El Jefe glanced around the room. He made some comment David didn’t quite catch and the men laughed. Clearly they knew this guy well. The bartender came over and said “Ready?” Then he slapped his hand on the bar, and said, “Go!” and the two men began.
The man was strong, no doubt about that. His face reddened and veins began popping out on his forehead. David felt his own face grow hot and his muscles swell. He kept up the pressure, but as he stared into El Jefe’s eyes his adrenaline flowed. They were small and dark, coal black, cold as sharks’ eyes.
A drop of sweat ran down David’s face. He blinked, and then he felt it, the slightest wavering in the man’s hand, the hint of weakness in his grip, and David pressed harder and harder until El Jefe’s hand slammed onto the bar.
A general murmur of surprise filled the room. The man laughed, and slid off the bar stool, and slapped David on the shoulder. Then he took one step more, and David thought he was going to move away. Instead, he grabbed David by the shirt, swung around, and landed a blow on his back. A searing pain ripped through David’s shoulder.
David jumped to his feet, fist clenched, but the man just laughed. “Now we are even,” he said, and he walked off and left the bar.
David watched him go. A young Latino said, “El Jefe, he doesn’t like to lose.”
“I’ll try to remember that.” He blew out a breath. “What’s his name, anyway?”
“Lopez. Hector Lopez.”
David used that incident the next time he saw Lopez. El Jefe was sitting at the bar drinking when David spotted him. He walked over, slid on to the bar stool next to him and said, “You owe me.”
Lopez continued chewing his ice.
“I beat you. Now, I want a job.”
The man stared straight ahead.
“I heard you need a trucker. I can go short-haul, long-haul, box trucks, eighteen-wheelers … I done ’em all. I want the job.”
Slowly, Lopez turned his face toward David.
“I owe a man some money. I need to pay him,” David explained.
Lopez’s jaw moved. His eyes scanned David’s face. Then he nodded slightly. “I may have a job. You call me next week.” And he wrote a number on a napkin and shoved it toward him.
Miguel Martinez proved difficult to nail down. After several tries, a translator determined he was an indigenous Guatemalan, and he spoke a native Indian language. He knew practically no Spanish—or English. Finally, the peninsula’s Latino advocacy group found someone at a university in Washington who could help over the phone. The professor, who spoke a similar language, was able to find out that Martinez didn’t know what was in the backpack, that a white man had given him money to hold it.
Meanwhile, Martinez was being held without bond.
“Didn’t you say Patricia and the others who were trafficked with her were from Mexico?” Chris asked Kit.
“Yes.”
“Then that’s your answer. Martinez isn’t connected. It’s not worth your time.”
Martinez was not worth her time? Kit frowned. There was something really weird about his case. But unless she could link it to her beach child murder it was, in fact, a dead end.
Late that night, back at the motel, Kit’s cell phone rang. She looked at the screen and saw a strange number. Something made her answer it anyway.
18
HELLO?” KIT PRESSED THE CELL PHONE TO HER EAR.
“Hey.”
David! Kit’s heart thumped. “I didn’t recognize your number.”
“I need some help.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m a guest of the Accomack County sheriff.”
The jail? “What happened? What’d you do?” Kit crossed her arm in front of her and paced, fixing her eyes on the ugly brown and orange motel room curtains across the room.
He lowered his voice. “Look, I got caught up in a raid on a bar, and they hit me with a concealed weapons charge.”
“Because they don’t know who you are.”
“Exactly. Any chance you could make a phone call?”
Kit glanced at her watch. 11:00 p.m. “I’ll come get you.”
“No, don’t do that. Your friend is here, too.”
“My friend?”
“I don’t want you to come!” David reiterated.
“I’ll send Chris.”
“Yes, that’s right. Be sure he knows there are two Ls in my name.”
“What?”
“Castillo. C A S T I L L O. David’s spelled the usual way.”
“Good grief,” Kit said, rolling her eyes.
It was almost 1:30 a.m. by the time Chris and David returned to the motel. Kit had rehearsed a speech chastising David for getting too involved in this investigation many times, but when David walked into her room, when she saw how tired and grubby he looked, she held her tongue. His face was swollen and there was a bruise on his right cheek, a cut on his lip, and blood on the front of his shirt. “What happened?” she asked.
“I was in a bar that they busted. I tried to tell the cop I had a gun in my sling, but there was so much noise he couldn’t hear me and as soon as his hand touched it, I was on the ground.” He grinned. “I thought it best at that point to cooperate with him.”
Kit’s heart was drumming. “Wait. Why were you in the bar? David, what have you been doing? Didn’t I tell you …”
Chris raised his hand. “Hold on. Listen to what he’s found out.”
She felt a chill run up her spine. “Sit down.” She motioned toward the second bed in her room.
David shook his head. “I’m not fit to sit anywhere.”
“Sit down!”
“You have any coffee?”
Kit brewed a pot of coffee from the in-room coffee-maker, poured two cups and made a second batch. “All right,” she said sitting down on the edge of her bed. “What’s going on?”
