The Poacher's Son

27

We left Pelletier standing outside the main lodge, lighting yet another Marlboro.

A dirt road, scarcely more than a wheel-rutted path, led over to my father’s cabin, but the most direct route was by water. Charley and I borrowed one of the camp’s aluminum canoes and paddled across the cove to the gravel beach where, eight years ago, we’d first met. In the shallows minnows scattered under our paddles and the canoe made a metallic knocking noise as it struck bottom. Charley hopped out with a splash and hauled the bow up, scraping, onto the stony shore.

We stood together looking up the steep plank stairs that scaled the hillside to my father’s cabin, both of us, I think, remembering that night when Truman Dellis had aimed a deer rifle at him from the darkness above.

Charley cupped his hands around his mouth, just like he did to call the coyotes. “Brenda Dean! It’s Charley Stevens and Mike Bowditch!”

There was no answer.

“We made enough racket with that damned aluminum canoe,” he said to me. “You’d think she would have heard us.”

Along the stairs I noticed hanging shreds of yellow police tape that someone had ripped down. “So much for this being a crime scene,” I said.

I hadn’t seen the camp in eight years, but it looked no different. There were the same three separate log cabins angled onto the porch. All had rusty screen windows and screen doors that made the rooms hard to see into.

We checked the three cabins, but Brenda wasn’t in any of them. I was struck by how clean everything looked. There were the same propane stove and fridge from when I was a kid, and even the same weathered topographic maps pinned to the log walls, but none of the mess I remembered. The floors had been swept. The beds had been made with clean sheets and blankets. Knowing the miracle Sarah had performed on my own home, I could only attribute the transformation to Brenda’s woman’s touch.

“Maybe she’s up at the outhouse?” I suggested.

Charley nodded. “Hate to disturb her there, but we should see.”

Behind the middle cabin, facing the hillside, was a stack of weathered firewood with a blue tarp thrown over it and a couple of storage sheds. The dirt road wound away through the trees in the direction of the sporting camp. Down it a little ways was my father’s stinking two-seater outhouse.

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.”

“What the hell for?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. Soctomah wants you to call him. Hop in and I’ll drive you back to camp.”

Charley stepped close to me. “This is strange,” he said in a whisper.

“What do you think is happening?”

“Maybe the state police found something at Truman’s place.”

“What should we do?”

“Go talk to Soctomah, I guess.” He turned back to the window from which Brenda was watching us. “You mind coming out here, Miss Dean?”

“What for?” came her voice.

“We’re going to take a ride over to the camp.”

“No way!”

I looked at Charley. “You want me to drag her out?”

“No,” he said. “I’ll go with Russell and talk with Soctomah. You stay here with the girl.”

“Do you trust Pelletier?”

“Trust him? No, but I don’t think he’s a murderer. I may have to leave right away. If I do, I’ll leave a message with him. You can call me over the radio-or call Soctomah and he’ll tell you what’s going on.” He took a step toward the idling truck.

“Wait,” I said. “Why were you asking her about Brodeur?”

“Whoever killed those men knew Brodeur was planning on driving out the back way, down that logging road. How did they know? I’m guessing Brodeur told the shooter himself.”

“You think he was in on it? You think someone double-crossed him?”

“Charley!” Pelletier shouted. “Soctomah said it’s urgent.”

“Stay with her,” Charley said. “Whatever you do, don’t let her out of your sight. And hang on to that shotgun.”

I glanced back at the kitchen cabin and saw Brenda move behind the screen. “I plan to.”

He patted me on the shoulder and gave me his big grin. “I’ll be back in no time. If you run into trouble, call me on the radio phone!”

If I was confused before, this turn of events left me completely bewildered. Was it possible that Brenda was telling the truth about Truman? And if so, what did that suggest about Pelletier’s involvement? Charley didn’t believe that Russ was a killer, but I was past the point of trusting my instincts.

I found Brenda in the kitchen cabin, sitting up on the picnic table, smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer: the dictionary definition of a nervous wreck. “What happened?”

“The police are searching for Truman. They need Charley’s plane.”

“I told you he did it!”

“We don’t know what’s going on.” I remained in the doorway, the shotgun against my shoulder. “It might be something else.”

“It isn’t,” she said confidently. “So why are you still here?”

“Charley thought I should stay.”

“I don’t need a bodyguard.” The words were defiant, but the look on her face was playful.

“How about a babysitter?”

She jumped down from the table and took a step forward, coming face to chest with me. “I want to sit on the porch-if it’s all right with you.”

I stepped aside. She shoved open the screen door and plopped into one of the two Adirondack chairs my dad had built by hand. I leaned against the porch railing, gazing out at the water. The lake shined with a blue light through the trees.

There was a long silence between us that made me uncomfortable.

“You really cleaned up this place,” I said at last. “I almost didn’t recognize it.”

“Jack needs someone to take care of him. All men do.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “You think we’re all a bunch of slobs.”

“The one thing I know about-living here all my life-is men.”

I was still chewing over that remark when I heard the sputter of Charley’s Super Cub coming to life. Then the plane came skimming by on its pontoons and I watched it lifted upward into the sky as if by an invisible hand. The sound it made-an insect-like hum-grew fainter and fainter until finally all I could hear were the real insects in the pines and the lake lapping against the shore.

“Well,” I said, mostly to myself. “He’s gone.”

“Good,” she said.