Straw Man

by Gerry Boyle

  There were cops at the house, a crime-scene van in the driveway, yellow tape over the doors. Louis was sitting in the front seat of an unmarked car, talking to a detective. I got out of the Jeep and Cook came out of the side door, saw me, and waved me over. Clair watched from the side of his truck.

  We sat in Cook’s car. He was tall and lanky and he had the seat cranked back but his knees still stuck up, like somebody crammed in a basket. He took notes on a yellow legal pad, either shorthand or taking down every fifth word.

  “Where were you today?”

  My turn to hesitate. Louis and his cell-phone towers.

  I wavered, then told him the truth.

  “What sort of discussion?” he said.

  “An animated one,” I said.

  “What did you want to know?”

  “If he killed Abram Snyder.”

  Cook looked up.

  “What did he say?”

  “He denied it. Emphatically. And we believed him.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Louis.”

  A pause, while Cook decided whether he was ready to switch gears. And then he did.

  “So you came home. How did you know someone was in your house?”

  “I could smell him,” I said. “Cigarettes. We don’t smoke.”

  “And then what?”

  I told him the story. The shots from inside the closet. Me returning fire. Louis stepping in and finishing it.

  “I guess there’s a technique,” I said. “He learned it in Iraq.”

  “Acquire some valuable skills in the military,” Cook said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Cook said the police found a backpack under the bed. It contained duct tape, rope, a hunting knife, handcuffs, and a leather hood, and what Cook awkwardly described as “a sex toy.”

  “Wife and daughter okay?”

  “Pretty shook. I haven’t seen them yet. Went to stay with friends.”

  “Pretty darn lucky.”

  “One way to look at it,” I said. “What about Billy?”

  “What about him?” Cook said.

  “Will he make it?”

  “I’m no doctor, but I doubt it.”

  “Good,” I said.

  Cook wanted to talk more about Boston. I asked him if I could go see my wife and daughter first, and we could talk later. He hesitated, then said that was okay. “But we’re not done.”

  As I walked to my truck, Louis was getting out of the cruiser. I fell in beside him and we walked to the driveway. We stopped and I reached out and clasped his shoulder.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “I mean it.”

  “I know you do,” Louis said.

  “He was waiting for Roxanne.”

  Louis looked away, didn’t answer. Then he took a long breath.

  “His luck ran out,” he said softly. “I guess it was meant to be that it was me.”

  “I’m glad you were there,” I said.

  Louis turned to me with the same fixed stare he’d had when we first met. A lost look, the rest of him trapped deep inside. He shrugged, looked away.

  “It’s still a life,” he said.

  29

  The rain had been run off to the east, a ridge of dry, cool air coming in from the northwest. The clouds were still visible, somewhere out over the coast, the sun hanging just above western mountains. It was like it was a new day, Billy gone to hell or prison, Baby Fat way less of a threat on his own. Especially now that he’d seen how it paid to go up against us.

  But I didn’t feel much better. Not yet.

  If Billy died and he’d killed Abram, he’d take that secret to his grave. There would be no justice, except maybe the Bishop’s kind—the eternal lake of fire.

  Screw the fire. I wanted more justice. I wanted it now.

  I thought this as I sped over the back roads to Welt’s farm. The truck bounced over the ruts, jumped the crests. When I got to the farm, I braked and downshifted, half skidded onto the gravel drive. Up ahead I saw Roxanne’s Subaru parked beside Welt’s truck. For a moment it seemed like a premonition, but I parked and, with goats watching me, trotted for the door.

  The entrance was on the side, a big veranda with railings and flowers. I knocked and pulled the screen door open, found myself in a mudroom, wellies lined up against the wall. They had names written on them, Welt and Salandra among them, Roxanne and Sophie on the end.

  I called “Hello, hello,” heard voices deeper in the house. I moved through a door into a big farm kitchen. A young woman—college age, tanned, and blonde, very pretty—was standing on a chair hanging bunches of plants from hooks. Herbs?

