Borderline Insanity

by Jeff Miller

  “Who’s buying it?”

  The girl looked over to the empty information desk, presumably to make sure it was safe to talk. “We sell a lot to people from Arizona and Alabama. Texas.”

  Diego nodded. “Do you like working here?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you do it, then?”

  “My dad makes me.”

  “Your dad? He’s—”

  “Yep.” She nodded toward the empty information desk. “And she’s my mom.”

  “It’s a real family-owned business here, isn’t it?”

  She shrugged.

  When Mrs. Marigold returned, she was smiling. An officer accompanied her, and he was smiling, too. The tag above his pocket said Deputy Harris. “I’ll take you back to see him,” he said.

  Diego followed Harris down the hallway and around the corner. “Wait in here,” the deputy said, waving Diego into an interrogation room. It was empty save for a small table with two chairs on one side and one on the other. He took the lonely chair. Harris left him.

  Fifteen minutes passed. They were, it seemed, toying with him. Another ten minutes passed. Diego stood and started to pace. If they weren’t going to meet with him, they could just tell him. Five more minutes, and he decided to leave. When he grabbed the doorknob, it wouldn’t turn. He was locked in.

  Diego banged on the door. “Let me out of here!” After a few minutes of that, Harris unlocked and opened the door.

  “Sorry, these things lock automatically. Usually, we’ve got a suspect in here.”

  “I am not a suspect,” Diego said.

  “Of course not,” Harris replied. He was carrying a box, which he set on the table. “The sheriff is ready to see you, but I have to register you first. I’ll need to make a copy of your driver’s license.”

  “Why?”

  “We keep records of all of our visitors.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Diego pulled his wallet from his pocket and handed his license to Harris.

  “I’ll be right back.” Harris left with his license.

  Diego sat down and stared at the box on the table. What was it? He started to lift the top, but Harris opened the door. Diego let the box top drop.

  “Here’s your license,” Harris said. “Now, I need to take your prints.”

  “What?”

  “Fingerprints.” Harris opened the box and pulled out an inkpad and a card. The card had various boxes labeled R. Thumb, R. Index, and the like.

  “This is absurd. You can’t make me give you my fingerprints.”

  “We’re not making you. If you want to talk to the sheriff, give them to us. If you don’t want to talk to the sheriff, you can walk right out that door and drive away.”

  “This is because of my name? Because of my skin?”

  “Standard procedure.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “Then walk out that door,” Harris said.

  Diego weighed his options. To submit would be degrading. To leave would be cowardly. “Fine.”

  He rolled up his sleeves and gave his prints. Harris smiled. “You can see him now.”

  The sheriff’s office was big and deep. Wood-paneled walls were decorated with deer heads and photographs. One picture showed the sheriff with the governor. Another showed him with a senator, and another with Donald Trump, wearing a Make America Great Again hat. A sign on the sheriff’s desk read THE BUCK STOPS HERE. The sheriff sat behind it.

  “Truman fan?” Diego said.

  “I like to drop big bombs,” the sheriff said, and then he laughed. He was a large man, with thick jowls. His hair was mostly gone; the little that remained was cut close to the scalp. His mustache was bushy and brown. He was dressed in uniform: a light-brown shirt with patches and emblems and a dark-brown tie. “Father Rodriguez, I’ve heard much about you. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  “It’s Vega. Father Vega.” Diego guessed that the slight was intentional. “I’ve come to you with a matter of grave concern.”

  “I’m all ears.” Sheriff Don leaned back in his chair and locked his hands behind his head.

  “A dozen or so immigrants have gone missing in the past week or so. I came here to see if you rounded them up.”

  The sheriff leaned forward, opened his desk drawer, and grabbed a pen. “This sounds like a very serious matter. Give me their names.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  The sheriff dropped his pen. “Then I don’t see how I can help you.”

  “None of the people I’m taking about have been posted on your website. My understanding is that everyone you detain is photographed and placed on the website, correct?”

  The sheriff said nothing.

