The Poacher's Son

23

We didn’t talk for a while, just sat side by side, driving. The hot pine-needle smell of the forest floated in through the open windows. After a mile or so we emerged from the tree-clotted darkness into sunlight again. Between the logging road and Route 144 stood a rusted metal gate. Charley turned the numbers on a combination lock until he got it open.

“How about closing that gate for me?” he asked after we’d idled through.

I walked back behind the Plymouth and pushed the heavy gate shut and snapped the combination lock closed, giving the dials a spin for no good reason, as if I cared whether anyone got through here that wasn’t supposed to.

Charley turned south in the direction of Dead River Plantation. Even in broad daylight, this was a desolate stretch of road. How much creepier it must’ve seemed to Jonathan Shipman. I could easily imagine his emotional state, sitting in the police cruiser, having faced down a crazed pack of Maine rednecks, the eagerness he must have felt to escape these dark woods and see the bright lights of the Sugarloaf Mountain Hotel-civilization and safety in the form of luxury condominiums and an eighteen-hole golf course.

But he never made it out. Neither did Bill Brodeur.

I thought of my sergeant, Kathy Frost, speeding up here, propelled by anger. She was going to arrive at the Flagstaff town office and find Charley and me missing. Why was she so intent upon rescuing my doomed career? Didn’t she understand it was too late?

We crested a hill where the roadside pines and maples fell away and you could see the verdant farms along the Dead River. At the very top of the rise was a wood-frame structure-like a false-fronted saloon out of the Wild West, complete with a porch gallery and a watering trough in which were planted a few struggling geraniums. A big sign fastened on the roof proclaimed: NATANIS TRADING POST. What caught my eye, though, was the wooden Indian about twelve feet tall, rough-carved and cartoonishly painted, that loomed at the edge of the parking lot.

“There’s the FBI,” said Charley.

“FBI?”

“Fucking Big Indian.”

Natanis, I remembered, was the legendary Wabanaki Indian-the last of the massacred St. Francis tribe-who guided Benedict Arnold and his troops up the Chain of Ponds and across the Height of Land into Quebec.

Nice monument, I thought.

I searched for the barn behind the trading post and saw it standing off to one side, a chocolate-colored structure with a window where the hayloft should have been and a rickety external staircase going up to the top floor. There was no vehicle outside, though.

“Looks like Truman’s not home,” said Charley. “I guess we’re out of luck.”

“I want to meet this Vernon Tripp.”

Charley gave me a long look. “That might not be such a good idea.”

“I want to meet him.” I tugged loose my seat belt knot and opened the door.

“He’s a volatile character.”

“Yeah? Well, people say I am, too.”

There were flyers posted on the door of the trading post, pieces of colored paper with angry words in big type-SPORTSMEN! PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS! RESIST CORPORATE TERRORISM! DON’T TREAD ON U.S.! No wonder Jonathan Shipman wanted a police escort.

The inside of the Natanis Trading Post looked like a parody of an old-time North Woods general store. Deer antlers and animal pelts hung from pegs along the walls. There were dusty racks of camping and trapping supplies mixed with lots of cheap souvenirs.

Mostly, though, there were guns. I saw rifles and shotguns locked into wall racks and an L-shaped glass counter containing handguns and spotting scopes and ivory-handled buck knives. Behind this counter a squat man with a scarred, shaved head and a dark goatee stood talking to a customer. He looked just the same as he had two years ago, when my dad spoke with him at the Dead River Inn.

“Hi there, Vernon!” said Charley.

Tripp’s expression was none too friendly. “What’s this-a raid?”

“Good afternoon to you, too.”

“Government agents aren’t welcome in my store.”

“You know I’m retired.”

The customer who had been talking to Tripp slipped out the door. I’d seen his eyes get all shifty as soon as he heard the words government agent. I hung back a little, trying to figure out just what Charley was up to.

“I believe you just cost me a sale, Officer,” said Tripp. He had a strangely affected way of speaking, sort of a talk radio host’s grandiloquence and baritone. Not what I expected from the shaved and tattooed exterior.

“Doubtful,” said Charley. “Now why are you in such a sour mood, anyhow? I’d thought you’d be the happiest man in Flagstaff these days.”

