the Poacher's Son (2010) (27 page)

"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."

I
t was still afternoon, but just barely. The sun was still shining, but as soon as it dipped behind the mountains I knew it would be fully dark. The few houses we passed along the road had turned on their porch lights in anticipation of dusk.

I'd had my little chat with Truman Dellis, and now what was I going to do? I didn't want to go home to Sennebec--and I certainly wasn't going to ask Charley to fly me back now--but what could I accomplish staying here? All day long my anger had kept despair at bay. Now the adrenaline was draining out of me, and I felt as purposeless as a man can feel. Kathy Frost would be hunting for me, too, and she was one person I couldn't bear to face.

"You can drop me at the inn," I said.

"Say again?" Charley rolled up the window to hear me better.

"The Dead River Inn. I thought I'd get a room there for the night."

"So you're planning on sticking around, then?"

In my memory I saw Sarah speeding away from our old house. I remembered the look on Lieutenant Malcomb's face at Brodeur's funeral and the anger in Kathy's voice on the phone. "I've got nothing to get back to."

"Why don't you stay over with us? The Boss is a fine cook and I know she'd enjoy making your acquaintance."

"I can't impose on you two like that."

"It's no imposition."

"Thanks, anyway."

He nodded, but he seemed genuinely disappointed. "The Dead River Inn it is. I've been wanting to talk with Sally Reynolds."

The parking lot was already half-filled with pickups, most with ATVs parked in their truck-beds after the local custom. There were also a few boat-sized Buicks and Oldsmobiles representing the summer cottagers from nearby Spring Lake. The early birds had arrived for dinner.

I followed Charley into the dimly lit tavern across from the dining room. Reflexively, I looked for the three bikers, but I didn't see their ugly mugs among the crowd of locals. Behind the bar a silver-haired woman, wearing a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up over her tan arms, was pouring drinks. A lighted cigarette hung from her bottom lip in violation of Maine state law concerning smoking in bars and restaurants.

"Sally!" said Charley.

The woman glanced up at the sound of his voice. She had the weathered face of a person whose lifelong hobbies have been chain-smoking and sunbathing. Her hair was cut close, so it stood up like a wolf's pelt. Two years ago in this same room she'd pointed a shotgun at my father's head until the police came to arrest him.

"Charley Stevens," she rasped. "I heard you were in today for lunch."

"Donna made us some sandwiches. She's a nice young woman."

"She's got a crush on you, too. You want something to drink?"

"A cup of coffee--if it's not too much trouble."

"What about your handsome young friend?"

"Jack Daniels."

"Now there's a man after my own heart." She ground out the stub of her cigarette in a heavy ceramic ashtray filled with the stubs of about twenty others. "You look real familiar," she said as she
poured my shot. "Yeah, I remember. You were in a fight here. That was the night your dad nearly cut a guy's throat."

"I've still got a scar from that night." I tapped my forehead at the hairline.

She fixed her eyes on mine, her gaze direct and unashamed. "I guess your old man never worried that you were really his kid--looking like you do."

"Mike's a game warden down on the midcoast. He's helping us with our investigation."

She set down the liquor bottle in the well. "
Our
investigation? And just how exactly are you involved in this?"

Charley raised his eyes from his coffee mug. "Oh, I'm just helping out. Doing a little flying for the state police. That sort of thing."

"You're supposed to be retired, Charley."

"You know me. I can't help sniffing around."

"You should be home with that beautiful wife of yours instead of sniffing around here."

"Home is the next stop."

"Does Ora know what you're up to?"

"You know I can't put anything past that woman."

"That's because she's smarter than you."

"She is that." He slid off his stool and winked at me. "I'd better give her a call now that Sally's shamed me into it."

I watched Charley disappear into the lobby in search of a pay phone. When I turned back, I found Sally staring at me hard with those icy blue eyes. She pointed a nail at my forehead. "That's a honey of a scar." There was an edge to her tone that hadn't been there a moment ago.

"It helps me remember a bad night."

"I wouldn't let your old man in here after that fight. It was the last straw." She lighted a cigarette with a silver Zippo lighter identical to the one my dad brought back from Vietnam. "So how exactly are
you
helping the investigation?"