by Mark Wheaton
ALSO BY MARK WHEATON
Fields of Wrath
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 Mark Wheaton
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503935938
ISBN-10: 1503935930
Cover design by Damon Freeman
For Brother Andersen
CONTENTS
PART I
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
PART II
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
PART III
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PART I
I
The music started first, a folk number performed by a quartet shrouded in darkness alongside the outdoor stage. The dancers, illuminated by colorful footlights, followed seconds later in a slow-moving line. They were all women with their hair tied up in gold, wearing long pink shirts and traditional patterned sinh skirts. The women elegantly raised and lowered their right arms as they promenaded across the stage, fingers gently elevated in a pantomime of refinement. By contrast, their left arms were almost stiff to their sides.
The annual Thai Cultural Day festival, an all-day affair celebrating Thailand’s rich and storied history, had moved to Downtown Los Angeles in the recently opened Grand Park. The dance being presented now, according to Father Chang’s program, dated back to when Thailand was part of a larger empire that included Indonesia and Malaysia. As the number of dancers grew, little girls and even elderly women joined the line of brightly costumed women now snaking around on stage.
The audience was rapt. Chang, however, was not. For him the music was little more than a whine of tortured strings accompanied by an irregular drumbeat. It irritated his senses and reminded him of music he didn’t miss from his own upbringing in Guangzhou. He rose from his perch alongside a large fountain opposite the stage and wandered to a row of food stalls, the smells of which had been calling to him all afternoon. He selected a vendor that seemed to value authenticity over décor and ordered boat noodles with beef and holy basil chicken over rice. When the proprietor passed it to him, Father Chang dressed the dishes with gusto from the stall’s homemade condiments. The vendor nodded appraisingly when he made liberal use of the green curry.
“Are you Indonesian?” the vendor asked.
“No,” Father Chang admitted. “Just spent a lot of time in Jakarta. Dressing it right makes all the difference, no?”
“Once you’ve done it the right way, there’s no going back,” the vendor agreed.
A few satisfied bites later, Father Chang glanced back at the stall to note the name of the restaurant it represented.
I should take Nan there, he thought. And Suyin, of course.
When he finished his meal, he left the festival and retrieved his car from the parking garage across the street. As he pulled his Lincoln up the ramp, he marveled at the park and all that had sprung up around it. Downtown Los Angeles, once considered a wasteland of street crime and derelicts after the sun went down, was evolving into something else entirely.
The old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
To return to his parish in San Gabriel, Father Chang cut through Chinatown. He typically avoided it not simply because of the plastic pagodas and faux-Buddhist iconography he found garish and offensive, but also for the reminder that at one time the Chinese in Los Angeles were considered as undesirable. Of course, almost any race had been thought of this way by Americans, and in some cases continued to be so.
And those are the kinds of injustices that get a priest up in the morning, he mused.
The heavily Chinese-populated city of San Gabriel lay just a few miles east of Los Angeles. Here, the signage was bilingual and most of the restaurants and businesses catered to a Chinese clientele. No builders mimicked out-of-date Chinese architecture or felt the need to create picturesque tableaus to backdrop tourists’ selfies. The people who lived here were done living in China’s imagined past. They were Americans now, though many had dreams of returning home once they’d made their fortune.
Father Chang didn’t share these fantasies. Rather, he imagined one day retiring to Rome, perhaps becoming a chaplain at Thomas More College in Trastevere or teaching at some remote priory in Porto Venere.
Live like Lord Byron, but without the excess or scandal, he mused.
Maybe a little excess.
Chang reached St. Jerome’s Chinese Catholic Church, located on the south end of San Gabriel’s main thoroughfare, a moment later and parked in the spot closest to the rectory door. The church, built in the seventies, was perfectly round, with a spire that rose straight up from the middle like a Roman candle. The cross on top was so small, it looked like an afterthought.
Father Chang fumbled for his keys as he jogged the few yards to the rectory. He almost reached the door when he heard footsteps behind him.
“Father Chang?”
He didn’t recognize the voice. He turned and found a wiry, middle-aged Chinese man behind him. His accent was thick and his facial hair in patches. His clothes looked pulled from a donation box. But it was the gun in his hand that Father Chang’s eyes were drawn to, particularly as it was aimed at his heart.