“And why’s that?” He puffed his chest as he spoke and tucked his chin into his neck. I imagined him watching cable news in the dark and speechifying back at the set as if he were another pundit.

“With Jack Bowditch on the run, you’re in the clear again. You should be celebrating.”

“Celebrating?” Tripp held up his hands, palms out. Raw marks encircled his wrists. “Look at what that bunghole McKeen did to me. I should sue him for false arrest and brutality. All hail the mighty police state.”

“Brutality? You threatened Jonathan Shipman-”

“Please.”

“You threatened him. I heard you, and so did two hundred other folks. Then half an hour later, you report a double homicide on your CB. The first cop on the scene finds you standing there with a loaded weapon in your pocket and three more in your truck. Now how do you expect him to react?”

“Point one, I have a concealed carry permit. And there were other people there, too.”

“But you were the first one on the scene, before anyone else-you said so yourself.”

“I’m a patriotic citizen who reported a crime. I deserved a medal, not shackles.”

“That’s only because you were chasing them. You were still pissed off. You were waiting for Shipman and Brodeur to come out, and when they didn’t, you realized they’d gone off the back way. So you gave chase.”

I stepped forward, unable to keep my mouth shut another second. “You mean he found the bodies?”

Tripp glared at me. “Who’s the greenhorn?”

“Mike Bowditch,” I said.

“As in Jack Bowditch’s son?”

“That’s right.”

“Mike’s with the Maine Warden Service,” explained Charley.

“Well, isn’t that ironic?” To my surprise, Tripp suddenly laughed, revealing a mouth full of amalgam fillings. “Jack the Poacher’s son is a game warden. He sure kept that a secret.”

“He told me about you, though,” I said.

“Is that so?”

“We almost met before. Two years ago at the Dead River Inn. You were drinking with him at the bar when I came in. He called you a paranoid militia freak.”

Tripp didn’t take the bait. “He’s called me worse to my face.”

“You’re saying there’s no bad blood between you?”

“Your old man can be quite a bastard when he’s smashed, but he’s a hero, in my book. As far as I’m concerned he deserves a gold star for what he did to that worm Shipman.”

“You’re forgetting a police officer was also killed,” said Charley.

“I’m not forgetting.”

“So why are you smiling?”

The humor was gone from Tripp’s expression as fast as it appeared. He began stroking his goatee. “It was unfortunate that deputy got shot. That shouldn’t have happened.”

“We can see you’re all broken up about it,” I said. “So the police arrested you when they found you at the scene. How come that didn’t make the papers?”

“Two reasons-one, they let me go without charging me, and two, they had no evidence against me.” Tripp backed up against a rack of guns and began squeezing his fists. “What’s with the third-rate third degree, Charley? You’re not a warden anymore. You’re just a lowly leaseholder like me. Last I heard, you were going to lose that nice camp. I’d think you’d be glad Wendigo got vamoosed.”

Something moved past the barred window at the side of the building. I heard an engine die and a door slam shut.

“Truman’s home,” said Charley.

“What do you want with my tenant?” asked Tripp.

“Mike just wants a word.”

“Is that so?” Suddenly Tripp’s eyes widened and a grin spread across his face. “Wait a minute. I see what’s going on here. You think maybe you can put the blame on someone else instead of your dear old dad.”

I felt my face warm with blood. “My father didn’t kill those men.”

He shook his head sorrowfully. “Keep telling yourself that, greenie, if it makes you feel better.”

“Fuck you.”

“Come again?” He reached beneath the counter.

Charley touched the brim of his baseball cap. “All right, Vernon, we’ve taken up enough of your precious time. Come on, Mike.”

But Vernon Tripp had the last word. “Your old man did it, Mikey boy. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Truman. Don’t try to pin it on somebody else.”

Outside, a logging truck passed along the road, carrying a load of timber to the dowel mill up the road. I waited for the noise to die down before confronting Charley. “What the hell was that about? How come you didn’t tell me the cops arrested Tripp the night of the murder?”

“Because they let him go. He couldn’t have done it, Mike.”

“Well, maybe he helped someone else do it!”

Charley’s eyes were as flat as coins. I couldn’t tell if he was considering my suggestion or downwardly adjusting his estimation of my character. The more time I spent with the retired pilot, the harder he became for me to read. He affected this patient air, like he was indulging me for a few hours until he had to fly me back home. But he seemed just as eager as I was to grill Vernon Tripp. What kind of game was he playing? The weight of something the store owner said suddenly struck me. “Did Tripp say your camp is on leased land?”

