Trespasser by Paul Doiron Read Free Book Online

come down with life-threatening emphysema. The home itself was not the worst I’d visited—the carpet was no more beer-stained, the furniture no more ripped, the dirty dishes no more scattered. But a cockroach could have lived like a king there.
    Donnie Drisko (also shirtless) was sprawled on the couch in front of an improbably large-screened plasma TV set. In my experience, the poorest people always seemed to find money for cigarettes, booze, and home electronics. The movie he was watching seemed to be a poorly filmed documentary on mammary glands of the largest kind.
    The younger Drisko raised his shaggy head. He, too, had a wimpy mustache and pants that hung below the band of his tighty whities. If forced to guess, I would have said the father was somewhere in his late thirties and the son somewhere in his early twenties, but I might have been off the mark by years.
    “Hey, it’s Warden Bowden. How’s it hanging, man?”
    “Bowditch,” I said, correcting him. “How are you doing, Donnie?”
    “I’m cool. Just mellowing out.”
    “You want some Sanka?” Dave asked from the kitchenette. “Maybe a splash of coffee brandy?”
    “I’m fine, Dave.” I positioned myself against a plastic-paneled wall, keeping both father and son in view. But honestly, there wasn’t a hint of hostility or suspicion about them. The vibe in the room was one of elation, fueled no doubt by coffee brandy. “Donnie, you mind pausing the movie there for a second?”
    “No problemo.”
    “So what brings you to our neck of the woods on this fine morning?” asked Drisko the Elder.
    “I thought you might be able to help me with something. You guys ever go wheeling over near Hank Varnum’s property?”
    “Hell no. That land’s posted,” said Dave, lighting another American Eagle.
    “We don’t ride on posted land,” agreed his son.
    “Then you wouldn’t know who cut down two of Hank’s big oak trees, one on either side of the trail.”
    The Driskos looked at each other as if they were about to burst out giggling. “Hell, man, it could be anyone,” said Donnie from the couch. “You’ve got all kinds of lowlifes around here. You talk to Calvin Barter? Now that dude’s a shitbag.”
    My throat and lungs were beginning to convulse from the smoke. I hadn’t expected to get anything useful from the Driskos on the Varnum front, so I changed gears. “I’ll check up on Barter. So tell me: What did you guys do with the deer?”
    I could see Dave Drisko’s pectoral muscles tighten. “What deer?”
    “The one you picked up last night on Parker Point Road.”
    The two Driskos stared at each other, and I could easily believe they were communicating telepathically, like two space aliens from a rogue planet. “You lost us there, Warden,” Dave offered at last.
    “You guys were listening to the scanner and you heard that a woman hit a deer on Parker Point. So you jumped in your truck and shot over there to grab it before the cops arrived.”
    “Must have been someone else,” said Dave.
    “We were watching movies all night,” Donnie volunteered from the couch.
    “So it’s just a coincidence I found fresh deer blood and hair on your truck?”
    Again, the Driskos engaged in the Vulcan mind meld. I waited for them to get their stories straight via ESP. “I thought you said you wasn’t here to pinch us,” muttered Dave.
    “And I won’t arrest you if you come clean about what really happened last night.” I peeled back a brittle window shade to look behind their mobile home. It was unlikely they had the deer suspended from a tree in the backyard, but criminals tend to have walnut-sized brains. I glimpsed a couple of plywood sheds in the curtilage (the yard, essentially) that could have hidden any number of things. “Was the woman still at the accident scene when you guys arrived?”
    “Why don’t you ask her?” Dave said.
    “Maybe I will.”
    “Maybe you won’t.”
    I met his eyes. They were as flat as two dirty old