by Mark Wheaton
“I don’t know,” Luis admitted. “But that’s what I hope to find out.”
Luis hung up. Michael stared at the cell as if wondering if what he just heard was a dream. He sensed someone’s eyes at the back of his head. He turned to find Helen eyeing him curiously.
“What was all that?” she asked, bewildered.
“Remember this moment when we’re packing up.”
“What?” Helen scoffed. “Where are we going? The DA’s office?”
“Governor’s mansion,” Michael replied. “We’re about to be the top story of every news channel, paper, and website in the world.”
PART V
XXVII
Michael called District Attorney Rebenold first. She seemed to understand the gravity of the situation right away. Michael could practically hear her resisting the urge to scold him for keeping it off her radar.
“Tell anyone who needs to hear it you have my full backing and support,” she said. “I’ll make a couple of calls myself. Remember to keep a few people out of it to use as impartial magistrates. Don’t lose track of the details in your zeal.”
Michael was about to protest that he wasn’t some kind of amateur but kept quiet. He needed Rebenold on his side for when the Marshaks’ political allies started raising holy hell.
“Also, I need the list of searchable objects of the various Marshak offices to be as broad as possible without looking like a fishing operation. What was the name of the witness you needed in protective custody?”
“Odilia Garanzuay,” Michael said.
“As for the media—”
Michael had been waiting for this and cut her off.
“I don’t have the level of media training you do,” Michael interjected. “Do you think you can be the face of this?”
The DA went silent. Wondering if it was a trick before realizing it was strategy.
“Of course,” Rebenold agreed. “I’ll make sure you get the credit.”
“Thanks, but I’d like to avoid the blame if this goes belly-up.”
Deborah was about to chide him for being too modest when a text appeared on her phone.
“What’s this?”
“The list you asked for, as well as the locations of the various Marshak properties.”
“Including the ones where you believe capital crimes took place?”
“Yes, but for all I know, it’s still the tip of the iceberg,” Michael admitted. “Let’s just pray we have the ability to see the whole picture.”
As soon as he got off the phone, he saw Helen eyeing him from across the room.
“What?” he asked.
“You sound like you’re already writing your first campaign speech.”
He scoffed but then thought about this. Maybe I am . . .
The first warrants came back within forty-five minutes. As soon as this happened, the phones of county sheriff’s deputies, marshals, FBI field supervisors and agents, INS inspectors, ATF agents, and LAPD patrol officers began to ring. It was all hands on deck, with details to be delivered at roll call. They all knew it was big, but no one was trusted with the full scope of the operation.
The teams going after financial records figured it was a widespread white-collar financial scandal with implications for the international markets, hence the secrecy. The ones sent to the ports thought it had to do with contraband running, either guns or drugs. Still others believed rightly that it involved illegal labor but couldn’t guess in which industry. The INS and the FBI were alone in using the words “human trafficking.” Only when an agent was told that no, they would not be coordinating with Ventura County law enforcement, did she inform her colleagues that something widespread was afoot.
The Los Angeles district attorney’s and US attorney’s offices were the only ones that had all the information. The latter was looped in after Justice filed an immediate inquiry with DA Rebenold. When this was ignored, a call from the US attorney general to her personal cell phone came in.
Arrangements to share information and resources were made quickly.
At his home in Conejo Valley, Jason Marshak slept in, but it was a troubled sleep. He could scarcely close his eyes without seeing Odilia. It was the same image on repeat, the resignation on her face as they left his uncle’s house. She’d looked like a beaten dog, and it was his fault. He told her it would be different once the Crown contract was signed and he was in charge. Glenn would have to understand that his role would be diminished, as Jason would be leading the company into the future. But just like that, he’d shown her how short a leash Glenn had him on.
He should’ve defended Odilia. Told Glenn that it was his company now and there was nothing he could do about it. Instead, he’d taken her by the arm and raced out like an embarrassed schoolboy. Her disappointment in him burned as hot and raw as it had in the moment.
Once upon a time he’d been able to stomach the reality that he had to share her with several men. If he showed favoritism, took her out of the Blocks too early, she wouldn’t respect his authority. She wouldn’t be grateful enough to him, her savior. But all that was over now. Santiago Higuera had believed he loved her more than Jason did, and a part of Odilia had bought into that for whatever reason.
Santiago had probably been a good liar.
But Odilia was a changed person after she’d come back from the desert. She’d learned her lesson. Still, he couldn’t let a Santiago happen again. He had to make things right before he went crazy. Anything else prolonged the pain. He knew she was hurting, too. This made it all the more urgent.
He threw back the covers and made a beeline for the shower. He masturbated, thinking only of his Odilia. When he got out, he got dressed, grabbed his keys, and hurried out of the house.
He was energized, thinking of the look on her face when he told her how much he loved her. This time he’d back it up by carrying her away from the Blocks, never to return. He’d even take a few days off. Sure, things were hectic at the office these days and he had multiple meetings with Glenn on the books, but he so seldom took days off, they’d have to respect this.