“That’s right.”

“So you mean Wendigo is evicting you, too?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew.” He smiled that big jack-o’-lantern grin of his. “Does that make me a suspect, Warden? Seems like it should.”

“You’re not high on my lists of suspects, Charley.”

“That’s a relief, because I don’t even have an alibi.”

“You don’t?”

“Afraid not.”

I pointed at the barn behind the trading post. “Well, let’s see if Truman Dellis does.”

A fat-tired pickup truck, with an ATV crammed in the bed, was now parked beside the barn. Its engine was making that ticking sound hot engines make as they cool.

We climbed the external staircase to the top of the barn. Blankets hung over the door window, making it impossible to see what was inside. I found myself reflexively reaching down to touch my sidearm, but of course I wasn’t wearing one. Charley rapped on the door. “Truman? You in there?”

We listened to the traffic passing along the road. Charley gave me a shrug. I stepped forward and began pounding. “Come on, Truman, open up.”

“Who is it?”

“Game warden,” I said.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to open the door. That’s why I’m knocking like this.”

“Go away.”

Charley said, “Come on now, Truman. Show some manners and open the damned door.”

The curtain parted for an instant and then quickly fell shut. The door opened and I saw a man I hadn’t seen in eight years and probably wouldn’t have recognized, anyway. The face was familiarly flat and round, but now a jagged red scar ran from the scalp through one sightless eye and down the cheek to a notched jawbone. Looking at that cruel scar I wondered what instrument of violence could have split a man open from skull to jaw and somehow left him alive.

“Do you remember me?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Truman, “I remember you.”

“You mind if we come inside?”

He moved to block the door with his heavy body. “What do you want?”

“I just want to ask you a few questions. About the homicides outside the Dead River Inn.”

“I already talked with the cops.”

“Well, now you can talk to me.”

Truman focused his good eye on me. “I don’t know where your old man is.”

“I know that.”

“Him and me don’t hang around no more.”

“I know that, too.”

“Then what do you want?”

“It’s about B.J.,” I said. “She’s been saying things about you.”

He ran his tongue over his cracked lower lip. “Like what?”

“Let us in and I’ll tell you.”

Truman let go of the doorknob and stepped carefully back into the room, still facing us. He wore a mustard-colored canvas shirt and stained green workpants and muddy boots. For the first time I saw that he was holding a rifle in the hand he’d kept hidden behind the door.

Charley looked at the rifle and smiled wide. “Is that how you answer the door, Truman? What if it’s the Publishers Clearinghouse come to give you a million dollars? You might shoot old Ed McMahon’s head off before he even hands over your sweepstakes check!”

Truman’s good eye blinked slowly. “Ed McMahon’s dead.”

“Why don’t you put that gun away?” said Charley.

Truman lowered the barrel and stepped back into the apartment.

“I guess that’s the best invite we’re going to get,” Charley said to me.

I followed him into the room, leaving the door cracked open behind us. The apartment stank of stale cigarettes, dirty laundry, and dishes left to molder in the sink. I also detected what I hoped was the odor of a cat’s litter box-although I saw no sign of a cat. The furnishings were Salvation Army surplus: ripped couch, painted metal table and chair in the kitchenette.

“What did B.J. say?”

I made my voice firm. “How about setting that gun down first so we can have a conversation?”

“It’s my house. What did B.J. say?”

“She calls herself Brenda now.” I kept an eye on the rifle in his hand, wishing like hell that Charley could talk him into putting it down. But the old game warden seemed surprisingly unconcerned. I remembered the night eight years ago when Truman had last pointed a loaded firearm in his direction. “I just finished talking with her an hour ago,” I continued.

“So?”

“I guess you two had a falling-out. She didn’t say why, but I’m figuring it was over my father. You didn’t like her being his girlfriend, right?”

He didn’t speak, just waited for me to continue, his good eye as blank as a cow’s. There’s a peculiar challenge that comes from interrogating a slow person-all the tics you try to pick up on aren’t there half the time. Either their lies are so obvious they slap you in the face, or there’s just this generalized confusion that makes the emotional state impossible to read.

