Fields of Wrath (Luis Chavez Book 1)

by Mark Wheaton

  “And you believe they might have been ‘laundering’—to use your word—workers for the Marshaks as well?” Michael asked. “This is a company with literally thousands of workers on the books. You’re saying they’ve got thousands more working some unmarked spur fields away from prying eyes to cut costs?”

  “Your theory, not mine,” Luis said. “But if they have the support of local law enforcement and the land commissioners, who is going to know the difference between one anonymous hundred-acre square of land and the one across the street? There are miles and miles of fields up there. You keep eighty percent of your business legal, and you’re still saving literally tens of millions of dollars, if not more. And if you’re not paying them but instead holding these transit debts over their heads, then we’re talking about human trafficking and, well, slavery.”

  It was a provocative word, Michael knew, but provocative words looked great in banner headlines. Still, there was something missing.

  “But what about the money? It went into Santiago’s account, only to be drawn out a moment later?” Michael asked.

  “My son theorized that’s why they used Santiago,” Maria explained. “If the INS ever discovered one of the illegals working on a Marshak farm, they could turn around and pin it all on Santiago. That their employment forms were signed by Santiago, that money moved through his account to ‘pay’ them, so that’s where the buck stopped. It’s genius, really. A new way for a big corporation to use illegal labor but ensure that someone expendable is holding the bag if there is a bust. They were completely insulated.”

  Michael considered this. That it was the Marshaks was obvious. Who else had the resources to come up with a scam like this? For whom else would the benefit outweigh the risk?

  “I hear what you’re saying and I want to believe. But what I believe doesn’t matter in this case. Other than the fact that the Marshaks offered to buy the land and, as good neighbors, offered assistance in the form of extra workers to help with the harvest, what concrete evidence do you have linking them to these invisible workers?”

  Neither Luis nor Maria replied.

  “I mean, that’s the big point, right? What you’ve brought me looks like evidence that Santiago Higuera was involved in some sort of tax fraud. Then there’s a bank error. Then there’s an accounting firm that may or may not have been aware of a fraud that may or may not have existed. There’s nothing there to do with the killing of Annie Whittaker. Nothing to do with the kidnapping of Odilia Garanzuay.”

  “Who else would have the money to run a scheme like this?” Maria interjected. “Or even need that many workers?”

  “Do you even know these alleged workers exist? Or could they just be names on a piece of paper for some wider fraud scheme we haven’t even thought of?”

  “Odilia exists,” Luis said quietly.

  “That’s only one person,” Michael said, sitting back in his chair. “You have to think of this the way a lawyer would. That’s how it was constructed in the first place. It doesn’t matter what you think. It matters what I can prove in court.”

  The downcast look on Maria’s face told Michael that she’d thought this was a slam dunk. That he’d throw himself at their feet in gratitude. Sure, they had discovered perhaps the first actual document worth presenting as a piece of evidence in an eventual case against the Marshaks. But good God, any lawyer worth his salt would discount the pages in a heartbeat as dummied up or the actions of a single actor.

  “In fact there’s not even anything here that could involve the office of the LA district attorney. Maybe a couple of Ventura County sheriffs. But even then I don’t think they’d have enough for a search warrant, much less an arrest.”

  “You’re saying we did this for nothing?” Maria snapped.

  “No!” Michael retorted. “Not at all. I am, in fact, inclined to believe your theory. I think you may well have uncovered the major evidence this case will eventually rest on. But you don’t know how it stitches together or who to pin it to.”

  Michael turned to Luis.

  “You said you’d be my witness, so be my witness. This time in the Marshak fields. Find out where they keep the workers. And if what you heard about the recruitment of the workers is true, I need you to find out how they get them here. Also, find out exactly what they’re told will happen to them if they don’t do what their bosses say. There’s not a judge in the state that’ll sign a warrant against a family that powerful or connected unless they have to. But I promise you, if you get that, I can do the rest.”

  “What about the part that puts this in your jurisdiction?” Luis asked.

  “If they were transported through Los Angeles, as Annie hinted, that’s for me. If you can prove the Marshaks paid for any of this, that’s for me, as their offices and banks are here. And, naturally, if you can prove that they kidnapped Santiago from our safe house here in the city, that’s for me, too. I know it’s asking a lot, but if there are thousands of people working up there under threat of violence, we can get justice for them and hopefully send a message to others not to do the same.”

  Michael eyed the pair carefully. It was do or die time, and he was being as blunt and honest as he could. They’d either wilt or rise to the challenge.

  “We won’t let you down,” Luis announced, getting to his feet. “Just make sure you hold up your side of the bargain.”

  Michael watched them go. Boy, he’d underestimated this priest. Now he just had to make sure he cut off the head before the body had a chance to react.

  “You’re going back to the farm?” Miguel asked, his cell on speaker as he continued to type lines of code into his laptop. “I thought you were all done with that.”

  “Try and sound a little disappointed,” Maria said. “I’m dropping off the priest, and I’ll be back in the morning.”

