by Jeff Miller
It seemed to Adelmo that he must be dreaming, because things like this did not really happen. Any second his mother would wake him for school.
The man sighed and shoved Adelmo higher, causing him to flit about in something like a figure eight. “I resent you for the fact that I am doing this.” The man pushed him harder and higher. Maybe if he got his hand free, he could punch him when his body swung back. He turned his wrists, but the rope was too tight to slip them free. “If there weren’t so many of you, this wouldn’t even be an issue. No one would care, except that there’s so goddamn many of you.” He pushed him again.
“I wasn’t even looking for you. I wasn’t even looking for anyone, but there you were, waiting for me. A goddamn waste of my time.” Adelmo heard something clang—the shovel, he thought. The man swung it such that the metal scoop tore into his back. The pain was instant and real, and none of it was a dream.
The man steadied him, and then took the blindfold away from his head. There was a tall, thin man standing across from him, upside down. The man had a pair of gardening shears in his hands. “I think it will take me three squeezes to cut through the rope.”
It only took two. And then Adelmo fell.
CHAPTER 14
In New Bilford, there was a Courtyard by Marriott, a Hampton Inn, a Holiday Inn Express, and a Residence Inn, all within a quarter-mile block. Each of these hotels was less than seven years old and offered clean sheets and hypoallergenic pillows, free hot breakfasts, and Wi-Fi Internet service. Three of the hotels held afternoon cocktail mixers for their business travelers, serving chicken tenders or potato skins. The fourth offered freshly baked cookies with milk every evening in the library. Copies of USA Today were free for the taking. If a guest forgot a toothbrush, the front desk could provide one. All of the televisions were plasma and came with HBO or Showtime. On each nightstand was an alarm clock that could dock and charge an iPhone. Each hotel succeeded terrifically at being relatively comfortable. Dagny wasn’t staying at any of them.
Dagny was staying at the Bilford Motor Inn, which was the only lodging located in downtown Bilford. At least half of the twenty-nine rooms seemed to have been rented as weekly apartments to disheveled and disruptive men. She guessed that most of them had been kicked out of their homes by their wives for various infractions, all substantial. The two other women who seemed to have rented rooms dressed in tattered clothes and were caked in makeup. She assumed they were drug addicts, prostitutes, or both. Because the walls were thin, she had been jarred from sleep several times by yelling and sobbing and moaning from various surrounding quarters.
The motel did not advertise a hot breakfast; it advertised hot water, and even that was a stretch. There were no newspapers for the taking, and the television was not plasma. The alarm clock next to her bed did not charge her iPhone or even sound at 4:00 a.m., as she had set it to do. Thus, it was a call at five that actually woke her. She reached to the nightstand, grabbed her phone, and pulled it close to her face. It was the Professor. She slid her thumb across the screen to answer it. “Thanks for the wake-up call,” she said.
“Time to come home. We’re taking Victor’s case,” he said.
That wasn’t acceptable. “On Wednesday, you said that I had two days to get you bodies.”
“Yes, and you didn’t.”
“It’s only been one day.”
“Wednesday, Thursday. That’s two days.”
“I didn’t get here until yesterday afternoon. Two days is Thursday, Friday. I still have all day today.”
“Wednesday was the first day. Yesterday was your second. It’s over.”
“Absolutely not. That’s not how you count days.”
“That is, in fact, how I count days.”
“Imagine your birthday is tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Imagine that tomorrow is your birthday. Would you say that your birthday is two days away?” When he didn’t answer, she did. “No. No, you would not. You would say it’s one day away.”
“Let’s say you have a penny, and I give you one more penny. Would you agree that you have two cents?” the Professor replied.
“Yes, but—”
“Well, I’m not interested in your two cents. We’re taking Victor’s case.”
“Why? This is so much more important. We can wait another day or two.”
“No, we can’t,” he barked. There was a long silence, and then he said softly, “The Director has ordered us to take Victor’s case.”
“What? How did he even find out about it?”
“Yesterday, I had to brief him on the Benny case, and he demanded to know what we were doing next. I mentioned Victor’s case, and he—”
“Seized upon it?”
“Dollars mean more to him than they do to me.” He paused. “So I need you back in DC immediately.”
After meeting with the families of the missing, she couldn’t skip town. “I have to stay. Sorry.”
There was a long silence, like the prelude to the whistle of a bubbling teapot. “Goddamn it, Dagny. I am your boss, and you are my subordinate. I may not like the Director’s decision, but it has been decided, and I am going to follow his orders, and you are going to follow mine.”
“I stood in front of a room of grieving families last night and promised them my help. There is no way I’m abandoning them.”
“You had absolutely no authority to make any promises to them, and it was completely reckless and heartless—yes, heartless, Dagny—for you to give them such hope.”
“If you had been in the room with them, you’d have done the same.”
“There is a two thirty-five flight from Dayton to DCA—”
“Professor, I’m staying.”
“Dagny, please—”
“I’m sorry, Professor.” She knew she was placing him in a difficult situation. “I won’t budge on this, regardless of the consequences.”
