Stories About Corn Read online

  Stories About Corn

  by

  Xesin Ri

  Copyright © 2012 Xesin Ri

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Specifically, the ADD Corporation described does not hold patents on high hydrocarbon corn or any markets shares in such a market as the product does not exist. The ADD Corporation described does not refer to any actual business entity.

  First published: August 2012

  2

  I dedicate this work to the Blue and the Green, who must wait their turns…and without who, I would have nothing to say…Ah, how you have changed over the years…But first, corn, fencing, A Fight, and charisma….

  Table of Contents

  The Third Silo on the Third Night

  Mid-November

  Details, Details, Details…

  The Old World

  Too Far Down Lower Wacker

  Growth: The New Money

  Rein-on-Inn’s Buffet

  His Head Ought to be On Display at the Merchandise Mart

  One Tough Day

  Detasseling

  She’s Not Tentative

  You Spend More Than You Got, You Got Less Than You Spent.

  The year was ~2010.

  The month was not October.

  The Third Silo on the Third Night

  Thomas drove between fifteen-foot high cornstalks as the slowly settling sun baked the road ahead of him.

  Thomas had already driven twenty-five minutes to investigate a crime that was over.

  He yawned trying to keep his eyes open and on the road ahead.

  He’d lost his sunglasses before his shift began. His eyes were already strained to the point he was getting a headache; and even with the pain, he continued trying to focus on license plates, registration stickers, rocks, dirt, roads, alleys and people. People were the worst when it came to eyestrain, they all demanded attention. And people only dial 9-1-1 when they need help or are angry as hell already. And when people saw his dark navy-blue car pull up with the yellow letters spelling out, “SHERIFF,” a lot of them only got louder and angrier about the crime committed against them, or the police “getting up in their business,” or the fact they didn’t know anything about anything, ever. These were generally the same people who needed to be reminded that they had the right to remain silent.

  Yet, here was a nice, interesting mystery, in October no less. He’d have to hide his relish when he got to the site, but he did love when there was a real mystery to be solved, especially when there weren’t any women or children involved, easier to stomach. Shadows could be thrown long by lies and half-truths. Criminals would stand there, acting tough, while you knew they were praying to God or Jesus or Vishnu or whoever for a way out of whatever they’d got themselves into. And some would stand there—on the verge of divulging themselves—wanting that attention so badly, needing repercussions. Certainly, this mystery would lead down a long and interesting road because the criminals had done something very odd and stolen something very valuable—high hydrocarbon corn.

  He’d read the materials about high hydrocarbon corn, also known as h. h. or h. h. corn or high hydro. Supercorn had never had any lasting power for h. h. due to its use for the older genetically modified corn strains. He’d already known a few things before reading up on h. h. Most people in Illinois had because it had been such a dominate news story over the last two years. The land rush and laboratory announcements had altered the American landscape and brought new money into Illinois, Iowa and Indiana, among others. Not unlike alcohol run by bootleggers nearly a century earlier, the cash flowed in with almost no regulations in those first years. The corn, according to the books, was designed to be processed and not eaten—never eaten; and after a long, long process of breeding and direct manipulation of the DNA molecules, several strains of the designer corn were produced and ready for commercial use. The fields were saturated with many minerals and various fertilizers uncommon to farming, and so the plants would actually take up the inexpensive minerals and fertilizers and turn out corn months later with super-high concentrations of hydrocarbons just begging to be manipulated and played with to create new materials, new plastics, and fuel. After minimal processing, a bio-gasoline or bio-diesel liquid fuel was produced, bio- was just added on because of the public’s familiarity with the term; really, it was just plain fuel so similar to gasoline there was no real need to differentiate. In between the harvesting and processing of the powdered corn into the liquid fuel, the plants were ground up and stored in special silos, according to reports some h. h. silos were 1000-ton capacity and others might be 3000-ton. There was talk of larger silos, but the article suggested there wasn’t much use for those since costs of two 3000-ton silos was nearly equal to one of the super-silos. Each pound of h. h. corn powder was estimated to earn six, seven or eight dollars profit at current market prices given from the boys in Chicago, and an increase in profit was predicted over the next few years.