  The priest. When his mother had told him what she was trying to do, he was incredulous. If some cartel types had killed his uncle, they needed Rambo, not some Jesus freak.

  “Did you talk to the DA?”

  “Deputy DA. And we did. It turns out Santiago really was onto something big. I think we can help.”

  “Be careful,” he urged.

  When he got off the phone, Miguel allowed himself a little celebration. It had turned out Basmadjian’s range of business interests was wider than Miguel had known. Even more problematic, the ways his men had hid his assets and laundered illicit funds through legitimate fronts were so half-assed that the only work he’d managed to do so far was to undo the damage of his predecessors. Having his mother out for another whole night was a big help. Hell, if she stayed away a full twenty-four hours, he might finish the whole thing.

  It was as thrilling as it was terrifying. He was a teenager suddenly in charge of laundering close to fifty million dollars. This meant setting up dummy corporations across four states, establishing physical drops or mailing addresses for each, opening countless corporate accounts, and getting access to Basmadjian’s own accounts to make it happen. He hadn’t expected to be thrown into the deep end so quickly, but they must have wanted to know right away if he had the goods. It was either brilliant or reckless. Which depended on him.

  He opened a desk drawer, took out a glass box and papers, and rolled the first of several joints.

  It was rush hour, so Maria and Luis decided to eat dinner before braving the highway. There was a small Mexican restaurant off MacArthur Park that both knew, so they went there.

  Most diners chose to sit at the outdoor tables, but they wanted privacy and asked to be seated inside. The walls were covered with murals, and the waitress sat them under an elaborate fresco of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

  Though Luis was in street clothes, Maria still smirked at the waitress’s choice.

  “Do you think she knew you were a priest even without the collar?”

  Luis shrugged. “They always know. I don’t kno
w how, but they do.”

  The waitress returned, and Maria ordered a margarita. Luis stayed with water.

  “Do you have a plan?” Maria asked after the waitress left. “Or do you plan to go up there and just what? Put yourself in God’s hands and see where he leads you?”

  “Does it have to be one thing or the other?” Luis offered.

  “Well, as I’m being dragged along with it, I’d love to know what I’m getting myself into.”

  “Okay,” Luis said. “Then I plan to go to where I saw these guys that one night and search from there. There aren’t going to be many cars on the road. I’m hoping we get lucky and see something familiar.”

  “But by ‘lucky,’ you mean ‘hope that God points them out to you.’”

  Luis sighed as Maria grinned victoriously.

  “As a priest I’m to provide a vessel through which God’s will is executed on earth. At the same time, as a man I’m on earth to exercise my own free will. I have to balance that and have faith that I’m on the right path.”

  Maria laughed as the waitress placed a margarita in front of her.

  “That sounds like a very convenient way to have your cake and eat it, too.”

  Luis smiled. “Maybe it is. I can only tell you what I believe. My faith is everything to me. I’m still learning how to express it, but the feeling is a hundred percent. It allows me so much freedom—yes, freedom—knowing what my purpose is on this earth. I don’t have the worries a lot of people do.”

  Maria surprised herself with a pang of envy. What would it be like to live with that kind of belief? Then her eyes traveled up to the image of Mary above her.

  “What?” Luis asked.

  “Men can become your equal in the priesthood. But women, like Odilia, you can only save. It’s in that way they become objects. I’ve heard here and there about women who are brought up to the fields. Some are workers, but others are there just to service the men. I wonder if she was just an object to them, too.”

  “Odilia?”

  Maria nodded. “But I’ll bet if you ask those working in the Marshak fields about women, they’ll tell you they’re sending money back to their sainted mother, to their wives, to a daughter. Sons can make their own way, but women need their men to save them. How much of that mentality must come from the church? Worship a virgin, preach virginity to those holiest among you, and the rest of the world are whores in comparison.”

  Luis fell silent for so long that Maria thought she’d offended him.

  “I know the sins of my church,” he began. “They weighed heavily on me as I took steps toward ordination. But it was the men who committed the sins that bothered me almost more than the actions. How could so many across so many centuries corrupt something I saw as so beautiful and binding and human in such grotesque ways? Maybe I’m naïve, but I couldn’t believe all had entered the church with nefarious intentions. Was there something inherently corrupting about holding yourself up as the one anointed to save others? When asked to forgive so much sin, did it make it that much easier to surrender to it? Or worse, propagate it?”

  “So what made up your mind?” Maria asked.

  “I decided that if that was enough to keep me from my vocation, I wouldn’t be a very good priest,” Luis said. “But I believed and continue to believe in just how much the church’s teachings can help people in their everyday lives. The importance of that outstripped everything else.”

  “But you could do that preaching on a street corner,” Maria countered.

  “No. I need the fellowship of my brother priests and the structure of the parish to support my soul. If I’m on a corner, it’s easier to forget who is meant to be doing the speaking. If I’m one of many in the same clothes and collar in front of the same altar, waking up in the same rectory every day with the same mission, there’s strength in that communion.”

