Avalanche: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery (Sheriff Bo Tully Mysteries) by Patrick F. McManus

notice that that whole field is an archery course. Targets are scattered all over the place. They’re half buried in the snow though.”
    “I’m freezing!” Lurch yelled.
    Tully leaned out of the boat so he could get a closer look at the rocks. He detected no sign of a head having hit them.
    “I’ve got an idea,” Lurch said.
    “What’s that?”
    “Let me out here and I’ll go back with Dave and Pap.”
    “Naw, I need you to hold down the bow of the boat, Lurch. We’re going farther upstream.”
    “Nooooo! Let Dave or Pap do it!”
    “I can’t do that. They’re much too valuable to me. Don’t you realize a person could get killed out here, Lurch?”
    He shouted at Pap and Dave. “Got to go!”
    He backed the boat into the current. The engine thundered and the boat slid easily around a bend and up through a lesser rapid. Ahead, Tully made out a cove where assorted logs and other driftwood had been pushed up on the shore. He headed for it.
    He yelled to Lurch over the roar of the engine. “What’s in the middle of that mess of driftwood?” He pointed.
    Lurch turned and squinted. “Looks like some clothes! Take her in closer, boss!”
    Tully ran the bow of the boat up onto the driftwood and shifted the motors into neutral.
    Lurch turned and looked at him. “We got ourselves a body.”
    “Ten to one we’ve found Mike Wilson, Lurch.”
    “It’s got rubber boots on.”
    “Excellent!” Tully picked up a long pole with a hook on the end. “See if you can get that hook on its belt.”
    After several misses, Lurch finally hooked the dead man’s belt and was able to drag the corpse over to the boat.
    “What do you think, Lurch?”
    “Could be Wilson, all right. It doesn’t look as if it’s been in the water that long.”
    Tully got up and made his way to the bow.
    “Let’s see if we can drag it into the boat. Get hold of that leg and I’ll grab this one.”
    They both heaved back and the body slid into the boat facedown.
    Tully reached in the man’s hip pocket and pulled out a billfold. He flipped it open. “The party we just dragged in is who we thought it might be—Mike Wilson.”
    “Good. Maybe we can go back now. I need to change into some dry clothes. I’m freezing.”
    “I myself am still fairly dry. Finding, Mike, though, pretty well screws up all my theories.”
    “Good!”
    “But you’re going back to the office, Lurch.”
    “How?”
    “By helicopter, how do you think?”
    “At least it won’t be by boat!”
    “Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of that possibility.”
    Tully studied the trees on the bank above them. “You get the feeling we’re being watched, Lurch?”
    “I didn’t want to mention it.”
    Upon returning to the dock, Tully sent Lurch staggering up to the lodge to get some dry clothes on and to bring back a stretcher. The trip back down had been twice as bad as the trip up but at least much faster. Tully started wrapping the body in the boat tarp. Ten minutes later Pap and Dave came down carrying a stretcher. Ski lodges always have stretchers, Tully noted. Dave snapped the stretcher open and they rolled the body onto it.
    Pap watched as Tully and Dave lifted the stretcher out of the boat and set it on the dock. “I never much minded making a dead body, but I never wanted to fool with it after I’d made one. What we going to do with it now?”
    “First thing,” Tully said, “we’d better get Blanche Wilson down here to make a positive ID. The billfold says this is Mike Wilson. The driver’s license picture looks kind of like our man here, but we need to make sure.”
    Flakes of snow began to drift down. “Pap, go get Mrs. Wilson, will you?”
    “You got it, Bo.”
    “What’s your plan?” Dave said.
    “I’ll call the chopper and get it in here as soon as I can. We’ll send the body out on it, and Lurch, too, much as he hates it. Maybe I’ll threaten him with another boat ride. In any case, we’ll get the body back to Susan, and she’ll be able to tell