  “Is that correct? If you detained someone, it would be listed on the web?”

  “That is correct.”

  “And you haven’t detained anyone who you haven’t listed?”

  “That is also correct.”

  “And you haven’t turned anyone over to ICE who you haven’t listed?”

  “Mr. Vega, if we catch someone, we post it. I’m the most transparent sheriff in the country.”

  Diego thought for a moment. “Have you found any bodies?”

  “Dead bodies?”

  “Yes. Have you found any dead bodies in the past week or so?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea where a dozen missing men might be?”

  “If these men were from Mexico, I could only hope that they realized the immorality of their occupation of our country and went home.”

  Diego sighed. “I didn’t come here for the show, Sheriff. I came to ask my questions.”

  “Here’s a question for you, Mr. Vega. Where were you born?”

  “I was born in America, just like you.”

  The door to the office slammed open, and a Bilford city police officer stormed in. He was young—late twenties, maybe. “Goddamn it, Sheriff! I will not have any more of your men interfering with city investigations. Next one does, and I’ll throw his ass in jail!” He tore off his hat and threw it to the ground.

  Sheriff Don smiled. “What’s your beef this time?”

  “I spent six months working with a CI to convert him, get him prepped, feeling safe. Finally get him wired for a meeting. He’s a half hour in, and we’re starting to get something, and then twelve armored men with assault rifles break down the door, explode flash grenades, and carry my man away.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Illegals are not welcome in my county, officer.”

  “He’s not a goddamn illegal. He’s here on a visa.”

  “If his paperwork checks out, we’ll let him go.”

  “Jesus Christ!” The officer spun around and noticed Diego. He looked chagrined. “Sorry, Father. I’m just so goddamn mad.”

  “It’s okay,” Diego said.

  The officer turned back to the sheriff. “I’m working a real case. Sexual assault, human trafficking . . . and your bullshit immigration crusade derailed the whole thing.”

  “My bullshit immigration crusade is a matter of federal law and is certified by ICE.”

  “I’ll certify my fist up your ass if anything like this happens again.” The officer stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

  Sheriff Don laughed. “Now, there’s a guy who knows how to tell a joke.”

  “Who was that?” Diego asked.

  “Officer John Beamer. It’s almost cute, isn’t it? The way he thinks he can talk to me like that without any repercussions.”

  Not cute, Diego thought. Admirable.

  CHAPTER 5

  They used to stand in the parking lot of Lowe’s. Contractors, movers, and landscapers would swing by before sunrise and scoop them up by the dozen. Those who weren’t hired would load supplies into cars and trucks for tips. Sometimes they rode home with customers to assist with installations.

  After Sheriff Don was elected, they moved to the lot behind the store, and then, after the raid, to
a spot a mile away, under the shade of a large sycamore tree, next to a gravel road that seemed to go nowhere. Today, there were eleven of them, each shuffling back and forth in his boots, hands lodged in the pockets of his blue jeans. Every twenty minutes or so, a car or truck would turn down the road. They squinted and strained to assess whether each represented opportunity or danger. Most were neither. But when a Bilford County van turned onto the street, they dove into the drainage ditch and waited until it passed.

  Carlos Nuevas checked his iPhone. His brother was scouting out leads for employment and had promised to text him if anything came up. “Nothing yet,” he said to the group. It had been six days of nothing yet. This was bad news for a new husband with a baby on the way. He took the cigarette from his mouth, tossed it on the ground, and twisted it under his heel.

  Carlos knew six of the men from other jobs. The four others were new—both to the group and to the country—lured by a promise of work that was gone. All were younger than Carlos, so he’d become their leader for the day. He was twenty-six.

  A pickup turned down the road. Carlos jogged up from the embankment and shaded his eyes with his hands. The truck passed by him. He turned to the others and shook his head, then checked his phone again.

  The others walked up to join him. One of the new kids asked in Spanish, “This is how it is? Every day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why do we stay?”

  Carlos asked himself that question all the time. About half of the Mexican population had left Bilford County since Sheriff Don was elected. “If we all leave, he wins,” Carlos said.