  Maria thought about this for a moment. She took a sip of her margarita, then placed her hand on Luis’s.

  “What?” Luis asked.

  “I might not have much belief in God, but I’m starting to believe in you.”

  XXI

  It was dark by the time they arrived in Camarillo. In that time an idea had occurred to Luis. They wouldn’t be able to find the workers, but they might be able to find the overseers. They drove to the grocery and liquor stores nearest the fields and scoured the parking lots. They parked and went into a few but continued to come up dry. They hit convenience stores next, a truck stop, and then simply drove up and down the main drags, checking out the other drivers.

  “I think we should head to the farm,” Maria said. “We can pick this up again tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know. People know we were at the accounting firm, and they know someone was snooping around Annie Whittaker’s house. The longer this goes on, the more likely they’re going to figure out what we’re up to. We can’t risk waiting another night.”

  Maria drove in silence, Luis going over a map on Maria’s iPhone. He opened the window to let in the night breeze, and with it came the familiar scent of the ocean. The air often carried the salty fragrance far inland, and it was something anyone in Los Angeles could pick up from time to time, even if they were well away from the Pacific shore.

  But this was different. Underneath the refreshing combination of salt and tide hung fumes that were oily, rotten, and noxious. Something was off.

  No, this was not the smell of the wide-open ocean. This was the smell of a seaport and the fume-belching freighters that inhabited it, and it was way out of place.

  Luis scanned the area.

  “What’s that smell?” Maria asked.

  “Pull into the truck stop. Go to a pump.”

  Maria did so. The pair climbed out of the car, the odor much stronger now. Luis glanced around for the source and spied a tractor-trailer taking on diesel a few yards away. The man filling the truck looked like any other trucker in jeans and a flannel shirt. Except for the distinct tattoos running up his neck and down his arms. Luis’s eyes traveled to the cargo container on the truck’s bed. There was movement, something passing behind one of what looked like a series of holes cut into the container’s steel wall.

  Aren’t shipping containers meant to be airtight and waterproof?

  The driver finished pumping and replaced the gas cap. He returned to the cab and opened the door. A second man sat in the passenger seat. Though he only caught a glimpse, Luis recognized him as the man he’d seen in the grocery store the last time he was up here. There was no mistaking his distinctive sharp features and fiery copper eyes.

  Holy shit.

  Luis exchanged a look with Maria and climbed back into the car.

  “They’re bringing them in by sea, not over the border,” Luis said as Maria keyed the ignition. “That’s why Michael couldn’t find anything on them.”

  “Are you sure that’s them?” she asked. “Those are the guys who killed my brother?”

  “Them or others like them,” Luis said. “I think they’re ex-military, but I’ll bet some of them knew each other even before that.”

  The tractor-trailer pulled out of the truck stop ahead of Maria. She waited for a couple of cars to go by, then followed at a careful distance.

  “They’re heading into the foothills,” Maria said. “It can’t be much longer.”

  She was right. Five minutes later the truck turned on its right blinker, slowed, and turned off the road into what Luis initially mistook for the middle of a field. A gravel road came into view, and Luis craned his neck to watch the truck amble off into the scrub.

  “You think they’re coming in through the Port of Long Beach or something?” Maria asked.

  Luis’s thoughts shot to Oscar and one of the schemes he’d told him about on their drive out, the one with the stolen high-dollar cars going into cargo containers. He prayed he wasn’t involved in this.


  “Kill the lights and pull over,” Luis said.

  “Here?”

  “Yeah,” Luis replied, grabbing his backpack from the backseat.

  “No way,” Maria exclaimed. “You’re just going to follow them?”

  “I am,” he admitted.

  “If they figure out who you are, they might kill you.”

  “I know. I have something much more important to ask you.”

  “What’s that?” Maria asked.

  “Do you believe me now that sometimes the Lord puts things in front of us?”

  “Maybe he does,” Maria said, pulling to a stop. “Good luck all the same.”

  “That’s a start. See you back in the city.”

  Luis scrambled out of the car, shot Maria a last grin, and disappeared into the darkness.

  Luis found the run across open ground exhilarating. He wasn’t stupid. He knew he was running toward certain danger, but that wasn’t foremost on his mind. For the umpteenth time in his life God had stepped in. He’d asked for God’s guidance, and only hours later they’d found what they were looking for.

  As he ran, he repeated the same thing in his head over and over:

  Thanks be to God . . . Thanks be to God . . . Thanks be to God . . .

  The truck had disappeared by the time he’d climbed from Maria’s car, but he’d made good time and quickly caught sight of it. He ran parallel to the gravel road, keeping a good fifty yards between it and himself.

  The truck slowed, and Luis saw a couple of men at what looked like a checkpoint. He peered into the darkness ahead and saw a barbed wire fence, this one a foot or two taller than the one he’d scaled near the main road. As his eyes became more accustomed to the dark, he was able to make out the thin green wires along the top of it.