Straw Man

by Gerry Boyle

  If only.

  At 5:30 I got up and showered and pulled on jeans and a shirt and went downstairs to make tea. While the tea steeped I went out and got the Bangor Daily News out of the box. The wind had shifted to the northwest overnight and the air was cool with a bite of fall. Small maples were turning crimson across the road, the leaves reddening at the tips like blood was being squeezed from them. I looked up and down, saw nobody, no vehicles, and turned and went back inside.

  At 6:15 Roxanne was up, the shower running upstairs. The shower stopped and I heard Sophie’s footsteps, out of her room and into ours and then into our bed. I sipped my tea, read the crime stories, finished my toast. And then Sophie came skipping downstairs, her lamb in tow. She asked me what I had for breakfast, and I said toast and tea, and she said that sounded good, but with peanut butter.

  She sat while I made the toast, served it up with orange juice and apple slices. Sophie was eating, peanut butter all over her mouth, when Roxanne came down. She was wearing khaki slacks, her dressy ones, and heels and a red cardigan sweater. Underneath the sweater was a black lace camisole. Above the camisole was a tourmaline pendant I’d given her for the fifth anniversary of our meeting.

  “You’re wearing the pendant,” I said.

  “My A game,” Roxanne said, with no acknowledgment of the occasion. She went to make coffee and then scrambled eggs. I went upstairs with Sophie, helped her wipe peanut butter off her face. She got dressed and then sat on the edge of her bed as I helped tie her sneakers. Double knots.

  And then it was down to the kitchen, where Roxanne was eating, folders and her laptop on the table beside her. I could see the slides for her presentation flashing by, so I went over and looked, saw something about empathy being the foundation.

  “Looks good,” I said. Sophie pulled at my arm, and as I turned I glanced down. On one of the folders someone had written, You are a rock star!!

  A man’s handwriting. Not mine.

  Sophie pulled again and handed me my jacket, pulled hers on, and we went out the sliding door.

  It was Pokey’s morning feeding: hay and a small scoop of oats and an apple. Sophie had the apple in her hand as she skipped in front of me, skipping being her new trick. I followed, and as we reached the opening of the path to Clair’s, heard a loud motor, turned to see the big Dodge—Baby Fat’s truck—speed by. The passenger window was down and an arm came out. It was Billy and he waved, slowly, like a beauty queen.

  And then the brake lights came on. The truck went out of sight, but I heard the tires sliding on the gravel road.

  But Sophie was off down the path and I followed. At Clair’s barn, I looked left and glimpsed the Dodge stopped in the middle of the road, Clair on one side, Louis on the other. Louis had his assault rifle; Clair had his shotgun. They were talking to Baby Fat and Billy like it was a checkpoint.

  “Come on, Daddy,” Sophie said, and she slipped under the paddock fence, ran to the open side door to the barn. I glanced back as I followed her, saw Clair step back from the truck. He was smiling, the warning delivered, no doubt. Louis was standing on the far side of the road, rifle at forty-five degrees. And then the truck drove away.

  I opened the gate to Pokey’s stall, gave his nose a pat. He snuffled and turned to Sophie, who always had the good stuff. She held out the apple half and he chomped and chewed. I put grain in his bin, some hay in the rack. Sophie had the brush out and was running it across his side, as high as she could reach. I told her it was good enough, time to go to school. Then I held her up and she gave Pokey a kiss on the side of his hairy head. He blinked his big dark eyes and I put Sophie down and we headed out.

  Clair and Louis still were out at the road, conferring. They looked up and gave me a wave and I waved back. Sophie and I kept walking, and then she broke into a skip again and I followed.

  We got to the house at 7:15. Roxanne was loading up her bag.

  “Let’s go, honey,” she said, and handed Sophie her lunchbox. They went out the side door and I followed. At the car, Roxanne said, “The meeting is at six at the school. Sophie and Salandra can play in the gym. Welt said one of his intern girls will come along and babysit.”

