Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(55)

“Yeah, okay, this I want to hear. Then I’ll tell you the truth after that,” Boedecker said as he took another drink.

“Thank you,” Price said to Joe. He had a habit of closing his eyes when he spoke that Joe found unnerving. It was as if Price didn’t want to witness any doubt or confusion in the person he was addressing.

Price said, “ConFab is a good in the world, not an evil. We bring people closer together—people of all creeds, races, religions. Conversations take place on our platform that don’t take place anywhere else. We are the public square of the digital age.

“The novelist Walter Kirn said it best,” Price said. “He said, ‘Twitter sells conflict. Instagram sells envy. Facebook sells you.’ I like to think ConFab doesn’t sell anything. We facilitate conversation. We’ve created a platform where everyone’s voices can be heard no matter who they are. Now, I’m sorry if someone posted something that led to this. I truly am. But what can we do? We can’t censor people. There’s such a thing as a First Amendment in this country. There’s free speech. We have no desire, nor any right, to silence the voices of the people who use our platform.”

Joe nodded. As he did, Price opened his eyes in time to see it.

“So you understand,” Price said.

“Kind of. But why does Earl Thomas want to kill you?”

“I have no idea, other than he apparently doesn’t tolerate opinions that don’t conform with his. At least, that’s my guess.”

During Price’s explanation, Boedecker had stared at him the entire time with his eyes bugged out and his mouth half open. He was obviously enraged. Joe prepared himself to come to Price’s defense if Boedecker suddenly lunged across the table to attack him. Joe was grateful for the rancher’s restraint, but he thought it was very likely the alcohol he’d consumed had slowed his responses.

“Brock?” Joe said. “You disagree?”

“You’re fucking right I disagree,” Boedecker said. He jabbed a greasy finger toward Price. “He’s smooth, but he’s just a West Coast sharpie selling you a bill of goods. Don’t buy it, Joe. Steve-2 here has created an evil thing, which means he’s evil himself. He just don’t see it because he’s blinded by millions of people following him and telling him how great he is while the money pours in. Meanwhile, he’s gathering up data on every user to sell to advertisers and other companies. He thinks he’s God, but he’s just a punk little coder without a sense of right and wrong.”

Joe sat back. He’d never heard Boedecker talk with such passion about anything before.

“Oh, come on,” Price said, waving off the diatribe.

“Since he won’t tell you what this is about, I will,” Boedecker continued. “I heard it straight from Earl last summer while it happened.”

Price turned. “While what happened?”

“Earl’s wife left him a long time ago, but he had a daughter, Sophia. She was his favorite and he didn’t care who knew it, including his sons. He called her ‘Princess.’ She was a senior in high school when ConFab ruined her life. Sophia put a rope around her neck and committed suicide in her bedroom. Earl found her body, and it absolutely wrecked him. He’s never been the same since that day. Steve-2 not only killed Sophia, he killed Earl’s soul along with her. And now he sits here telling us how much fucking good in the world he’s responsible for. It’s bullshit.”

Price closed his eyes and turned his head away from Boedecker as if shutting him off.

“Walk me through it,” Joe said to the rancher. “Your version of it, anyway.”

“It’s Earl’s version, too. And he may be a cantankerous son of a bitch, but he’s not a liar like Steve-2 here.

“Here’s how it went down,” Boedecker said. “Earl has a website for his outfitting business, like everyone does. He updated it last year because he hadn’t made any changes or improvements on it for years. Earl sees the writing on the wall when it comes to hunting—he knows he has to appeal to younger people and women these days. So he got the bright idea to use photos he had of Sophia on his site. You know, to show people even a young girl could come out here and get a trophy.”

Joe didn’t need to urge the man to go on.

“So Earl posts all these shots on his site of Sophia because she used to go on trips with him. Sophia crouching over a dead elk, Sophia looking through binoculars, Sophia smiling at the camera over a dead buck antelope. She was a beautiful blonde, if you never saw her. Gorgeous, with a great smile. Not especially bright, but she loved her daddy and he loved her.”

“What does this have to do with ConFab?” Joe asked. Price continued to look away from Boedecker with his eyes clenched tight.

“Somebody, one of Price’s users, saw the photos on Earl’s site and started posting them to ConFab,” Boedecker said. “Some animal rights nut. You know how it is: some anonymous social justice warrior found the photos on Earl’s site and posted them. Those types love to look down at the little people out here and humiliate them, or worse. Anyone who does anything they don’t agree with is attacked, and a lot of people don’t like or understand hunting. Whoever it was put up all kinds of shitty captions about Sophia, saying she was a mouth-breather, a right-wing gun nut, anything you can imagine. The posts got shared thousands of times by ConFab users, and it wasn’t long before they went viral. Pretty soon, she’s portrayed as a little rich girl who loves killing Bambi. They didn’t care that Sophia was posing with animals killed by Earl’s clients, that she didn’t pull the trigger herself. It didn’t matter by then because the cat was out of the bag. All they knew was that Princess liked to take photos with dead big-game animals.