Jessica loved going to work. She’d been promoted into one of the Field Auditor roles the IRS had created recently. She was a hunter, chasing down overdepreciated, undervalued assets. The role had come with a raise, a gun, and - best of all - a desk in the local Field Office.
The office was housed in a beautiful, glassy new building in downtown Springfield, Missouri. It was the only new building there. It stood out from the drab brick and concrete of bygone eras, regal and singular. It was Jessica’s sanctuary.
Doing the actual work, she felt empowered and important. She set aside the stress of single parenthood. She put aside the nagging questions about academics, the concerns about medications, the guilt about discipline. She put it all aside and took charge. Her inventories were meticulous. Her forms were perfectly compliant. She knew every bit of the bureaucratic machinery and she could make it sing.
It was Friday and she was almost done wrapping up a site audit. She just had to finish the paperwork. She opened her laptop and skimmed through the forms.
The audit was for Tom and Mary Leifheimer, florists. In the last ten years, they’d never grossed half of Jessica’s salary. They had four kids and a terrible audit. Tom had cried when Jessica had reviewed the report with them.
Jessica felt a strange mix of sympathy and disdain. Some people really would be better off with a bit more government. The Leifheimers certainly should have had someone else doing their family planning, their budgeting, and their books.
Oh well, it was out of her hands now. All she could do was write the site audit. The site audit would be put into their file. The audit lead would read the file and write a report. The report would go to the settlement board. The settlement board would ask for payment. Of course, there would be no way the mousy family could make the full payment. So the payment order would go to the valuation committee. The valuation committee would offset the assets Jessica had found against their liabilities. They’d forward that to the asset recovery task force who would send an order of seizure to the sheriff’s office. Jessica sighed. “Nothing personal, Tom.” She clicked “Submit” and rolled back from the desk. Time for lunch already.
The mood in the break room at lunch was bubbly.
“Hey, Sour, how’s it going?” Jessica’s boss Nick sat down next to her. He’d gone through the handgun qualification course with her and given her the nickname after she’d asked the instructor “six sour whats?”
“Good,” she answered. “Have you seen Marquis around at all this week?”
“No. Haven’t heard from him since Wednesday. Which is odd. Normally he’s pretty good about at least calling in. I called him a few times too, but didn’t get an answer. Wondering if I should have the police check on him. Guess I’ll see if he shows up Monday.”
“Hm, I hope he shows up. I need to ask him a question about how to log accelerated depreciation on the updated inventory form.”
They finished lunch and coasted through an afternoon of answering emails. Jessica glanced at the next case - a restaurant. Again. Oh well, sometimes it was still fun just to be in the field. She’d dig into the details next week. By four, Jessica was in her car, on the way home.
The weekend came and went. Soon it was Monday again and Jessica was back, ready to wave off her colleagues’ Garfield-esque complaints.
But the mood was different today. No one was making quips about how fast the weekend went by. Marquis was still not at his desk. An oddly vague meeting was on the calendar for 10.30 am in the big conference room.
As Jessica filed into the meeting room with everyone else, she saw Nick up front with a man she didn’t recognize. A bookish, wiry fellow in polo that was a size too large for him.
Nick started the meeting.
“So, as you all know, your safety is, uh, our top priority. Nothing is more important than taking care of our people, so, uh, to that end, I want to introduce Agent Wu from the FBI.”
Somehow, Wu seemed shorter when he stood up instead of taller. He had an accent.
“Thank you, Mike.” Nick winced. Wu didn’t notice. “I’m here today to let you know that we are investigating several crimes across the country against IRS agents. I do not want to alarm anyone, but we do believe these may be connected. I am here today to ask you for two things. One: pay attention. If you see anything suspicious, please let us know immediately. Two: please do not discuss what you see with your colleagues. We have reason to believe there may be inside actors involved.”
The staff sat numbly while Wu droned through some terribly obvious things to look for. Finally, he opened it up for questions.
“Has anyone in our office been impacted?”
“I can’t comment on specific cases.”
“Why isn’t this in the news?”
“Our media partners have agreed not to publicize attacks to minimize risk of copycats.”
“Is the threat domestic or foreign?”
“No comment.”
“Is this related to the data breach two years ago?”
“I can’t comment.”
“They have our data?”
“No comment.”
The noise level in the room was rising. Nick stepped in to calm everyone down.
“People, people. Don’t lose your heads. We’re talking about a very small number of incidents. Agent Wu is here as a precaution. You can rest assured that we will be taking all necessary steps to protect you and this office. If you need to, take a half day. Take the afternoon off and catch your breath.”
