Paul Doiron - The Poacher's Son

“It looks like dog shit,” I said.

“That’s because he’s eating meat. If he was eating berries, it would be gloppier-like a cow patty.”

“Gloppier?”

“See how the grass is still green under the scat? That means it’s fresh. Now you see what I mean when I say a warden really needs to know his shit.”

I groaned.

Her knees cracked as she straightened up again. “Let’s set that trap, Grasshopper.”

The trap itself was a barrel-shaped tube-identical to the metal culverts that run beneath roads-three feet in diameter and about seven feet long, perforated with holes the size of tennis balls. The culvert was welded sled-like to a pair of angle-iron runners that attached to the trailer. One end of the tube was closed with a heavy grate; the other consisted of a steel door that could be propped open and then triggered to fall shut when a bear upset the bait pan inside.

“Bears are funny,” said Kathy as we propped open the gate. “Sometimes you’ll catch one in five minutes. Other times they’ll figure out a way to steal the bait without ever throwing the trap.”

“Dick Roberge told me he once trapped the same bear three times. He’d release him miles away and he’d keep coming back.”

“I know that bear,” she said with a laugh. “We called him Homer.”

Kathy had brought along jelly doughnuts and bacon to use as bait. “Now, your bear has a taste for pig,” she explained. “Which is why I brought along the bacon. But in the past I’ve used lobster shells and bananas, cat food and strawberry jam, suet smeared with molasses. Anything fatty and stinky, basically.”

We dropped a trail of doughnuts and bacon strips leading to the mouth of the trap. I told her about Mrs. Hersom and the Thighmaster, and she laughed and said that at least the bear was well aerobicized now. Then, as if continuing the same light conversation, she said: “Did you end up calling your old man?”

At first I didn’t know what she meant-I’d done such a thorough job of focusing on the job at hand-then it all came back to me like a remembered bout of nausea. “I tried. He wasn’t around.” I shivered as I stepped out of the sun into the shadows. I was sweating from the heat and the exertion, but a chill was rising from the forest floor. An odor of decomposition drifted up from the shadowed stretch of road leading down into the swamp. “You hear anything more about the investigation up there?”

“Just that it’s got priority over everything else. I guess the attorney general wanted to see the crime scene himself. They have Soctomah running the investigation for State Police CID. You know him?”

“By reputation. He’s supposed to be good.”

“Best in the state.”

“Good,” I said, throwing the last doughnut into the bushes. “I hope he nails the son of a bitch.”

She was quiet a long time, her eyes on mine. I had no idea what was going through her head. But her silence made me uncomfortable.

“Should we put up the signs now?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

The signs were bright yellow squares of plastic that we were required to tack to the trees surrounding the trap. On them was written: DANGER. BEAR TRAP. DO NOT APPROACH. When we had finished posting the last sign, we leaned against the fender of my truck and shared a bottle of warm, plastic-flavored water.

From the front seat of my truck came the trill of my cell phone ringing. We both looked at each other. The phone trilled again. I opened the door and picked it up.

“Mike? This is Russ Pelletier. From Rum Pond.”

A shiver went through me. “Yes,” I said. “Hello, Russ.”

As a teenager I had spent a nightmare summer living in my dad’s cabin and working for Pelletier and his alcoholic wife at Rum Pond. The experience had not ended well.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

“Eight years.”

“That long? Shit, I’m getting old. Your dad says you’re a game warden now.”

“That’s right. Down on the midcoast.”

He paused. I got the impression he was smoking a cigarette. “Actually, your dad is the reason I’m calling. You left a message here this morning saying you wanted to talk with him. I suppose you heard about what happened up here last night-the shootings?”

“Yes?”

“Well, the cops were just here looking for your dad.” He paused again to take another drag on the cigarette. “They arrested him, Mike. I don’t know how else to say it.”

The speedometer read seventy miles per hour, dangerously fast for this country road. Every so often I would catch myself and slow down, then minutes later I’d find myself flirting with seventy again.

The cedar swamp lay miles behind me. An hour had passed since I’d crossed out of my district, headed first west and now northwest, toward the distant jail in Skowhegan where my father was being taken in handcuffs. But in my mind I was still standing under the cedars, the cell phone pressed against my ear, hearing Russell Pelletier say:

“They arrested him, Mike. I don’t know how else to say it.”

I felt the ground slide suddenly beneath my feet. “Arrested? For what?”

Pelletier said: “A deputy came out here this morning wanting to question him, and your dad lost it. I wasn’t around when it happened. But I guess there was a fight and your dad was Maced. Anyway, they’re taking him to the jail in Skowhegan. I’d drive down myself, but I’ve got a camp full of sports. Maybe you should call over there, find out what’s up.”

“The police think he killed those men? Is that what you’re saying?”

Pelletier took his time answering. “They seem to think he knows something.”

“But that’s not why they arrested him? Not for murder. It was because he struck an officer, right?”

“Like I said, I wasn’t there when it happened, so I can’t say. I just heard about it when I got back from fishing. I think you should call over to Skowhegan. Get it all sorted out.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m sorry for the bad news, kid,” Russell Pelletier said as he signed off.

I told Kathy my father had just been arrested, but she had gathered as much from overhearing my end of the call.

“They think he shot Brodeur?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I guess a deputy drove out to Rum Pond to question him, and something happened. They’re taking him to the Somerset County Jail right now. I don’t know what the charge is.”

Kathy came around the front of the truck and held out her hand. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

She punched in a number and brought the phone to her ear, waiting for a response. “If they were going to arrest your father for killing a cop, they wouldn’t send a single deputy to do it.” Someone must have picked up on the other end, because suddenly she was no longer speaking to me. “It’s Sergeant Frost with the Warden Service. I heard one of your deputies just arrested a man named Bowditch. He’s the father of one of my wardens. I wonder what you can tell me at this point.”

Her conversation was brief and hard for me to follow without hearing the other end. Mostly it consisted of Kathy trying to convince someone to tell her what was going on and him refusing. Two minutes later she handed me back the phone with a defeated look on her face.

“The sheriff’s office won’t say what happened,” she said, “but it’s pretty clear the deputy wasn’t authorized to arrest your dad. I get the sense that he went out to Rum Pond on his own to ask some questions, and tempers flared.”

“So they’re not charging him with murder?”

“I don’t know, Mike. I don’t know what they’re charging him with.”

“My dad’s a prick,” I said, “but he’s not a cop killer.”