  The kid gestured toward the empty gravel road. “Isn’t he winning now?”

  Good point, Carlos thought. But if the president would grant everyone amnesty, everything would change. Maybe they were fools for thinking that would happen.

  Another pickup turned onto the road. It slowed as it approached and stopped in front of him. A tall, thin man leaped down from the driver’s seat and walked around the front of the truck. He pulled a case out of the front pocket of his flannel shirt, withdrew a cigarette, and set it in his mouth. Carlos reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter. The thin man nodded, and Carlos flicked a flame under the cigarette.

  “You speak for the group,” the thin man said.

  Carlos nodded.

  “English?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve got a big job. Pay is fifteen dollars an hour, but it’s hard work. Lifting and cleaning. Climbing. Ain’t going to smell good. And I’d need every last one of you.”

  That was good pay. “We can do that. How long?”

  “Week, maybe. Don’t want it to go longer than that.” The thin man tore a University of Kentucky ball cap off his head and wiped his brow. “You all good with heights? Can’t use you if you’re not.”

  Carlos looked around. The men nodded. Carlos hated heights, but he hated missing a week of work more. “It’s no problem.”

  The thin man smiled. His teeth were crooked. “All right, then.” He pointed his thumb to the pickup. “Get in the back.”

  Carlos and the men jumped into the back of the truck. The thin man’s quick turn back onto the road tossed them into one another. He looked back through the window of the cab, smiled at Carlos, and shrugged.

  It was, Carlos thought, a perfect day. Seventy degrees, blue sky, bright sun—the grass still green and lush, the leaves still hanging mostly to the trees. And the air was as clean as it ever was. It was a good day for work. It was a good day for anything.

  They passed Federman’s bakery and the smell of sourdough bread. They passed the abandoned Dieter engine plant and an empty used-car lot. Max’s Bar and Grille, with its ENGLISH ONLY sign in the window. Lefty’s Garage. The thin man took them a long way, down two-lane highways, then smaller roads and then gravel ones. Carlos did not know these roads. The thin man turned the truck onto a dirt path through some woods, and the bumpy terrain jostled the men.

  One of them turned to Carlos and asked, “Where are we going?”

  He shrugged. “To work, I guess.”

  The truck barreled through the woods and into a barren crop field, toward a white-brick farmhouse, a red barn, and a tall silo. “The silo,” Carlos said.

  “What?” asked another.

  “He said we had to be good with heights.”

  The thin man parked the truck next to the silo and hopped down with a small canvas bag in his hand. One by one, the men jumped down from the back of the pickup.

  Carlos studied the silo. Sixty feet tall, at least. A metal ladder ran up its side. There was a dome at the top, and a doorway into the dome. The walls were made of concrete block.

  “This here silo is a monster,” the thin man said. “A hundred tornadoes couldn’t take this down. Two-foot-thick walls, reinforced by steel. Fifteen-foot diameter. They don’t make them like this anymore, but it’s a mess. Ain’t been used in ten years. Water and garbage and who knows what else at the bottom. Stinks like the dickens. I want to get it all cleaned out. Lift the garbage out in bins. Scrub it down real good. Sealant on the floor and sides. Run some lighting in there. This ain’t a working farm, but it’s going to be, and I need to get this silo ready.” He opened the canvas bag and waved it in front of the men. “If you got a phone, drop it in here. I ain’t paying you to make calls. You can check it at lunch, and then get it back at the end of the day.”

  Some of the men pulled out their phones; others looked to Carlos first. No one had ever asked him to surrender his phone on a job before. The thin man stared at him. “If you can’t give up Facebook for the day, this job ain’t for you.”

  Carlos set his iPhone in the bag. Everyone else followed. The thin man put the bag in the back of his pickup, and then walked to the ladder. Grabbing the first rung, he said, “You all can follow me up.”

  “The only entry is from above?” Carlos asked. It didn’t make sense to him. How did they get the grain out?