David had chosen a position on the floor, his back to the wall next to the door. Chris sat in a chair. They were a study in contrasts, these two men: David, barrel-chested, almost burly, and Chris, slim and refined, as neat and proper as David was grubby.
“Tell her,” Chris said.
David fixed his brown eyes on Kit and she felt her stomach tighten some more. He told her about his trip to the farm, his foray through the cornfield, and then about the smokehouse. “I don’t know what’s in there besides the acorns,” he said, his eyes bright, “but it’s something that shouldn’t be.”
“There are acorns in there?”
“Jars of them. Like some kid had stashed them. His weapons cache, you know? No adult is going to put all those acorns in jars like that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d done this?”
“I was going to.”
“Do you think the little boy found out about the contraband? Was that his death warrant?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” David replied, and he told her about the loose foundation stones that would allow a child access.
Kit stood up and paced.
“It gets better,” Chris said.
She turned around.
“I started hanging out in bars,” he said, “and passing Maria’s picture around. I said she’d ripped me off and I was determined to find her. I found out how to get a false ID, and now I’ve got a Virginia commercial driver’s license under the name ‘David Castillo.’ ”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that. Then, one night, I’m sitting at this bar and in walks the guy.”
“The guy? Who are you talking about? The guy with the limp? The one you saw at the farm?”
“Exactly.”
“What did he look like?”
“Short. Mexican. One gold front tooth. And a cowboy hat. Oh, and a scar on his right cheek.” He motioned with his hand.
Kit felt a chill run through her. “The guy I talked to!” Her mind went back to her visit to the farm, when she’d actually walked up the lane to look at the house, and the man in the white truck who had stoppe
d her and then followed her to the county offices.
“That’s what I think. He’s dangerous, Kit,” David responded. “Dead eyes. Stay away from him.”
“Don’t tell me, cowboy. I’m not the one hanging out in bars!”
“Stop,” Chris said, intervening. “What happened, David? The guy walks into the bar …”
David laughed. “That sounds like a joke! Anyway, I’ve talked to him a couple of times. I told him I heard he needs a trucker, and that I want a job. I think we’re headed in that direction.”
“A job, from a possible drug runner.”
“I promise, I’ll stick to tomatoes.”
Kit shook her head.
“All right,” Chris said, “Let’s back up. We have a farm which may be associated with a dead boy, acorns in jars, a cop shot, a white truck which may be being used to transport people, some possible contraband in the shed, a white pickup truck, a possible connection with the abduction of Maria, last name unknown …”
Kit turned toward Chris. “We have got to get those employee records. The white pickup was registered to C&R Enterprises.” She looked to her right. “David, did you hear what the other men called him?”
“Jefe.”
She frowned.
“That means ‘boss’.”
“So you don’t know his real name.”
“Hector Lopez.”
“Hector! That’s the name Patricia gave me!”
“What?”
She reminded David of her conversation with Piper Calhoun. “She said the driver of the truck that brought Patricia to the U.S. was named Hector.”
“What’d your bar buddies say when the cop took you down and took your gun?” Chris asked David.
“It definitely raised my status.”
“No idea you’re a cop?”
“No clue.”
Chris looked at Kit. “I think we have an undercover source here.”
“No. No way,” she replied, her face suddenly hot.
“Why not? He’s a cop. He can keep it clean. He speaks Spanish. He’s already in.”
Kit glared at David. “Have you told him?”
“What?” Chris asked.
Kit launched into David’s story, including the shooting incident in D.C., the gunfire on the ocean, and post-traumatic stress. “He shouldn’t even have done this much on the case,” she asserted, “much less become a source.”
Tension ballooned in the room. “I would think that would be his decision,” Chris said evenly.
Frustrated, Kit turned to David but the look on his face gave her no reassurance whatsoever.
“What do you say?” Chris said to him.
David didn’t think long. “I’m in. You two define what you want, and I’ll get it for you.”
The next morning as Kit showered in her motel room, she tried to imagine her frustration and anger going down the drain with the soap. It didn’t work. Those little psychological games never did. She vigorously dried herself off while composing arguments against David’s participation in her head, even though she knew it was too late. She was outnumbered and had been overruled. Welcome to the Boys Club, she thought, jerking on her khaki cargo pants.
This morning, Chris would enlist the state police’s help in getting David’s personal belongings and vehicle back. The four of them would meet to strategize at 2:00 p.m. David had suggested they meet at Kit’s rental cottage on Chincoteague, far away from the live oak farm and C&R’s produce operations. Kit had insisted on the offsite office. She wasn’t even sure why. But she had to reestablish control over this investigation and in her mind, this was a start.
What’s more, she’d decided that if David wanted to put himself at risk, she’d let him. She didn’t want to care anymore.
The minute that thought jelled in her mind, she knew it was a lie.
When they were all assembled, Kit restated the mission for the benefit of Roger Lee, the state trooper. “We are interested in finding out who killed the child on the beach,” Kit said, “and determining what happened to the woman who appears to have been forced into the truck. On a larger scale, we’re looking for a criminal enterprise: a human trafficking scheme which could involve an unknown number of victims.
