Straw Man

by Gerry Boyle

  “Know him?” Ramos said.

  I looked more closely, buying time.

  “It’s a yes-or-no question,” O’Day said.

  “I’ve seen him,” I said. “We weren’t formally introduced.”

  “Seen him where?” Ramos said.

  “Here.”

  “Here, where? At your house? In the woods?” O’Day said.

  “How ’bout while you were conducting a home invasion in this very town of Prosperity, Maine?” Ramos said. “Where you abducted a man named Bates Cropley, who goes by the name Semi, as in semiautomatic.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “And the aforesaid home invasion was carried out with loaded firearms, namely a shotgun and an assault-type rifle,” O’Day said.

  “And the other occupants of the house were bound and gagged so as to prevent them from notifying authorities that a crime had taken place,” Ramos said.

  “Where’d you hear all this?” I said.

  Ramos held up the phone.

  “From one Errol Lloyd, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, aka Trigger. Who was arrested on Interstate 95 in Hampton, New Hampshire, this morning, along with Rodman Jones, also of Dorchester, aka, AJ. The two subjects are known to be members of the G-Block gang, a criminal organization that operates in the Dorchester area.”

  O’Day took over.

  “A vehicle, a rented SUV, was stopped by New Hampshire State Police and federal agents. Lloyd and Jones, the occupants of the vehicle, were found to be transporting fourteen firearms and more than six thousand rounds of ammunition. As convicted felons, Lloyd and Jones are prohibited from possessing firearms. They are believed to have purchased or bartered for the guns in Maine, with the intent to bring them to the Boston area for use in criminal activities and/or for resale.”

  “Good bust,” I said.

  “Where’s Semi, McMorrow?” Ramos said.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Where and when did you last see him?” O’Day said.

  “At his house. This morning.”

  “After you took him, you brought him back?” Ramos said.

  I nodded.

  “Was he alive?” Ramos said.

  “Very much,” I said.

  “We went to the house. There was blood,” O’Day said.

  “May have been some bumps and bruises,” I said. “But he was fine.”

  “Why’d you and your buddies grab him?” Ramos said.

  “Long story,” I said.

  “Have to do with guns?” O’Day said.

  “Yes and no,” I said.

  “What’s the yes part?”

  “I figured he’d been buying guns. For the two guys you busted.”

  “Semi was,” Ramos said. “He’s the straw buyer.”

  “Right.”

  “Were you planning on telling anyone about this?” O’Day said.

  “I was going to tell thousands of people,” I said. “When I wrote about it.”

  “And in the meantime, let how many people get killed with those guns?” Ramos said. “Kids and innocent bystanders and babies and ladies on their way to church. Good people, from my neighborhood. Cape Verdeans. Made it all the way here, working their asses off to make it. And some kid shoots them dead. And you know what?”

  “No, what?”

  “Their blood will be on you, McMorrow.”

  “I’m a reporter, not a cop.”

  “I’m having trouble figuring out what the hell you are,” Ramos said. “I know reporters. They call me up a lot. Sometimes I give them something good.”

  “I like to get my stories myself, not have them spoon-fed to me,” I said.

  “That’s not a reporter,” he said. “That’s somebody who associates with and aids and abets criminals. Like the ones polluting neighborhoods just like the one where I grew up. Kids don’t deserve to die.”

  “I agree,” I said.

  “We could lock you the fuck up,” O’Day said.

  Ramos moved and stood directly in front of me. He had his jaw thrust out, in my face. “What’d you do to Semi?” he said. “No more bullshit.”

  “Convinced him not to do something he was maybe planning to do.”

  O’Day stepped in, saying, “Plain English.”

  “He was threatening to hurt a friend of mine. We persuaded him not to.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Ramos said.

  “Me and two friends of mine. Not the one who was threatened.”

  “They have names?” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “You gonna tell us?”

  “Not right now,” I said. “But I will give you a couple of things.”