  Were there any intern boys? I thought not.

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Good luck.”

  She got in the car, no kiss good-bye. When they drove off down the road, the car packed with materials for the peace project, I was right behind them, the Glock on the seat beside me.

  The ride across town to the school was uneventful. The sky was blue with fast-scudding clouds and the sun was out. No Billy or Baby Fat, or Semi, for that matter. No ATF or Boston gangbangers. When Roxanne and Sophie were safe inside, I turned around and retraced my route, one eye on the mirrors.

  All quiet. When I got to Clair’s, Louis’s Jeep was running.

  I got in the back with the dog and the firearms. The dog watched me, Louis drove, and Clair rode, appropriately, shotgun.

  “So,” I said.

  “They said they were just cutting through,” Clair said.

  “Told them to find another route,” Louis said.

  “Did they get it?” I said.

  “As much as they get anything,” Louis said.

  “Nothing like the sound of a pump shotgun,” Clair said.

  Louis pulled out onto the road and hit the gas.

  We drove north toward the town of Thornhill, woods alternating with cornfields, the fields almost ready to mow. The corn, stalks and all, would be ground into silage for dairy cows, which lumbered across pastures and lined up in pole barns. At Thornhill we turned off the main road and began tacking up the hills, more woods here, until we emerged at the Mennonite farms, laid out across the ridgetops.

  When we neared Abram’s farm, I told Louis to slow and we crept past the driveway between the fields. There was a horse team at the far end, but I couldn’t tell if it was Abram.

  Louis reached into the storage space between the front seats and took out binoculars. He handed them to me and then eased to a stop. I raised the binoculars and focused and it was Abram on the seat, reins in hand.

  “But how do we get to him?” I said.

  “Sign back there says fresh bread and eggs,” Clair said.

  “Fresh eggs,” Louis said. “Beat hell out of store-bought.”

  He circled back and pulled into the driveway and drove on. The drive was long and straight and it led past a big new pole barn with solar panels on top. There were windmills behind the barn, then more solar panels atop a big farmhouse. The bakery was a small cedar-shingled building next to the farmhouse. Young girls, bonneted with long skirts, were sweeping the porch of the house. A boy—black trousers, white shirt, barefoot—led a horse and buggy out from a shed. To our right, on the far side of a cornfield, Abram was urging the team along.

  Louis pulled the Jeep up to the bakery building and got out and went inside. The dog raised his head and watched him go, looked at me, and whined softly.

  Clair said, “Road continues on out the back side, looks like. We go out that way, come up through the woods.” Which we did once Louis returned, the Jeep now smelling like fresh-baked bread.

  The driveway passed the house and some sort of community building or church. The Bishop came out of the front door and watched us go by. Louis gave him a wave. I was invisible behind the tinted windows.

  At the end of the road, we went right. Beyond the end of the cornfield there was a tractor path, and Louis checked the mirror and pulled in. We drove into the trees and continued on, the trail rough and rutted. Louis put the Jeep in four-wheel and we bounced along until I could see the horses and Abram through the trees.

  I told Louis to stop. He did.

  He shut off the motor and we got out. I slipped into the brush and between the trees, mostly small ash and alders. This side of the cornfield had been cut, and I stood at the edge of the trees and waited for Abram and the team to get close.

  When he did, I looked down the field and then walked
quickly across the furrows and spikey stalks. Abram looked up, startled, and yanked the reins. The pair of horses stopped, stamped their feet, gave me a look, and settled.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said, taking off his straw hat.

  “How you doing?”

  “Okay.”

  “You look like crap,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “How was the party?”

  “Fine,” Abram said, but in a troubled sort of way. “Thanks for the ride.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Listen. We need to talk.”

  “We are talking.”

  “No, we need to really talk. I’m with my buddy Clair.”

  Abram nodded.

  “And a guy named Louis. They’re good people. The best, in fact. Can you, like, park the horses for a minute?”

