Straw Man

by Gerry Boyle

  “McMorrow,” he said. “Heard of you.”

  “All good, I hope,” I said.

  He didn’t answer.

  I said I had a question. It had to do with posting explicit videos online without the subject’s permission. Sergeant York listened, said, “Hang on.”

  More clicks. I waited. A woman answered, said she was Lieutenant Beck.

  More introductions. I said I’d seen her name in the paper. “Likewise,” the lieutenant said. She didn’t say I deserved a Pulitzer, but she didn’t hang up, either. So I gave my spiel, said I needed to know if it was illegal to post such videos.

  “How old is the victim?”

  “Eighteen,” I said.

  “Then no,” she said. “Unless it’s an ongoing thing, really extreme. Naming the victim, putting her phone number out there. Ex-boyfriend sort of thing. Then you might get in under the stalking law.”

  “Huh,” I said. “What if the threat of posting the video was used to keep someone involved in a criminal activity?”

  “Like blackmail?”

  “Right.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But before we arrest somebody, we need to have some confidence a prosecutor will try the case. That could be an uphill battle.”

  “You wouldn’t arrest that person?”

  “Only if I got a DA or an assistant AG to sign on.”

  “What are the chances of that?”

  “These days?” she said. “Slim.”

  “But it’s wrong.”

  “Who is in the video? What state of mind was she in?”

  “Not really any. She was drunk.”

  She made a game-show buzzing sound.

  “DA may say she probably shouldn’t have put herself in that position to begin with,” the lieutenant said. “You’re an adult and you go and get inebriated and get yourself on video, that’s hard to make a case.”

  “What if the sexual activity wasn’t consensual?” I said.

  “That’s different. But you still have to prove it. Violent sexual assault?”

  “Fondling. Sexual contact.”

  “Getting stronger. But we have 250 cases backlogged. Child porn, you name it. Toddlers. Babies, even. Those cases have a pretty good chance of moving forward, federal or state.”

  “So how long would it take to get to something like this?”

  “This unit? Weeks. Months,” she said. “That’s why we tell people to go to the local PD first.”

  “What would they do?”

  “First thing? Interview the complainant, the victim. Then view the video.”

  Interview Miriam. Deal breaker.

  I thanked Lieutenant Beck and lowered the phone, looked to Clair and Louis.

  “One more call,” I said.

  I tapped the number. It buzzed and I waited for someone to pick up. Finally Belle answered, restaurant chatter in the background.

  “Hey, Belle, it’s Jack,” I said. “Listen. You know this guy Semi. You know where he’s living?”

  Belle said she wasn’t sure, but she’d ask. I heard clatter and muffled voices and then she was back. Semi was living in a house on 220, half a mile south of Hyde Corner. Big ramshackle place. There was an old rusty Cadillac out front in the field, just the roof showing above the grass. You couldn’t miss it.

  I thanked her.

  “Anything for you, dear,” Belle said, and rang off.

  I sat back in my seat, put the phone down. And said, “It’s a go.”

  The rusty Cadillac was barely visible, its peeling roof showing like a swamped boat in a sea of green. There were a few other cars junked out front, a couple of dismantled snowmobiles, too. Semi’s red Chevy pickup was parked by the front door.

  The driveway was two ruts where Semi drove his truck, the exhaust scorching a trail in the grass. The house was a homebuilt place, three stories, torn plastic sheeting hanging in tatters from the lower four feet, a remnant of a past winter. There were sheets over the windows for curtains. The front of the place looked out at the mobile home directly across the road, where a guy on a lawn tractor was mowing.

  Louis drove past once, turned around a half mile up the road, and came back by again. The mower was headed for his back forty. Nobody was stirring at Semi’s, probably sleeping off the party.

  We pulled over and Louis opened the back of the Jeep and came back with two rolls of duct tape and a long lead for the dog. We switched places and I drove. Louis and the dog rode in the back. He said to put the passenger side of the Jeep close to the door. He’d go in first with the dog. The dog would find occupants. If there were more than one, Clair and I would neutralize them until Semi was located. Louis would bring Semi out and put him on the floor of the backseat. Clair would cover the rear.

