Dead Meat (16 page)

Danforth suddenly grinned. His teeth, in contrast to Harris’s, were shiny and white and even. City boy’s teeth. Orthodonture. Regular flossing. They would glitter and gleam on television. “Do you think the Indian did it, Mr. Coyne?” he asked.

“No.”

“Would you mind telling me why not?”

“No, I wouldn’t mind. Would you mind telling me why you care what I think?”

“I’d be delighted,” he said. He showed me a bit less of those teeth. “I care what you think because you are an experienced attorney, I am told. I rarely have the opportunity to work with a big-city lawyer with a degree from Yale, and one who has experience with homicide cases.”

“I didn’t realize we were working together,” I said.

He shrugged. “We’re here together.”

“You checked up on me.”

“Routine,” said Danforth humbly.

I nodded. “Good thing to do. The wonders of the computer age.”

“The wonders of the telephone, Mr. Coyne. This is still the sticks up here, you know.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Why don’t I think Woody did it? Mostly, I know the man. He’s not a murderer, in spite of how it might look. It seems pretty obvious to me that he was framed.”

Danforth arched his brows. “Framed? Really?”

“Sure. Those weapons could easily have been planted in his cabin.”

“What about the argument?”

“So they had an argument. That’s why whoever killed him decided on Woody to set up. It’s too pat. I’d expect an experienced lawman to see that.”

“Experienced lawmen,” said Danforth, “know that things most usually turn out to be exactly the way they appear to be.”

“The commonest things most commonly happen,” I said. “But in this case a frame-up is what it appears to be.”

Danforth nodded thoughtfully. I glanced at Harris, who looked a bit puzzled, his lips pinched tightly together.

Danforth stubbed out his Kool. “Was Mr. Pauley a poacher, Mr. Coyne?”

“Woody? I seriously doubt it.”

“Do you have any idea how he felt about poaching?”

“Yes. I do.” I finally lit a Winston and slouched back in my chair.

“Well, come on,” said Danforth.

“Have you asked Woody that question?”

“Mr. Pauley’s lawyers have advised him not to talk.”

“Good advice.”

“Are you afraid that answering my question would incriminate Mr. Pauley, Mr. Coyne?”

“I’m afraid that anything might incriminate him. That’s why we lawyers routinely advise our clients not to talk to district attorneys.”

“Mr. Pauley, may I remind you, is not your client. And you are an officer of the court.”

“I surely appreciate the reminder,” I said. “May I ask you a question?”

Danforth’s eyebrows twitched, whether from amusement or nervousness, I couldn’t tell. “Ask away, Mr. Coyne.”

“Who did Woody secure for counsel?”

“Boggs and Kell,” he said promptly, as if to demonstrate how questions ought to be answered.

“That an Indian firm?”

He nodded. “Yes. Pretty big one, actually. They don’t normally handle criminal cases. But, of course, this one has the potential for being a big case.”

“For all concerned,” I observed.

Danforth grinned. “Fair enough. Big for all of us. Which is why I’d appreciate your views on Mr. Pauley’s attitude toward poaching.”

“You couldn’t use anything I’d say. Inadmissible. Hearsay. Why bother?”

“Humor me, Mr. Coyne.”

I stubbed out my cigarette, then leaned toward Danforth, resting my forearms on the top of Tiny’s desk. “Instead of hearsay, let me give you some conclusions. Equally inadmissible. Okay?”

He shrugged.

“Okay,” I continued. “Woody Pauley is an Indian. His values come from a different cultural heritage than ours. How he feels about what we call poaching is not, therefore, a simple question. Understand that poaching is a crime created by white men in order to regulate a major industry. Indians don’t think of hunting as recreation or sport or business. In their culture, hunting is simply how they survive. It’s not good or bad. It’s living. Animals are worshiped. They are essential. They exist to be killed, but only as needed. To Indians, these are not chosen values, things to be believed in or not. These are facts. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“That was a pretty speech,” he said, glancing at Thurl Harris. Then he cocked his head at me. “Of course I know what you’re saying, Mr. Coyne. You’re saying that Indians might very well be poachers, that they do not respect—hell, they don’t even acknowledge—laws that regulate hunting. They hunt what they want when they want, and the hell with the law.”

I sighed and leaned back. “If you insist on being obtuse—”

His hand slammed onto the top of the desk. It startled me, which was the effect he wanted. “I am not being obtuse,” he said, spacing out each word. His voice turned soft, a lawyer’s trick for commanding attentiveness. “I am being legalistic. That is my job.”

