Paul Doiron - The Poacher's Son

He gave me the biggest, falsest smile I’d seen in an ages. “We just need to clear a few things up.”

That was a line investigators fed to suspects, not fellow officers. “What’s going on here, Sheriff?”

“You say your father’s being falsely implicated in the homicide. I thought I’d give you a chance to set things straight. What was the message?”

“It wasn’t anything really. He just sort of wondered aloud where I was and then hung up.”

“And where were you?”

“On a call.”

“Did you erase the message?”

I looked out the window. Something-a fast-moving shadow-had spooked the pigeons off the next roof. I watched them scatter in a hundred directions.

“I didn’t realize it was important,” I said.

He was still all smiles, but the strain was showing in the tightness of his jaw. “So you erased it?”

“Has my father asked for a lawyer?”

His smile gave way like a dam bursting. He leaned across the desk at me. “Let me tell you something about your father ”-he practically spit the word-“your father is accused of killing a cop. If I were you, I’d answer my question.”

“I didn’t come here to incriminate him.”

“I called your lieutenant. He’s on his way here.”

“Lieutenant Malcomb?”

“What do you think he’s going to say when I tell him you’re refusing to cooperate in a murder investigation?”

“I am cooperating.”

“You destroyed evidence when you erased that message.”

Everything seemed to be spinning out of control. “Maybe we should wait for Lieutenant Malcomb to get here. I feel uncomfortable saying anything else right now.”

“You feel uncomfortable?” He grabbed the tape recorder and clicked it off. “One of my men is dead and another’s on his way to the hospital. So I don’t really give a damn how you feel.”

“The hospital? What are you talking about?”

“We lost radio contact with a deputy of mine named Pete Twombley half an hour ago. I’ve had men looking for him ever since. I just got a call that his cruiser was found off Route 144. They found Twombley beat up and handcuffed to a tree. I don’t know how your father overpowered him, but right now every law enforcement officer in western Maine is out there hunting for him. Maybe you should rethink the attitude and get on the right side of this. Because, the way it’s looking, the next time you see him is going to be at his funeral.”

I sat alone in the lobby outside the dispatch office waiting for my division commander, Lieutenant Timothy Malcomb, to come through the door. The sheriff had gone off to supervise the manhunt. I felt like a kid waiting for his mom to pick him up outside the vice principal’s office.

The enormity of what was happening was more than I could wrap my mind around. At this moment state troopers, deputies, and game wardens were hunting for my father in the woods along the Dead River. The FBI had been called in from Boston. TV news crews were probably rushing to the scene. By tomorrow morning the entire State of Maine would know the name of Jack Bowditch.

When I applied to join the Warden Service, I worried a lot about my father’s criminal record and how it might affect my application. I remembered sitting in a room with leaded windows and flaking green brick walls while two interviewers peppered me with questions about my past. It was wintertime, but the room was as hot as a greenhouse thanks to an old steam radiator that hissed at us throughout the interview. I was a sweating mess waiting for the moment when they would produce a folder with my father’s rap sheet-his mug shots taken over the years, his inked fingerprints, his list of drunk driving offenses and simple assaults and night hunting citations-but that moment never came.

I left that interview believing I’d shaken off the past. But the moment had only been postponed. From this day forward I would be remembered as the son of a cop killer.

So why was I more convinced than ever of his innocence? Whoever ambushed Jonathan Shipman and Bill Brodeur hoped to scare off Wendigo Timber by making a statement in blood. I knew my dad was capable of violence. But the cold-blooded murder of two men, including a police officer, for quasi-political reasons? He was a bar brawler, not a terrorist.

If that was the case, then why had he fled? And how had he managed to overpower Deputy Twombley and crash the cruiser? The message on my answering machine seemed central to the mystery. Why had he called me last night and who was the woman with him?

My greatest fear was that the searchers would corner my father in the woods and there would be a standoff ending in gunfire. In a few hours the case might be closed forever and I would live the rest of my life knowing I did nothing to save him.

Screw it, I thought, rising to my feet. Let them bust me for insubordination.

Heat was curling off the car tops when I crossed the parking lot, and the inside of my truck was like a Dutch oven. I started the engine, glanced in the rearview mirror, and my heart just about stopped. Lieutenant Malcomb was striding toward me across the asphalt. I rolled down my window.

“What’s going on, Bowditch?”

I knew bullshitting was useless at this point. “I was on my way to the incident scene.”

“My instructions were for you to wait here.” As always, he sounded like he had gravel in his voice box.

“I know that. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology, Warden.”

“I couldn’t just sit here, Lieutenant-not knowing what’s going on up there.”

“The state has rules. They exist for a reason. You can’t be involved in this investigation, and you know it.”

“I’m already involved,” I said. “Please, Lieutenant. It’s my father they’re looking for. I’ve got to be part of this. If something happens-maybe I can talk to him, get him to surrender. He’ll listen to me.”

He was wearing mirrored sunglasses that made reading his expression just about impossible, and he was already one of the stoniest-faced guys I’d ever met, like a walking granite statue in a green uniform. But when he spoke again I got the sense of something softening in him. “This isn’t a situation you can control, Bowditch.”

“I know.”

“He’s the one making all the bad choices.”

“I understand that.”

“He’ll be given every opportunity, but it’s up to him what happens next.”

“Sir, all I’m asking is a chance to be present. I want to be able to tell my mother that I did everything I could.”

After a moment of silence, he said, “Get out of the truck, Bowditch.”

My heart sank, but I did as I was told. The lieutenant waited for me to lock the door and then he started off across the lot. At first, I thought we were headed back into the sheriff’s office, but he kept walking toward the street, and that was when I saw his truck parked around the corner.

“Lieutenant?”

“You’re right. It’s better that you’re there. But only as an observer.”

Maybe it was because my father was accused of killing a cop, and he wanted me there as a warning to all the other cops that revenge was not an option. Or maybe he was bringing me along as a witness who could testify that every attempt at a peaceful resolution was made and the use of deadly force was warranted. Maybe he just understood a son’s anguish. I didn’t know why Lieutenant Malcomb brought me along with him, but the truth was, I didn’t care, either.

On the road we didn’t speak for the longest time, both of us listening intently to the police radio. Troopers, deputies, and wardens called in their locations. K-9 units were en route. The Northern Maine Violent Crimes Task Force had taken over a local fish hatchery as its command post. There hadn’t been a manhunt like this in Maine in years.