The Silent Scream of the Straw Man

by Corinne F. Gerwe

  Aura Lee stopped talking, lost in her memories.

  Taking advantage of the momentary break, Farley asked, “You were about to tell me where the lunches will be served.”

  “Oh yes, Chief. Right up the hill at the fire department extension building. It is closer to where they will be filming than the Serena Events Center. Miss Pen will be doing the catering and send her staff from the winery kitchen. All the extras get to eat free, and they get paid as well. Plus they get to meet the big stars, although I’ll bet they’ve been told not to bother them. Just think of it, Chief. Bret Dillon and Megan Murphy, right here in little Serena.

  “I have to tell you Chief, that Bret Dillon gives me heart palpitations. I just might faint if I run into him in person. Loretta got to see him when they came here during the auditions. She said he seemed as nice as pie. Said Miss Murphy was kind of aloof. Course she’s known to act spoiled. I read it in People Magazine. But Buddy Larson! He’s a North Carolina boy and everyone says he’s one of the best character actors in Hollywood. You know who I mean. He was in that movie with Clint Eastwood, and other ones with big stars like Bruce Willis.

  “Course, I don’t go in for those action-type movies with all that violence and shooting, even though we’ve had our share of it around here. But that’s in the past, Chief. Anyway, Loretta said he was real friendly and laughing and joking with everyone, not full of himself at all. But it’s the young ones everybody makes a fuss over these days. Megan Murphy was in some vampire movie last year and rumor was she was involved with her costar. She gets involved with someone every time she makes a movie, then moves on to the next one. She started so young, that’s her problem. Had a big dispute with her mother, can you imagine? They don’t speak now according to People Magazine. No wonder she runs fast and loose. A girl has to have a mother watching over her. Lucky I had mine. She didn’t let things go to my head.”

  Farley had settled into a trance.

  Aura Lee continued, “Well anyway. The film company is back and settled into the Serena Mountain Lodge. I heard that Miss Pen might even hold a reception for them out at the winery if it’s finished in time. Seems that famous director, Richard Sherwood, has requested her services at the location site. He can’t be bothered to come to the fire station and eat with the extras. Let me tell you about him, Chief. He’s had several wives and keeps on collecting those awards they keep giving out every year. I read how tough he is to work for but everyone just accepts it because he’s called a genius, whatever that means. I guess it means you can lord it over everybody.

  “Miss Pen will manage him just fine, if he starts getting too bossy. He’ll probably be wanting to talk to you, Chief, you know for your expertise. I’m surprised he hasn’t called. I’ve been on the alert. I heard the movie version of what happened out at Raven Brook Falls will be an artistic rendition of the true story. That means he’ll change everything to suit himself. By the time the movie comes out, the real story will be forgotten anyway, and his movie will be what’s remembered as the truth. Don’t you agree, Chief?”

  Farley took the opportunity to stop her by agreeing, and then stood up. Aura Lee took the cue and headed toward her desk. She knew of his habit of having to digest her news over a late breakfast at the Serena Grill. His habit was to work at his desk early morning while the locals gathered two doors down at the Grill for breakfast. After the six to eight o’clock crowd dispersed, he could eat in peace there without too much interruption.

  The phone rang before the screen door closed behind him. Aura Lee called him back.

  “Chief, you’d better head out to Jim Sutton’s place. He said he’s found something awful in his garden and to come right away. He hung up before I could ask him what he found. He sounded real shook-up.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FARLEY LEFT WONDERING WHAT COULD have been found to shake up a stoic farmer like Jim Sutton. The man was reserved in nature, like most mountain folk, and not one to become emotional. His acreage on the northern ridge backed up to dense forestland that dropped down southward over rough terrain not easily hunted. If it was a wildlife incident, a dead carcass could be a gruesome sight, but not to a man like Jim. It had to be something more. Sutton hadn’t wanted to describe it to Aura Lee. Farley felt sure he’d held back rather than upset her. He recalled his earlier chilling premonition. But nothing visual formed in his mind.