“I love you,” he practiced as he drove. “I love you. I love you.”
He played with the emphasis. He didn’t want to be over the top, too flowery or romantic. He wanted sincerity, gravity. There had to be an emphasis on how much the word meant to him and how voicing it was not something he took lightly.
As dawn broke, he turned off the main road and bounced onto the gravel path toward the Blocks. It was a beautiful day. Daydreaming into the cloudless sky, he didn’t see the INS trucks until he was twenty yards away.
His immediate impulse was to turn around, but they’d already seen him. What is this? He knew everybody at the INS. This couldn’t be a real sting, right? The money had gone out the door, and the paperwork was as good as gold. Maybe one of his workers had gotten away and they were returning him.
Shit, I hope they don’t expect a reward, he thought.
He pasted a curious look on his face and rolled down the window.
“One of my neighbors darn near panicked seeing you rolling in here with all these trucks, so I told her I’d check it out,” he said, pouring on the rube. “Some kind of hazardous material leak or something?”
The INS agent didn’t crack a smile.
“Sir, we need you to turn around and return to the main road.”
They didn’t recognize him. Oh shit. They didn’t recognize him.
“That bad, huh?” Jason asked, keeping it light.
Before the man could repeat his order, Jason waved a hand.
“I’m going, I’m going.”
He pulled a few feet up, executed a quick turn, and was gone before anyone would have time to run his plates.
“What you’ve done is beyond words,” Basmadjian said, sipping his morning OJ from a coffee cup. “I understand maybe not
all of it, but I’ve had friends of ours in the legal field take a look. When even they’re impressed, I know I’m onto something. So, thank you.”
Miguel nodded, taking the stack of cash from the table and shoving it in his pocket. He only half heard the words. Basmadjian angered.
“You don’t like praise?” the old man asked.
“I’m sorry,” Miguel said, feigning gratitude. “I’m happy you’re satisfied. I wanted to do a good job, but part of that was making sure everything fit together as neatly as possible. If changes need to be made, the system can be upgraded with minimal teardown.”
Basmadjian eyed Miguel for a long moment. Then to Miguel’s surprise, the old man placed his hand on his.
“I am aware of your family’s trouble. I have informed those who need to know that not only are you uninvolved, I have personally guaranteed your safety.”
“Do you know who killed my mother?”
“Not the name, no,” Basmadjian said softly. “But I have learned that the man who oversaw her killing was already dispatched as well. This was the same person who oversaw the killing of your uncle.”
“Who’s left?”
Basmadjian pulled away his hand, eyeing Miguel as if he should know better than to ask.
“We can’t have vendettas here. There are rules.”
“What about cops?” Miguel asked, keeping his gaze steady.
Basmadjian raised an eyebrow. Miguel slid his phone across the table. On the display were photos of two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, one white, one Asian.
“I pulled the GPS records from various law enforcement motor pools,” Miguel said, voice crackling with anger. “I also found out where the safe houses used by the DA’s office are. Their vehicle was parked out front of one of these addresses for less than five minutes around the exact time my uncle disappeared. Judging from their tax records and bank statements, I’m pretty sure they were involved.”
“What are you asking me?”
Miguel said nothing. If the old man didn’t know, Miguel wasn’t going to spell it out for him.
“I asked you a question, Miguel.”
“I know what I’m asking. And I know you’ll do it.”
“Why is that?”
“Because it would put me in your debt.”
“Deep in my debt,” Basmadjian stressed. “Permanently in my debt. You need to ask yourself if this is worth that. You don’t get to ask many favors of me.”
“I knew what I was asking. And if I didn’t think I’d earned it, I wouldn’t have asked.”
Basmadjian snorted.
“I’m not joking,” Miguel pressed, trying to sound older than he was.
“I know you’re not,” Basmadjian said, handing back the phone. “If that’s what you want, it will be handled. Don’t think on it again.”
Miguel rose to exit, but Basmadjian raised a finger.
“This time I require your gratitude,” Basmadjian said.
“Thank you,” Miguel said, though he felt worse than before he’d walked in the door.
Henry thought he had a better sense of the town. He’d grown up here, could remember the construction of every major building. But as he stared at a post office that he’d thought was the police station, he knew he was lost.
“Dammit,” he said, sighing.
“Help you with something, old-timer?”
Realizing he might’ve spoken louder than he’d meant to, Henry turned apologetically to a grinning old man in a postal uniform, who’d sidled up next to him.
“Who are you calling old-timer, old-timer?” Henry said. “Blake, right?”
“Wow! Good memory there, Marshak,” the postman nodded.
“Yeah, except for police stations. I thought that was right here.”
“Well, you’re half-right,” the postman said. “About once a week I find a contemporary out here doing the same thing as you. The station moved back in nineteen eighty-eight.”
The postman pointed across the street to a large building Henry had mistaken for a trade school.
