43
THE DECISION-MAKING process was second- and third-guessed, then mocked. Why hadn’t they waited and made certain they’d actually catch someone before raiding the first tunnel ever discovered along the Canadian border? Why had they forced the Mounties’ hand and left border cops with nobody to apprehend but chemo-ravaged Dirk Hoffman?
Patera argued that the sunken truck tires blew any chance of surprise. Still, the prospect of apprehending smugglers in the act at eleven in the morning seemed bleak. As Agent McAfferty asked Sophie, “What self-respecting douche bag gets to work before noon?”
Dirk professed complete ignorance of the nearly finished, ninety-yard tunnel that stretched from the Damants’ outbuilding just north of Zero to his large shed just south of Boundary. He’d sublet that entire thirty-acre rectangle, he explained repeatedly, to a Ferndale raspberry farmer named Daniel Stickney “Talk to him!”
No drugs were found inside the tunnel or on either side of it. What the Mounties did discover on the Damant side, however, was a barn full of lumber and dirt. The adjoining “party house,” as they called it, was owned by Roland P. Nichols, who apparently didn’t exist. Madeline Rousseau had been spotted there twice, yet under questioning she claimed she’d visited it only to see an acquaintance named Marilyn, who was sharing the house with others. No, she didn’t know her last name or whereabouts, nor was she aware of any tunnel. Her father backed her up, swearing that she’d been living in his guest cottage for the past two months, caring and cooking for him on a daily basis.
This investigation was eclipsed three days later by a raid on a former Molson brewery east of Vancouver, in which seventy-three officers participated in the seizure of an indoor pot farm so huge the Mounties didn’t know how to describe it. “Thousands and thousands of plants” was all they said publicly, “worth tens of millions of dollars.” Nineteen people were arrested, including reputed kingpins Emmanuel “Manny” Pagaduan and Tobias C. Foster. This bust was the culmination of a yearlong undercover investigation, according to the Mounties, who suggested the brewery farm and the border tunnel were part of the same operation.
On the American side, locals marveled at the audacity of such a long four-by-four-foot underground passage, built to last with half-inch plywood, two-by-sixes and rebar. Its architects even thought to wire and vent it, though apparently hadn’t factored in the possibility of a twenty-ton feed truck parking on top of it. If this million-dollar tunnel, as everyone soon called it, had been uncovered a month earlier, Patera might have brokered further investments in northern security; but with nothing to show other than vague conspiracy charges against a Ferndale berry farmer, in effect it weakened his case. No congressional delegation flew out to gawk at this outrage, no budget adjustments were advocated, no editorials called to fortify the border, no Minutemen held vigils. The U.S. media spun it as comic relief, another aside from the border buffoons, especially once one reporter realized the pissed-off but still uncharged Dirk Hoffman was the cancer patient who’d previously set off false radiation alarms.
His guilt or innocence was hard for most locals to ascertain, but his take on things was as clear as ever: WELCOME TO AUSCHWITZ. This greeting looked more out of place the longer it stayed up. The BP accelerated its exodus, and the entire valley quieted as raspberry fields were put to bed, illegal farm workers returned to their homelands and fair-weather residents abandoned their toy ranches. Customs interrogations softened, too, and the few remaining agents grew increasingly reluctant to confront anybody, especially after the immigration-detention centers maxed out. The Princess of Nowhere herself was sent back to Brazil the prior week, once it was finally sorted out that she spoke an oddly accented mix of Portuguese and her native Tupian. Captured illegals were now simply put on the street with the promise they’d leave the country voluntarily. Consequently, arrests amounted to little more than annoying paper shuffles and flimsy agreements. “Catch ’n’ release,” as McAfferty called it.
The border cams—first feared, then ridiculed—were now forgotten. Nineteen-year-old Americans resumed crossing the ditch for the ritual thrill of legal drinking. More Canadians ventured south to buy groceries and gas and awaited the September 10 grand opening of the Lucky Dog Casino just over the line. Bud smuggling slowed down, as if there’d been a cease-fire or the outlaws themselves had lost interest, although a better explanation surfaced in The Economist, which concluded that the rising Canadian dollar had accomplished what the drug czar and Border Patrol and police forces couldn’t.