  They paused. I turned and walked to the house, the two agents hesitating, then catching up. When we got into the house, I heard The Jungle Book on the television. There were footsteps, and Sophie came skidding into the kitchen, an empty bowl in her hand.

  “I need more Cheez-Its,” she said, then looked up. “Please.”

  She stared.

  “Sophie, these are policemen,” I said. “I’m helping them with a case.”

  “Huh,” she said.

  “What are you watching?” O’Day said. “Is that Jungle Book?”

  Sophie nodded.

  “With my friend Salandra,” she said.

  “That’s fun,” O’Day said. “My son likes Jungle Book. Mowgli and all those guys.”

  “And Bagheera,” Sophie said, and then she looked at Ramos, back at O’Day.

  “My mommy doesn’t like guns in the house,” she said.

  O’Day smiled. “We won’t stay long,” he said.

  “If your daddy helps us, we can leave sooner,” Ramos said.

  I handed her the Cheez-Its box and she turned and ran back to the den and Salandra.

  “Cute little girl,” O’Day said.

  “Takes after her mother,” I said.

  I led them to the study. The phone and laptop were in a case on the floor beside my desk. I picked up the case, took the phone and laptop out.

  “There are folders on the laptop: S-N-U-G is guns. S-E-N-Z-I-B is biznes.”

  “Rocket scientist,” Ramos said.

  “And phone numbers on the phone, of course.”

  O’Day took the laptop and phone from me and set them on the desk. He photographed them with his iPhone, then tapped the screen and spoke.

  “Laptop computer and phone received from Jack McMorrow, September 9, 2015, McMorrow residence, Prosperity, Maine.”

  He held the phone out to me, recited the date and time, and said, “Identify yourself, please.”

  I did.

  He asked if I was voluntarily delivering the two items, belonging to one Bates “Semi” Cropley, to the custody of Special Agent Terrence O’Day of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. I said I was. He tapped the screen again and slipped the phone into the pocket of his jeans.

  “Don’t say I never did anything for you,” I said.

  “You haven’t done much,” Ramos said. “Threw us a couple of bones to get us off your back.”

  “There’s a list of the guns on there,” I said. “Price paid, profit made. Numbers he’s been calling, probably to your Dorchester guys.”

  “Maybe it’s your info. Maybe you’re the middleman. Maybe you’re a straw buyer yourself.”

  “Not me.”

  “Okay, but even if you’re not bullshitting us at this second, doesn’t explain your involvement in this case. Rival organization? Falling-out among criminals?”

  “No, it doesn’t explain that.”

  “Gonna claim some sort of reporter’s privilege,” O’Day said, “because this is part of your story?”

  “No,” I said, “because it isn’t.”

  They looked at me.

  “Semi’ll tell us,” Ramos said. “Looking at fifteen years federal time, he’ll spill his guts.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  I smiled, didn’t reply.

&n
bsp; “What the hell kinda game you playing, McMorrow?” Ramos said.

  “No game,” I said.

  “You lying?”

  I didn’t answer.

  They said our conversation wasn’t over, just paused. I said I understood. O’Day told me not to leave the area, and if I did, to call him and tell him my whereabouts. I said nothing. Ramos gave me a hard look. And then they were gone.

  I walked into the den and saw that Salandra and Sophie were on the floor, drawing pictures. The Jungle Book was playing in the background. Sophie, without looking up, said, “Are those men still here?”

  I said they’d left.

  “Are they coming back?” she said.

  “Sometime,” I said.

  “Before supper?”

  “I don’t know, Sophie,” I said.

  “They were mean policemen,” she said, still coloring. “Are they going to take you to jail?”

  “No, honey,” I said. “They’re not going to take me to jail.”

  “Don’t worry, Sophie,” Salandra said. “If your daddy goes to jail, my daddy will marry your mommy. And then we can all live at my house.”

  I bit my tongue. Salandra looked up from her drawing, a black outline of a building with bars on the windows. She smiled, a six-year-old provocateur.

