Trespasser by Paul Doiron Read Free Book Online Page A

pennies. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means nobody’s going to say they saw us on Parker Point last night, because we weren’t there.”
    “Then you don’t mind if I poke around. Just so I can cross you off my list.”
    Dave inhaled about half his cigarette before he spoke. “Yeah, we do mind.”
    I’d figured that might be the answer. “Maine law says I don’t need a warrant to search private property for illegally obtained game if I have probable cause of a wildlife violation.”
    Dave called my bluff. “You’re going to have fun proving probable cause to a judge.”
    “When did you get a law degree, Dave? I was unaware you were an attorney.”
    “Let’s just say we know our rights.”
    Donnie propped himself up on the sofa. “And you might want to watch out for Vicky while you’re in the yard. She doesn’t like strangers.”
    There were a few ways for me to handle this scenario. As best I could tell, Drisko the Younger had just threatened to sic his dog on me. My instinct was to respond with a profanity, get out my Cap-Stun pepper spray, and prepare for a fight. But I suspected that my division commander wouldn’t appreciate me escalating a minor beef into a major melee. Theft of roadkill was what, a Class E misdemeanor? Besides, two against one weren’t favorable odds. For Sarah’s sake, if not my own, I decided to play the diplomat.
    “I still have to take an evidence sample from your truck,” I said. Maybe the smoke was finally getting to me, but I felt a sudden urge to cough up a lung. “You’d better hope the DNA doesn’t match the blood and hair I found at the accident scene.”
    Dave Drisko twirled his mustache. He couldn’t decide if I was bullshitting about the lab tests; he didn’t know whether to be worried or not. “Go right ahead.”
    “We ain’t going to stop you,” said Donnie. He restarted his porn movie as I stepped outside.
    His father followed me through the door, out into the frosty March morning. “You don’t mind me watching you?”
    I coughed, trying to force the noxious smoke out of my system. “Just as long as you leave your dog chained.”
    I returned to my patrol truck and searched around until I found two paper bags. I plucked a few hairs from the Driskos’ flatbed and collected a shaving of frozen blood. Then I sealed, tagged, and labeled the evidence containers to put in a cooler. Eventually, I would have to fill out a chain-of-custody report when I submitted the samples for DNA testing.
    Dave watched me like a starving jackal the entire time. “You’re not going to come back with a bunch of wardens and bust down our door tonight?” he asked as I was packing up to leave.
    “If I do, I’ll be sure to knock.”
    “Because I’ve got enough going on in the legal department right now. Human Services is saying I ain’t really disabled. They say I should be able to go back to the trap mill.”
    “What’s wrong with you?” It was a question with a thousand plausible answers.
    He put a hand against the small of his back. “Back pain, man. My spine’s all fucked to hell. And I got migraines like you wouldn’t believe. If they take away my disability, me and my family are screwed royally.”
    Looking at him, I had no doubt that Dave Drisko could heave a truck tire ten feet in the air. I wondered where he stashed the neck brace he brought out when the social worker visited.
    I could hear the feminine moans from the younger Drisko’s porn movie through the thin walls of the trailer. “What about your son? What’s Donnie doing for work these days?”
    “Oh, him. He’s on disability, too.”

7
    I decided to eat my lunch in the parking lot of the Montpelier museum in Thomaston. It was a fake mansion constructed to replicate the home of Gen. Henry Knox, a portly hero of the American Revolution and George Washington’s secretary of war. The museum perched atop a hillside overlooking a cement plant on one side and the St. George River on the