  She turned and I said, “I’m Jack. Are Roxanne and Sophie here?”

  “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry about what happened,” she said. “It’s like—oh, my God—so terrible. They’re on the porch.”

  She pointed and I left the kitchen, walked through a big parlor, out onto a screened-in porch on the back of the house. Sophie and Salandra were sitting on the wooden floor playing a board game. Chutes and Ladders. To my right, Welt and Roxanne were sitting on a wicker couch. They were drinking wine. Roxanne looked like she’d been crying. Welt had his hand over hers.

  He jumped up, said, “Jack. So glad you’re here. It’s been”—he searched for the right word—“difficult.”

  Roxanne got up, too, putting the glass down on a metal tea table, moving to me, putting her arms around me. I held her tight and she held me, too, and we stayed that way for a long time, saying nothing. And then we broke apart slightly, and I said, “Thank God you’re okay.”

  And then I heard the sound of bare feet on the decking, turned as Sophie jumped for my arms. I hugged her, too, and then the three of us hugged, and Roxanne started to cry again.

  Sophie slid down and said, “Daddy, there was a bad man in our house, but Louis came and the bad man was hiding and he had a gun and he didn’t know Louis was a soldier and Louis shot the bad man and now he might die.”

  Welt looked down at Sophie sadly. “It’s a terrible thing, honey, but we can learn from it. You know what we said about violence, how it—”

  “Yes, Soph. It just shows that bad things happen to bad people,” I said. “And you don’t have to worry, because Clair and Louis and all of your friends, and Mommy and Daddy—we’re all looking out for you.”

  “And Salandra and Welt,” she said.

  “Right,” I said.

  I turned to Roxanne. She was wiping her eyes with a tissue.

  “Jack,” Welt said, remembering his upbringing. “We just had sandwiches. Panini, with organic wheat bread that this friend of mine bakes over in Waldoboro. And turkey from this farm in Belmont. They’re free-range, no chemicals or artificial enhancers. And my cheese, of course. Are you hungry? Heather can grill up a couple for you.”

  “No, I’m good.”

  “Then can I get you a beer? We have Shipyard, Geary’s, some really good ales from Portland Beer Company. They’re excellent. Won all these international awards. The red ale, it’s—”

  “Sure, anything,” I said.

  Welt hurried off, his Birkenstocks flapping. Salandra called Sophie back to the game, and I took Roxanne’s hand and we moved through the screened doors and down the steps and out into a garden where cascades of fall perennials were blooming, spilling over stone walls, reds and yellows, the colors choreographed to the seasons.

  “You okay?” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “It’s awful,” Roxanne said. “What if I’d walked in there?”

  “You would have smelled him.”

  “But what if I hadn’t? He was waiting for me. And he had ropes and things, and he would have . . . and Sophie. My God . . . ”

  She trailed off.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “He’s gone now. No matter what, he’s not coming back. He’ll never bother you again.”

  “Where were you? I tried to call.”

&n
bsp; “I had to go talk to somebody. In Boston.”

  “Boston? Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you were around here.”

  “It was a last-minute decision. Somebody the police linked to Abram. It’s a long story, but—”

  “If you had been with us and Clair at home, he probably wouldn’t have gotten in,” Roxanne said.

  “I figured you’d be at school. Clair would be here until we got back.”

  “We?”

  “Louis came with me.”

  A pause, and then Roxanne said, “Oh. One of those.”

  Sadness fell over her and I took her hand. She gave me a halfhearted squeeze, her mind somewhere else.

  “Being with Clair—you couldn’t be safer than that,” I said.

  Roxanne walked across the lawn, past the first wave of flowers to a wrought-iron bench. She sat and I sat beside her. She was looking straight ahead, seeing nothing. I waited, felt something building inside her, the words forming.

  “I know you feel responsible for Abram. Or fond of him. Or like you’re the one who has to get even.”

  “It’s not just that. Whoever killed him is still here. Unless it was Billy.”

