“Mike just wants a word.”
“Is that so?” Suddenly Tripp’s eyes widened and a grin spread across his face. “Wait a minute. I see what’s going on here. You think maybe you can put the blame on someone else instead of your dear old dad.”
I felt my face warm with blood. “My father didn’t kill those men.”
He shook his head sorrowfully. “Keep telling yourself that, greenie, if it makes you feel better.”
“Fuck you.”
“Come again?” He reached beneath the counter.
Charley touched the brim of his baseball cap. “All right, Vernon, we’ve taken up enough of your precious time. Come on, Mike.”
But Vernon Tripp had the last word. “Your old man did it, Mikey boy. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Truman. Don’t try to pin it on somebody else.”
Outside, a logging truck passed along the road, carrying a load of timber to the dowel mill up the road. I waited for the noise to die down before confronting Charley. “What the hell was that about? How come you didn’t tell me the cops arrested Tripp the night of the murder?”
“Because they let him go. He couldn’t have done it, Mike.”
“Well, maybe he helped someone else do it!”
Charley’s eyes were as flat as coins. I couldn’t tell if he was considering my suggestion or downwardly adjusting his estimation of my character. The more time I spent with the retired pilot, the harder he became for me to read. He affected this patient air, like he was indulging me for a few hours until he had to fly me back home. But he seemed just as eager as I was to grill Vernon Tripp. What kind of game was he playing? The weight of something the store owner said suddenly struck me. “Did Tripp say your camp is on leased land?”
“That’s right.”
“So you mean Wendigo is evicting you, too?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you knew.” He smiled that big jack-o’-lantern grin of his. “Does that make me a suspect, Warden? Seems like it should.”
“You’re not high on my lists of suspects, Charley.”
“That’s a relief, because I don’t even have an alibi.”
“You don’t?”
“Afraid not.”
I pointed at the barn behind the trading post. “Well, let’s see if Truman Dellis does.”
A fat-tired pickup truck, with an ATV crammed in the bed, was now parked beside the barn. Its engine was making that ticking sound hot engines make as they cool.
We climbed the external staircase to the top of the barn. Blankets hung over the door window, making it impossible to see what was inside. I found myself reflexively reaching down to touch my sidearm, but of course I wasn’t wearing one. Charley rapped on the door. “Truman? You in there?”
We listened to the traffic passing along the road. Charley gave me a shrug. I stepped forward and began pounding. “Come on, Truman, open up.”
“Who is it?”
“Game warden,” I said.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to open the door. That’s why I’m knocking like this.”
“Go away.”
Charley said, “Come on now, Truman. Show some manners and open the damned door.”
The curtain parted for an instant and then quickly fell shut. The door opened and I saw a man I hadn’t seen in eight years and probably wouldn’t have recognized, anyway. The face was familiarly flat and round, but now a jagged red scar ran from the scalp through one sightless eye and down the cheek to a notched jawbone. Looking at that cruel scar I wondered what instrument of violence could have split a man open from skull to jaw and somehow left him alive.
“Do you remember me?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Truman, “I remember you.”
“You mind if we come inside?”
He moved to block the door with his heavy body. “What do you want?”
“I just want to ask you a few questions. About the homicides outside the Dead River Inn.”
“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.”