  “Are we ready?” I asked.

  “You bet your ass,” Louis said.

  Clair said, “Let’s go do the right thing.”

  I slowed when the house came into sight. Pulled off and bounced over the ruts until I came to Semi’s truck, then swung through the tall grass around it and pulled alongside the door. Clair and Louis were out before the Jeep stopped, the dog bounding after Louis.

  The door was locked but Louis hit it once with the butt of the AR and it shuddered open. The dog slipped past, Louis trotting in behind him. I could hear the click of the dog’s nails as we moved down the hallway.

  It was dank inside, smelled of spoiled food and dirty laundry. The place had been chopped up into little rooms and the dog sniffed at the door to each before moving on. There was a kitchen, beer bottles everywhere, then a staircase going up. The dog climbed the stairs in long leaps, Louis running behind him. At the top was another corridor, three doors off of it. The dog plunged into the first. Louis followed, and we heard voices, somebody saying, What the hell?

  Then Clair and I were in the room, one of the Boston guys. Clair put the shotgun on the guy, who put his hands up. The guy had the sheet pulled up over his chest, and he started to reach under it but Clair ripped the sheet back, showing the butt of a handgun sticking out of the side of the bed. I snatched the gun away, popped the clip, and put it in my pocket. I tossed the gun—a Ruger 9 millimeter—onto the floor as Clair kept the shotgun on the guy.

  “Where’s your buddy?” Clair said.

  “I left, he was still partyin’. Musta went home with those other hillbillies,” the guy said.

  I grabbed it, popped the magazine, put it in my pocket.

  “Where’s your buddy?” Clair said.

  “Went home with some hillbilly chick,” the guy said.

  “On the floor on your knees,” Clair said.

  The guy hesitated and Clair motioned to me. I yanked him out of the bed. Clair trained the gun. I taped, the guy saying, “You the motherfucker from the—” before I sealed his lips.

  And then we were down the hallway, the next room empty, growling coming from the third. We moved in, saw Semi on the floor on his belly, the dog crouched on the floor facing him. Louis had the muzzle of the rifle pressed to the back of Semi’s skull.

  “Phone on the floor in the blankets,” Louis said. “Laptop on the bureau by the window.”

  “You can’t do this,” Semi was saying. He turned his head, said, “McMorrow. You fucking crazy? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  Clair reached down, slapped him hard on the ear, wrapped the tape twice around his head. “Watch your language,” he said.

  The dog growled louder.

  Clair did Semi’s wrists while I found the iPhone in the blankets, went to the table and grabbed the laptop.

  And then Clair and Louis yanked Semi to his feet, hustled him out the door and down the corridor. In the bedroom, the guy was still on the floor. We moved past him, down the stairs, Clair and Louis lifting Semi up and dragging his feet.

  I moved ahead of them, cracked the door, and looked out. No traffic on the road, nobody showing. The guy on the lawn tractor had moved behind the mobile home. I opened the door wider and they rammed through and shoved
Semi face-first onto the floor in front of the backseat.

  I got in, put the Jeep in gear. The dog hopped onto the backseat, Louis beside him. Clair climbed into the front passenger seat, doors slammed shut, and I backed around Semi’s truck, into the grass, and out via the ruts to the road.

  Nobody spoke. The dog was bright-eyed, still giving Semi the death stare. A quarter mile north, I swung off, started climbing the hills. Retracing my route from the previous night, I took two rights, drove two miles down, then pulled off into the trees. This time I ran the Jeep up the trail for fifty yards, lurched off into a space in the trees.

  Clair and Louis were out. Louis pulled Semi out by his arms, Semi wincing in pain under the tape, his eyes bulging. And then we started to walk, the dog coursing in front of us. When Semi stumbled, his socks tearing on rocks and roots, Louis yanked him upright. Nobody spoke until we came to the clearing, the ashes of the bonfire cold, the grass littered with bottles and cans.

  “I guess it’s true,” I said. “Criminals do return to the scene of the crime.”