  The drive from town up the winding Sutton Creek Road took less than ten minutes. Serena was surrounded by a vast wilderness of forested mountain ridges that made up one of the most rugged sections of the Appalachian range, towering above the foothills and upstate of South Carolina. In less than five miles south of the direction he was heading, Farley could cross the state line and descend the steep two-thousand foot grade to the lowland state. Instead he wound his way east to the small farm perched above it.

  Serena was nestled into a gap in the mountaintop, with narrow roads snaking up and down and along the ridges, with branches extending deep into the forest and out again, through high grassy meadowland and alongside sparkling green and blue lakes and streams. The variation in habitats included rustic log cabins, charming homesteads, rusted trailers, and makeshift family compounds. Along the high ridges, fabulous mountainside retreats could be seen dotting the stratospheric landscape. Less visible were the many expensive lakefront properties facing emerald green waters shimmering under the pines. But most surprising were the open spaces and mountain-high meadowlands where farming dated back to the early settlers.

  The road Farley traveled curved round and round and cut through two granite banks of boulders that blocked his view on both sides until opening to an expanse of farmland that sat high enough to kiss the sky. Jim Sutton stood waiting at the base of his driveway, which rose behind him to a freshly painted white wood-frame farmhouse. He was tall and wiry, almost as tall as Farley, with rose-brown skin, weathered from the sun.

  He motioned for Farley to drive on past him up the drive. Farley could see Sutton’s garden off to the left in the distance, lined with perfect rows and in the process of being harvested. To his right sat baskets of produce near the bed of Sutton’s well-kept pickup truck, indicating an interruption in his daily delivery to market. He got out of the cruiser as Sutton approached and reached to shake his hand. It was trembling.

  “Follow me, Chief.”

  Farley followed him to the garden, and then through the rows of corn stalks. Sutton plodded on in silence. They were heading toward the center of the field. Farley was tall enough to see the figure of a straw man up ahead, tethered to his post. There was something odd about its face; not the typical happy facade or handmade grimace. The shudder he’d experienced that morning returned when the face came into focus. He clearly understood Sutton’s alarm, but thought it no more than a prank done by someone with a vicious sense of humor. Suddenly, as if the wind had turned in his direction, the sickening smell of death hit his nostrils.

  Sutton quickened his steps as they moved toward the scarecrow. He stopped when they approached the end of the row and he turned to face Farley. The apprehensive look on his face was warning enough, and then he stepped aside. The scene that opened before Farley was far different from the one he had seen from the road. The farm had seemed then to rise toward the heavens. Here, in the center of its earthly garden paradise, was a scene imagined from the depths of hell.

  Beneath the straw-stuffed raggedy figure, the broken and blood-soaked body of a large man lay sprawled and tied to the base of the post. His face had been pummeled into a swollen mass of tissue and bone, the body brutalized until as limp and lifeless as the scarecrow above him. At first glance, it appeared to be the savage work of a madman. But Farley thought there was something symbolic about the staging of the corpse; the crooked arrangement of limbs positioned in odd directions, made possible by severe multiple fractures.

  It reminded Farley of an ancient tortuous and sacrificial ritual he’d once read about.

  His eyes took in every aspect of the vict
im, and then moved up to the mutilated face of the scarecrow. The murderer had taken the time to enhance the scene with horrific effect. The straw man looked more animated than the dead man below, with smeared wavy lines of blood zigzagging down his seed-sack skin from its punctured blackened eyes. Its hand-stitched mouth had been ripped open into a purposeful gaping shape that gave gruesome life to its features. The cavernous orifice was black and empty, yet appeared to emit a soundless phantom scream, visually depicting a primal wail, hauntingly eerie in pantomime.

  Farley assessed the time the killer had taken to creatively give the impression that the scarecrow had come alive in response the murder, or perhaps to what the murdered man had done to deserve such a punishing death. He looked at his watch to determine the time and reached for his cell phone to call the county’s new medical examiner. The Serena Rescue Squad team would also be called in to assist him, but they would not be prepared for a crime scene made more startling in the morning light, in the pleasant surroundings of good earth, rich soil, and bountiful harvest.