Charley sensed it, too. “If it were my friend messing around with my little girl, I’d sure as hell be pissed off.”

Truman rubbed his lips with his free hand. “What did she say about me?”

I decided subtlety was going to be wasted on Truman Dellis. “She said you and Russell Pelletier killed Jonathan Shipman and Deputy Brodeur.”

He shook his head so vigorously that his hair swung. “No.”

“She said you killed those men and then tried to frame my father.”

“I didn’t do nothing.”

“So why did she say those things?”

A sheen of sweat stood out along Truman’s brow. “I don’t know.”

“She claimed she saw you out at Rum Pond the day before the shooting. Is that true?”

“No.”

“She said she saw you talking with Pelletier behind the boathouse.”

“I wasn’t there!”

“So why is she saying these things about you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your own daughter is going around saying you’re a murderer, Truman. Why is that?”

“Because she’s a whore!” The barrel of the rifle began to shake in Truman’s hands.

As wired as I was on adrenaline, I was beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of confronting him like this. “All right,” I said, holding my hands up. “Let’s just calm down here.”

Charley didn’t seem to hear me. “Truman,” he said, “what really happened to your face?”

The question seemed to catch him off guard. It certainly caught me off guard. He touched the stitched red line on his cheek. “My face?”

“How’d you really get that scar?”

I had no idea what Charley was getting at. But I was afraid to look away from Truman.

“Chainsaw broke on me. Got me across the face.”

“I don’t think that’s what happened.”

“You calling me a liar?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Charley,” I said.

“This is my house!”

Charley didn’t speak. He remained absolutely still.

Truman raised the barrel of the rifle until it was pointed at the old warden’s sternum. “Who the fuck are you, calling me a liar in my house!”

“We’re leaving.” I took hold of Charley’s biceps. The muscle felt like a steel cable. “Come on.”

“You’d better be careful who you point a gun at,” said Charley in his quiet voice.

“You ain’t a warden no more!” said Truman.

“No,” Charley said. “But this man is.”

Truman glanced in my direction. The barrel of the rifle wobbled.

I said, “Threatening an officer with a firearm is a felony. So why don’t you put that gun down?”

The rifle stayed where it was. “This is my house,” said Truman. “You’re trespassing. You get out of here.”

“All right,” said Charley finally.

“Go!”

I felt behind my back for the doorknob and got the door open. We backed through the lintel onto the staircase.

“We’ll talk again,” I said. But it was an empty threat.

Truman just slammed the door.

My heart was beating hard as we made our way down the stairs and back to the car. A faint breeze was blowing from the west. I felt it through my perspiration-soaked shirt. The muscles in Charley’s neck stood out like cords.

“What the hell was that?” I said.

“You’re the one who wanted to interrogate him. Did you hear what you wanted to hear?”

It was a good question. More than anything I was just shocked at how quickly I’d forgotten everything I knew as a law officer about keeping a situation from escalating out of control. Maybe Kathy Frost was right: My judgment these days really was fucked. “He might have shot us.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What was that you were saying about his scar? You think my dad gave it to him.”

“I’m not sure it has anything to do with what happened last week.”

“It sounded like you thought Truman might’ve actually done it. Killed those men, I mean.”

“He’s capable of murder.”

“So you think Brenda was telling the truth.”

“No,” he said, ending my half-second of hopefulness with a single word. “Just because Truman’s a dangerous man doesn’t mean he’s guilty of those particular crimes.”

We climbed back into the Plymouth, and Charley started the engine. I felt a growing heaviness in my limbs as the adrenaline left my bloodstream. “I didn’t like being in there without a pistol.”

“It would’ve been lots more dangerous if we’d been armed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Having the only firearm in that room made Truman feel like he was in control of the situation. I couldn’t have pushed him like that if we were also armed. He might’ve got spooked.”

“You mean you deliberately tried to piss him off?”

“Of course,” Charley said, smiling as he settled his shoulders back in the seat. “How was I supposed to learn anything useful otherwise?”

He turned the wheel, and we started back toward Flagstaff. The shadows of the trees had grown longer across the road. Dusk was coming fast.

“So what did you learn?”

He grinned. “That I’d better not piss him off again.”

“Do you deliberately provoke everyone you meet?”

“Everyone? No, not everyone. Just ninety percent or so.”