The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

sports. Maybe you should call over there, find out what’s up.”
    “The police think he killed those men? Is that what you’re saying?”
    Pelletier took his time answering. “They seem to think he knows something.”
    “But that’s not why they arrested him? Not for murder. It was because he struck an officer, right?”
    “Like I said, I wasn’t there when it happened, so I can’t say. I just heard about it when I got back from fishing. I think you should call over to Skowhegan. Get it all sorted out.”
    “It doesn’t make any sense.”
    “I’m sorry for the bad news, kid,” Russell Pelletier said as he signed off.
     
    I told Kathy my father had just been arrested, but she had gathered as much from overhearing my end of the call.
    “They think he shot Brodeur?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. I guess a deputy drove out to Rum Pond to question him, and something happened. They’re taking him to the Somerset County Jail right now. I don’t know what the charge is.”
    Kathy came around the front of the truck and held out her hand. “Give me your phone.”
    “Why?”
    She punched in a number and brought the phone to her ear, waiting for a response. “If they were going to arrest your father for killing a cop, they wouldn’t send a single deputy to do it.” Someone must have picked up on the other end, because suddenly she was no longer speaking to me. “It’s Sergeant Frost with the Warden Ser vice. I heard one of your deputies just arrested a man named Bowditch. He’s the father of one of my wardens. I wonder what you can tell me at this point.”
    Her conversation was brief and hard for me to follow without hearing the other end. Mostly it consisted of Kathy trying to convince someone to tell her what was going on and him refusing. Two minutes later she handed me back the phone with a defeated look on her face.
    “The sheriff’s office won’t say what happened,” she said, “but it’s pretty clear the deputy wasn’t authorized to arrest your dad. I get the sense that he went out to Rum Pond on his own to ask some questions, and tempers flared.”
    “So they’re not charging him with murder?”
    “I don’t know, Mike. I don’t know what they’re charging him with.”
    “My dad’s a prick,” I said, “but he’s not a cop killer.”
    Kathy was silent. She crossed her freckled arms.
    I reached into my pocket for my keys. “I’ve got to get up there.” I climbed into the truck and slammed the door shut. The noise was like a gunshot. “You’ve got to cover my shift for me.”
    “Mike.” She sighed.
    “Please, Kath,” I said. “If it were your father, what would you do?”
     
    Kathy didn’t answer my question, but then again, why should she? Her father was a retired Presbyterian minister, and chief of the volunteer fire department. Not some saloon-brawling logger with a rap sheet of misdemeanors and the public persona of a Tasmanian dev il. How could Kathy Frost understand what it was like to grow up with such a man?
    It seemed like I’d spent my whole life either embarrassed by him or trying to win his approval. I even became a law officer because of him—to make amends, if that was possible, for the petty crimes he’d committed against society and against his own family. That night at the Dead River Inn, when I told him about my plans to join the Warden Ser vice, was supposed to be my declaration of independence. I wanted him to see me—and himself—in a new way. But all he did was laugh.
    So why was I rushing to his rescue now? I guess I was still waiting for the day when he decided he needed me.
    That day was today, but instead of being pleased, I was pissed off. I didn’t for an instant think he was capable of cold-blooded murder. But was he capable of waking up with a hangover and punching out a sheriff’s deputy who got in his face? Yes, he was. Self-incrimination was my father’s stock and trade. And now, for all I knew, he had both the State Police Criminal Investigation Division and the Somerset County Sheriff’s Department believing he was a cop killer. Jack Bowditch: the State of Maine’s Public Enemy Number One.
    The stupid prick.
    I drove fast along a newly paved stretch of forest road. It was a miracle I didn’t run my truck headfirst into a telephone pole. On the dashboard, the speedometer was back up to seventy.

 
     
    7
     
    T he last time I’d visited the Somerset County Jail had been the morning after the bar fight in Dead River.