Jessica stuck it out, but she didn’t get much done. As the week went on, she tried to get back into her groove and focus on the restaurant site audit, but a string of safety emails unnerved her. They tried too hard to be unalarming.
“Springfield Safety Briefing - Nighttime Home Security”
“Springfield Safety Briefing - Stop Signs”
“Springfield Safety Briefing - If You’re Being Followed”
A restaurant employee startled her in a walk-in freezer. Jessica’s hand went to her holster. She saw the girls’ eyes open wide and apologized profusely.
She finished that audit, but she didn’t feel like it was her best work. The emails kept coming.
“Springfield Safety Briefing - Safe Parking”
“Springfield Safety Briefing - Situational Awareness”
Jessica asked Nick if everything was actually safe. He gave her an evasive answer and asked where her son went to school. “Oh, good, they have a cop on duty there, right?”
Soon there were extra cops in the lobby or standing behind the bollards at the entrance to the Field Office too. Somehow no one was comforted.
“Springfield Safety Briefing - Partner Program Announcement”
Field Auditors were assigned partners. They were no longer supposed to go anywhere in uniform alone.
Jessica didn’t exactly like her partner, Pranit. He was coarse and slovenly. He had a habit of leaving crumbs on her desk and in her car and he looked her up and down in a way that made her very uncomfortable. But when she got home after dark and almost hit a pedestrian walking by in front of her house, she wished he was there.
Jessica wasn’t the only agent feeling the strain. The office culture had shifted notably. Gone was the sense of easy supremacy. Quite a few agents were gone too. Most had kept a sense of professionalism about them and turned in notice, but a few had just plain stopped coming in. The “disappearances” fueled a cycle of illicit rumors. Awful stories from conspiracy websites made the rounds. Nobody would ever admit to taking that trash seriously, but phrases like “cellular jammer” and “complex ambush” worked themselves into the staff psyches anyway.
On top of the security worries, the load of regular work was piling up on fewer and fewer desks and the brass weren’t interested in cutting anyone a break.
Pranit got “sick” and stayed that way.
“Springfield Safety Briefing - Minimizing Recreational Risk”
Jessica stayed in the game. Work wasn’t the refuge it had been once, but then, nothing was. She stuck it out as long as she could. What was the alternative? Take the boy and ask her parents for a room? She decided she’d rather die. Literally.
Even still, her patience had limits. As the summer heat settled in, she got a new case that just wasn’t fair. She slammed her laptop shut and stormed into Nick’s office.
“You can’t be serious with this case,” she protested.
“Whoa, what’s wrong with it, Sour?”
Jessica took a deep breath. Even though he could be a real tool, Nick had a disarming manner about him.
“I just don’t think it’s fair to send me halfway to the Ozarks by myself. Can I get another partner assigned?”
“Sorry. You know I would if I could. I just don’t have the people.”
“You want me to drive two hours to audit a junkyard in the middle of nowhere? By myself? We’re not even supposed to be alone in uniform at the freaking grocery store!”
“I don’t want to,” Nick said, “but you know we’re thin and the work still has to get done. Look, you know I can’t go into details, but, take it from me, this security stuff is way overblown. We don’t want to scare anyone, it’s just about being cautious.”
“You can’t get me one partner? We put five thousand people together for that damn Google raid.”
“Well, sure, but the President asked for that one. Some political problem. I’m glad you’re impressed by my office, but I’m not the President.” He winked.
“I won’t even have cell service out there…”
“You’ll be fine. Give it a shot. If you run into problems, come back and we’ll get the law to go out with you.”
“Aren’t WE the law?” Jessica protested.
“Well, you know what I mean, but yeah, I guess you’ve got that piece for a reason.”
Jessica kept working on him, but Nick got the upper hand. She agreed to go audit the junkyard.
She woke up very early a few days later. A new nanny was calling from the front porch to avoid the doorbell. Jessica let the nanny in and poured a cup of leftover coffee into a travel mug. She got in the car and drove until the hills steepened and the sun crept up between them in the East. By the time she pulled off the little state highway into the junkyard’s gravel parking lot, the cicadas were humming and the humidity was seeping out of the hills.
Her phone fogged as she stood in the parking lot. She wiped it on her pants and looked around. There was the junkyard, a weedy parking lot, and a church. The church was a low, rectangular building with brown siding. The windows were boarded and the far corner was slowly collapsing. The only indication it was a church was a cross on the northern side, once white, now molding in the shade and wet summer air.
Jessica looked down at her phone. No signal. Perfect.