“Ah. Thank you kindly.”
Henry moved his truck from the post office parking lot to a curb across the street. Behind the front desk in the station’s lobby sat a middle-aged man with a sergeant’s stripes on his bicep. He looked too overweight for street duty.
“Morning,” Henry said, finding his usual cheerfulness left behind in his truck.
“Can I help you?” the desk sergeant replied, giving Henry an officious stare. “Unfortunately, yes,” Henry said, nodding and moving close. “I’m here about the murders of Anne Whittaker, Santiago Higuera, and his sister, Maria Higuera.”
The sergeant’s features froze, though his hand traveled to something Henry couldn’t see under the desk.
“Right now Maria Higuera is simply missing. Do you know otherwise?”
“She’s dead, Officer,” Henry explained. “I’m the one who killed her and the others. Do you have somebody I can talk to?”
Everything happened quickly after that.
XXVIII
Maria Higuera’s car was still smoldering in the fields when the first federal agents came upon it. Due to the haphazard way it’d been torched, a theory quickly circulated that the perpetrators knew law enforcement was onto them. Still roped to the trailer, the car had been abandoned in the middle of a field of bell pepper plants just off the main road and set alight. Deep ruts in the soil and chewed-up foliage marked the path of the truck that hauled it.
They’d done a fairly professional job with the burn, lighting up the interior instead of the exterior and breaking the windows to provide plenty of oxygen. They’d poured lighter fluid across the seats and dashboard as well, leaving the empty canister to burn up inside the car.
Even then the vehicle’s make, model, and color were still identifiable as matching those of Maria Higuera’s Camry.
“If they were in that big a hurry, then they might have forgotten to destroy the security footage from the warehouse cameras,” Michael told the warehouse team leader over his cell phone. “See if you can pull it and send it over to me this morning.”
Michael hung up. He was in a convoy of four highway patrol cruisers and two SUVs bearing the door sigils of the Marshals Service en route to the Marshaks’ corporate campus in the Santa Ynez foothills a few miles from the unmarked warehouses. The road was flanked by fields, workers already pulling up the day’s harvest. Unlike the anonymous fields Luis had described to him, you couldn’t go a hundred yards without seeing the Marshak name on a water tank or truck.
When all the arrests were done and the trial under way, Michael hoped he would at least come away with a sense of why a company as prominent as the Marshaks’ would embrace illegality in such a broad and reckless fashion. As he was learning, corporate slavery in America was nothing new. It was believed many food companies benefited from the wide-scale use of illegal workers in the Florida sugarcane fields, where conditions were even worse than here. But these corporations insulated themselves behind endless fronts and shell companies to establish unimpeachable, plausible deniability.
The Marshaks seemed to have ramped up their foray into human trafficking with the zeal of a convert and the forethought of a child. It didn’t make sense.
The convoy entered the parking lot of the Marshak campus, its yucca- and cacti-lined sidewalks still wet from the morning sprinklers. Michael called DA Rebenold’s cell to get an update.
“Everyone’s in position at the offices and accounting firms,” she told him. “INS and the marshals are in the foothills around the housing complex but won’t move in without our say-so.”
“The team at the warehouse is almost there as well. They found the Higuera car burning out in the fields.”
“Jesus Christ. What about the desert location? La Calavera?”
“Still en ro
ute. They’re out of cell range right now, but they’ve got a helicopter with them, so we should hear something soon.”
Michael checked his watch. It was 7:48.
“Okay. Give the word and I’ll pass it,” she said.
“Let’s do it.”
When Michael emerged from the lead Tahoe, a curious security guard met him at the front door of the Marshaks’ admin building. He glanced from Michael to the row of vehicles and back again.
“Good morning,” Michael said. “I’m Los Angeles Deputy DA Michael Story. We have warrants to search and seize company documents, computers, and hard drives. The FBI will be here soon to set up a command post to facilitate this. We’re going to need help turning away workers and sealing the building.”
The guard gave Michael the kind of look that suggested he’d long believed a visit like this was in the cards.
Glenn watched as Donald Roenningke’s eyes traveled between a page in his right hand and an image on his phone in his left. He compared their salient points with care, eyes flicking back and forth. He looked like a professor trying to determine which of two pupils might have cheated on the final. On the other side of the table, Glenn ate his breakfast in peace, as if the billion-dollar deal hanging in the balance was the farthest thing from his mind.
They were seated in the Bella Vista restaurant in the Santa Barbara Four Seasons, overlooking the ocean. Though its breakfast buffet was one of the highest rated in the country, Glenn had ordered from the menu to keep their ups and downs to a minimum. He wanted Donald’s focus. He wanted him to know just how misinformed he’d been about his company.
His counterpart finally lowered the pages.
“I owe you an apology,” Donald said finally. “Of course, I’ll need my legal team to go over this, but as a lawyer myself—”
“As a lawyer yourself, you know what you’re looking at,” Glenn interjected.