“Obtuse and legalistic aren’t all that different,” I said mildly.

Danforth shrugged. “He could’ve killed that moose,” he said.

“Okay, I’ll play your way,” I said. “Woody would not refrain from killing an animal because the season was closed. That’s what you want me to say, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Go on.”

“He would kill an animal for food. For himself, for his family, for his tribe. Regardless of the season. But for no other reason. And he would never kill a cow moose in the spring. Moreover, he wasn’t hungry, he had no family, and he had separated himself from his tribe. Anyway, you didn’t arrest him for poaching, did you?”

Danforth snorted. “He would kill an animal for money,” he said, a fact, not an opinion.

“Nope. Not Woody.”

“The crossbow Thurl found in his cabin. It was his. Mr. Pauley’s. Does that surprise you, Mr. Coyne?”

“It would surprise the hell out of me if Woody killed a moose with it. Hell, I’d be more surprised if he killed that moose than if he killed Phil Rolando.”

Danforth grinned. “My point is that it wasn’t planted there.”

“It could’ve been taken from him, used, then returned. Or it may never have been used at all. You can’t do ballistics on crossbows. No way to prove that the crossbow was the murder weapon, is there?”

“And,” he went on impatiently, “the knife was his, too. We have established that. The blade had been wiped clean, but there were traces of blood on the handle. Human blood. Same blood type as the deceased. Notice, Mr. Coyne, I didn’t say it was Philip Rolando’s blood. Same type, though. So. We have two possible murder weapons that belonged to the suspect. We have a motive, whether you agree or not. Aside from the argument, I mean. The poached moose, I mean, possibly shot with a bolt from the suspect’s crossbow and gutted out and strung up in a place where local folks are afraid to go. Rolando, I understand, accused the Indian of poaching that moose. I’m tempted to believe that he struck a nerve there. Mr. Pauley killed that moose. He killed Rolando not just because his pride had been insulted but also because Rolando was going to turn him in for poaching. We’ve got ourselves a case here, Mr. Coyne. I believe we do.”

“You don’t need to convince me.”

“I’d like to,” said Danforth with a professional smile.

“It’s a lousy case, and you know it. It’ll never get past a probable-cause hearing.”

“I’ve got a week,” he said with a shrug. “That’s why I’m here. This is a very important case.”

“Politics. Sure.”

He shrugged again.

I stood up. “I don’t think there’s much more I can tell you,” I said. “But I’m glad I had the chance to talk with you. It’s been very reassuring.”

“Well, thanks.” He half rose in his seat to extend his hand to me.

“Yes,” I went on. “It’s reassuring to know that the prosecution case is so totally inept that no court system in the land would allow Woody to be put on trial. I feel much better having talked with you.” I walked out of the room without waiting for Danforth’s reaction. I wished I had as much conviction as I expressed. In fact, I had to admit, Danforth’s case against Woody didn’t look that bad.

Tiny was still sitting at the big dining table, along with Gib and Lew Pike and a couple of the other guides. Most of the guests had dispersed. I assumed that Marge and Polly and Bud were in the kitchen. I went over and sat at the table.

“So what’s going on in there? They got the goods on old Woody?” Lew Pike, who had known Woody for at least twenty years, grinned at me. He hadn’t put his teeth in yet.

“They wish they did,” I said, pouring myself a mug of coffee. “That’s what they’re here for. To get the goods on Woody.”

“That so?” said Pike. He snuffled loudly. Then he grasped his coffee mug and poured some of its contents into the saucer it had been sitting on. He put down the cup, lifted the saucer with both hands, and bent his mouth to it. He blew across it and then slurped noisily from the saucer. When it was empty, he belched softly and murmured, “Ahh.”

“They really think they have a case against Woody?” said Gib.

“They’ve got a lot of circumstantial stuff,” I said, sipping my coffee. “In my opinion, nothing solid. What about this Danforth, anyway?”

“Young up-and-comer, I hear,” said Tiny. “They’re talking about him for Congress down in Bangor.”

“Ivy Leaguer,” added Gib. “Harvard. Then Cornell law. Turned down a couple Wall Street offers to come to Bangor in the district attorney’s office.”

“Well, it looks to me as if he expects to make some political hay at Woody’s expense,” I said.

