Straw Man

by Gerry Boyle

  If they were rational.

  If there was order to their vengeance.

  If there was a limit to their need to even scores.

  If.

  On the cutover road, I passed a Mennonite horse and buggy, saw a family in white shirts, long skirts, white bonnets on the women and girls. Headed for the funeral?

  And then I went right and left, saw another buggy up the road in the direction of the Bishop’s farm. I felt an urge to follow, but I went right, sped down the main road, and then swung off, the tires slinging gravel as I slid onto Welt’s road. I came in from the west, saw Roxanne’s car as I came up the long drive between the maples. The intern Heather’s car was there, too, and a Mini with Pennsylvania plates. Maria?

  Welt’s truck was gone. A goat auction? A wine tasting? A peace conference?

  I pulled in and parked, was tucking the ammo and Glock under the seat when Heather came out of the pole barn, goats trailing behind her. She waved and Maria came out of the barn and tried to shoo the goats back.

  I went over and said, “Hey,” and Heather said, “Hi, Jack,” and Maria smiled. They were pretty as a picture, like Welt recruited out of J.Crew catalogs.

  “Jack, I have an idea,” Heather said. “Sophie’s pony. If you’re going to, you know, be here for a while, why don’t you bring him over. There’s lots of room in the barn, a nice box stall. Horses are social animals, you know. The herding instinct. He’d probably like having all the goats around.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure how long we’ll be here.”

  She kept on.

  “Sophie could get him out on the trails. With someone with her, I mean. Maria and I were out this morning, and we saw these trails out off the north field. There were hoofprints, so people are already riding them.”

  “It’s pretty out there,” Maria put in. “Trails go for miles.”

  I said I’d think about it, asked where the girls were.

  “They went to the corn maze,” Heather said. “The one in Monroe. They have pumpkins and apple picking and cider.”

  “When did they go?”

  “Ten minutes ago. I think Welt thought they needed a break, go in to school later.”

  “The four of them?”

  “Yeah. The girls were excited about a hayride.”

  “Oh, good,” I said.

  The happy family. I smiled.

  They turned back to the goats, Maria telling me to have a good day. Really? I went back to the truck and got my bag. As I walked to the house I looked out at the north pasture, thinking that moving Pokey here would be another nail in the coffin.

  “Over my dead body,” I said, then thought that, yes, it would have to be.

  The house was quiet, flowers on the kitchen table, two empty wine bottles by the sink. I went through to the back and upstairs to our room. There was a note on the neatly made double bed. Roxanne had written, Went with W. and the girls to a hayride place in Monroe. See you around 2.

  No sign off, no Xs and Os. And what about school being the safest place? Well, maybe better to be unpredictable.

  I put the note on the bureau and went back and closed the door. Then I changed into my funeral clothes, left my jeans and shirt folded on the bed. I paused and turned.

  Looked to the closet door. Walked over, hesitated, then yanked it open. It was empty. Of perverts. Just Roxanne’s clothes: a dress, a skirt. Sweaters in a neat stack. Shoes in a row.

  It was like she’d moved in.

  I closed the door, left the room, and walked down the hall. At the top of the stairs, I looked to the end of the ell. There was a window that faced north, across the lawn and gardens and onto the pastures.

  I went and looked out. The field was green scrubby grass, the goats grazing everything short. There was a fringe of woods on the far side, and I could see a marker at a dark break in the trees.

  Trails go for miles, Maria had said.

  Both ways, I thought. And I pictured Welt. The smarmy smile. The peacemonger, never an angry word. But what was he really? Teachers turn out to be molesters. Public do-gooders embezzle from nonprofits. The pillar of the community abuses his wife. Ministers cavort with hookers. Welt, the preacher of nonviolence. What was he underneath?

  I went back and down the stairs and outside. Maria and Heather, in their overalls and wellies, were herding the goats across to the pasture gate. Like a catalog shoot—life in the country, where everyone was beautiful and life was good.

  Unless you got your head blown off.

