Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth

Author:Deb Olin Unferth [Unferth, Deb Olin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781644451144
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2019-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

When a case went down PR would take over: a tele–press conference, a web page, a video on YouTube, a demand for resignations, a call to the DA, an online petition, a request for donations. The investigator would disappear. Tom would take a break to go hiking. Ula hid out in a motel room and watched TV. Jackson went to see his mother. They’d wait for the next assignment, new location.

They called PR the smile team. The webguy was the spider.

Carol. She’d grown a little weird—weirder (she was plenty weird to start). Her girlfriend had drifted away. She’d gotten a DUI and lost her license. When she saw who it was, she thought, Now what?

Donnie. He was the one who started all that vasectomy business, and it spread through the investigators like a disease. Heather even had her tubes tied, a much more invasive procedure.

Ray. He got his call at the end of the day, as he exited the barn and walked toward his car, muttering. Beyond the dumpsters, the razed fields, the sun dropping into them, the barns across the road burning red. The last time he’d seen Annabelle he’d thrown a chair at the wall and walked out. But he answered.

Ron. He was old guard, X. These youngsters pissed him off. The millennials were crybabies, Gen Z cut corners.

The investigators, their crackups and breakdowns containable, turning on a predictable cycle. Arnoldo, Sahara, Sam, Vince, Rocket, Fred.

The long stories of their demise.

When they finally quit and cut out, as almost all did (or, like Dill, were spit out), they had nothing: blank years on their résumés since what they did was strictly secret, no skills other than to perform jobs they’d spent their lives trying to abolish, alienated family, permanent back trouble. Zac had tremors, Mark PTSD, Liz lingering fears of being caught. When Sinan closed his eyes to sleep he saw behind his eyelids the barns, thousands and thousands of them, a grid stretching around the earth.

Rainey. She was sitting in the bathtub crying when the call came.

Bobby. Crouched on the roof smoking a joint. His phone sounded like a rooster’s morning crow.

She called them all. Hank, Pal, Byrd, Mike. Ham, Hal, Cat, Frond. All the ones who’d quit, all the ones she’d fired, all the ones who’d stayed. Mel, Annie, Rake, Sol. Storm, Paz, Hop, Mic. All the ones who’d drifted away, said they’d come back but hadn’t.

And Zee. He’d done thirty-one investigations in twelve states in six years. He’d changed cars five times, changed his facial hair over and over, changed his accent, legally changed his name twice and changed what he went by so many times he couldn’t count.

One day he would marry Janey Flores, though on the day he got the call he did not know of her existence. His childhood name had been long left behind. He now went by Zee (for Zoro). And while he was still listening to Annabelle’s message, his phone beeped again. It was a text from Trish (née

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