He sighed. “You leave me no choice, Dagny. You are hereby suspended without pay.”
“That’s fair,” she said.
“While you are under suspension, you are not authorized to take any action on behalf of the Bureau. To be clear, you are not acting under color of law.”
“Understood.”
“You will remain under suspension until such time that I have been convinced to reinstate you. A notice shall be placed in your file documenting your insubordination.”
“I would expect no less.”
“And I’m not reimbursing you for any of your receipts.”
“You didn’t last time, either.”
“This is serious, Dagny.”
“I know, Professor. But this thing in Bilford . . . it’s a lot more serious.”
“I’m very angry with you, Dagny.”
“I know.”
“I’m also proud of you.” He hung up.
She roused herself from bed to take as much of a shower as she could stand and thought about what had happened. The Professor had granted her a reprieve in the most Professor way possible. The suspension was real, as was both his anger and admiration. But he was freeing her to continue the investigation. She knew that the job was less important than the work, and so did he.
With respect to the investigation, the suspension was inconvenient but not debilitating. Although verboten, she’d still show her creds as necessary. Getting a warrant or using the crime lab was now out of the question. If she found some bodies, everything would change. With a show of contrition, her suspension would be lifted. The Professor would ignore Victor’s investigation and turn his attention to Bilford. Everything would be right again.
As long as she found some bodies.
It was a wonder, actually, that anyone ever found a body. There were 2.3 billion acres of land in the United States. If someone wanted to hide a body, there were plenty of places to hide it. But most murderers were lazy or stupid, or they wanted to get caught—which was why people found bodies all the time.
The water was too cold and
too murky to let the shower go any further. She shut off the water, grabbed a towel, and dried off.
It was too late for a morning run. She dressed, grabbed her gun and bag, and locked her motel door behind her. Standing on the second-floor landing, she could see the sun peeking out over the treetops. She jogged down the metal steps to the parking lot, climbed into Diego’s car, and started the engine. Back home, her Prius barely hummed when she pushed the “Power” button to start it, but Diego’s Corvette roared. A car ought to feel more like a gun than a computer, she thought. She could get used to the Corvette.
Diego was sitting on his front steps when she pulled up. He smiled at her and climbed into the passenger seat. “Were you able to get any sleep?”
“Enough. Where would I find day laborers?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never hired any.”
“Who would know?”
His blank stare was not encouraging.
“C’mon, Diego. You’ve been here for two years.”
He pulled out his phone. “Let me try Gabino. I think he does that kind of thing.” He dialed the phone and held it to his ear. “Hola, ¿Gabino?” A flurry of Spanish passed between them, and then he hung up the phone. “Fowler Road, off 183. By the large sycamore tree.”
Dagny punched Fowler Road into her phone’s GPS and started on course. “Who’s Gabino?” she asked.
“He’s one of my favorites. Nineteen years old. Graduated with a 4.2 GPA. Has AP credits in calculus, world history, government, English, and more. Brilliant kid.”
“And he’s a day laborer?”
“His mom has lupus. She’s sick all the time, and they don’t have health insurance. He takes care of her and saves what little is left for college.”
“He can’t get a scholarship?”
“There’s only a handful of scholarships available to undocumented kids. And he couldn’t leave his mom, even if he got one.”
“So now he waits next to a tree by the side of the road every morning, hoping someone will hire him to mow a lawn?”
“Except Sunday mornings, when he comes to church. He never misses it.”
“How can he believe in God when this is his life?”
“You don’t believe in God, Dagny?”
“I’m an agnostic Jew.”
“And I’m an atheist priest,” Diego replied. “So we’re not too far apart. But Gabino doesn’t have the luxury of not believing. That’s something only the well-to-do can afford.”
“You’re not exactly living the high life, Diego.” She would have to follow up on his strange confession of atheism later.
“I am completely unburdened, Dagny. There’s not a soul who depends upon me. I am less significant than the butterfly’s wings. If I were to vanish tomorrow, not one thing would change.”
Fowler Road was a gravel road that seemed to stretch between nothing and nothing more. There was, sure enough, a large sycamore tree halfway down the lane, and three young men were standing under it. Each of them scampered down into the ditch along the road when the Corvette came within their view.
Dagny pulled over to the shoulder and turned off the car. “Wait here,” Diego said, and he disappeared into the culvert. Three men was a small crew, and that worried her.
After a minute, he jogged up the hill and motioned for her to get out of the car. “I had to explain why you are here,” he said. She nodded and followed him down into the ditch.
The three young men stood in a tight triangle, with the two meek ones behind the bravest of them. All of them looked younger than she had expected. Teenagers, surely.
“I’m Special Agent Dagny Gray. I’m investigating the disappearance of a number of young men in this area.”
“Father Vega told us,” the boy in front said. “My name is Paco.” He extended his hand, and she shook it. “These guys,” he continued, motioning to his friends, “are Francisco and Romeo.” Both of the boys nodded but did not extend their hands.
“This is where you look for work?”
