Paul Doiron - The Poacher's Son

She wasn’t there, either.

Charley pushed up the brim of his cap and gave his forehead a scratch. “Where the hell is that girl?”

“Right here.”

To our left Brenda stepped out from behind a shaggy hemlock along the road. She was wearing the same oil-spotted blue jeans she’d worn yesterday and a man’s faded blue chambray shirt, and she was carrying over her shoulder an old single-barreled shotgun. Charley and I were both unarmed.

“What are you doing hiding in the woods?” Charley asked.

“Getting the drop on you, old man.” There was a shine in her eyes that didn’t seem natural. Her smile showed her crooked teeth. “I thought you guys were supposed to be game wardens.”

I could see the corded muscles in the pilot’s neck standing out like braids in a brown rope. His eyes flicked from the shotgun back to her dilated pupils. “You called Detective Soctomah,” he said. “You said your father threatened you.”

Her face tightened. “He said he’d kill me if I didn’t shut up. He told me you came to see him.”

“What was I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Arrest him.”

“What else did Truman say to you on the phone?”

“He said he killed those men.”

“He did, did he?” Charley brushed a bug off his ear.

The ripe smell of the outhouse was all around us. The thought that Truman had spontaneously confessed to the murders was just too good to be true. Even if he did have a part in the killings, why admit it over the phone? Truman was dumb, but not that dumb. Which raised again the question: How far should we trust Brenda? I remembered the humiliation on Russell Pelletier’s face as he told us about the night my dad beat him up. Brenda had accused him of trying to rape her. My father had believed her story, but I couldn’t shake my doubts.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” she said.

Charley gave a slight smile.

She turned to me. “I swear to God, it’s the truth.”

“How about handing over that shotgun?” said Charley.

She gripped it tighter. “What for?”

I put my hand out. “Come on, B.J., give me the damned gun.”

“Don’t call me that!”

This was the second time in two days I’d confronted an angry person with a firearm-like father, like daughter-and I was getting sick of that nervous flutter in my stomach. “It’s hard to have a friendly conversation with you holding a loaded shotgun,” I said.

“Fine.” She held out the gun for me. “Here.”

It was an old New England Firearms one-shot: the kind you can buy for seventy-five bucks at a pawn shop. The safety had been switched off. I switched it back on. “Why were you hiding from us?”

“I wasn’t hiding from you. I was hiding from Truman. What’s wrong with you people? Why won’t you just arrest him?”

“Someone from the state police is talking with your father right now,” said Charley.

“Are they searching his place, checking his truck?”

“And why should they do that?” asked Charley.

“To find proof that he did it, that he killed those men.”

“What do you think they’ll find?”

“I don’t know, evidence.”

“The police already have evidence that Jack Bowditch killed those men.”

“It was a setup. I told you that. Truman said he did it.” Her hands were shaking, she was so upset. “No one ever believes me!”

We watched her storm back to the middle cabin, yank open the screen door, and disappear inside. The door clattered shut behind her.

“What do you think?” he asked softly.

“She’s lying about Pelletier,” I said, “but I’m not sure why. And another thing, why does she want the police to search Truman’s truck?”

“Good question. Let’s see if we can get an answer.”

We found Brenda in the kitchen cabin, standing with the propane refrigerator open. She’d grabbed a can of Budweiser and was gulping it down right there, with the fridge ajar. It wasn’t even ten o’clock.

“Isn’t it a little early for that?” said Charley.

“I had a rough night.” She was breathing hard from drinking so fast.

“Why don’t we sit down and have a talk.”

He gestured to the knife-scarred picnic table in the center of the cabin. It was the same table on which my father had butchered that deer he poached, the night I first met Charley Stevens. Brenda sat down across from us. I set the shotgun carefully beside me on the floor.

“When did Truman call you?” asked Charley.

“Last night, late.”

“He called on the radio phone?” I asked.

“Yeah. We can’t use a cell phone here on account of the mountains or something. You have to go five miles up the road to get a signal.”

“And he was calling for you and not Pelletier?”

“Maybe he was calling for Russell. I don’t know. He got me instead.”

“Did Russ Pelletier hear your conversation?”

“No, he was asleep.”

“Pelletier said you’d moved over to this cabin after Jack Bowditch disappeared. What were you doing back over at the lodge?”

“Getting my stuff.”

“What stuff?” I asked.

“I don’t know, boxes from when I was a kid, that sort of stuff. Jesus.” She took another sip of beer. “I waited until he was asleep to go over there because I didn’t want to see him-and that’s when I heard the phone.”

“If you think Russell Pelletier conspired with Truman to murder those men, weren’t you afraid to go over there?”

“I had my shotgun.”

Charley pulled on his chin in a reflective way. “If Truman called you last night, why did you wait until this morning to contact Detective Soctomah?”

“Because they already arrested me once. Those cops think I’m a liar. I didn’t think they’d do anything if I told them.”

“So why call them at all?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I wanted someone to know in case.”

“In case what?”

“In case something bad happened.” She gazed directly into my eyes. “You should have heard him on the phone.”

Looking into her eyes, I was disturbed again by the animal reaction I had to her. It troubled me to be attracted to this woman. “What exactly did Truman say?”

“He said, ‘You goddamned bitch. What lies are you telling about me?’ And I said, ‘It’s the truth. You killed those men, you and Russell.’ And he said, ‘I’ll kill you, too, if you don’t shut your fucking mouth.’ Then I hung up.”

“So that was it?”

“Yeah.”

Charley leaned forward. “How long did you know Bill Brodeur?”

She looked startled. “Who?”

“Bill Brodeur, the sheriff’s deputy who was murdered with Jonathan Shipman.”

“I didn’t know him.”

“You never met him at the Dead River Inn?”

Suddenly, far off in the forest, we heard a horn honking, followed by the noise of an approaching truck engine. Brenda leaped to her feet and ran to the screen window looking out to the road. Charley kept his eyes on her as he rose.

“It’s Pelletier,” she said.

Charley turned to Brenda. “Why don’t you stay here while we go see what he wants?”

“I don’t want to talk to that asshole, anyway.”

I reached down and grabbed the shotgun. Then I followed Charley out the door and through the middle cabin.

Pelletier’s new truck was coming down the road fast, bouncing over the sun-hardened ruts. It braked at the edge of the dooryard, and Pelletier poked his head out the window and shouted over the diesel engine, “You got a call back at the camp.”

“Who from?”

“Soctomah. He needs your plane.”

I felt my stomach sink. “What’s going on?”

“Truman’s disappeared. They need you to help search for his truck.”