The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

help him. And all it gets me is more aggravation.”
    “Poor Mike.”
    “This is a waste of time.” I turned toward the door. “They’re going to charge you with hindering apprehension,
B.J
. When you’re both in prison, you can write love letters to each other back and forth.”
    “Screw you!”
    “You’re a fool,” I said. “And I’m a bigger fool for saying I’d talk to you. He said you’d give him an alibi.” The words were out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying.
    “You spoke with him?”
    I froze with my hand on the doorknob. What had I just admitted? I tried to change the subject. “Look, it’s clear you’re not interested in helping him.”
    “When did you speak with him?” She sensed the change in me, and she knew. If the detectives found out that I’d spoken with my dad and not told them—I was facing an accessory charge, no different from Brenda. “He called you, didn’t he? Is he OK? What did he say?”
    There was no use in denying it even if it gave her a weapon against me. “He said someone was trying to frame him.”
    “Did he say who?”
    “He suspected someone, but he wouldn’t say who it was.”
    Her eyes were so dark they looked black, but behind them something was going on. She was tougher and smarter than she seemed. And I was definitely dumber.
    “I know who it was,” she said at last.
    I waited. “Well?”
    “My old man.”
    “Truman? I don’t believe it.”
    “He changed since you knew him. He had a bad accident in the woods, lost an eye. Then he moved to town. He didn’t want to be near your dad anymore. They had—what do you call it?—a falling-out.”
    “Over you?”
    She lowered her eyes again as if the subject shamed her. “Me—and other things.”
    “What other things?”
    “It doesn’t matter. What matters is he turned mean, even meaner than before. He rents a room over Vernon Tripp’s barn. You know the Natanis Trading Post on Route 144? ‘There’s a big wooden Indian out front and another one up in the barn.’ That’s Tripp’s joke.”
    Tripp was the guy the police originally suspected, the bald one from the Dead River Inn. “Was Vernon Tripp in on it? My dad seemed to think there might be more than one person involved. Some sort of conspiracy.” In spite of myself, I felt a surging hopefulness.
    “Maybe. All I know is he hates Wendigo.”
    “But why would Truman want to kill Jonathan Shipman?”
    “His accident happened when he was working for Atlantic Pulp & Paper. He couldn’t work for a while. Then, when he could work again, Wendigo bought the land and they wouldn’t hire him on account of his disability.”
    “That’s no reason to kill one of their vice presidents. Not to mention a sheriff’s deputy.”
    “Money’s a reason.”
    “So who hired him, then?”
    “Pelletier.”
    “Russell Pelletier’s not that stupid. He knew killing Jonathan Shipman wasn’t going to stop Wendigo from evicting the lease holders. There’s nothing gained by it.”
    “What else could he do? They’re taking his whole life.”
    Sweat rolled down into my eyes. The room was insufferably hot, and I was having a hard time pro cessing all the details. Brenda didn’t seem sharp enough to spin such an elaborate lie. And yet I distrusted any theory that dovetailed so neatly with my own hopes. “I want to believe you, Brenda. But the detectives can’t make a case without proof.”
    “All I know is my old man hasn’t been out to Rum Pond in three years, and then the day before the murder I looked out the kitchen window and saw him behind the boat house talking to Pelletier. If they weren’t planning something, what was he doing all the way out there in the woods?”
    “If you think Pelletier is a murderer, then why the hell are you going back there?”
    “I need to get my stuff.”
    “You said my father had a beef with Pelletier. They used to be buddies. What happened between them?”
    “A few years ago, Russ started coming on to me pretty regular. It was after him and his wife separated. One night he got drunk and tried to do something. Jack beat the shit out of him. He said if Russ didn’t leave me alone, he’d kill him. After that, Pelletier’s been too scared to fire him. He’s left us alone, though.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Seventeen.”
    She wasn’t a whole lot older now. I couldn’t exactly view my father’s behavior in chivalrous terms, even if she did see him as Sir Lancelot. “And my dad waited until