“Everyone used to hang out in the lot behind Lowe’s or the U-Haul store. But Sheriff Don cleaned those places out and threatened to arrest the store managers if they let us onto the property again. The spot has changed a few times since then, but it’s always next to a public road—we don’t want to get nobody in trouble. This spot is good because people looking to hire know to stop by the tree, and because we can hide in the ditch if we have to. Sheriff Don hasn’t run us off, so we figure he doesn’t know about it yet.”
“Can you get work every day?” Dagny asked.
“No, ma’am. These days, you’re lucky if you get something three days a week. Used to be able to work all seven if you wanted to.” He looked at his watch. “Seven thirty now. We might wait until eight thirty, and if there’s nothing by then, there’s not going to be.”
“How come there are only three of you?”
He shrugged. “A lot of our friends are missing. The rest are scared. About a week ago, I was supposed to be here, but I had to help my mom with an emergency and didn’t come. Everyone who showed up that day is missing. My cousin, Carlos Nuevas, was one of them. I would be missing if I had come.”
“You think they were picked up here?”
“I think someone picked them up and killed the whole lot of them. Nobody heard from any of them after that morning. I heard someone bragged about killing folks on The Hank Frank Show.”
Diego piped in. “On the radio?”
“That’s what I heard. Someone said they were going to kill all of us.”
“When was that?” Dagny asked.
Paco shook his head. “I don’t know, ma’am. I didn’t hear the show. I just heard it happened.” He looked at his friends, but they said nothing.
She made a mental note to visit Hank Frank. “Help me understand, Paco. You believe that a man picked up workers from under this tree and killed them about a week ago. And yet you’re waiting under this tree right now, looking for work. Aren’t you scared?”
“Shitless, ma’am.” He turned to Diego. “Sorry, Father.”
Diego smiled.
“So, why are you here?” Dagny asked.
“We need the work. Times are tough, ma’am. And I have this for protection.” He opened his coat and showed her a gun.
She looked at his friends. “You guys carrying?”
They shook their heads no.
“Paco, I’m glad you’ve got that, and if you meet the guy responsible for all of this, I hope you blast his face off. But as a general rule, don’t show a federal agent that you’re carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” he said.
She reached into her backpack and pulled out her iPad, then ran through the names of those on her list of missing men. Paco offered his best guess as to whom had disappeared with his cousin the week before, and then offered up some additional details about some of the others. None of the information seemed likely to help the investigation, but she took it all down and thanked the men.
When she and Diego started back to the Corvette, one of the other boys shouted, “Excuse me!”
Dagny turned around. “Yes?”
Romeo ran up to her. “I have this friend at school, and he went out last night to meet a girl. This morning, his mother called me to see where he was. I figured he spent the night with the girl, so I told his mom that he had crashed at my house. But he didn’t, and he hasn’t answered his phone, and I tried him a bunch of times.”
“What kind of phone does he have?” she asked.
He seemed puzzled. “An iPhone. Does that matter?”
It did. Finally, a lead. “What’s his name?”
“Adelmo. Adelmo Fox.” She took down Adelmo’s address and Romeo’s cell phone number, and they were off.
Dagny’s phone called out directions, but it could barely keep up with her, as fast as she was driving. “I didn’t realize my car could do this,” Diego said.
“If you’re
going to own a Corvette, you ought to drive it like one,” she said. She knew she had to prepare him for what was coming. “The clock is ticking, so I’m going to be abrupt with Ms. Fox if she’s home. You may have to smooth things over while I do my thing.” She turned the car left, which flung Diego at his window.
“And if she’s not home?” he said.
“Then I’m going to break down the door and find his computer.”
“You think he’s alive?”
“I doubt it. But I think his phone could have some juice left, and that could be the break we need.” She turned a sharp right, causing the tires to squeal. “Do you know Ms. Fox?”
“No.”
“In case she doesn’t speak English, practice your introduction in your head. You’ve got about twenty seconds to explain the situation to her.”
“I’m not sure I fully understand the situation myself.”
“Now you have ten seconds.” She parked the car in front of the Fox house, ran to the front door, and pounded on it. Diego sprinted to catch up.
A heavyset Hispanic woman opened the door. “Ms. Fox?” Dagny said. The woman nodded, and Dagny flashed her creds. “Your son is missing. I need to find him.”
The woman started to cry. “I knew that boy was lying to me when he—”
“Does he have a computer?”
She nodded. “In his room.”
The woman led Dagny upstairs to the boy’s bedroom and opened the door. The walls of the small room were covered in music and football posters. Dirty clothes were piled on the floor. The twin bed was unmade. Stacks of papers were piled on the small desk against the wall. Under one of the stacks was a MacBook. Dagny pushed the papers aside and picked up the laptop.
Under different circumstances, she would have cloned the contents of the laptop in a forensically responsible manner before using it. There was no time for that now. She opened the laptop, clicked on the Safari web browser, and navigated to the history folder. It was empty, which meant he probably didn’t use Safari. She clicked on the icon for the Chrome browser, opened its history, and hit Control F. Typing iCloud returned a number of hits. “Thank God.”
