Borderline Insanity by Jeff Miller

Author:Jeff Miller [Miller, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503936812
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
Published: 2016-07-05T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

As Diego walked from Beamer’s house to his own, he worked his way down the contacts list on his cell phone, placing calls to members of his congregation. When the first call went unanswered, he didn’t think anything of it. But after more calls went to voice mail, it was obvious that the community was avoiding him. In the end, only one man answered—Juan Sanchez, the car dealer.

“Why won’t anyone else talk with me?” Diego asked.

“Father Vega, we came to you because we thought you’d be discreet. Now there’s a national investigation and news crews roaming the streets. People are scared and angry with you. No one signed up for this.”

“I didn’t sign up for this, either. But what did people think would happen?”

“People thought you’d find these boys and bring them back home.”

“I wish it had been that easy. But this was a mass murder—”

“Which people found out from the news this morning. That’s a rough way to hear about a son or husband.”

Diego knew that was true. “I had no control over that.”

“These families have been through so much loss and pain, and now they all think they’re going to be deported because of you. They’ve been holding out for amnesty, and now they’re going to be kicked out before a bill passes.”

“Juan, again, I don’t have control over these things.”

“You brought that woman here and made everyone trust her.”

“She didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Used to be only the boys were afraid to leave their houses—now everyone’s in hiding.”

“She has nothing to do with that. It’s news because the unsub blew up a silo, not because of anything she did.”

“What’s an unsub?”

“The guy who did this.”

“Is that an FBI term or something?”

“Yes.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re supposed to be a priest, Father Vega. Not a federal agent.”

Diego wanted to argue. He wanted to tell him that he was only acting like an agent because the community had drafted him into an investigation. But he needed Sanchez’s help, not approval. “I need to get everyone together. We have to talk as a community.”

“Not going to happen. People are panicked.”

“All the more reason we need to meet. If we’re going to catch this murderer, we need to work together. We need to share information. People need to help identify bodies.”

“Where do you think this all leads? A trial? Where the nationality of every victim’s family becomes a public record? If they put this man away, even if they put this man to death, do you think the story ends? What will Sheriff Don do? What will ICE do? All of our people settled in Bilford because they wanted to be invisible. Instead, we’ve got news vans setting up camp all over downtown. This is going to be a media circus, probably for months.”

And then there was silence. Juan Sanchez had hung up on him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.