  From the road Thomas could see the remaining silo was not a 1000-ton silo but was a larger and older style silo with around a 3000-ton capacity, probably still filled with h. h. corn powder from Ray Synad’s high hydrocarbon corn farm. Thomas let out a whistle at the size of the thing. “Money, money, money,” he said in the privacy of his car.

  Thomas got out of his car. First, he stretched his legs for a moment, and then he adjusted his belt and checked his weapon to make sure everything was safe and secure.

  Thomas walked over the gravel clearing towards some men at the barn and called out, “Is Ray Synad here? The owner? There was a theft?”

  The men at the barn were armed. They looked more like thugs than farmhands or security guards.

  “Hi there,” said a six-foot four, two hundred sixty-five pound, Caucasian, male wearing jeans and a long-sleeved red denim shirt. “My name is Al Duncan. I run the farm here for Mister Synad. He’s got so many farms and is needed all over the place. He’s over in Peoria, today, but I believe he’s made a full statement to Sheriff Douglas already. I see on your nametag you are—“

  “Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Rightendale,” said Thomas holding out his hand. Mr. Duncan took his hand and shook it, quick and practiced.

  “Good to meet you.”

  “How much do you know about what happened?”

  Mr. Duncan hesitated a moment.

  “Um, why don’t you just go ahead and just start from the beginning.”

  “Sure thing. Let’s walk over to where the silos were.”

  The remaining silo was around two hundred feet tall and made of concrete, fitted with two large steel bands around the top.

  “Quite a sturdy thing, isn’t it?” said Thomas.

  “Sure is, sir. This one used to be used for corn. We weren’t supposed to get our new silos rated for h. h. until two thousand fifteen at the earliest. That schedule is going to change.”

  “How full is it?”

  “Almost there. We’d already harvested the far fields in the west and southwest. That mostly filled up this silo and the first of our small silos, so we were harvesting our southern fields and our southeastern fields next. The second small silo was more than half filled. And so, we came out Tuesday morning to continue grinding the h. h. corn down to powder, larger though, grain almost—that way it can be shipped up to Minneapolis area, out to Peoria, near West Bend and Cedar Rapids—and there was the h. h. corn grinder, and there were the three silos, as always. But all the h. h. corn and all the h. h. corn powder had been taken from the first and second small silos. The first was full. That was a thousand tons of h. h. in it. The second was better than halfway, and Mr. Synad’s people tell me that in the theft was better than
fifteen million dollars.”

  “Where are the silos? Why aren’t they on location?”

  “Someone took the silos too, sir.”

  Thomas looked at the man to see if he was joking. “Are you telling me that thieves took your silos too?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Wait, did the thieves take the two silos on that first night?”

  “No, sir. They took only the corn and the powdered corn the first night. The second night, they took the two silos themselves.”

  “And they were a third as large as this one? And your boss didn’t have them removed?” asked Thomas pointing at the remaining silo.

  “Yes, sir; and no, sir. That’s about right. We aren’t getting new silos built until twenty fifteen. But someone took them. They all looked the same though, gray with a red band at the top and four flood lights pointing down from the very top and four smaller floods at the midway point from the top where there is the second red band. That is our trademark, you know, the double banded silo.”

  “How on earth did they manage that?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Mr. Duncan rubbing his foot around on the ground and looking up at the remaining silo. “It does look like there were trucks over there. See how the path leads away from the circle foundations?”

  “Mr. Duncan, are you expecting me to believe that trucks came one night and then the next night trucks came back and—what?—took the silos down without alerting any security, either night? Millions of dollars of your product was stolen, and no one was guarding the area or the remaining h. h. the next night? Not even a camera?”

  “No, there was a camera. It was up in the third silo.”

  “Can you show me what was on it?”

  “Sheriff Douglas asked that we hold onto that for his arrival. Said something about wanting to see it with you and everyone. Wants you to see the farmhands?”

  “Who was security? Just the camera?”

  No, Jake, Jose and Don were here with me both nights.”