  Sophie reached for the sky-blue crayon, started coloring the space between the green trees and the gray clouds. The sky I’d never see in the slammer.

  “Why did they have guns?” she said.

  “In case bad guys try to shoot at them,” I said.

  “They would shoot them back?”

  “Yes, they might.”

  “Would they shoot at you?”

  “No, honey, because I’m not a bad guy.”

  “Mommy says guns are bad, and you have a gun.”

  “Just sometimes,” I said.

  “Are bad guys going to shoot at you?”

  I smiled. “No, honey,” I said, the lie catching in my throat. “Bad guys aren’t going to shoot at me.”

  “Then why do you have a gun?” Sophie said.

  “You’d make a good reporter,” I said. “You ask good questions.”

  And she was waiting for an answer. Trying to figure out how the world works. Good and bad, Mommy and Daddy—how it all fit together.

  “It’s just that, sometimes you have to stop the bad guys from doing bad things,” I said. “You have to take a stand.”

  “Nobody shoots at my daddy,” Salandra said.

  “No,” I said. “I’m sure they don’t.”

  The girls colored and the movie ended. Then they went upstairs to Sophie’s room and made a tent on the bed and filled it with stuffed animals, like a miniature Noah’s ark. I watched them for a minute, then went down to the kitchen and opened a beer. The Ballantines were gone. I grabbed a Shipyard IPA.

  The gang guys had been busted and the ATF was off my back, for the moment. The video of Miriam was deleted, for the moment. Semi was chastened, for the moment. Clair and Louis were feeling like they’d done the right thing, for the moment. Miriam’s secret was safe and Abram wasn’t in jail, for the moment. Victor and the Bishop thought I was the devil’s spawn, but the Bishop had softened, for the moment. Welt and Roxanne would be giving their presentation shortly, and then Roxanne would come home and Salandra would leave. We’d be a happy family again.

  For the moment.

  I hoisted the bottle and drank quickly, before the moment passed.

  The beer was half gone when there was the faintest of footsteps, and then movement at the sliding door that led out to the deck. I got up from the kitchen table and went and unlocked the door and pulled it open.

  “Hard day at the office?” Clair said.

  I stepped out. Clair had leaned the shotgun against the railing. Beyond the railing, Louis stood by the edge of the garden, the AR-15 cradled in his arms, the dog sniffing the edge of the hosta bed. We moved down the steps and joined him.

  “How you doing?” I said.

  “Fine,” Louis said, and for the first time since I’d met him, he sounded like he meant it.

  “Thanks again for your help this morning,” I said.

  “No problem. Glad to put my meager skills to use.”

  “Just got in under the wire,” I said.

  I told them about the ATF, the bust on the interstate, giving the phone and laptop to O’Day and Ramos.

  “Saw them roll in,” Clair said.

  “Semi’s running now,” Louis said.

  “Unless they’ve caught him,” Clair said.

  “Think he’ll rat out Abram?” I said.

  “Maybe, but not the girl and the video,” Louis said. “Not something you want tagged onto you in prison. Rapist. Only way you can get sex is to have the girl unconscious.”

  We stood, the disturbing image hovering. From the bedroom window we could hear Sophie’s and Salandra’s chatter, a jarring juxtaposition. The dog was finished sniffing and had crouched at Louis’s side. I told them about Billy at the school and they said they’d be glad to do escort duty—just to call. And then they looked at each other.

  “May be time for another session,” Clair said.

  “Overdue,” Louis said.

  “Billy won’t scare like Semi did,” I said.

  “Almost everybody scares eventually,” Clair said. “I’ve seen the ones who don’t, and he isn’t one of them.”

  Another disturbing image.

  We were quiet for a minute. The sky was faded blue, like one of Sophie’s drawings. A pair of mourning doves passed overhead, their wings whistling. They reminded me of the peace project, Welt and Roxanne. Probably getting ready to take the stage. Would he give her hand a good-luck squeeze? A lingering pat on the back? A hug afterward if the board approved? Would she hug him back?