“We have identified one possible victim in Virginia Beach, a woman named Patricia Hernandez. She was brought here from Mexico by a man named Hector who transported her in a white box truck along with fourteen or fifteen others. We think this could be Hector Lopez, the guy David has met. Patricia was told she would be able to work as a nanny. But when she got here, her passport was taken away. Her employers confined her to their house, forced her to work long hours, paid her scant wages, and physically abused her. She was finally able to escape. Now she is concerned that a friend of hers in a similar situation is in trouble.”
All the time Kit was speaking she stayed focused on Roger Lee or Chris Cruz. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw David leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, watching her intently. And she fought the feelings that rose like the tide within her.
“As I said, we want to identify the criminal enterprise. Just as in a business, there’ll be a CEO, a ‘board of directors’, a financial manager, an ‘enforcer’, and then lower-echelon workers. So we will try to discover the framework of this human trafficking organization, assuming that’s what we’ve really got going, and let that lead us to information about the beach child and the woman.
“We’ve gotten subpoenas for the financial information for C&R Enterprises,” Kit said, “and that’s where we’ll start. You,” she said, nodding toward Roger, “will be an invaluable source of local knowledge, so I appreciate you being here. We may need to call on your department for support for surveillance.”
Chris interjected, “David already has an in with the group of laborers in this area. He’ll be developing information from the inside.”
Roger Lee frowned. “What about our trooper? Our primary interest will be finding out who killed him.”
“Let’s you and me go over that evidence,” Chris said. “I’d like to see the truck you found at the scene, and his cruiser. Then I can be looking out for links as well.”
Behind the offsite office stood a split rail fence and beyond that, a pond surrounded on three sides by a grove of trees. When Kit walked out following their meeting, David was sitting on the fence, his back to the offsite, his head bowed, almost as if he were praying.
She started toward the parking lot, but he must have heard her, because he turned around, saw her, and climbed down off the fence. As he walked toward her, she braced herself.
David stopped a few feet from her and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “You’re good.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Very professional. Very well put together,” he explained, nodding his head toward the offsite office.
“You didn’t say much.”
“Didn’t need to.”
Kit took a deep, shaky breath. Chris, using impeccable logic, had pointed out that as the case agent she should be also directing David. That meant staying in close contact with him, something she both wanted and dreaded. “So you’re going to meet Lopez at the bar …”
David nodded. His cheek was still bruised from his arrest. “About that job.”
“Do you know the rules about drinking?”
“I don’t drink.”
“Not at all?”
“Never.”
“So how … ?”
“You order a Coke and put a lot of limes and cherries in it. People think it’s a mixed drink. Or you order a longneck bottle of beer and pretend to drink it. Or you order nonalcoholic beer in a glass.” He grinned. “I’ve done it a thousand times.”
“Where are you staying?”
He told her the name of a cheap motel not far away.
“The Bureau will pick that up for you, now that you’re official.”
He nodded. “Many thanks.”
The sun brought out the golden hig
hlights in David’s eyes. Kit wondered if she had ever seen any that were such a beautiful shade of brown.
“You still at that motel?” he asked.
Kit nodded, her mouth dry.
“I miss Chincoteague, don’t you? The peace of it.” He looked down and kicked a small stone.
“So go back!”
He shook his head. “I’ve got to help Maria.”
“Why? Why you?”
“Because I know. I’ve seen the picture. I can’t just walk away. I’ve got to help her. I’ve got the house through mid-November. I’ll get back to it. Finish the painting. And get out on the water again. They say I can surf with a wetsuit until then.” He tossed something toward the pond. “It’ll give my shoulder time to heal anyway.”
Kit looked at the keys in her hand. Her heart was trembling. “Report in frequently,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She nodded, turned, and walked away.
Of the twenty-three people on C&R Enterprises’ books, ten, Kit eventually discovered, were related. There were the owners, Sam Curtis and his son-in-law, Tom Richards. Tom’s wife and two of Sam’s other sons were on the rolls, as well as Sam’s brothers and some of his cousins. Susan Richards, Tom’s wife was the bookkeeper and her sister was in charge of shipping. What’s more, the company’s tax records showed a healthy profit over the last five years. Tom Richards and his wife had recently bought a new home nearby. Everything pointed to a normal business, normal families, normal lives. With all those family members on the payroll, and with the business doing well, would the owners risk everything to participate in human trafficking?
If C&R was involved, Kit bet it was involuntarily. Maybe someone on their staff, or a supplier, or some peripheral employee was the culprit. She was still working this all out in her mind when Chris called.
“The truck they found at the site of the trooper murder? It was a chop-shop job.”
“You’ve got different VINs?”
“Several. And guess what? One of the axles was from a truck purchased by C&R Enterprises eight years ago.”
19
C&R’S MAIN OFFICE WAS IN OAK GROVE, A SHORT DRIVE AWAY FROM Glebe Hill. Tom Richards was on a deep-sea fishing trip out of Ocean City, but Sam Curtis seemed all too happy to talk to Kit and Chris. “Come right on in!” he said, extending a huge hand toward the two agents. “Have a seat.”
Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838) Page 16