“Can I help you?” Chang asked, his voice calm and even.
“You are a monster!” the gunman roared, though the words sounded awkward and rehearsed. “You are a vile creature who has no business wearing the robes of the clergy!”
This is for show, Father Chang realized. He wants someone to hear.
No sooner had this thought crossed his mind than four bullets tore through his chest. Father Chang was launched backwards, the weight of his body cracking the rectory’s glass door.
As he fought for breath, agonizing pain pulsing through his body, Father Chang watched the gunman sink down into a cross-legged position and place the gun on the ground in front of him. He glanced at Father Chang as if only mildly interested in the priest’s plight, then bowed his head as if in prayer.
Ego te absolvo, Father Chang thought.
“A priest?” asked Michael Story, almost dropping the phone. “Somebody murdered a priest?”
Though it was well past midnight, the now–chief deputy DA of Los Angeles was still in his office, as he’d been for much of the past couple of months. The upcoming Marshak court case, a headline grabber which exposed corporate malfeasance and murder in Southern California’s factory farm fields, had buried him in paperwork.
“This guy did,” replied the detective, Doug Whitehead, on the other end of the line. “Shot him four times in the chest at close range. Then the shooter—name: Shu Kuen Yamazoe—put the gun down and waited on the wet pavement for officers to arrive. The first on the scene said h
e raised his hand in surrender before they even got out of the car. We think the killing might’ve been caught on a security camera.”
“And he confessed?”
“Not precisely,” the detective admitted. “He invoked his right to an attorney before they even had the cuffs on him. Arresting officer said it was clear he’d been rehearsed. By the time they got him to the station, a lawyer was waiting with a typed-up confession.”
“Well, there’s your premeditation, too. Sounds open and shut.”
“Here’s where it gets strange,” the detective replied. “The lawyer is one of those back-of-the-bus, personal-injury-and-DUI types. Said he’s never met Yamazoe but got an e-mail from him at around the same time as the shooting and came to the station immediately. Time stamp suggests Yamazoe hit ‘Send’ just as the priest pulled into the parking lot.”
Hmm.
“And the lawyer just somehow knew it was time sensitive and didn’t shove it off until tomorrow?”
“Oh, but of course,” Whitehead replied. “The e-mail itself was in Mandarin Chinese, but the subject was in English. ‘Time Sensitive. Read Immediately.’ So he ran it through a web-based translator and came right over.”
Double hmm.
“Want to hear the kicker?” Whitehead asked. “Yamazoe accused the priest of molesting his daughter on four different occasions over the past two months. The shooting was revenge.”
“Oh Christ,” Michael said with a sigh.
“We haven’t informed the archdiocese yet, but there’s no way this isn’t going to be a public relations disaster for them, even if the allegations are false.”
“Understandable,” Michael said. “But I’m still waiting for the part where you need a deputy DA at this point. I’m pretty sure the department has its own liaisons with the diocese and the archbishop’s office.”
“Oh, we do. A bunch. That’s not the problem. We can’t find the girl.”
Ah.
“Neighbors? Other relatives?”
“Getting a whole lot of nothing. If the parish pastor hadn’t said he’d seen the girl a couple of times at Mass, we’d be wondering if she even exists. The confession explicitly states that she’s been packed off to China to keep her away from any questions or trial. And you know if we reach out to the consulate, we’d only be asking to be strangled in red tape.”
“Was he here legally?”
“Yeah. Resident alien. Arrived twelve years ago.”
“And the daughter?”
“No paperwork whatsoever. When he applied for his green card, he didn’t even list a family, though that’s hardly uncommon. Just based on what we found in his phone, he did regularly communicate with at least some people back home. A wife, a mother, who knows? But as far as a daughter goes, we don’t even have a name.”
Michael tried to remember what he knew of Detective Whitehead. He was persistent but wasn’t exactly well liked. If Michael didn’t give him what he wanted, there’d be a dozen phone calls every other day “just to follow up” until he did.
“So, how can I help? You need a look at passenger manifests back to China around the dates in question? Help with LAUSD to see if she was attending any classes?”
The detective went quiet for a moment, as if unsure how to frame his request, but then bulled on ahead anyway.
