Chapter 6
Jack, Righley, and their ninety-pound golden retriever named Max were on day three without Andie. Jack’s caseload was keeping
him busy, and Righley had the excitement and anticipation of a Friday night sleepover to distract her, so it was obvious who
was missing Andie most.
“I think Max is depressed,” said Righley.
They were on their way to her friend’s house. Righley was in her booster in the back seat. Max lay beside her with his head
resting on her overnight bag. Max hated suitcases. He knew what they meant.
“I think he needs a girlfriend,” Righley added.
Jack wasn’t sure how it had happened, but suddenly Righley was at the age where there was an awful lot of talk about boyfriends
and girlfriends.
“Or maybe just a friend,” said Jack.
Righley was a sleepover veteran, including twice before at her friend Carla’s house, so the drop-off at the Perez residence
was without drama. It was after five o’clock, and even though Max was with him, Jack’s workday was not yet over. He picked
up Theo on his way through Coconut Grove.
“Did you talk to CJ like I asked you to?” Jack asked.
Theo settled into the passenger seat. “Yup. Told him exactly what you told me to say. I’d like to take him up on his offer
to march with him the next time he and Elliott take to the streets, but not if Elliott is about to spill the beans on some
kind of shady operations.”
“What did he say?”
“Said his business is completely aboveboard, nothing to hide.”
“Did he authorize Elliott to give us a tour of the plant?”
“Yes. Apparently, he’s even stupider than he looks. ‘Have a look for yourself,’ he said.”
Jack checked his watch. “Perfect. Elliott said he can meet us at six.”
“What about this guy?” asked Theo, and Max seemed to know who he meant. His paws suddenly appeared on the console, and his
huge blond head was between them at eye level. He was panting with excitement, as if it were a boys’ night out.
“Do you want to be the one to burst Max’s bubble and tell him he can’t come along?” asked Jack.
Theo acquiesced. Jack steered onto the expressway, northbound from downtown Miami.
“What makes you think the grand jury is investigating the business, anyway?” asked Theo.
“It’s a good question. My assumption is that the primary focus of the investigation is Owen Pollard’s death. There’s only
one charge under Florida law that requires a grand jury indictment: first-degree murder.”
“I’m somewhat familiar with the concept,” Theo said with sarcasm.
“That said, just because a charge of first-degree murder requires a grand jury indictment doesn’t mean a prosecutor can’t
empanel a grand jury to bring some other charge.”
“Like what?”
“You’ve met C. J. Vandermeer. Could be anything. But if the state attorney is focused on an employee like Elliott, it makes
me think he’s fishing for something about the business.”
Jack exited the expressway and followed the road west, where countless boxlike buildings formed endless rows, each separated from the next by a narrow alleyway that was barely wide enough for a forklift.
The buildings all looked alike, especially on a Friday evening at sunset, when the garage doors were closed and the roll-down security shutters were in place for the weekend.
As Jack pulled into the parking lot, a row of photocell-controlled streetlights marked the transition from day to night, blinking on one after another.
Elliott met them outside the building. He was immediately in love with Max.
“Oh, you brought me a puppy,” he said, all smiles.
Jack gave Max enough time to make a new best friend, which was all of five seconds, and then Elliott led them around the side
of the building to an entrance marked authorized personnel only. A uniformed security guard unlocked the door and they went inside.
“Is your dog friendly?” the guard asked.
“Yeah, but he’s not,” said Jack, indicating Theo.
The guard laughed.
“He’s not kidding,” Theo said, which wiped the guard’s smile away.
Elliott led them past the employee clock-in station and through a heavy metal door at the end of the hallway. They entered
a cavernous warehouse-like section of the building. It was quiet inside, but Jack imagined it would be noisy and bustling
during business hours. Row after row of metal shelving covered most of the concrete floor space, each shelf holding identical
padlocked boxes. Elliott led them down the nearest row.
“What’s in the footlockers?” asked Jack.
“Guns,” said Elliott. “These first few rows are for firearms collected through voluntary gun-buyback programs. A church or
local police station might pay fifty dollars to anyone who turns in a firearm.”
Jack counted at least a dozen rows in total. “And the rest?”
“The rest are weapons confiscated by law enforcement. They all get shipped here. The first step in the process is to catalog
the inventory, check each unit to make sure there’s no live ammunition, and send the serial number to ATF’s National Tracing
Center to confirm that it’s not needed as evidence in any criminal proceeding.”
“Then what?” asked Jack.
“Follow me.”
Elliott led them through another metal door to a separate section of the plant.
