Straw Men

by Martin J. Smith

  She bucked and turned face down into the trunk’s synthetic carpet, desperately seeking relief in its dark fibers. The trunk floor smelled of ammonia and rubber and grease, and it nearly made her gag. A hulking shadow passed over her, and she welcomed it. At least it blocked the light. In that relieved instant, she turned her face and opened one seething eye toward the silhouette above her.

  It was shaped like a giant beer keg with a head. She squinted, searching for detail until the silhouette had a face. She counted four red circles—two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. She’d seen those red-rimmed eyes before. Then they’d seemed vicious; now they just seemed startled.

  “Jesus H.,” it said.

  A man’s voice. He bent toward her, and she felt the same hands she remembered struggling against in her darkened office. The latex smell. The stifling odor of chlorine. The power. It came rushing back to her in a sickening wave. He grabbed her upper arm, the one on top, and pulled as if it were a handle. She tried to relax, to pretend she was still unconscious, thinking, Pick your shot, Brenna. Wait. Don’t waste whatever you’ve got left. But she tensed and whimpered again as searing pain arced through her.

  He rolled her forward and checked her wrists, making sure they were still secure. Then, in a single motion, he lifted her like a suitcase and set her in the wet dirt behind the car. She stared at the elastic ankle gathers of mud-spattered gray sweatpants and a familiar pair of basketball shoes. Frankensteins. Almost completely unlaced to accommodate the large feet that seemed stuffed inside. But she’d seen shoes just like them.

  Last month.

  In prison.

  On Carmen DellaVecchio.

  But it wasn’t him. Too big. The voice all wrong. She looked up. The sky above was laced by branches, but that could be anywhere in forested western Pennsylvania. The man closed the trunk and bent toward her again. He hoisted her by her tethered arm, apparently without effort. Every nerve in her body came alive as she rose. He set her on uncertain feet, then leaned her back against the car trunk. She focused her strength on her neck, struggling to support her head. But it fell backward; it weighed ten thousand pounds. He grabbed the collar of her shirt, the one she’d been wearing when she fell asleep at the office, and pulled her upright again. Her head tipped forward as he held her steady with an enormous white fist that smelled like a doctor’s office. She looked down at his other hand and saw the gun.

  The fog cleared. He’s about to kill me, she thought. So that’s how it ends. Taylor’s face popped into her head, first as an infant, then as a boy. She saw him with Jim, holding Jim’s hand, and felt herself relax. Taylor was with him. He’d be fine.

  Jim.

  Who’d understood from the start the limits of her love.

  Who’d loved her anyway.

  She willed the thought away, but in its place came a cold, analytical reality. She’d known enough killers to understand what was happening. This guy knew exactly what he was doing. He’d driven her here in her own car, so there’d be no vehicular evidence to trace. Her hair, blood, any contact matter at all, would be in her own trunk. He’d waited until now to kill her; that way he could control the death scene. A smart killer would walk her to her grave, shove her in, shoot her, and bury her along with the blood and bullets and anything else that might help the cops figure out what had happened. He might get away with it, too, as long as he controlled the scene.

  He leaned her forward, balancing her against the car’s trunk, then eased himself around behind her. The once-numb fingers on her right hand were alive again, and she felt the smooth cotton of his sweatpants as he snaked one of his arms around her waist. He waited until her feet were under her, then said, “Walk.”

  She stumbled. He lifted and shoved her toward the place where she’d heard him digging. So this is how it ends.

  She thought of Taylor.

  She thought of Jim.

  She grabbed his balls with both hands.

  “Fuck!” he howled.

  She felt him give, and saw his gun hand rising reflexively toward her head. But she was beyond pain. She squeezed through the cotton sweats with all her might. A death grip.

  “Bitch!”

  The gun’s butt connected with the back of her head, but she held on. He turned her toward the car, shoved her forward and pressed all his weight against her, pinning her face down against the trunk lid. She turned her head as he raised his gun hand again, saw him bring it down hard on the side of her head, peppering the car’s silver paint with flecks of her blood. Good, she thought. Evi­dence. A voice to tell my story.

