The Blight Way Read Online Free PDF Page B

perky secretary. She held out her gloved hand.
    â€œHi, Sheriff, I’m Susan Parker. We haven’t had a chance to meet.”
    Tully shook her hand. Her grip was firm. “Call me Bo,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Susan. This sorry old character here is my father, Eldon Tully, former sheriff of Blight County. Everybody calls him Pap.”
    â€œHi, Pap,” she said, stepping around the body and shaking the old man’s hand.
    â€œGood you showed up,” Pap told her. “We got a dead body here we don’t know what to do with.”
    Susan took off her leather gloves and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. “I’ve seen quite a few dead bodies. This is the first one I’ve come across in a cow pasture, though.”
    â€œMe, too,” said Tully. “Most of the dead bodies I find are in our local drinking establishments. With the killer at the bar bragging about his work.”
    â€œI see he was shot,” she said. “Might have been from a semiautomatic, with two bullet holes tight together like that.”
    Tully gave Pap a look. “Yeah, that’s about what we figured. Probably shot sometime during the night, maybe using a night-vision scope on a small-caliber rifle. The Scraggs claim they didn’t hear a thing.”
    â€œYou believe those people?” she said.
    â€œNot ordinarily,” Tully said. “But as old Batim says, if it had been one of them there wouldn’t have been an awkward situation like this. He means they would have dropped the body down a prospect hole or something equally efficient.”
    â€œWhy didn’t he do that anyway?”
    â€œDon’t know. He probably thought about it, all right, but this way there’s a certain amount of entertainment value for him and his clan. I’m pretty sure Batim didn’t let any of the Scraggs come near the body.”
    Susan snapped a dozen photos of the body while Tully watched.
    â€œIf you’ll give me a hand,” she said, “let’s see if we can lift him off the fence.”
    Pap watched as Susan and Tully lifted the body from the fence and laid it out on the ground face up.
    She’s a lot stronger than she looks, Tully thought. He watched as she went through the man’s pockets. She looked at the driver’s license. “From Los Angeles,” she said. “Nicholas Holt. Born October 1959. Forty-one years old.”
    Then she pulled out the wad of hundred-dollar bills. “Whewee! I guess we can rule out robbery as the motive. That Rolex on his wrist is probably real, too.”
    â€œI can tell you this,” Tully said. “If the Scraggs had shot him, the money and the watch would be gone for sure. They probably had something to do with it one way or another, but I don’t think they’re the ones that killed him.”
    She unbuttoned the man’s shirt and pulled it back. “The bullets didn’t exit. That’s odd. We should be ableto get some markings off them to match with a weapon.”
    Pap spoke up. “Might be a twenty-two rifle. Kind of odd for a murder weapon but handy. Probably every house in the county has one.”
    Back by the ranch house, Buck’s Explorer pulled through the gate and started working its way across the pasture.
    â€œBuck’s back,” Pap said. “Wish my driver had had enough sense to drive out here.” He looked over at Bo, who glared back at him. “Because I’m near froze to death.”
    â€œGood heavens!” Susan said. “No wonder you’re cold. Neither of you is wearing a coat.”
    â€œCoats are for sissies,” Tully said. “And pretty ladies, of course.”
    Susan gave him a tiny smile. She walked over to the Suburban and came back with an aluminum case. She took out an instrument that looked like a meat thermometer and stuck it into the liver of the corpse.
    â€œCripes!” Pap said. “Let me know when you’re