Page 22 of The Right to Remain

“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 inHome 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 atonguelike 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’ssupposedto 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.