  Behind her, he gasped desperately for breath. He raised the gun again, but this time he pressed its short barrel against the side of her head. Fine, but I’m not letting go…

  She opened her eyes, waiting, ready. And that’s when she saw Jim through a web of blood, moving like a blur from the left, a final, bizarre hallucination before the bullet. She managed one last, incoherent thought: An ice scraper?

  Chapter 38

  Christensen swung hard, bristle end first. The scraper’s long handle shattered with an impotent crack that left wood splinters on the dark-knit ski mask.

  “The hell?” Harnett gasped, but his flinch was distraction enough. He let go of Brenna’s collar and rolled to his right as the gun clattered across the trunk deck. It fell into the dirt near the Legend’s back tire. Harnett tried to pull away, but—Christensen saw it now—Brenna had a vise grip on him. As Harnett turned, so did she.

  Her eyes were empty and cold, uncomprehending. Her cheeks and the tape covering her mouth were laced by blood oozing from gashes that already had matted the hair on the back of her head and pasted several strands to her forehead.

  Harnett swatted at him, but Christensen had him off balance. Still clutching the scraper’s shattered handle, Christensen shoved the heel of his left hand up under the mighty chin, pushing Harnett’s head back as far as he could. At the same time, he brought his right hand over the top like a sledgehammer. It came down square on the mask’s nose hole, and the cartilage underneath gave way with a mushy pop. Even so, Christensen knew it wasn’t over. He felt like a bull rider in the chute, straddling, for the moment, the malevolent mass beneath him. But the gate was about to open.

  “Hang on, Bren!” he shouted.

  With an animal cry, the bull rolled and raged left. The move broke Brenna’s grip and she collapsed onto the back of the car. She was barely conscious, her fingers still clutching instinctively for soft flesh as she rolled to the ground. Christensen jumped on Harnett’s broad back, riding him across the trunk as he moved toward the gun. Christensen snaked the shattered remains of the scraper handle around his head and tried to choke him, but Harnett brushed him off like a pesky fly. He landed in the dirt maybe ten feet from the car, the remains of the sub-lethal scraper still in his hand.

  By the time Christensen struggled to his knees, Harnett was already reaching for the gun. Christensen flung the scraper handle, hoping to distract him again, but it bounced lightly off one steely shoulder and landed on the Legend’s hood. Harnett was hunched in pain, protecting his crotch with his free hand, but he calmly leveled the gun. Rushing him would be suicide.

  Christensen sat back on his ankles, and Harnett shifted immediately to a wider stance. He brought his free hand up under the gun’s butt and aimed the weapon in a two-handed grip, ignoring the blood streaming from his nostrils.

  “Don’t,” Christensen said. The word emerged in a puff of his breath and he watched it disappear in the cold morning air, wondering if it was his last.

  The gun was rock steady. Why Harnett hesitated, Christensen couldn’t guess. But he did, and Christensen pulled the only weapon he had left.

  “Kiger already knows,” he said.

  The broad shoulders seemed to sag, but only f
or a second. Christensen rose defiantly to his knees.

  “David.” Christensen practically shouted the name. “Don’t make it worse. It’s over.”

  A contrail of breath poured from the mask, as if the man inside were deflating. Christensen waited, trying to will away a single, gripping fear: Who would raise the kids? He looked at Brenna, who lay morbidly still in the dirt behind the car. She was on her stomach, hands still bound, her face twisted toward him, her eyes open but registering nothing. Only her fingers moved, desperately clutching at the air above her back.

  “You people shoulda left this alone,” Harnett said.

  The voice jerked Christensen back. “Too late for that. It’s over.”

  There was a nod, followed by another stream of warm breath. Harnett moved two steps closer, so they were maybe five feet apart. Christensen stood as tall as he could while still on his knees. He saw the muscles tense in one of Harnett’s mighty forearms—the one with its finger on the puny gun’s trigger.