  “Wait, you were here both nights?”

  “I know! I didn’t hear a thing. I dozed off the first night, around one in the morning. We’ll have to check the time cards to see who was walking rounds.”

  Instincts kicked in for Thomas. Nothing was right here. The story was weak. Duncan knew something. Thomas thought of his gun on his hip and the collapsible baton on the other. He could feel the knife strapped to his calf, a knife he wasn’t officially supposed to have. There was the small Taser device too. But Duncan carried a pistol. The three farmhands were also carrying pistols. Back-up was as near or as far as Sheriff Douglas’s car was.

  “I didn’t want to say it to Mr. Synad or the sheriff—but we were a little scared.”

  “Let me ask you first if you and those men can produce your security cards and licenses for those firearms.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Mr. Duncan reaching into his pockets quickly. Thomas’s instincts kicked hard, but he was calm to the world.

  “Why were you scared?” asked Thomas.

  “Lot of money in those silos—in the corn that is. Must have been smart and organized to get things out so fast and quiet.”

  “Maybe paid off one of your farmhands?”

  “Maybe, like I said, smart.”

  Sheriff’s Deputy Rightendale looked over Duncan’s card and license. They looked fine. “I’ll hold onto these until Sheriff Douglas gets here, if that’s okay?”

  “Just fine, sir.”

  “Those other men should all have their cards too.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Duncan.

  “Would you go get them for me? I want to have them all ready for the sheriff when he gets here.”

  “Favor to Mr. Synad, huh?” said Mr. Duncan. Thomas nodded. “I’ll get those cards for you, sir.”

  Mr. Duncan took the cue and started walking back to the farmhands. Thomas went over to the tracks and looked to see if they were deep or not. They weren’t. It looked more like someone backed a truck up to the place the silo had been and then pushed down on the accelerator like a kid mudding with his new truck.

  Around the silo foundation was very little evidence that high hydrocarbon corn had been stored there. Not one ear of h. h. or regular corn lay on the ground. No trace of h. h. powder was there either. The perfect crime apparently included cleaning up after one’s self with vacuums and taking the time to pick up everything despite an armed security force.

  Thomas looked back over at the barn where Al and the rest of the men stood, still waiting on the sheriff. The sun was setting behind the cornstalks, casting thin, long shadows, and leaving a jagged line from where the sunlight still cut between the rows. The shadows and the light played on the ground and on the barn and on the faces of the men who all looked even more suspicious of the copper who’d just like to see if they were carrying legal firearms. If one of them didn’t have a gun legally then Illinois law could be pretty stiff. And a gun license had a man’s name on it, a name that might be run in computers and come back with immigration status, warrants or other discrepancies and issues.

  Thomas looked down at the second silo’s perfectly sheared-off circular foundation and spit on the gravel and then spoke under-his-breath, “Where are you, Sheriff?”

  Thomas walked back to his car and got out his camera. He took some pictures of the silos and tire tracks. He took one good shot of the men as covertly as he could while appearing to fumble with the power button. The shot was sideways, but he got Al and all his men in the picture. He tried to make sure he got a couple more of anything interesting and then took the memory card out, labeled it “Synad 1,” and put it into his left shirt pocket below his nametag. He put another card into the camera and took many more pictures. He wasn’t sure if the men had seen him switch the cards, but he hoped that they hadn’t. He wasn’t sure why he was sure he would need it; but like the knife on his calf, he knew how to be cautious.

  Finally, driving up, slow as chilled honey, Sheriff Douglas arrived on the scene and parked his car far from Thomas but closer to the barn and Al and his men.

  Thomas tossed his camera back into his car and hurried over to greet the sheriff.

  “Sheriff Douglas,” said Thomas before the white dust could settle.

  “Hello, Deputy Rightendale. This is Deputy Reingold.”

  Thomas nodded to the tough-looking deputy and stuck out his hand. The young man had a good handshake and seemed to know how to follow the sheriff’s lead.

  “Hey there, Sheriff,” said Mr. Duncan. “Could I talk with you in private for just a moment?”

