by Gerry Boyle
It was a narrow lane through the brush and then under the trees. ATV tracks with a tuft of dead grass in the center. The big cop was hurrying with long strides. I was a hundred feet back, deerflies circling my head. The path rose and fell, turned left and right. I was coming up a rise when I heard radios.
The sound was coming from the woods to my right. And then I could see a trooper meeting the big cop, clearly his superior. They exchanged a couple of words, the two of them wending their way through the trees.
I followed, my breath coming in short gulps, then not coming at all.
And then I saw them.
The EMTs, guys from town, were standing together, hands at their sides, latex gloves still on. The cops were beyond them, all of them staring in the same direction, deeper into the woods.
I slowed.
Saw him.
It was the Bishop and he was on his knees, his forehead resting on his clenched hands. He was praying, a low murmur with the words Savior and Jesus emerging from the mumble.
I eased my way up behind the EMTs, looked deeper into the woods. A flash of an image, someone praying before a life-size crucifix. And then my knees buckled as I said, “Oh my God.”
Abram was tied to a tree. His face and white shirt were black with blood. His mouth and eyes were open and flies whirled around him. The trooper turned and saw me and said, “Out.”
The Bishop raised his head from his hands, turned, and said, “You,” a strangled gasp, and as he sprang up from his knees, he bellowed, “You killed my son!” He was coming at me, pointing at my face with a long finger as though he could make lightning strike. “You are the Devil!” he shouted. “Sent from hell to live among us.”
The trooper stepped between us, saying, “Easy, sir,” but the Bishop kept coming, his face red and his teeth bared. “I told you, ‘Stay away from my son.’ ”
The trooper had him by the shoulders, pressing his hands to the Bishop’s chest. He took both of them with him, bulling his way toward me.
“This man drew my son into the darkness. This man took my son.”
He was panting as he drew close to me. The trooper backed into me, stepping on my boots. He was shouting, “Calm down, sir.” The sergeant was saying, “That’s enough.”
“I didn’t hurt Abram,” I said. “I liked him. I liked him very—”
“I told you to stay away,” the Bishop wailed. “I told you to stay away.”
And then he sagged as he said, “I prayed. God, didn’t you hear me?”
Grief swept over him and he started to cry, a jaw-clenched spasm, tears streaming, his breath coming in jerks, no longer the Bishop, just a father who had lost his boy. A father who had tried to protect his son from the evils of the world, and failed.
For a moment we all stood as the Bishop wept. Over his shoulder I could see Abram against the tree, his hands bound in front of him, his expression frozen in sorrow. And then I saw something else.
The trooper turned to me and started to push me back, saying, “This is a crime scene,” and I sidestepped him and took a couple of steps forward. As he grabbed me by the shoulder, I realized what it was. There were letters on Abram’s forehead, dark gouges in his pale, now-bloodless skin.
As the trooper started to move me again I spun away from him, stepped closer. Cut into Abram’s head, now showing as neat, scabbed lines, was a word.
RAT.
24
Clair listened to the story. We were standing on the deck in the deepening twilight, bats crisscrossing above us. Clair had given the girls dinner and now their voices trilled out of the bedroom window above us. I spoke softly and when I was done, Clair said, “Two things.”
I waited.
“If you’re going to kill somebody for being a snitch, why write it out? Anybody on the inside will know the reason. Pretty stupid to telegraph it to the cops.”
“A lot of stupidity going around,” I said. “Billy, Baby Fat, Beefy, and Semi. And these Boston guys seem to think they’re invincible.”
“Thing number two. This isn’t your fault.”
I didn’t answer.
“He was in deep when you met him.”
Still no answer.
“But if you do feel somehow responsible, there’s only one thing to do.”
I looked at him.
“Nail the ones who did it,” I said.
“Right. And a third thing.”
“You said there were two.”
“I lied,” Clair said.
“A lot of that going around,” I said.
“Billy’s not stupid.”
“No.”
“He’s a sociopath. They’re usually pretty smart.”
“Yeah.”
“Watch your back,” Clair said.
“Not my back I’m worried about,” I said.
Clair had been gone twenty minutes when the knock came. I trotted to the side door, kitchen towel still in my hand. Flung the door open and there was a detective standing there, a tall, dark-haired guy, pale skin and black eyes. Behind him was Deputy Staples, from the fight at Welt’s farm. Both grim, their mouths flat lines.
“Mr. McMorrow,” the detective said. “I’m Sergeant Robert Cook.”
I knew the name. Major Crimes Unit.
“You know Deputy Staples. She was at the scene. Offered to bring me here. Good time to talk?”
“Yeah, but I have my daughter and her friend here.”
“That’s okay,” he said.
They followed me in, and we were standing in the kitchen when the girls came running in.
“Can we have ice cream?” Sophie said. And then she looked up, Salandra right behind her. They looked at Cook, then at Staples. They didn’t say anything, just waited for me to spoon ice cream into two bowls.
Cook smiled at them and Sophie looked at him, then away. More cops in the kitchen. Ho-hum. And then the girls scurried out.
“How you doing?” Cook said.
“Not good.”