A sign on the wall said that hard hats and ear protection were mandatory.
The necessary gear was hanging on the wall, available for anyone who entered during normal hours of operation.
Elliott grabbed enough equipment for everyone, including ear protection for Max, and then led them around another row of shelves.
A woman was waiting for them on the other side. Elliott introduced her as Sheila.
“Sheila is going to give you a demonstration,” said Elliott.
Sheila was about Elliott’s age, and they appeared to be good friends. Maybe more than friends. Had Righley been there, maybe
she would have asked if they were boyfriend and girlfriend. Whatever Elliott knew about the gun destruction business, it was
Jack’s sense that he’d learned it from Sheila.
“Thanks, Elliott,” she said with a soft southern accent. “The padlocked boxes y’all see on the shelves here are filled with
inventory that has been cataloged and prepped for destruction. We can’t just dump a whole box of inventory into the machine.
Each piece has to be fed into the machine, one at a time.”
She was pointing to the gun destruction machine as she spoke. It was made of cold gray metal and stood almost as tall as Theo.
The front of the machine was open, like a hungry mouth, and it was wide enough to accommodate everything from a basic handgun
to an assault-style rifle or a sniper’s long gun. Jack presumed that the interlocking metal teeth deep inside the opening
were the destructive components. It was oddly scary, like the creepy radiator in the basement that tormented Macaulay Culkin
in Home Alone.
“If y’all are ready to see how that works, please put your ear protection on.”
Jack and Theo put theirs on, and Elliott held a set over Max’s ears. The getup reminded Jack of the Mickey Mouse ears that
Righley used to make her puppy wear.
Sheila flipped the power switch, and the machine kicked on.
Even with the ear protection, the sound of the motor was an annoying whine that was already setting Jack’s teeth on edge.
She took a firearm from the nearest box.
It looked like a Smith & Wesson revolver to Jack, but he was no expert.
She placed the handgun in the opening, and a tonguelike conveyor belt carried it deep inside toward the metal teeth.
The noise level increased as the machine had its meal.
The pieces fell into a container at the base of the machine.
Sheila turned off the machine, and they removed their ear protection.
Jack wasn’t all that impressed. “Okay,” he said. “That’s how it works. So what?”
“That’s how it’s supposed to work,” said Elliott. “Sheila, open that first box on the shelf.”
Sheila unlocked the metal box and opened the lid. “Have a look, gentlemen.”
They stepped closer. The boxes were packed full of hand-sized items made of metal or polymer, each one “gun-shaped” but stripped
down to something far less than an operable pistol or revolver. “Are these gun frames?” asked Jack.
“Exactly,” said Elliott.
“Is that what’s in all these boxes?” Jack asked. “Just frames?”
“That’s right,” said Sheila, saying “right” as if it were a two-syllable word. “That’s the result of the prep process. All
but the frame is salvaged. Barrel, trigger, grip, slide, stock, springs—essentially the entire gun, minus the frame.”
“How is that the destruction of a firearm?” asked Jack.
Sheila shrugged.
“It sounds more like disassembly and recycling,” said Theo.
“That’s the message we sent to Mr. Pollard,” said Elliott.
“You confronted him about this?”
“No. Call us cowards, but neither one of us wanted to lose our job. We sent him an anonymous message so he couldn’t ever deny
that he knew what was going on.”
“Did anything change around here after you sent the message?” Jack asked.
Elliott looked at Sheila, who answered. “No. Nothing changed.”
“How long have you been destroying gun frames—just the frames—and not guns?”
“I’d say it started about six months ago,” said Sheila. “It was just the morning shift at first. Now it’s all day long.”
“Exactly what happens to the salvaged gun parts?” asked Jack.
“We don’t know,” said Elliott. “That’s a whole different segment of the business.”
Theo chimed in. “So, the company gets paid to destroy guns that are seized by police or surrendered in a community buyback
program. They destroy only the frame and then presumably sell the most valuable parts in a secondary market of some sort.
Pollard knew about it and did nothing.”
“Or he tried to do something about it,” Jack said, as he picked up one of the gun frames, thinking. “And ended up dead.”
The silence in the factory was suddenly palpable.
“Is this something I should tell the grand jury, Mr. Swyteck?” asked Elliott.
“Only if I can get the state attorney to grant you immunity from prosecution first.”
“I must be missing something,” said Theo. “Why the hell would CJ open his doors and let us see this?”
“Good question,” Jack said as he tossed the gun frame back into the box with all the others. “Nobody’s that stupid.”