What lingered was the gossip about Brandon. People obsessed over his Superman-like ability to detect a tunnel where everyone else saw dirt, pavement and a ditch. They shared testimonials of watching him build strange things—could you call them sculptures?—throughout the county.
Sophie finally persuaded even Jeanette Vanderkool to discuss Brandon on camera, but it didn’t go as planned. As soon as she asked about his childhood, Jeanette insisted they change places. Sophie sat in front of the camera, grinning apprehensively.
“Everybody shares themselves with you,” Jeanette said. “Who do you share yourself with?”
“The dead, mostly.” She smiled at her camera. “My first partner kept demanding more distance, then got it. Boom. An aneurysm. We talk a lot. My second one left for a blonde who didn’t ask questions. Died in a convertible two years later. We talk too. And, of course, my father. We did an oral history of World War II together at the V.A.s in every air force town we moved to. I’d do the recording, he’d ask the questions.”
“Who’d you do it for?”
“See, I didn’t realize it, but all those letters from the publishers and TV stations were rejections. It didn’t seem to matter, though. Most people didn’t ask or seem to care who or what it was for. My father was the sort of person people told everything to.”
“Did he die in battle?”
“No. Riding a lawn mower in Houston, when a truck tire bounced down an off-ramp over his fence and killed him instantly.”
“Do you make this stuff up as you go?”
“Who’d make up something like—”
“Well, it’s just such a freak—”
“Freak accidents, in my life, have been the norm. I was hanging up my ice skates when I was fourteen … I was really into skating as a kid. Dreamt of the Olympics and everything. So I was hanging up my skates in this locker when someone asked me a question. I pivoted like this and a skate fell down and the blade slit my wrist.” She raised the scar to the camera. “Took two surgeries to sew the ligaments back together. Everyone thought I’d tried to kill myself. That was the year before I was sleeping in a tent with a friend—an acquaintance, actually—who died instantly when a gum-tree limb fell on her and didn’t even touch me. You want more?”
“Where have you lived?”
“Nineteen different states. You want the cities?”
“What jobs have you had?”
“Stewardess, research librarian, nursing assistant, substitute history teacher, sex instructor, masseuse. Lots of things.”
“You taught sex-ed in the schools?”
“No, I taught groups of women how to get comfortable with their sexuality.”
“You’re serious? You’ve got all these men primping for you, but you’re not sleeping with any of them, are you?”
“Marilyn Monroe once said sex is the opposite of love. I’m afraid there’s some truth to that when it comes to men.”
“Poor thing. You’ve never had a good man, have you?”
“Is Norm a good man?”
“A great man. A wonderful man who worries too much.” A desperate expression washed over her face, as if she’d just lost something. “Did you,” she said, “did you answer my question?”
Sophie ran a pinkie finger around her tight smile. “I’m a lesbian.”
Jeanette paused and tilted her head. “Oh, that is so delightful.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m asking the questions today, Sophie Winslow. So what are you really doing with all this?”
“Dad always said he wanted to do an oral history of now. To do as many interviews as it took in one place and time until the truths rose up. That stuck with me. I’d wonder what it would be like to know what everyone on a plane was thinking at the same time. If you lined all those thoughts up, would it add up to anything? So when this place came to me, it seemed as good an opportunity as any to try, for once, to get my arms around a people and a place and a time. You know, a community time capsule of sorts. I lucked out on the timing, of course, but it took me a while to figure out what my real subject was.”
“And that would be?”
“Your son.”
Jeanette cocked her head as if to shake water from her left ear. “Come again?”
“He’s your son, but he’s our story. He’s not only unique and honorable, but he’s also the only one who’s incapable of …”
“Of what?”
“Of posing. Do you have another half hour, Jeanette?”