  Another nod, and the barrel rose until it was pointed directly at Christensen’s head. Harnett straightened his elbows and sighted him down. “It’s over, all right.”

  Christensen closed his eyes to better see the faces that suddenly filled his head. Melissa. Annie. Taylor. My God…

  A gunshot’s report rang through the silent, sheltering trees, and Christensen heard himself fall. He felt nothing except the warm embrace of the people he loved, the children he’d never hold again. Then another sound, a strangled gasp. The sound of collapse, unbroken and dense, followed by ghostly silence.

  Christensen opened his eyes. He’d twisted and fallen backward, so that he faced away from the car. His shoulder and one side of his head were in a puddle filled with rotting leaves. He lay still, listening, waiting for the pain. But he was conscious only of the water, of a damp, delicious chill. The pain never came.

  Somewhere nearby, the crackle of underbrush. He pushed himself out of the puddle, stood, and in the same motion wheeled like a startled deer. Brenna hadn’t moved. She lay maybe three yards from what looked like a stone-still block of granite. Christensen stepped forward, trying to make sense of the scene. Where was the gun? He moved closer, saw it twitching like a nerve in Harnett’s pallid right hand. Without thinking, he stepped over the crumpled legs and onto that quivering wrist. Still, the gloved hand held tight.

  He looked down. Harnett was on his back, his heart pumping blood through a ragged new hole in the mask where his forehead would be. He might have been staring at the branches above, but blood ran in thin streams over his unblinking eyes and from the hole around his nose. Christensen pried the gun from his fingers.

  “Drop it.”

  The air crackled. Christensen tossed the gun away.

  “Step away, goddamn it. Don’t touch him again.”

  Christensen sensed movement in a thicket of pines to the left, but he dared not turn his head. “He’s dead,” Christensen said. He nodded toward Brenna. “She needs help.”

  “Step away.”

  Christensen took a giant step backward, then a second. A lone figure stepped cautiously into his widened field of vision. Christensen cut his eyes as far as he could toward the man, who was slowly chewing a thick wad of gum behind his outstretched hands. In those hands Christensen could see a gun maybe twice as big as the one he’d just tossed away. The gunman was long and lean in hiking boots and jeans, and the shirt beneath his stylish anorak was flannel.

  Christensen thought, Eddie Bauer. What he said out loud, though, was “Milsevic.”

  Chapter 39

  Milsevic moved toward the fallen man without lowering his gun. When the police captain saw there was no danger, he knelt on one knee, peeled back the ski mask, and felt for the artery in Harnett’s neck.

  If David Harnett wasn’t dead, he was dying. A ghastly hole punctuated the brow just above his right eye. Christensen moved toward Brenna, who lay dead-still in the mud. He stripped off his jacket and laid it beside her. He found the ragged edge of the duct tape that bound her wrists and began to unwind it. When he was done, he cupped one hand under her neck, rolled her onto her back, and laid her head on the jacket. She blinked as he gently peeled the tape from her mouth.

  “Hang on, Bren.”

  She blinked again, opened her mouth and forced a breath. “H—”

  “Easy.”

  “Hurt,” she managed.

  “I know.”

  “Dizzy.”

  “Relax, OK? We’ll get you fixed up.”

  An electronic crackle. Milsevic lifted a small handheld radio to his mouth and spoke an incomprehensible stream of police radio code. The dispatcher answered back with a question. “Captain Milsevic?”

  Milsevic dug the gum from his mouth and tossed it away. It landed near the front tire of Brenna’s car.

  “Affirmative. I was on my way in when I heard the radio call. Listen, we’ve got an officer down, plus one head trauma. Panther Hollow. Roll some medics for the head trauma. There’s a maintenance road runs behind Phipps. My unit’s parked up top, near the equipment yard, but tell them they can drive all the way down.”

  “The Bottoms?” she asked.