  I drove out of the long drive, went right, and made my way west, along and then up onto the ridge. At the road to Abram’s farm, I slowed to a stop. Took a long, deep breath and then turned and started in. It was a dirt road and dusty, and the truck left a faint plume. The hayfields were ready for cutting, the flowering grasses showing tan against the green.

  Beyond the fields and the trees the sky was blue with clouds moving fast, west to east. It was a pretty early-fall day, and it made me think of everything Abram was missing. The farm and fields, horses and equipment, his friends and family. Even the grappling with his faith was something powerful and alive. And now he was gone, and I hadn’t saved him.

  As Sergeant Cook had said, I hadn’t been much help at all.

  I approached the long road to the farm, slowed, and turned. I let the truck roll, then barely touched the gas. Ahead of me was the big house where Abram’s family lived, big barns out back. Windmill rotors turned in the breeze and cows raised their heads from the grass and eyed me as I passed.

  The road widened and I came to the house and looked over. There were flowers in boxes on the edge of the big open porch, herbs drying in upside-down sheaves. I kept driving, past an equipment shed, then a paddock where horses leaned over clumps of hay.

  And then the church.

  There were six buggies standing off to the side, horses still hitched. One buggy had a flatbed and it stood by the front steps of the church, awaiting the trip to the cemetery. A boy, barefoot and dressed in black and white and a straw hat, was putting out pails of water for the horses. He looked up at me and I nodded. He put the pail down and stared.

  I parked the truck beyond the church, along the fence. And then I got out and stood on the far side of the drive across from the church and waited.

  There was singing coming from inside the church. I caught the words “My God and I,” something about heavenly plans. I wondered what plans Abram had. I hoped to God they were, in fact, heavenly.

  The singing stopped. I could hear a man’s voice, the Bishop presiding at the funeral of his murdered son, an assignment worthy of Job. He was talking about sin. God’s message. Walking in the light.

  And then there was more singing, the Bishop starting them off. “A heartache here is but a stepping-stone . . . ” And then the congregation joined in, and I lost most of the words, but heard the melody. It was mournful but serene, and I supposed it provided some solace to Abram’s family, gave them something to think about other than the harsh reality—that he’d been bludgeoned, tied to a tree, defaced, and left to die.

  And then they were quiet. There was a shuffling and the two pine doors swung open. Two bearded men in hats stepped out, saw me, and frowned. But they stood on each side of the door as more men followed. They were carrying a pine coffin, and they moved slowly through the door and down two steps. More men followed, then women. The men were grim-faced. The women were crying or fighting back tears.

  And then the Bishop came out with a tall, angular woman who must have been Abram’s mother. She looked exhausted, all cried out. She was holding hands with Miriam, who was sobbing. Behind Miriam came Victor, like he was part of the immediate family, a son-in-law. He looked over at me and glowered.

  I didn’t blame him.

  They proceeded deeper into the compound, past my truck, and then turned through a gate into the pasture, the procession starting to sing as they approached a cemetery plot.

  I followed at a distance, saw the white-painted
rail fence, two or three stone markers. And at the side of the plot, a raw piece of ground, showing red-brown in the grass. Abram’s grave.

  I stayed outside of the gate. The Bishop said a few words, and then there was another song. I caught “Remember, child, I love you,” and something about being alone.

  And then they lowered the coffin in. A shovel was passed and I could hear the sound of earth hitting the wooden box, a hollow sort of whoomp. And then a prayer of some sort, and the sound of sobbing.

  I backed off as the group approached the gate, walked over to my truck. They glanced at me as they swung back toward the church, but the Bishop, the bearded doormen, and Victor veered off and walked in my direction. I waited.

  They formed a line as they got close, the Bishop at the center. When they were eight feet away, they stopped.

  “I want to give you my condolences,” I said. “I didn’t know how else to do that.”

  “I accept your condolences, Mr. McMorrow,” the Bishop said, his voice low and measured. “Please go now.”