She was still looking at her phone, hoping for a single signal bar when the barking startled her. She looked up to see three big, black dogs running toward her across the lot. She started and stumbled backward, landing on her butt. There was a whistle and the dogs stopped.
A man walked across the parking lot.
“You must be Jessica.” There was no smile or hint of warmth. He did not offer a hand to help her up.
She stood up herself. “How did you know that?”
“Nick told me you was comin’.”
“He did, huh? Guess you know why I’m here then.”
“Oh sure. Say, that’s a nice new holster you got there.”
Jessica looked down self-consciously at the unblemished plastic shell on her leg. She brushed her hand over the pistol grip.
The man turned and walked back toward a trailer on the edge of the junkyard. Jessica followed, watching the dogs.
As they entered the perimeter, Jessica could see a group of eight or nine or ten men standing near an old crane. She tried to put her big girl pants on and take charge of the situation.
“Seems like you have a lot of employees for an operation this size?”
“Does it.”
The man never introduced himself and never smiled. Jessica assumed he was Tim DeClue, the proprietor. He asked what she needed to see and kept writing in his own little notebook. Once she summoned the gumption to ask about it.
“May I see your notes? We’re supposed to review all business records.”
“Personal diary,” her host replied with unbroken eye contact.
Jessica mumbled some kind of apology and went back to her questionnaire.
There was precious little to review in the way of business records anyway. There was no bank account, no till, no safe, not even a Quickbooks. So, very quickly, it was time to go conduct the asset inventory.
It was getting hot as Jessica wandered between the barns and old trucks. She noticed one of the crew watching her. At first, she thought it was her imagination or the sun. It was not. She looked at her phone again. Still no signal.
At one point, she thought she heard someone creeping up behind her on the gravel. She spun around and tried to get her pistol. She missed the release button and stood fumbling as one of the black dogs came sauntering up, sniffing her pants. A stifled laugh filtered through the maze, although she could no longer see her observer.
She hurried her counting. She made up little reasons in her head for it, but the truth was, at this moment, she just didn’t care how much money the federal government was going to squeeze out of this boondock pile of refuse. She didn’t care if this was paying for her pension or the big, shiny office. She just wanted to go home and hold her son and have a glass of moscato. A big glass. The joke glass her bridesmaids had bought her. A twenty ounce pour tonight. Put that whole sucker in there.
Somehow, though, when quitting time rolled around, she wasn’t anywhere near done. She tried to be the bigger person and went to say goodbye to the presumptive Mr. DeClue.
“Stay safe,” he said. He smiled for the first time.
Jessica went to her car and exhaled, really exhaled. She did a three-point turn and drove off. As she drove home, at the tops of some hills, she could swear she saw a red truck behind her. She rerouted. She made four left turns like one of those damnable emails had taught her. Still there. Her pulse rose. At least she was back in cellular range. She called 911.
“Hello, 9. 1. 1.” came an unhurried answer.
“Yes, I’m with the IRS, someone is following me.”
“Yes, dear, what is your highway, direction, and mile marker?”
It took Jessica a few minutes to find a state highway marker and a mile marker. The dispatcher was unhurried. Finally they both knew where she was.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll have the county sheriff meet you about thirty minutes up the road. Have a nice night.”
The dispatcher hung up abruptly. Thirty minutes? How? Jessica sped up.
She met a deputy at a cross-road near an old gas station. In the dying light, she could just make out the peeling advertisements for Coca Cola and Live Bait. The deputy was polite and cooperative and followed her all the way back to the city.
When she got home, the nanny was gone. A note was on the table. Apparently, the nanny also had some previously-unmentioned housecleaning commitments. The boy was fine; he was playing video games. An empty plate hinted that he’d had dinner. He didn’t seem to have noticed the changing of the guard. Jessica was too relieved, too glad to be home to be angry.
Eventually, the boy fell asleep in front of the TV. A game lobby spun and morphed on the screen like a pixelated lava lamp. Jessica turned off the TV and put a blanket over her son.
She checked her email. “Springfield Safety Briefing - Ballistic Vests”
She wondered how she would get out of going back to the junkyard. It occurred to her that Nick was all the wrong things - wrong gender, wrong race, wrong sexual orientation. He would be an easy target for a harassment complaint. It might buy her some time. But she kinda liked the guy. She needed to sleep on it. She could waste tomorrow on email.
Jessica got ready for bed. She peeked between the blinds. After the lights were out. Like the emails had taught her. Across the street, parked in a dark spot between streetlights, was a red truck. Jessica grabbed her phone. No signal.
THE END