  Abram looked at the team, hesitated, then reached for a lever that set some sort of brake. He hung his hat on the rig and slid down off the seat. I turned and he followed. I pushed through the bushes and made my way back to the path. Clair and Louis were leaning against the Jeep. The dog was lying at Louis’s feet. They stood up and smiled. The dog came over to Abram and sniffed.

  “This is Abram. Clair and Louis.”

  Abram nodded, hesitated, then held out his hand. They shook and we stood back, the four of us.

  “I can’t leave the horses long,” Abram said. “Long as it takes to pee. If I’m too long, they get nervous.”

  “Then we’ll get right to it,” I said. “You’re in trouble. The ATF is on to Semi and those guys from Boston. They had the entrance to that party staked out last night. Whatever this game is that Semi has going, it’s about to end in a very bad way.”

  Abram looked at me.

  “I haven’t done anything—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Louis said. “You’ll go down with the whole bunch of them.”

  “Unless you cooperate voluntarily,” Clair said. “Right now.”

  “What do you care what I—”

  “Jack says you’re a good guy,” Clair said. “I hate to see the good guys get hurt.”

  “Heard you’ve been going through some hard times,” Louis said. “With your beliefs and all. I know what it’s like to have that rug yanked out from under you. I went to Iraq, I thought God was on my side. Then I realized he’d left the premises. Only way that particular hell could exist.”

  He paused.

  “I guess what I’m saying is, I know what it’s like to feel sort of lost. And when you’re lost, sometimes you make a wrong turn.”

  “These guys know the ropes, Abram,” I said. “They’re right. The only way to stay out of jail is to come clean now.”

  Abram looked at me, then at them, then at the dog. Suddenly he looked stricken, pained.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Nobody will hurt you,” Clair said. “We won’t let them.”

  Abram shook his head.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said. “We’ll go talk to the assistant attorney general, or whoever is in charge of the investigation. Once they talk to you, they’ll know—”

  “No,” Abram said.

  “What do you mean, ‘No’?” I said. “Don’t you get it? You could be going to prison for years. Far away. Think of how your father and mother will feel. And Miriam.”

  “I can’t,” Abram said, almost shouting. “Because of her.”

  There was a silence, the three of us waiting, the dog’s ears pricked up.

  “What do you mean, Abram?” I said.

  “They’ll hurt her,” he said. “They’ll hurt Miriam.”

  “These guys threatened your sister?” Louis said.

  Abram looked around, like somebody might be listening.

  “I can’t talk about it,” he said.

  “Abram, you have to. Nobody’s going to hurt Miriam. Tell us what happened.”

  He paused. Looked at the ground, and then in a soft voice that was almost a whisper, said, “He has pictures.”

  “Pictures of Miriam?” I said.

  Abram nodded.

  “And a video.”

  I thought of Miriam, innocent and a little scared on her way to the party. How could that Miriam be in—

  “Last night,” Abram said. “I didn’t know where she was. It was loud, and I’d been drinking and smoking pot and somebody had this bottle of something. Brandy or something. And I had some of that.”

  He paused.

  “After I talked to you, I’d really decided. I was done. I started to tell Semi when he first got there, after you and them, you had that argument. And then the party was going on and there were all these people and it was loud and everyone was drinking, and I lost track of her.”

  He clenched his jaw, started to tremble. Put both hands on top of his head and pushed, like he wanted to crush his own skull.

  “I forgot about her. I forgot about my sister.”

  Clair moved closer, put a big hand on Abram’s shoulder, and said, “Just tell us what happened.”

  Abram hesitated. Breathed. Swallowed. Sighed.

  “It was later. I finally got Semi, kind of pulled him away from the fire and everybody. I said I was done. I said I wasn’t going to be part of something that might hurt people. Like that murder you were talking about.”

  He paused.

  “And what did Semi say?” I said.

  “He didn’t say anything. He just held up his phone and . . . and it was on there.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “What was on there, Abram?” I said.