  “Just go,” Victor said. “Leave us alone.”

  “I thought a lot of Abram,” I said. “He was a fine young man.”

  The Bishop nodded, his face drawn with grief, held together by his role. The two doormen stared at me stonily. I wondered if they wished their religion would allow them to beat me up and throw me out into the road.

  “You don’t belong here,” Victor said, his voice cracking. “Get out. Get off this property.”

  “I’m going,” I said, and then to the Bishop, “I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care about Abram.”

  “He didn’t need you to care about him,” Victor said. “He didn’t need you for anything. So leave him alone. Do that much at least.”

  I looked at him, his eyes moist with sorrow or rage, or both. And I nodded to them, turned to the truck.

  “Please wait to start your truck until we are back in the church,” the Bishop said. “The sound will disturb the prayer and conversation.”

  Fair enough.

  They walked away without another word, only Victor turning back to glare. And then they went inside. I started the truck and idled past the church, the sheds and the big house, and the cows and horses, all of it gleaming in the noontime sun. The horses lifted their heads from the hay and watched me. Abram and his horses. Abram working the fields with the team. I wondered if they noticed he was gone.

  A gang guy is killed, somebody moves up to take his place. A Mennonite guy is killed, another guy takes the reins.

  I pulled out onto the road and took my phone off the seat. I checked for messages, and there were three. I tapped the numbers and listened as I drove.

  Clair: “Give me a call back. Important.”

  Ramos, from the ATF: “McMorrow. Call me ASAP.”

  Roxanne: “Hope you’re doing okay, as okay as can be.” A pause. “At something like that, I mean. Sad. Anyway, we’re going to stop and get the girls—and us—an ice cream. Won’t be too late. Welt says help yourself to beer or whatever. There’s cheese and prosciutto in the fridge.” Welt in the background: “Not just any prosciutto. It’s San Daniele prosciutto. It’s from northeastern Italy, and it’s almost impossible to get in this country. These friends of mine—”

  The call ended.

  I dialed Clair. He answered. I heard the clank of a wrench.

  “Hoses. Sick of losing fluid on the skidder.”

  “But that’s not why you called.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “Ramos. And Cook. They were here.”

  “What do they want?”

  “You.”

  “Dang,” I said.

  “Dang?”

  “Abram. His worst curse word. I just came from his funeral.”

  “Then I’d start danging like crazy,” Clair said. “They were all business.”

  “I don’t know any more than I’ve already told them,” I said. “They don’t believe that,” Clair said. “They think you know who killed Semi and—”

  “Nub. But I don’t. And Louis doesn’t know, either. I mean—”

  “We don’t know what he knows, Jack. He was gone a lot, out all night. Out in the woods.”

  “You don’t think—”

  “I don’t know what to think. He hasn’t been here. I tried his cabin in Sanctuary. Nobody. Cops went there, too.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said. “He’s got three hundred acres to hide out in.”

  “And he’s good at it.”

  “If they find me—”

  “They bring you in for questioning.”

  “I can’t leave Roxanne,” I said. “Not now.”

  “She won’t be alone,” Clair said. “I’ll be here. And she’s got—”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s not just him. It’s everything else. I feel like it’s all closing in.”

  “That’s because it is, Jack. It is.”

  34

  I went into the house, bounded up the stairs to the bedroom. I put my jeans and T-shirt back on, my old belt and boots. I felt more capable dressed like that, less vulnerable. Which made no sense; but then, all the stuff going on around me made no sense.

  That much was clear.

  I went down the hall, this time made my way to the front of the house. The front hall window looked out on the fields and the driveway, all the way to the road. If Ramos and Cook came back, I’d at least have some warning.

  To collect my thoughts. To leave a note for Roxanne. To tell her to call a good lawyer.

  Dang.

  I grabbed a beer, sat down, and went through everything again, all of it flowing through my mind in a torrent.

  A lawyer, for a trial? It would suck us dry. Charged with kidnapping, a Class A felony? For rousting a gang leader? Was that a crime? But wouldn’t it all go away when they realized I knew nothing more, and neither did Louis?

