The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

something on his end. But I didn’t hear anything. “I’m being set up, Mike. They’re trying to pin it on me, but I wasn’t anywhere near that place. You ask Brenda.”
    “Brenda Dean?”
    “Yeah. She’ll tell you I was with her the whole time.”
    “Who’s setting you up? Is it that guy Tripp?”
    “Maybe. Him and somebody else. I’ve got my suspicions.” There was a silence on the other end. “Is your phone clear?”
    “What?”
    “I thought I heard a click. Jesus, are they tapping your phone?”
    “You’ve got to give yourself up, Dad.”
    “I didn’t do anything! They set me up!” He was terrified. I’d never heard fear in his voice before.
    “You assaulted that deputy, Twombley.”
    “He attacked me.”
    “Your face is all over the news. You have hundreds of police officers looking for you, and they all think you’re a cop killer. They’re not going to take you in alive. You’ve got to give yourself up. If you’re innocent, you don’t have any reason to be afraid—”
    “I
am
innocent! Talk to Brenda.”
    “We’ll find you a lawyer.”
    “A lawyer.” He practically spat out the word. “Yeah, right.” Then he hung up.
    Moonlight had leeched the color out of everything inside the room: the walls, the furniture, the floors. Even the skin of my hands looked gray. It was as if I had woken up inside an old black-and-white movie, a film noir.
    Except that this was no dream. I crossed into the kitchen and snapped on the overhead light. The sudden brightness made me wince. At the sink, I splashed cold water on my face and rubbed it along the back of my neck until the hairs stood on end. I filled my mouth with water and spat it out. Then I braced myself against the countertop and faced my reflection in the window above the sink.
    What should I do? I had a legal and ethical duty to report this conversation to the state police. If I didn’t, I’d be acting as an accessory to hom i cide after the fact. I could go to jail. But if I told the authorities about my dad being in Canada—and how was I to know he was really there?—I’d be betraying his trust. And beneath the anger he’d sounded so terrified. If I couldn’t get Sarah to believe he was innocent, what hope did I have of convincing anyone else?
    I wandered back out into the living room and sat there in the dark for a while, looking at the telephone. But I couldn’t bring myself to pick it up.
     
    Sarah rolled over when I came back to bed and half-opened her eyes. Her breath smelled of beer. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
    “I was on the phone.”
    “Who was it?”
    “Nobody,” I said. “Somebody thought they spotted a bear I’m looking for.”

 
     
    15
     
    W hen I awoke the next morning, I found Sarah already sitting up beside me, propped against two pillows. I had the feeling she’d been studying me while I slept.
    “How long have you been awake?” I asked.
    “Not long.”
    “You fell asleep pretty fast.”
    She gave me a weak smile. “I thought I heard an owl last night.”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “It sounded like an owl. It was in the pines right outside the house.”
    “Did it keep you awake?”
    “No.”
    I slid up beside her.
    “Mike,” she began. “I don’t know what happened last night.”
    “I got you drunk and took advantage of you.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Give me a little credit. I was the one who came over here. You don’t think I figured this might happen?”
    “You figured right.”
    She rested her head on my shoulder. “This is so confusing.”
    “No, it’s not.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It means this was a one-time thing. We both know it. So let’s quit pretending.”
    She sat up. “Why are you being such a jerk all of a sudden?”
    I had no excuse for myself—except that in my messed-up logic, hurting her now seemed kinder than hurting her later. And I would hurt her later. I’d already proven that.
    “I’m just being honest about the situation.”
    “What the hell does that mean?”
    “It means I’m not going to quit my job.”
    “I never asked you to.”
    “When you were living here, all you did was complain about being lonely and poor. You kept harping on how little money we’d ever have and how we’d never be able to travel abroad or have a nice house like Amy’s. And you’re right. We’ll never have those things. Maybe you should just find yourself a corporate lawyer to marry, like my mom did.”
    She stood up. She looked blowsy and