  He opened his eyes and looked around, away from all of us. The horses moved and their harness jingled. We waited. A band of chickadees tumbled through, flitting from tree to tree, branch to branch, and still Abram said nothing.

  And then he said, “She was at the party. But in the woods someplace.”

  Another pause.

  “Miriam—she’d never had alcohol before. I mean, it was only my third time. But Miriam, it hit her really hard.”

  A long, deep breath.

  “Two of the guys there, I didn’t know them. Some guy named Rod. And another one they call Nub. They did things. She was almost passed out. They—”

  He stopped. Swallowed hard.

  “They what?” I said.

  “They, I don’t know. They took off her shirt and touched her chest and then they—”

  Eyes closing again, opening.

  “They took their private parts out and touched her with them and took her jeans off and looked at her and touched her there, too. With their fingers.”

  “And where was Semi during all this?” I said.

  “He was taking the pictures, the video. And saying stuff.”

  Abram paused. We waited.

  “Saying things like, ‘This is a genuine Amish virgin. This is the hottest Amish chick ever. So this is what’s under those Amish skirts.’ ”

  I felt sick to my stomach, choked it back.

  “And he told you that if you didn’t stay with the gun thing, he’d show people the video?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Abram said. “He said there was this place, on the Internet, where people put videos of themselves and other people. And anybody all over the world can look at them. There was a name for it. An animal’s name. Ferret. Or weasel. But with Xs.”

  “And he said he’d post this video?”

  “He said he’d put it on there and then he’d send the link thing to everybody he knows. He said, ‘Amish.’ He calls me Amish. He said, ‘Amish, your sister will go viral. Every perv in the world is going to be . . . is going to be looking at her.’ Except he said something worse than that.”

  There was silence there in the clearing in the trees, nothing filling it, not even the birds. The three of us stood motionless, the dog, too, and then Abram broke the silence, saying, “I wanted to kill him. I started to reach for the phone and he jerked it back, said he’d already e-mailed it anyway. He said it was on his laptop now.

&nbs
p; “I still want to kill him. But that would be a sin. It would be a terrible thing, another terrible thing I’ve done.”

  We stood and then it was Louis speaking up. “Your sister. What does she say about this?”

  “That’s the only good thing,” Abram said. “In the video, she’s sort of half conscious. Now she doesn’t remember anything. She just knows she feels horrible. She says she’ll never drink alcohol again.”

  “How did you get home?” I said.

  “The black guys drove us. In this big fancy car. Semi was there, too. All laughing and joking like nothing had happened.”

  “Who put her clothes back on?” I said.

  “Me and Victor,” Abram said. “They just left her there on the ground, like a piece of trash.”

  “What did Victor think?”

  “He’s praying for her. Praying hard. He’s praying for me, too.”

  The horses started to whinny. Abram turned and took a step toward them, then turned back to us and said, “You can’t talk to anybody about this.”

  “We won’t talk to anybody,” Clair said, “who doesn’t already know.”

  20

  We were back in the Jeep. Louis put the key in the ignition. Clair, sitting up front, said nothing, just stared out the window at the trees. I’d seen that look before, when he was locked in. It was like he was somewhere else, some sort of killing zone. I couldn’t see Louis’s face, but felt the same cold resolve from him.

  “Tell me about this girl,” Clair said.

  “Sweet,” I said. “Pretty, but doesn’t know it. Blonde, with a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She told me she wanted to go to New York City and see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. When they were going to the party you could tell she was excited, and a little scared. She wanted to experience it. She was dancing, but like it was junior high. She wanted to see what was out there. It’s like, I don’t know—she’s too innocent for this world.”

  “Got it,” Clair said. “Location?”

  It took me a second, but then I knew what he meant.

  “Wait,” I said. “Let me check something.”

  I had my phone out, scrolled down the phone list. I tapped DEPT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, waited. A dispatcher answered. I asked for the Cyber Crime Unit. A couple of clicks, and then it rang and a man answered. He said he was Sergeant York. I identified myself and said I was a reporter.