  “I’ll meet them there. And tell Walsh to roll someone too.”

  “That’s one rescue and one coroner’s unit?”

  “Affirmative.” Milsevic looked up, fixing Christensen with a stare he couldn’t quite decipher. “And notify homicide. It’s an officer-involved.”

  The two men’s eyes locked during the long pause, until the dispatcher broke in.

  “Need a clarification. Previous, you said ‘officer down.’ ”

  “Affirmative. Officer down and officer-involved. I’m the shooter. I want this by the book.”

  Brenna moved, then gasped. A tear rolled from one eye, mixing with the blood and mud and damp strands of hair crisscrossing her face.

  “Stay still, baby,” Christensen said. “We’ll get you out of here.”

  When he looked up, Milsevic was standing again. He’d moved away from Harnett’s body and turned his back. His shoulders sagged, reminding Christensen that Milsevic and Harnett had been close friends. Christensen fought the impulse to speak, to comfort, because Milsevic was no doubt walking an emotional tightrope. There were a lot of things Christensen could say, and most of them would be wrong.

  “You saved my life,” he said after a while. “Our lives.”

  Milsevic just stared into the trees. He pulled up his anorak and tucked the gun into a holster belted into the small of his back. Finally he turned around, and Christensen saw the face of a man struggling for control.

  “Thank you,” Christensen said. “If you hadn’t shown up when you did…”

  Milsevic waved the words away and nodded toward Brenna. “How’s she doing?”

  “Maybe in shock. How long before somebody gets here?”

  “Not long.” He nodded toward the car. “She keep any old blankets or anything in the trunk? Something we could use to keep her warm?”

  Brenna’s car keys were still in the trunk lock, so Christensen reached up and turned them. The rear deck popped open, but nothing useful was inside. He noticed a damp kidney-shaped stain on the charcoal-colored carpet. She must have been bleeding before Harnett put her into the trunk.

  “She was right,” Milsevic said, standing over Brenna now. He looked down at Harnett’s body. “He played us all for suckers.”

  “When did you know?”

  Milsevic cleared his throat. “Been watching him since the hearing three weeks ago. Figured whoever did it would start to panic at that point. There was something about the way he reacted made me wonder. I knew he was up to something.”

  Christensen studied him. “That ni
ght at our house, after the shooting. You sounded like you were already looking into—”

  Milsevic nodded.

  “But—” Christensen looked for the least hostile way to ask an obvious question. “Aren’t you the one who covered for him the night Teresa was attacked?”

  Milsevic nodded again. “Like I said, he suckered us all. I’m guessing he arranged a contract hit, set up DellaVecchio, and made sure he was with me when it happened.” He pointed toward Brenna. “We knew from her DNA results someone else was involved.”

  “But it was a big leap to get to Harnett. When did you know?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  The police captain turned and pointed at Harnett’s feet. “See those?” Milsevic asked.

  One of Harnett’s sneakers had come off when he fell and lay on its side near his knee. The other shoe encased a foot that stood perfectly straight on its heel. The tread was worn deeply on one side, but was almost new on the other.

  “The shoes?”

  Milsevic nodded. “See how small they are? The wear pattern? DellaVecchio’s shoes were missing from the jail’s property room the day they released him. They sent him home in prison slippers, remember?”

  “Harnett took his shoes?”

  “To leave tracks. Same as he did with Teresa. He was setting DellaVecchio up again, just like last time.”

  Christensen wasn’t following the logic. How had he known it was Harnett? Milsevic noticed his confusion.

  “We still have DellaVecchio’s shoes from back then,” Milsevic said. “And you know what? In all those years, nobody ever dusted them for prints. So I dug them out of the evidence room yesterday afternoon.” He stood up and nudged Harnett’s ghostly white hand with his toe. “For whatever reason, he didn’t wear gloves when he handled them. He got cocky. Who the hell would ever dust DellaVecchio’s shoes for fingerprints? But that’s when I knew. David’s prints were all over them.”