Norris Construction was a major contractor in that area in that it was a large-ish fish in a tiny pond. Based out of Cascadia, it did occasional off-the-books work for Osborn University but most of its projects were in neighboring Tecumseh County and the ramshackle county seat of Deerton. And they were mostly in the business of tearing things down as that particular notch in the rust belt went to seed.

Francisco Garza, originally of Nuevo Leon, could have been assigned to the teardown of the Royal Tecumseh Hotel downtown. It was easy work, for all the talk of ghosts, and right down the street from a diner where there was cheap hot food (and a steady stream of Deerton High townie girls walking back home). But no, his assignment was the abandoned Tecumseh County Airport. And not even the terminal or the hangar.

The runway.

“Why did they even build this in the first place, if they weren’t going to use it?” Garza grumbled in Spanish. He was in the connector between the freight hangar and never-used FAA/TSA offices, watching the equipment roll in from Cascadia.

His supervisor, Vicente Mejia, also of Norris Construction and originally from Baja California, stood nearby. “They thought it would help attract businesses if they could fly in on their big fancy jets,” he said. “Maybe even get a few tourists in. But those cheapskates in town voted down the taxes they’d need to keep it up.”

That much Garza already knew; not a single flight had landed at Tecumseh County Airport. They’d sold the land to Norris Construction for $1 on the condition that the airport be torn down for liability reasons. And Garza was to tear up the runway, himself, without pay.

“It’s not a question of right or wrong,” Mejia had said. “It’s a question of can or can’t. Either you can do the work to pay off the cost of hiring and training you, or we can’t let you keep the job and we can’t keep INS from sniffing around.”

When Garza had protested, Mejia had flashed his green card with a predatory grin. “Norris Construction takes care of its own,” he had added. “You play ball with us, maybe we get you one of these. You don’t, and we replace you with someone who’s sick of picking Traverse City cherries.”

But though he was many things, Francisco Garza was not stupid. He had quietly Xeroxed documents he found lying around the Norris trailer and offices and taken them to his daughter Estela to translate. Mejia had been given a budget for the airport demolition, and he’d been quietly skimming off the funds while threatening and overworking his skeleton crew.

And that’s why, when Mejia passed the trash cans on his way to his Norris-branded Taurus, there were pieces of the car’s brake system concealed under some drywall, destined for the junkyard.

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