  Clair handed me the shotgun. There was a milk crate upended by the remains of the fire and he flipped it upright. Louis forced Semi down onto it, then told him to cross his legs. Semi looked at him, started to shake his head. Louis kicked Semi’s legs into the crossed position so he couldn’t leap to his feet, then reached down and ripped the tape off Semi’s mouth.

  “Yowww,” Semi howled. “You are all so dead. Do you know who that was in the house? Have you heard of G-Block? Fuckin’ A, they’re gonna—”

  A slap across the face from Clair rocked Semi to the side. When he rocked back up, Clair grasped Semi’s jaw in his big hand and squeezed.

  “We ask. You answer. Got it?”

  Semi glared.

  “The video of the girl,” Clair said. “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know shit about—”

  Clair swung again, a backhand, and Semi’s head rocked the other way and back. I held out the phone.

  “What’s the number to unlock it?” I said.

  “That’s not even my phone,” Semi said. “That could be—”

  Another smack from Clair and Semi’s nose started to bleed, a red rivulet across his lips and down his unshaven chin.

  “Twenty fourteen,” he said.

  I tapped the numbers and the phone unlocked. I went to photos, scrolled down. Drunk guys aping for the camera, white wannabe gangsters making gang signs. People leaning on pickups.

  And then Miriam, hands pulling at her tank top.

  I tapped the screen shot, and the video started to play. I turned up the volume. Semi’s voice: “Yeah, dude. Let’s see what she’s got.” Another voice, “Whoa, look at those nice little perkies.”

  The guy leaned into the shot, cupping Miriam’s breast in his hand. The camera moved up and focused on her face, her eyes half open, unfocused. Semi kept up his narration. “I think she likes it, the Amish girl. Probably doesn’t get any at home on the farm.”

  It continued, got worse. When I finally stopped the video, Clair and Louis were grim faced, solemn.

  Semi looked at them, then at me. He managed a bloody grin.

  “Hey, we were just fooling around. It’s not like we hurt the girl. Just felt her up. She was so drunk, she probably doesn’t even remember it. I don’t see—”

  The punch came fast, a left jab that knocked Semi over backwards. Clair stood while Louis propped him back up. Blood was running out of his mouth and he looked groggy.

  “Where are the other copies of this?” Clair said.

  “There ain’t any,” Semi said. “Just that one.”

  “Not on the laptop?” I said.

  He shook his head.

  I flipped the screen open, said, “Password.”

  He hesitated, then looked at Clair and said, “Colt underscore forty-five.”

  I typed it in and the screen flickered. A picture of his pickup, lathered in mud.

  “Not on there?” Clair said.

  “No, I told you,” Semi said.

  Clair nodded to Louis, who reached for his belt, took a combination tool out of its sheath. He flipped the knife open.

  “Fair enough,” Clair said. “But if we find it, we cut off one of your fingers.”

  “You freakin’ crazy. You can’t—”

  Louis moved to the other side of the fire pit and picked up a stump. He brought it to Semi’s side and thumped it down. Then he reached behind Semi and slashed the tape. Yanked Semi’s arm out by the wrist and slapped his hand down onto the stump. Put the serrated blade to Semi’s little finger and started to saw.

  “No,” Semi screamed.

  Louis stopped.

  “I downloaded it. Onto iPhoto.”

  “Who else did you send it to?” Clair said.

  “Nobody. Just me. I’m the only one that has it.”

  Louis started cutting, blood beading along the blade.

  “No,” Semi screamed. “I swear.”

  Louis stopped.

  “What’s your Gmail password?”

  “Mudneck. One word.”

  I typed it in, opened his e-mail. Jokes and junk. I went to Sent Mail, scrolled through. Nothing recent with a video attached.

  “You’re telling me you took this and downloaded it to this machine. So it only exists on your phone and this laptop?”

  “Yeah. That’s right. I mean, it was late, dude. I’d been drinking for, like, six hours. I was beat.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Clair said. He nodded to Louis, who started to cut again.