Gib nodded. “It’s got all the makin’s. Plenty of headlines in this one for the guy who plays it right. Pretty interesting type murder. Not that many corpses turn up scalped these days, man. And you’ve got yourself an Indian to put on trial, which’ll please the hell out of every white person in the state of Maine, save for a few of them liberal Boston types down in Portland.” Gib nodded again. “Such a nice case that it don’t much matter whether he ends up winning it or not. Every redneck in the state figures if you’re an Indian, the government’ll protect you, anyhow. That’s all Danforth’s got to say if he loses. ‘What in hell do you expect, man?’ he’ll say. ‘Everyone knows he did it, but you can’t get justice out of an Indian. Government give ’em land, let ’em get away with murder. If it was a white man, he’d have been sent to prison. If you don’t like it, all you gotta do is vote for me.’” Gib sat back and smiled. “That’s how it is. A real nice case for Mr. Asa Danforth, win, lose, or rainout.”

Tiny shook his head, and Lew Pike smiled toothlessly. “By Jesus, you’re right, Gib,” said the old guide. “They give them Injuns our land, they let ’em shoot our animals, and they tell ’em they don’t have to go to jail.” He slurped from his saucer, then crinkled his eyes. “But I’ll be goddamned if I’ll vote for a pansy who wears pants so tight you can see which side his balls are hangin’ on.”

When Thurl Harris stuck his head out the door a moment later, he saw the gang of us sitting at the dining table, slurping coffee, smoking, and rubbing the tears of laughter off our cheeks. He cleared his throat. “Ah, Lew Pike? Mr. Pike?”

Pike turned his head and looked over his shoulder at Harris. “Yup. That’s me.”

“We’d like to talk with you, please.”

“Why, shore,” said Pike. He stood up, then leaned toward those of us who were seated at the table. “I’m gonna check him out. See if it’s left or right. I’ll let you know.”

He winked at us, showed us his gums, and shambled into Tiny’s office. When he emerged fifteen or twenty minutes later, he was still grinning. He came over to the table and whispered “left” to us and walked out of the lodge, chuckling to himself.

Danforth and Harris interviewed all of the guides and others who lived and worked at Raven Lake one at a time. I studied the faces of the interviewees as they emerged from Tiny’s office. The guides were all smiling. I assumed they had inspected the cut of Asa Danforth’s trousers to verify Lew Pike’s observation. Gib’s face was blank when he came out, and he went directly down to his plane. Polly looked pale. I suspected she had told Danforth the truth about her last evening with Phil Rolando. Marge wasn’t in there long, but when she came out, she looked grim, although she did manage to give Tiny and me a wink before she went back into the kitchen. Bud Turner rolled his eyes at me as he walked out of his session.

They saved Tiny for last and kept him in there for a long time. When they finished with him, the three of them came out together, nodding and smiling. Tiny shook hands with Danforth and Harris. I was alone at the table, glancing through an old issue of
Field & Stream.
Tiny came over and slapped my shoulder. “Want to go out on the lake this afternoon?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Meet me in an hour at the dock,” he said, and went out into the kitchen.

Harris and Danforth and the cop chatted for a moment outside Tiny’s office, and then they headed for their plane. They ignored me. They seemed very confident. I wondered what they thought they’d learned.

I went out onto the porch to watch their plane take off. Then I climbed the stairs to get my fishing gear together.

T
HE NEXT MORNING AFTER
breakfast Bud Turner mentioned that he was taking the truck to Greenville for supplies. I asked him if he’d mind company. He allowed as how he didn’t mind.

“You oughta see them big trucks, all loaded down with long logs, speedin’ over these roads,” Bud remarked after we had gotten under way. “They go sixty, seventy miles an hour. They sometimes don’t make the turns. Go rollin’ right down the hills, ass over teacups. Fellas tend to get killed doin’ that. You don’t wanta meet up with one of them trucks goin’ the wrong way, tell you that.”

The crude roadways had obviously been engineered for a single purpose: to get logs out of the forest on big trucks. They had been hastily bulldozed out of the woods. They were just wide enough for one vehicle—rock strewn, eroded, and unimproved, with big mounds of boulders and loose earth piled alongside. After each particular section of forest had been lumbered, the roads fell more or less into disuse. The route from Raven Lake to Greenville was no exception. It passed through shallow creek beds and clung precipitously to the sides of hills. The roadside was a tangle of uprooted trees and boulders.