  I shook off the thought, told Clair and Louis I had to make dinner for the girls. They nodded and started for the woods, Louis and the dog going east toward the parking spot, and Clair taking the path toward his barn. I went back inside, put a pan of water on for mac and cheese out of a box.

  No chèvre here.

  From upstairs I could hear the girls’ voices. The water boiled and I dumped in the macaroni, gave it a stir. Watched it as it cooked. It was 7:20; maybe they were mostly through with their presentation. I drained the macaroni and added the cheese, a little more from the fridge. Then I sliced up a zucchini to sauté, put butter in the fry pan. Got out another pan and dropped in four hot dogs.

  The zucchini and hot dogs sizzled. The mac and cheese was warm and ready. I put three plates on the table, went to the bottom of the stairs to call the girls down.

  And heard the siren.

  It was on the main road, the sound wafting over the woods from the ridge to the north and west. The quick whoop-whoop of a state police car, not the slower wail of the sheriff, or the loping trombone of an ambulance.

  I moved to the back of the house, slid open the door to the deck. The sound was getting closer and I felt a chill. I listened as the car approached the turnoff to our road.

  And passed it, continuing on. I stepped out onto the deck and froze, listening hard.

  And heard another siren, another trooper, this one approaching from the east. I was at the edge of the deck now, head cocked sideways, my right ear tilted to the woods. The second car followed the first. And then I heard a third, sheriff’s deputy this time, the sound of the sirens moving fast.

  My chest tightened. Roxanne.

  I trotted to the kitchen, grabbed my phone, and banged Clair’s number.

  “I gotta go,” I said. “There’s cops, troopers, and Sheriffs. I could hear them, headed east, then north.”

  “Where is she?”

  “School. Meeting with the principal.”

  “Secure?”

  “Like a sieve. I should have stayed.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Come and watch Sophie and her friend.”

  “Got it. Call me.”

  “Yup.�
��

  Clair was crossing the back lawn when I ran to the bottom of the stairs. I shouted up, said I had to go out for a minute, but Clair was here. A small Okay from upstairs. I went out the door, started the truck, spun the tires in the gravel, and was gone.

  A minute to the main road, maybe two. I slid to a stop, waited for traffic to pass: a car with kayaks, an empty log truck. And then, coming around the bend fast, blue grille lights flashing, a state police SUV.

  It flashed past, the cop in uniform, gray at the temples.

  “Shit,” I said.

  I pulled out, put the pedal to the floor, and slammed through the gears. The car and the truck had pulled over for the cop and I whipped past them, trying to keep the SUV in sight. He was driving east, toward the center of town. The store. The school. I stayed with him, clenching the wheel as the g-forces pressed me sideways on the first turn.

  And then he feathered the brakes, hit them hard. I slowed, saw him sling the SUV left and out of sight.

  Not the school. Not Roxanne.

  I felt relief sweep through me with a shudder, slowed and turned and followed, drawn like I was attached to the SUV by a rope. I breathed slowly as I ran through the possibilities. A shooting. A very bad car accident. I’d gotten only that far when we reached the next intersection, woods on the right, farm fields across the way. The cop wheeled left, headed west now, lights and siren still on. I rolled through the stop sign and followed, lost sight of him on the hard corners, picked him up on the straightaways.

  And then there were more blue lights, and the SUV slowed. The lights were a sheriff’s deputy, parked on the shoulder, standing by her car. She held her hand out, pointing to her left.

  A back road, the one I took to the Mennonite farms.

  An accident? With horses? Or someone abducted and taken here.

  Roxanne.

  The deputy saw me coming but I was past her, following the SUV before she could hold me up. I was twenty yards back, driving in his dust, when we came over a rise and the roadside was lit up.

  Two blue cruisers. Two pickups with flashers on. Local EMTs.

  The SUV slid to a stop and a big cop slid out. Sergeant at least. He put on his hat and strode into the woods. I parked and followed.