The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

level with my eyes, resting the heavy handgun on her knees.
    My father found a bottle of whiskey in a cabinet and brought it out. He took a slug.
    “I want some of that,” she said.
    He splashed a little whiskey in a coffee mug and handed it to her. “You want a drink, Mike?”
    “No.”
    Brenda wiped her mouth. “So what do we do now?”
    “That’s up to Mike.” He softened his voice. “I know this is hard for you, son. Hell, it’s hard for me. I never wanted any of this to happen, but it did, and now my neck’s on the chopping block. You think I could actually surrender without some pissed-off cop popping me first?”
    My voice broke. “I believed you. I told everyone you were innocent. I came up here to prove it.”
    “I appreciate that, and I’m sorry I had to mislead you. But I needed your help. I still do.”
    “I’m not going to lie for you, if that’s what you’re asking.”
    He shook his head, sadly. “You don’t understand.”
    “What’s to understand? You killed four men—one a police officer and three others just to cover your own tracks.”
    He raised three fingers. “I killed three men. You killed Truman.”
    “After you stabbed him.”
    “But you were the one who shot him. Do you think the police are going to believe your story? They’re going to think you were part of this from the start, the way you ran around trying to pin the shootings on Truman and Pelletier. How do you think it’s going to look to them when we tell them you killed Truman.”
    I felt like I’d been spat upon. “So now you’re trying to blackmail me?”
    “I’m just laying out the situation so you see what’s in all of our best interest.”
    “I’m not to going to keep quiet. I’ll tell the state police what I know. I don’t care how the hell it looks. And if you run, I’ll do everything I can to help them catch you.”
    My father took his hat off and set it down on the table and ran his hand through his gray-flecked hair. I saw the exhaustion in the slump of his shoulders, the shadowed sockets around his eyes. Maybe I could capitalize on that exhaustion until help arrived.
    “What I want is to know is why you did it,” I said.
    “What does it matter?”
    “It matters to Jonathan Shipman’s children.”
    “Who?”
    At first I thought he was joking. Then it came to me. “It was never about Wendigo. All this time everyone thought Shipman was the target. They assumed the deputy just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it was the other way around. It was Brodeur you were after.”
    He stood at the broad window with his back to us, the rifle slung over his shoulder, holding the liquor bottle and gazing out at the chop blowing across the lake. Gray, watery light streamed around his bulky silhouette.
    “But why?” I asked. “Why’d you do it?”
    “You wouldn’t understand.”
    Brenda gulped down the rest of her bourbon.
    “It was because of you, wasn’t it?” I said to her.
    “Screw you.”
    “Did you fuck Brodeur—is that it?”
    My father turned around, his face dark with warning.
    “That pig raped me,” she said.
    “Just like Russell Pelletier tried to do?”
    “Shut your mouth, Mike,” my father said.
    “She’s lying.”
    “I am not,” she said. “He raped me and he got what he deserved.”
    “No,” I said. “I don’t think that’s what happened. I think that’s what you
said
happened when my dad found out about you two.”
    “You’re full of shit.”
    I spoke past her to my father. I knew I had his full attention. “She told you Brodeur stopped her one night driving back from the Dead River Inn, right? Sally Reynolds said she used to drive drunk all the time, and Brodeur used to stake out the inn. I bet she said he forced himself on her.”
    “He did!” she said.
    “No, I think what happened is you made a deal with him. He was going to arrest you for driving under the influence, so you offered to have sex with him. Maybe it became a regular thing after that for you two.” I glanced over her shoulder at my father’s dark silhouette. “Is that how you found out, Dad? You came home and found the deputy here and wondered what was going on. You were suspicious and angry and you scared her and that’s when she told you about the rape.”
    He put down the whiskey bottle and studied the back of her head for a long time before speaking. “She said he wouldn’t leave her alone.”
    “Don’t listen to him, Jack.” She slid off the