The Double-Jack Murders: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) Read Free Page B

Buck.”

2
    TULLY SAVORED THE sound his three-thousand-dollar alligator-skin boots made on the marble-chip floor of the courthouse—
clok, clok, clok, clok.
Any kind of cowboy boots would make a similar sound, but there was something expensive about the
clok
of these boots. The money had come from the sale of his latest watercolor, and that, too, made the boots special. He was getting closer every day to becoming a full-time artist. It couldn’t be soon enough.
    “Everybody snap to!” he shouted as he walked into the sheriff’s department briefing room. “The boss is here!”
    Three pairs of sullen eyes turned toward him. “You better have brought us food from your Freezer Day,” growled Herb Elliot, his pudgy undersheriff.
    “Yeah,” agreed his Crime Scene Investigations unit,Byron “Lurch” Proctor, who almost never agreed with Herb Elliot about anything. Tully had given Lurch his nickname. If Lurch wasn’t the homeliest person on the planet, he was at least a contender. His dull brown hair stood out in all directions. He wore rimless glasses an inch thick. His nose appeared to have been attached as an afterthought, and had been intended for a much larger person. He was also the smartest person Tully had ever known. One whole corner of the briefing room was Lurch’s domain, and he was there most hours of the day or night. Tully didn’t hold him to a regular schedule, which allowed Lurch the freedom to work almost around the clock. The CSI unit appreciated the flexibility. The sheriff, oddly, was the young man’s hero.
    “And the food better be something good!” said Daisy Quinn, her hands planted firmly on her hips. Daisy was his secretary. Tully was sure she had been in love with him for a long time. Well, of course. She was a woman, wasn’t she? Usually, Daisy fairly vibrated with efficiency, but today she seemed only to vibrate.
    “We’re starving!” she cried, a wisp of her short dark hair bobbing about on top of her head. She was wearing her tight black skirt and a white blouse, a combination Tully thought made her particularly alluring. Herb Elliot and he had often flirted with Daisy when she was married, but now that she was divorced they both regarded her as somewhat dangerous. It had been months since he had caught Herb perched on the edge of her desk, chatting her up.
    “So where’s the food?” Herb said.
    “It’s coming, it’s coming. Hold your horses. I’ve got Buck bringing you each a venison rib. Fortunately, there were four left over.”
    “He comes through that door with only four venison ribs,” Daisy growled, “he’s a dead man.”
    “I figured as much. That’s why I got Buck to bring them.”
    Buck staggered in with a huge, greasy cardboard box. “I could have used a little help, Bo.”
    “Yeah, yeah, quit complaining, Buck. We’ve got some starving people here, although you wouldn’t know it from looking at Herb.”
    “Oh!” cried Daisy. “Do I smell garlic shrimp? I do, I do. Oh, all is forgiven!”
    Buck spread the feast out on a table. The whole briefing room filled with the smell of garlic.
    “Go get the beer, Buck,” Tully said.
    “Geez, let me catch my breath!”
    “Only two bottles apiece. They’re still on duty.”
    “Only two?” Herb said.
    “Yeah,” Tully said. “It’s the Blight Way. Lock the door when you come back, Buck. I don’t want any citizens to walk in and catch the staff gnawing ribs and guzzling beer. And tell Flo the feast is about to begin.”
    “I know already, Bo,” Flo said, emerging from the radio room. Her crowning feature was her bright red hair, which seemed almost to have achieved illumination. “By the way, what if there’s an emergency?”
    “I guess it will just have to wait,” Tully said. “We have serious eating and drinking going on here.”
    Tully walked into his glass-enclosed cubicle. The large window behind his desk looked out over Lake Blight. He was once again thinking about having the window painted