  “No, Jack. It’s about vengeance and getting even and this idea you have. Clair has. And Louis. The answer to violence is more violence.”

  “That’s not true. I don’t—”

  “I know. I’m thankful that Louis was there. And you. I always am. I’m glad you stopped that man. I am. But where does it end, Jack? This spiral. They start it. You end it. But it doesn’t end, Jack. It just keeps going.”

  “That’s the world we live in,” I said.

  “But it doesn’t have to be.”

  She turned to me, beautiful and sad and terribly discouraged.

  “Look around you. This place. The flowers, the animals, the—I don’t know what you call it—the tranquillity.”

  “But this isn’t reality. Or it’s one reality. The other one is out there, whether you like it or not. You can’t pretend, like Welt does, that—”

  “He’s not pretending, Jack.”

  “But you can’t just let things like Abram dying, Billy coming to hurt you—you can’t let them go unanswered. There have to be consequences.”

  “For them?” Roxanne said. “Or for us? For Sophie?”

  She reached to her eyes and held her hand there and tears slipped from under her fingers. I put my arm around her shoulder and she felt small and tired.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

  She wiped her eyes and pulled herself up. Took a deep breath and said, “We can’t stay there.”

  “I know. I’ll get cleaners to come in. Get another door.”

  “But we can’t sleep there. Not in that room. I mean, how could we now? It was our place, Jack.”

  She broke down, fighting back a sob.

  “It was where we made love. It was where you held me and I held you and we talked and Sophie climbed in bed with us in the middle of the night. It was ours, and the rest of the world—all the horribleness—it couldn’t bother us there. It was the one place.”

  “I know. And it will be that way again.”

  “It won’t be. How can it? That horrible man and the shooting and—the world found us, Jack. The world found us, and it’s all ruined.”

  I held her as she cried, felt the tears wet on my neck.

  “We’ll put it back together,” I said. “We won’t let anybody ruin it.”

  Roxanne sat up and wiped her eyes.

  “Welt said we can stay here. The three of us, I mean.”

  “That’s okay. We can—”

  “He has this big house and it’s just him and the interns. And Salandra is here for Sophie, to take her mind off of it. He really wants to help. To help all of us.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Sounds like your mind’s made up.”

  “It’s the best solution.”

  “For how long?” I said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will you go to school tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Sophie needs normal. And I do, too.”

  “You’ll need stuff from the house,” I said.

  “Can we get in there?” Roxanne said. “Isn’t it, I don’t know, a crime scene?”

  Roxanne was silent during the ride across town. Her face was drawn and pale and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. When we pulled up in front of the house there was a cruiser in front, a state police crime-scene truck parked in the driveway. We got out and walked across the lawn, a trooper rolling out of the car, approaching us with his hands hooked in his belt.

  “I’m sorry, folks. You can’t—”

  “This is our house,” Roxanne said. “We need our clothes. And toothbrushes and makeup. And my hair dryer. And my daughter’s stuffed lamb.”

  The cop said, “Well, I suppose I could talk to—” but Roxanne was already next to him, bending under the tape.

  She collected the things, taking a tote from the kitchen closet and going to the second-floor bathroom. I went to the bedroom door, looked in to see two crime-scene techs packing up. There were adhesive tags on the bullet holes in the closet door and on the far wall where two of Billy’s slugs had ended up. His blood smelled like rancid meat.

  The crime-scene techs stepped out, booties still in place.

  “Will that blood come up?” I said.

  “Floor, yes,” he said. “Carpet’s toast.”

  They padded along the hall and started down the stairs. I looked up to see Roxanne standing at the bathroom door, pale and wide-eyed. I followed, and when I got outside, bent under the yellow tape. We climbed into the truck and she sat beside me and stared straight ahead.

  I started the motor. The seat-belt chime tolled. I waited and it stopped, and Roxanne said, “I don’t know if I can come back here, Jack.”

  “We can decide that later,” I said.

  “I can decide,” she said.