  “Sheriff,” said Thomas, “could I speak to you first?”

  “One second, Deputy. Deputy Reingold, would you go over there and see if they’ve got some fresh coffee in their office on the second floor of that barn.”

  The young man nodded. Mr. Duncan pointed the way.

  “You go with him, Deputy Rightendale, in case he gets lost.”

  Al Duncan let out a little laugh. Thomas eyed him and the man turned away.

  Deputy Reingold waited patiently. Thomas looked at the sheriff and Deputy Reingold for an explanation. His mind thought of the gun on his side. This time, he thought of the gun, not out of defense, but out of anger and rage at the knock on his person and his position.

  “Go on. I’ll be fine. Mr. Duncan and I have a few things we need to discuss. If you’re thirsty, get yourself a cup too. I may be a few minutes with Mr. Duncan here.”

  Thomas nodded, turned and followed Deputy Reingold. Just before entering the barn and office complex he muttered, “I ain’t no goddamned horse.”

  Only the other deputy heard; Thomas stared as the guy looked back with surprise at Thomas’s angry tone.

  In the office, making a new pot of coffee, since there was none in the pot already, Deputy Reingold got more talkative.

  “My name’s Austin, by the way.”

  “Thomas.”

  “How long have you been working for the county?”

  “
Few years,” said Thomas looking out the window trying to see if he could figure out what Sheriff Douglas and Mr. Duncan would be talking about.

  “I like Sheriff Douglas. Wish we could have stayed out there and seen what was going on.”

  “Maybe he’s got some plan. Best to follow his lead, I guess. Lot of money in this thing. Just wish he’d have let us in on it a little more. I feel a little useless, and Mr. Duncan out there said some strange things.”

  “Yeah, but it’s something different this thing,” said Austin. “Multimillion dollar plot, odd details, strange witnesses and the owner removing the silos like that. You know I got to say that makes it most difficult. Has a robbery and then goes ahead with his plans to get rid of two of his silos, and still wants us to solve the robbery despite removing—how many clues? Fool move to me. Sheriff said that the owner just needs to keep a business going, but how does that make any sense?”

  Thomas looked back at Austin, confused and concerned.

  “Sounds like the sheriff gave you quite a briefing. Did you hear anything else about the owner taking those silos out of here, like when?”

  “I think Sheriff Douglas said that he told them not to take them after they reported their high hydrocarbon corn powder and ears were stolen off the property the first night, Tuesday morning, I think.”

  “That’s a quick teardown job.”

  “No doubt. Owner’s got a big business though.”

  “Well, that’s how it is being a cop,” said Thomas. “No matter what level you’re at, people don’t listen to you because they think they know better. We yell, ‘stop!’ and they run. We say, ‘pull over’ and they drive on for five more miles. We say, ‘you have the right to remain silent,’ and they clam up. Know what I mean?”

  “Sure I do,” answered Austin.

  Thomas nodded and watched the coffee already beginning to drip into the pot.

  “I remember this one time,” began Austin, “my partner and I were asked to do a traffic stop near Eighty-Eight. Drug tip; standard pull over and hold situation. Don’t spook them was the command we’d gotten. And we had these four kids, teens, they can be the worst, get out of this minivan; told them to just sit tight. The driver was driving erratic, so we talked to him and drew it out to look like just a standard check that the driver wasn’t impaired. Then, for no reason, one of the kids bolts out across the highway. She didn’t get hit, but she was running flat out with highway traffic flying by. My partner goes after her in the car. I stay with the other three. The girl nearly gets hit trying to cross to the other side trying, still, to get away from my partner. He gets her. Turns out: wrong car, bad tip, whatever—total bullshit. My partner and I are there trying to deal with why this girl ran. She had a little marijuana on her. Nothing. Not even anything. Not even felony possession. Stupid. Had she kept quiet and sat there everything would have been fine. Instead, she goes running, thinking we’re going to run her in for that little bit of skunkweed. Nearly gets killed. Even if we were going to bring her in for that, it wasn’t worth running over. Stupid, real stupid.”