  Semi shrieked. “But it’s true. I didn’t send it to anybody.”

  “You posted it online,” Clair said. “Some porn site.”

  “No,” Semi said. “No, I didn’t. I just said I would. I mean, I’ve barely looked at the website, all these gross old people and shit. Billy, he’s the one into that. Me, it was just leverage, you know? If I actually did it, I wouldn’t have the leverage anymore, so why the hell would I do that? Not if Amish was still in. I mean, when he saw his sister, no way was he gonna not do what I said. But if he’s got nothing to lose, then—”

  Clair hit him again, a right this time, knocking him off the crate onto the ground. Louis yanked him back up and shoved him down. There were dirt and leaves stuck to the blood.

  “That was for Miriam,” Clair said. “What you put her through.”

  “What is wrong with you people?” Semi shrieked. “Wasn’t like we raped her or nothin’.”

  I braced for it, the sound of the blow. It came, harder than the others, knocked him onto his back. Louis put him back upright. Semi looked woozy now, concussed. Clair leaned close, looked Semi in the eyes.

  “I think you’re lying,” he said.

  Semi roused, his eyes widened.

  “No, I’m telling the truth,” he said. “I swear.”

  “To who,” I said. “God?”

  “The gun,” Clair said.

  “No,” Semi said.

  I handed him the shotgun. Louis pulled the tape roll from his sweatshirt pocket, tore off a piece, and did up Semi’s wrists again. Clair nodded toward Semi’s legs and Louis kicked them out.

  “Number-four buckshot,” he said. “Some shooters prefer double-aught at very close range but I always figure you need a little bit of spread. Not that it matters here.”

  He put the muzzle of the gun on the instep of Semi’s left foot.

  “No,” Semi screamed.

  “Who else was filming this?” Louis said.

  “Nobody. They were just in it. Just the three of us in the woods there. Really. Everybody else was out by the fire, at the party.”

  Clair racked a shell in the chamber.

  “Last chance,” he said.

  “No,” Semi screamed again. “I swear. I didn’t even have the idea until I saw how out of it she was, and Amish trying to back out and all. Those guys didn’t know anything until I showed her to them. They didn’t even have their phones out.”

  “No sel
fies with the naked Amish girl?” Louis said.

  “No, I swear to God.”

  Clair shook his head.

  “Way up here, you’ll probably bleed out,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “My God, I’m telling you everything. I swear it. No. Please don’t.”

  And Semi started to cry, a whimper at first, and then racking hard sobs.

  It was sickening, and I gritted my teeth. Clair and Louis looked unaffected, Clair lifting the gun barrel up and then jamming it back down onto Semi’s foot. He blubbered, tears running down his cheeks, mixing with the blood, turning it pink.

  The gun still in place, Clair said, “You have sisters?”

  “Two,” Semi said. “Step.”

  “How would you like it, some guys got them drunk, stripped their clothes off, and molested them? And took pictures of the whole sordid, disgusting episode.”

  Semi shook his head. “I wouldn’t,” he said.

  “Ever heard of the Golden Rule?”

  Semi looked puzzled and then nodded desperately. “Sure. It’s like, do unto others like they would like you to do unto them back?”

  “Very good,” Clair said. “Now if you’d lived by that, look at all the trouble you would have saved yourself. Am I right?”

  Semi nodded, blood and tears dripping off his chin. And Clair moved the gun barrel six inches left and fired.

  The boom reverberated and Semi screamed like he’d been shot. And then the boom echoed away, the dust settled around the crater in the ground, and Semi’s scream lapsed into sobs.

  Clair looked at Louis.

  “We’re done,” he said.

  Louis said, “He’s spent.”

  “Then let’s go,” I said.

  So we did, the four of us and the dog.

  Semi stared straight ahead, the blood drying on his face and hands. Nobody talked until we were approaching his house and I slowed and the Jeep rattled onto the gravel shoulder and came to a stop. Clair got out and opened the left passenger door and leaned in. He snatched a fistful of Semi’s T-shirt and yanked him up straight so their faces were six inches apart.