  “If there’s one at the ground, it’s covered up in concrete block. Once we get it cleaned out, we can figure out where the door used to be, and then blast through somehow.” He looked down at Carlos, who was hesitating. “Let’s go, boys.”

  They started up the ladder. With each rung, the wind seemed to pick up steam. A hundred tornadoes might not take down the silo, but an autumn breeze could knock a Mexican a long way, Carlos thought. He kept climbing, looking neither down nor up but only at the rungs in front of him. At the top, he pulled himself through the door in the silo’s dome. There was a wood-plank floor under the dome and a round hole in the middle of it, five feet across. A rope ladder coiled around a spool wheel attached to the wall. It crossed the floor and dangled down the hole. There was a crank on the side of the spool. Beside the spool was a chair and a small table with a lamp and a notebook. An ax leaned against the wall next to the chair. The place had a stench to it. Something must have died down there, he thought.

  The thin man waited for each of the men to enter the dome. Once they assembled, he began. “There are crates down there with lanterns and shovels waiting for you guys. Empty the crates, and then fill them up with junk. They’ll cable to the ladder, and I’ll crank it up, empty it out the side of the silo, and send it back down again so you can fill it up. We’ll do this all day.”

  Carlos looked down the hole. It was too dark to see anything.

  One of the other men got on his knees and dangled his legs down the hole, settled them upon a rung of the rope ladder, and began to climb down. The rest followed, one by one, except for Carlos.

  “You’re scared of heights, ain’t you?” the thin man said.

  “Huh?” He was still looking down the dark hole through which the other men had descended.

  “Scared?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Well, it’s a forty-minute hike back to the bus station.”

  He couldn’t afford to give up a day of work. He didn’t even have money for the bus ride home.

  One
of the men screamed from the bottom of the silo. “¡Hay cuerpos aquí! ¡Hay cadáveres!” Dead bodies. The other men started to scream, too.

  The thin man backed up to the crank and turned it, spooling up the rope ladder. “Looks like you’re going to miss that bus,” he said.

  It took Carlos a moment to unpack the madness that was unfolding before him. “You’re the devil,” he said to the thin man, charging at him and plowing into his stomach. The thin man let go of the crank, and the rope ladder began to unspool back down the hole.

  Grabbing the ax, the thin man charged at Carlos, swinging at his head. Carlos dove under the blade, barreling into the thin man’s knees, knocking him down again. The rope ladder twitched next to Carlos, and he realized that the men were climbing up it.

  Sitting up, the thin man raised the ax above his head and brought it down on the rope ladder, severing one of the two strands. There was a loud thump, and a scream rose from the hole. One of the men had fallen off the ladder.

  The thin man raised the ax over the remaining strand. Carlos reached for the ax as the thin man swung it, and the ax lodged into Carlos’s left shoulder. He screamed in pain. Blood poured down his arms. He couldn’t move his fingers.

  The thin man brought the ax down on the other strand of the ladder, and the rest of the men fell to the bottom of the silo. Carlos heard their screams above his own.

  “Heights aren’t scary,” the thin man said. “I am.”

  He kicked Carlos in the stomach, and he fell next to the hole. The thin man kicked him again, and Carlos fell in.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Professor’s house was an optical illusion. On the outside, it was a small Tudor bungalow—the most modest home in his tony Arlington neighborhood. Inside, it somehow contained a massive, marvelous study—a thirty-by-thirty room with fifteen-foot ceilings. Screens, blackboards, whiteboards—all descended from the ceiling at a push of a button. Plush dark-blue carpet covered the floors. Two couches faced each other, perpendicular to and in front of the Professor’s oversize desk. A glass coffee table between the couches offered a view of the embroidered FBI seal below it, the presence of which had not been authorized. Dark, rich-wood bookshelves lined each wall from floor to ceiling, even continuing above the doorframe. Sliding ladders enabled retrieval of books at the highest levels. Behind one of the bookshelves was a secret staircase; it led to a basement workroom that extended past the outline of the house to the limits of the yard, if not beyond.