“Abram Snyder was a friend of yours, I understand.”
“Acquaintance,” I said. “But yes, I liked him. A good guy.”
“When did you last see Abram?” Cook said.
I thought.
“Today. Around one o’clock. At his farm.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Yeah. For a few minutes.”
“About what?”
I hesitated.
“I’m trying to do a story on the Mennonite community here—I’m a reporter—and I met him, some of his friends. Abram’s father is the Bishop of the district, and—”
“We know. How did Abram seem when you left him?”
“Okay. He’d got some things on his mind. The religion, his dad, they were having some conflict.”
“Why would he tell you about these things? If he was only an acquaintance?”
“I don’t know. It’s what I do. I get people to talk to me. But I think he also just wanted somebody to talk to. On the outside. He was curious about things. So is his sister.”
“Miriam.”
“Right.”
“Was anything else bothering him?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, an uneasy feeling building.
Cook paused, like he didn’t believe me. Staples, behind him and to the side, shook her head almost imperceptibly, her lie detector going off.
“Okay,” Cook said. “So you left him and went where?”
“I went to my wife’s school. Prosperity Primary. She works there. I brought my daughter and her friend home here because my wife has a meeting at the school tonight.”
The girls came trotting back in, Sophie yanking a towel from the rack.
“We’re cleaning it up,” she said, and they trotted back out.
Cook smiled at the girls, then turned back to me, the smile gone. “So tell me again about this conversation.”
It was a tightrope now. A detective could smell lies like a blind man can hear. Hindering a homicide investigation? I could go away,
Roxanne and Sophie left alone. Or worse. And whoever killed Abram, I’d do anything to nail him. Or them. But Miriam—if it all came out in court . . .
“I needed to see Abram,” I said.
“Why was that?” Cook said.
The tightrope. I teetered. On one foot. Arms waving.
“He had a problem. I tried to fix it.”
“What sort of problem?”
“Have you talked to the ATF agents who’ve been up here?”
“No,” Cook said. “Should I?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And when I talk to them, what will they tell me?”
He had his gaze fixed on me, unblinking. I was slipping now, Miriam falling with me. But her world was already shattered.
“They’re investigating gun running that’s been going on. Buying guns in Maine, driving them down to Boston.”
“What’s that got to do with Abram Snyder?”
I hesitated.
Took a deep breath. Heard Sophie singing along with the movie.
And folded.
I told the truth. Abram buying guns with Semi. My conversation with Abram at the party, his wavering religious faith. The party itself, the Boston guys there. The aftermath, Abram and the video. Semi’s interrogation session in the woods.
“Miriam doesn’t remember any of it,” I said. “I don’t suppose there’s any way . . . ”
My words trailed off. I knew the answer.
“So the phone—the ATF has it. And the laptop?”
“Yes.”
“The texts from the guys from Boston. What’d they say again?”
I told him, as closely as I could remember. Delta fuckn force. Outta here.
“We’ll want to talk to Mr. Varney and Mr. Longfellow,” Cook said. “But they didn’t really know Abram?”
“No, they did it on principle. And for me.”
“You haven’t seen or heard from Semi since you dropped him off at his house?”
“No,” I said. “He asked when he could have his phone back. And then he walked away. In his socks.”
“How do you think he’d react to the news that his friends had been busted and he was in deep trouble? Blame Abram?”
“I think he’d run,” I said. “Because we’d warned him not to bother Abram.”
“Warned him how?” Cook said.
I hesitated.
“That if he bothered Abram he’d be dead.”
“Had you given Semi any reason to believe that actually might happen?”
I paused. Cook waited.
“Clair and Louis,” I said. “They’ve done this before. In their respective wars.”
“Killed people, you mean.”
“Yeah. Clair was Special Forces. Force Recon, Marine reconnaissance in Vietnam. Louis was in infantry in Iraq for one tour. Then he was a sapper next tour. Hunting IEDs and all that. Mosul. Sunni Triangle. He’s pretty tough. Don’t get me wrong; they’re good people. The best. But with Semi, they—we—laid it on pretty good. So if you didn’t know them, you might get the idea—”
“That they might kill you.”
I nodded.
“And it would be no big deal,” Cook said. “To them.”
“Business as usual,” I said.
He looked at me closely, as if he could glean more clues from my face.
“Kidnapping, criminal threatening, terrorizing, reckless conduct with a firearm—”
“Don’t you need a complainant?”
Cook looked at me, started to say something, then caught himself. Took a breath and shook his head.
“I’d heard you played close to the lines,” Cook said.
I shrugged.
“I think you may have just stepped over,” he said.
“I’d do it again,” I said.
“To help these Mennonite kids?”
“Yes,” I said.
He looked at me, weighing what, if anything, to say. And then his cell buzzed and he stepped away. Deputy Staples looked at me, said, “How’s your wife?”
“Okay,” I said. “But they’re still making threats. And one of those guys was at her school today.”
“I’ll talk to them, as soon as—”
Cook tapped his phone off and rejoined us.
“Who do you think could have done this, Mr. McMorrow?” Cook said.
He watched me, not as much waiting for an answer but gauging my reaction.