  Would Slick flip if he’d ordered the hit on Semi and his buddy? Was this his way to deflect suspicion about that? What about Gucci providing Slick’s alibi? Wouldn’t she retract her story?

  And if Slick and G-Block didn’t kill them, who did? I started at the beginning, which seemed like months ago, but was only a week. The gun sellers. Which of them had something to lose if he was connected to moving guns to gangs out of state? Were any of them felons? The weirdo in Bangor selling his father’s shotgun—he had to have a record. Maybe he was on probation; if so, a violation would put him back inside for two or more years.

  But was he crazy enough to whack two guys at point-blank range? Sure, if they couldn’t shoot back. If he could slip into the woods and crawl back under his rock.

  I watched the driveway. Went over the same ground, over and over. I’d tell the cops about the guy in Bangor. I’d tell them about Semi and Abram. I’d tell them again about the party in the woods, Miriam on the video, the gang guy in bed with the woman at Semi’s house.

  I’d lead them right through it from start to finish, not leave out a minute. But would it convince them that I hadn’t killed anybody—that I wasn’t capable of it? Or would it just pin the whole thing on Louis, the hardened combat veteran who, like Clair, had been trained to be a walking, talking lethal weapon?

  That couldn’t happen. Shouldn’t happen. Or should it?

  What had Clair been intimating? That maybe we didn’t know Louis well enough? That maybe we’d pushed him over the edge?

  Louis was interesting. Thoughtful. Intense. But he wasn’t—

  I’d seen him with Slick. The knife at his throat. The way he turned it off once he decided Slick was telling the truth. Like flipping a switch. But did it flip just as easy the other way?

  I watched the driveway. Heard a car start, a diesel, and saw Heather’s VW go down the driveway. Two women in it, Maria, too.

  Another fifteen minutes, almost 1:30. I fingered the cops’ cards. Watched the road. Went through it again and again. Finished the beer. Saw a truck flashing through the trees from the east. Br
ake lights coming on.

  Welt turning in.

  I could see Roxanne in the passenger seat, talking to him as they drove up the drive. They parked by the barn and got out, crossing paths as they passed the back of the truck. Welt reached out and gave Roxanne’s arm a squeeze. She gave him a weary smile.

  They got the girls out of the back. Salandra was asleep, and Welt picked her up and carried her to the house. Roxanne had a bag of apples and Sophie was carrying a squash. Sophie was chattering away and Roxanne turned to her to listen.

  Their world, about to change?

  There were footsteps downstairs, then on the staircase coming up. I was partway down the hall when Welt came up, still carrying Salandra. He saw me, whispered, “A tummy ache,” and eased past me to put Salandra in her room. I went downstairs, came into the kitchen as Roxanne and Sophie did, too.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Daddy,” Sophie said, and she came running, the squash in front of her. “It’s an acorn, because it looks like one. Me and Mommy are going to make a pie. Or we’ll just cook it in the oven. Welt has a good—”

  She turned to her mother.

  “Recipe,” Roxanne said.

  “Recipe,” Sophie said.

  She turned and put the squash on the table.

  “Where’s your truck?” Roxanne said.

  “At the side of the barn.”

  She looked at me.

  “It’s a long story,” I said, and she put the apples on the counter with a resigned expression. Weren’t they all.

  “Salandra got sick,” Roxanne said. “They had candy apples. She threw up at the farm and then she fell asleep on the way home.”

  “Daddy, can we bring Pokey here?” Sophie said. “Heather says he needs a herd.”

  “Of goats?” I said.

  “They’re—”

  Again, looking to her mother.

  “Social animals,” Roxanne said.

  “I don’t know, Sophie,” I said. “Pokey likes his barn. And he gets to see Clair and Mary. And now Louis. He might miss them if he was here, and—”

  “He’d have the goats and Heather and Maria and us guys, and I think he’d like it. I think he misses me.”