  We drove in silence, the ten minutes feeling like an hour. Roxanne was very still, unseeing. She’d retreated somewhere deep inside her head.

  “You okay?” I said.

  She blinked.

  “It will get better. I promise.”

  She didn’t respond at all.

  I saw three deer, white tails flashing as they crossed the road and bounded into the woods. On the main road, I went right, drove a couple of miles, then slowed for a Mennonite horse and buggy, eased around it, and looked to see if I knew the driver. I didn’t.

  “I wonder when the funeral is,” I said.

  Roxanne said nothing.

  And then we were approaching the entrance to the farm, and I reached across the console and took Roxanne’s hand. A last chance before we entered Weltville. She gave me a limp squeeze and then her hand slipped away.

  I pulled into the yard, parked between Welt’s pickup and the intern’s Volkswagen. Shut off the motor and looked at her. She was already climbing out, reaching behind the seat for her bag. I followed, dreading the night, said, “What do we do now? Sit around and watch TV?”

  “I don’t know about you, Jack,” Roxanne said. “But I’m going to bed.”

  She did, taking Sophie with her to a room on the second floor at the rear of the house. I followed, saw that the room had a double and a single beds, flowers in the vases. Roxanne got Sophie’s nightshirt from the bag, helped her put it on. Sophie got in the twin bed and Roxanne tucked her in. Roxanne kissed her on the cheek, then it was my turn. I leaned down and said, “Love you, pumpkin.”

  “Love you, too, Daddy,” she said.

  I kissed her and she gave me a hug, pulling me down toward her for another kiss. “Don’t you worry,” I said. “Mommy and Daddy are with you.”

  She looked at me.

  “But not all the time,” Sophie said.

  “Yes, all the time,” I said.

  Roxanne had stepped out of her skirt and pulled off her sweater, was slipping a nightgown over her head. A glimpse of
her back, her breasts—I felt an odd shimmer of desire. And then she got into the big bed and pulled the sheet and blanket up under her chin and turned to the wall.

  It was 9:05.

  I stood for a minute, heard Sophie start to snore, the faintest rasping sound. It was the sleep of the innocent. I went to the door, opened it, and stepped out, closing the door behind me.

  The rear section of the house was above the kitchen, and I could hear the intern talking, Welt presumably there and listening. I went around the railing and down the stairs, and when I walked in he was pouring glasses of wine for Heather and another young woman. Welt’s glass was on the wooden harvest table.

  “Jack,” he said, turning, bottle in hand. “This is Maria.”

  Maria—dark curly hair, pretty Latina features—smiled sympathetically, like I was sick.

  “How are you all doing?” she said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “How are they doing?” Welt said.

  “Okay, considering,” I said.

  “Anything you need. Anything at all. Just shout.”

  “Yeah,” Heather said. “Cheese and crackers?”

  “I just made hummus,” Maria said.

  It was awkward. What do you say to somebody who had a sexual predator hiding in his closet? What do you say to someone whose friend just shot the predator dead?

  “I’m going to go back to the house, pick up some stuff, check the pony,” I said. “But thanks anyway.”

  “Jack,” Welt said. “I don’t think violence is ever justified, but I have to tell you, this was as close to an exception as I could ever make.”

  A psychopath sex fiend waiting for my wife, Welt’s latest crush. And it was tough for him to make an exception. He smiled, like he’d gone the extra mile and was proud of himself.

  “I’ll see you in a while,” I said, and I left.

  On the drive back to the house, I realized I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but I wasn’t hungry. The blood. I’d barely slept, but I wasn’t tired. I was wired, a hound back in the pen but ready to hunt. But who?

  Semi on the run. AJ and Trigger in jail. Slick in the clear. Billy, dead or dying. Who did that leave?

  I drove down the road, the light almost gone. A porcupine waggled into the ditch to my right and disappeared. I slowed and peered into the black woods after him but he was gone. The woods were dark and deep, but they weren’t lovely—not tonight.