  Jim Sutton had remained quiet, giving Farley the time he needed. After the call was made, he said, “I’ve not seen the likes of this, Chief, not in my lifetime. I can’t even make out who he is.”

  Farley looked back down at the misshapen dead man and to his eyes, blackened with coal. His face and scalp were coated with dried blood and the blood on his clothing had caked and darkened. There was no blood on the soil or anywhere near the body.

  Farley nodded in agreement, and then asked, “Did you hear anything last night, Jim?”

  “Not a sound, Chief. But then my hearing’s not so good anymore. My old hound, Charlie, died last year and I’ve been meanin’ to get me another pup, but haven’t had the heart to do it yet. Charlie was with me for nigh seventeen year. Guess I’d better be thinkin’ about it now. Lord above, Chief, who could do such a thing, and why here? I haven’t had a word of disagreement with anyone. Since Elsie died, I mostly tend to my garden and take my produce to market. I don’t have time to make enemies. How could anyone think so sorely of me as to do this on my land? Do you think it’s a sign, a warning? But warning of what? I’ll tell you Chief, it’s enough to shake a man to the core.”

  “This may have nothing to do with you, Jim. I’ve known you a long time and I can’t see a reason for someone to target you for revenge of any kind, but there is reason behind this. We’ll have the body removed by midday, but your garden will be off limits until we gather all the necessary evidence. Do you have enough produce picked to focus on supplying your markets?”

  “Sure Chief. I’ll need to keep busy just to get this sight out of my head, though I’m not sure I ever will. It’s enough to give me nightmares. I’ve got plenty to do, hauling my bushels and getting ready for winter. I’m just glad Elsie didn’t live long enough to see this.”

  Farley sent Jim Sutton back to the house to wait for the medical examiner. The sun rose high in a cloudy blue sky, warming the air as the damp morning dew evaporated around him. He took this opportunity to become one with the crime scene, in stillness and observation. He had no microscope or measurement tools, no photography equipment or chemicals. Farley absorbed his surroundings as he did everything he approached, his senses alert and instincts triggered.

  He was a man of the mountains, its vast and varied wilderness. He listened to the wind and could hear the slightest sound of movement. He felt the elevation upon which he stood, knowing the difference in each level of altitude. He felt the atmosphere within his bones, could gauge barometric pressure and change in weather patterns. He knew the predictable laws of nature and the wild, its creatures and their habits.

  Farley understood most of what he’d learned from nature in the land he called home, but believed the motives and actions of man were endlessly complex and unpredictable. He approached each case as if traversing a wide spectrum of good and bad, like an adventurer in search of the truth. He mistrusted evil as a carelessly used word and was ever-curious about the reason for each crime he investigated. It wasn’t that he hadn’t witnessed the evil doings of man. He’d served in the military during wartime and with the FBI before returning to the place of his birth. But even there he believed the best and worst of human behavior could be found, and by investigating the why of things, a motive could emerge to explain the crime and help to solve it.

  By the time the medical examiner arrived, Farley had detected a feel for murder and the level of rage it had taken to commit it. Like a bloodhound picking up a scent, his pursuit of the killer could now begin. He stood back and settled into the deadly calm of waiting for the other professionals to attend to their work.

  CHAPTER SIX

  RICHARD SHERWOOD SURVEYED THE STRUCTURES and landscape at the old Purvis McCabe compound like a general assessing his battleground. The construction crew had been working for weeks preparing the set and he wanted to be certain they had followed his instructions to the letter. His screenwriter, Steven Frye, had been there earlier to consult with him. He’d been satisfied that Frye understood his vision for the film and his directorial method.

  Sherwood was not a storyboard director, with every detail of the film outlined before production began. Nonetheless, the true story on which the film was based, would serve as foundation for the dramatized fictionalized version that would unfold during filming. He needed a gifted scriptwriter who could transpose his evolutionary process into dialogue, and there was none better than Frye. He’d taken a risk hiring the man, but he’d been a risk taker since his early days in Hollywood.

