It showed a bearded young man standing next to a teenage boy with long, light-colored hair. The man wore a floppy hat and had a pick over his shoulder. The boy leaned on a shovel. Both of them were grinning at the camera.

“Bernice, get me the magnifying glass, please,” Agatha said.

Bernice went into another room and came back with the glass. “I don’t know why,” she said, “But I’m shaking all over.”

Agatha held the glass up to the photo. Tully leaned over Agatha’s shoulder. “It’s a match! The buckle on the left belongs to Tom. The one on the right belongs to Sean! We’ve got them back!”

Agatha wiped a tear from her cheek. Bernice turned abruptly and walked away. “Oh, Bo, I am so happy!” Agatha cried. “After all this time, you’ve found them. Nobody except Bernice and me believed you could do it.”

Pap said, “I didn’t believe it myself. Now, Agatha, are you going to get me that beer or do I have to do it myself?”

“I’ll get beer for everyone,” Agatha said. “But everybody is going to have a shot of whiskey first. This is a celebration!”

“Sounds like my kind of celebration,” Pap said. “For an old lady, you ain’t too bad, Agatha.”

Agatha made a harrumphing sound but couldn’t help
smiling broadly. She gave Pap a friendly pat on the shoulder as she went by.

After the celebration, Agatha and Bernice followed the three men back to their truck. Tully had told Ernie to stay at the ranch until he got back. Ernie pretended not to be happy as a lark.

Agatha said, “You think the trouble is over with Lucas Kincaid, Bo?”

“I doubt there’s anything to worry about, but we’re headed into Blight right now. We should be back in a couple of days. By the way, Agatha, Ernie, and Bunny seem to be getting along rather well.”

“Yes, and I’m so happy. You know, Bunny has been married twice already, and it didn’t take either time.”

“Twice?” Tully said.

“Yes. I don’t know what the problem is, but Bunny is something of a perfectionist. That could have something to do with it.”

“A perfectionist,” Tully said. “I don’t know a lot of perfect men. Other than me, I can’t think of even one.”

“What about Ernie?” Agatha asked. “He’s such a nice young man. And so nice looking, too!”

“Oh, yeah,” Tully said begrudgingly. “Ernie is okay.”

“And he has an actual job! That’s something these days!”

“You’re right about that, Agatha.”

Tully, Dave, and Pap spent the night in a motel and had breakfast at the House of Fry the next morning. Tully and Pap then drove over to Batim Scragg’s to check on Clarence. The
old man and the dog were out in the front yard. Batim was throwing a ball for Clarence and Clarence was chasing it.

“That is so disgusting,” Pap said.

“Yeah,” Tully said. “I certainly wouldn’t have expected it of Batim.”

“I meant Clarence. He made a career of biting old ladies on the ankles but at least he had some dignity.”

Batim walked over as Pap and Tully got out of the pickup. Clarence followed him, carrying the ball and wagging his tail.

“You two seem to be hitting it off,” Tully said.