“I don’t know,” I said. “The gang guys?”
“They were in custody.”
“Semi, then. Somebody else who was involved? The guys in the video?”
They watched and waited.
“Gun sellers? Maybe one was a regular, the beginning of the pipeline?”
“Why would he kill Abram Snyder?” Cook said.
“I don’t know,” I said, rubbing my face with my hands.
“Did you kill Abram Snyder?”
I took my hands off my face and looked at him. His expression was calm, like he’d asked me if I’d come straight home from work.
“No,” I said. “Why would I do that?”
“You were buying guns,” he said. “You had the laptop and phone of one of the principals. Maybe he gave them to you to hide. Maybe this home-invasion abduction was part of some problems you were having with the group. Not getting your cut? Maybe this Semi was blackmailing you, too. ”
“I write for the New York Times,” I said. “The Boston Globe. I’m doing a story on private gun sales for Outland magazine. I don’t sell guns to gangbangers.”
“Maybe Abram there, he’s getting a guilty conscience, decides to go to the police, rat out the whole crew.”
“That’s what I told him to do. Tell the ATF everything. Abram didn’t know where the guns were going. He was just helping with the purchases. He thought Semi was selling them to out-of-state hunters.”
“That’s pretty clueless,” Cook said.
“He’s Mennonite, and not just Mennonite, but strict Old Order,” I said. “It’s not like he was watching Law and Order every night. He was naive. Gullible.”
“I’m not,” Cook said. “That’s why I think it’s quite a coincidence, you and your associates snatch one of the guys, beat him up. About the same time, ATF takes down a couple of the others. Four hours later, another guy involved in the ring is found murdered. He may have been talking to law enforcement, or believed to have been talking. The killer appears to have thought so.”
Staples watched me. She reminded me of Louis’s dog. The stare.
“You’re right,” I said. “Those things must be connected. But I didn’t kill him. I was trying to help him.”
“Well, Mr. McMorrow,” Cook said, “if that’s the case, then it seems to me you haven’t been very helpful at all.”
25
I was sitting in the study, the chair swiveled around away from the desk, the same half beer in my hand. It was all playing and replaying in my head, and it always ended in the same way. Someone had killed Abram. I was responsible. I’d failed.
From there things got even darker, bleaker, heavier. Had he told them he wanted out? Had he told them, someone, that he was going to talk to the police? Had he been following my advice? If I’d never gotten involved, would Abram be alive right now?
And then it got darker still. Had I really cared about Abram, or had I just wanted to work my way into the Mennonites for the story? Had I been playing Abram just like Semi had? Had I gotten one guy killed and his sister publicly shamed?
I lifted the beer and finished it in three gulps. Went and got another and drank half of it down. And then I sat and pondered and took a last step downward, into the abyss.
What if the Bishop was right? His rants about heaven and hell and salvation and sinners. Did Abram die just at the time when he was questioning his faith? What if he would have come back to the church and Jesus and God and all the rest? And what if there really was a heaven and Abram had missed his chance? What if he was in the “lake of fire,” or whatever the
Bishop had called it? Joke’s on you, bub. What if that was my fault, too?
It was deep dusk, the room getting darker with my mood. Sophie trotted into the kitchen looking for me, looked through to the study and spotted me. She came in and said, “Daddy, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, honey,” I said.
“Can Salandra stay over?”
“Not tonight,” I said. “It’s a school night, and Mommy’s out late.”
Mommy. Roxanne. I looked at my watch. Reached for my phone and texted her. She texted back, said they were next on the agenda. I said I’d meet her.
“Oh, can’t she, please?” Sophie said.
“Get your shoes,” I said. “Time to go.”
We sat in the lot and waited. There were cars, trucks, no big Dodge, none of the vehicles occupied. When people began to file out the door, I started the truck and pulled up close to the school. We waited there for fifteen minutes, the girls taking turns playing a game on my phone. Finally the lot was empty, just Roxanne’s Subaru and Welt’s pickup left. They were parked side by side.
I decided to give them one more minute before the three of us would go inside. And it was then that Roxanne and Welt pushed through the doors.
They were smiling, animated. I got out of the truck and the girls slid down, too, Sophie running to Roxanne and saying, “Clair was in charge and we had mac and cheese and hot dogs and ice cream and then there were police here and we watched Jungle Book and one of the policemen, he said his little boy likes Jungle Book, too.”
Roxanne and Welt looked at me.
“Long story,” I said. “How did it go?”
“Fantastic,” Welt said. “The board is all in. Voted us another ten thousand for programming.”
He beamed at Roxanne.
“She absolutely charmed them,” he said.
Roxanne shook her head, said, “It wasn’t me. It’s the work we’re doing. The antiviolence message just totally resonated with them.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad.”
And with that we handed Salandra over. Sophie said she wanted to ride with her mom. I drove the truck over to the car as they got in, pulled the Glock out, and laid it on the seat.
It was nearly dark when we got home, a deep blue band showing on the western horizon, stars popping out overhead. When we pulled into the driveway, I saw Louis out back, the headlights reflecting in his eyes. He waved and moved into the darkness.