  It had taken decades for Sherwood to become a film industry legend, having had an inauspicious beginning as a young extra. He’d spent the first five years under contract lost in the background of low-budget westerns with an endless array of bar-room brawls and gunfights. But they served as a training ground for a man with curiosity, ambition, and intelligence. When his contract ran out, he’d wisely taken a secondary role in a television western, which surprisingly, became an overnight sensation. Until then he had been a handsome guy in a sea of handsome men, but this role had singled him out, revealing a charismatic masculinity that stirred desire in women and won the admiration of men.

  From that point on, Sherwood chose roles that targeted his following, recognizing his limitations and potential for development. He also took risks with diverse projects that expanded his talent and appeal. Against the odds, he eventually took control of his destiny and began to direct his own pictures, beginning with a series of commercially successful crime thrillers. Not content to remain in a genre that elicited little respect from critics, he ventured into the artistic realm of film-making, winning one award after another. A man of continual change and growth, he’d married and divorced with each stage of his career, and now in his fifth decade in the movie business, unattached and facing his mortality, his latest metamorphoses centered on directing an Appalachian rural masterpiece.

  The sensationalized stories written about the Raven Falls murders were a conglomeration of headline grabbing articles and true crime novels. However, one book had caught his attention because of the author’s focus on the mountain culture and wilderness environment as an essential element in understanding the story. Sherwood had envisioned the film while reading the book and could see his characters in every aspect of their appearance, personality, and behavior. He’d hired the best casting director in Hollywood, Joyce Crenshaw, to cast the film.

  The lead actors chosen, Bret Dillon, Megan Murphy, and Buddy Larson, were seasoned professionals. Bret, an exceptionally handsome leading man, had years of experience and the ability to exude both charm and villainy to perfection. The much younger, Megan, had been a star since childhood and could be a royal pain in the neck. Fortunately, she was a gifted talent and a true chameleon, who could embody a character to such an extent she often startled her co-stars. He’d been lucky to get Buddy Larson for the Purvis McCabe role. Larson was one of the best character actors in the business and also hailed from Western North Car
olina. Sherwood believed he would bring an added dimension of authenticity to the part.

  Joyce Crenshaw had held weeks before a casting call at the Serena Events Center. After fulfilling her primary duties, casting the leading and supportive roles, she’d taken special interest in overseeing the auditions for extras. The Events Center, which was located near the Serena Mountain Lodge, had since proven to be an excellent facility for wardrobe fittings and other preparations for the film company, including orientations. The extras were given guidelines regarding their participation, which included proper protocol for mingling with cast and crew. She and her staff kept this process separate from Richard Sherwood’s work on location.

  Sherwood demanded there be no needless distractions. Somehow, he had to make a backwoods world come alive on the screen by capturing the voice and essence of the people who had lived there. He was determined to avoid creating the typical hillbilly caricatures depicted in movies and on TV. He wanted to showcase the ingenuity, independence, and deep-rooted complexities of mountain families who chose to live in clannish seclusion long after most of the surrounding area had adopted modern culture, and how in one such family, things could go so terribly wrong.

  Steven Frye understood completely what Sherwood expected from him. As he read over his notes and added to them, he felt a surge of motivation as ideas began to formulate. He’d been working at his laptop since returning from their meeting. He stopped for a moment and sighed in gratitude, but also felt the familiar pang of fear. He knew from experience that confidence came with success and went with setbacks and failure.

  In reflection, he knew that his emotional fluctuation originated during a childhood riddled with constant upheavals, interspersed with periods of stability. He’d been a boy of sensitive nature, possessing an over-active imagination and a gift for literary thought. His creative talent had formed in the midst of chaos, but became actualized during times of stabilization, setting a pattern for his confidence to come and go like the changing tide. Alcohol had been the great equalizer, until it became part of the problem. Without it, he felt like that boy again, trying desperately to find equilibrium.