“I don’t think we’re going to find documents tied to him. If she came in illegally, there aren’t going to be any records, and if she left the same way, that’s the case twice over. On top of that I don’t see a scenario in which we get Yamazoe talking. I think he’s said what he’s going to say in the confession and that’s it. So it’s the neighbors and the other parishioners, but even if you’re fresh off the boat and can’t even open a checking account or get car insurance, you’re still not going to talk to cops. So given the church angle, I thought maybe you could give your guy a call.”
And there it was. Michael might have gotten all the attention and glory for the Marshak case, but here was confirmation of what he’d assumed: no one bought the narrative that this dogged, justice-driven deputy DA had acted alone. How much of the truth of Father Chavez’s involvement was out there he had no clue, the priest having gone undercover at great personal risk to expose the family’s criminal machinations. But it was obviously enough, or Detective Whitehead wouldn’t have bothered making the call.
“Let me think about it,” Michael muttered, miserable.
II
The sun had barely cracked the eastern horizon when Father Luis Chavez was out the door of the St. Augustine’s rectory and on the streets. There was an early-morning Mass at six thirty, which gave Luis about an hour for his morning run. He considered heading east toward the USC campus and its many jogging paths around the stadium and Natural History Museum, but the area would already be packed with students. Instead, he crossed the bridge over the I-10 freeway and headed for the south part of downtown, which he knew would be empty.
Though he could occasionally hear a car or truck a few blocks over, the city itself looked abandoned. Every block was depopulated, every shop locked up tight. The streets and sidewalks didn’t get swept or the trash picked up here as often as elsewhere, adding to the apocalyptic feel.
Luis didn’t mind.
So much of life at the church and at the neighboring parochial school, St. John’s, was task driven. There was always something to do, always someone trying to get his attention. Even when in prayer it could feel as if he was stealing time from some other task that needed to be done. Out on the road he was able to open his mind, commune with God as he let his thoughts flow freely, and reflect on the days ahead.
The day before he’d gone out to the cemetery in Echo Park to visit the grave of Maria Higuera, a woman whose family had gotten caught up in the Marshak case, leading to the death first of Maria’s brother and then Maria herself. Only her son, Miguel, remained. Though Luis tried to keep tabs on him, Miguel wasn’t interested in what he had to say, preferring to spend time with newfound criminal associates. Of the many things he prayed over, this was one of the most frequent.
Once he reached the outskirts of the Staples Center parking lots, he circled back to St. Augustine’s. He wondered if another reason he was attracted to running was that it was one of the only times while awake he was without his Roman collar. Passing a shop window, he caught sight of his reflection. His collarless appearance took him by surprise, making him feel like he was looking at some old photograph taken before he’d entered the priesthood. It wasn’t so long ago, was it? But like an itch that needed scratching, he couldn’t go too long without it on. He didn’t feel like himself. He wasn’t himself.
Like clockwork, whenever he began to feel like this, he knew it was time to head back to the rectory and start the day.
The sun was higher as the church came into view, the shadows of its spire and roof thrown long across the parking lot. Somewhere in that darkness near the chapel, Luis spotted the silhouette of a man trying first the doors leading to the administrative offices and then coming around to try the ones at the back of the building. People tried to enter the church at all hours of the day, so Luis didn’t think much of it, until he saw the lone police car in the parking lot.
He froze. His instincts, formed in his pre-collar days, ran through the various scenarios. He hadn’t likely been seen yet, so he could turn and go back the way he came. He should slow down, maybe cross the street at the nearest light. But where was the second cop? Could he have eyes on him even now, wondering what his next move would be?
“Excuse me! Sir? Could you come over here?”
It was the cop. He’d spotted Luis and was moving toward him. Luis’s first thought was that he didn’t have any ID on him, only the key to the rectory. The second was that he was wearing a St. John’s sweatshirt and sweatpants and didn’t look like someone you’d bust for loitering with intent even if it was the “quota time of the month.”
“Can I help you, Officer?” he asked, walking over.
&
nbsp; “Are you a priest here?” the officer asked, stopping and looking Luis over.
The officer’s tone was suspicious. Maybe I’m not above reproach, Luis thought.
“He is,” called out a voice. “One of our priests and teachers.”
Both Luis and the officer turned as St. Augustine’s parish pastor, Gregory Whillans, and a second officer came from around the side of the church. Though he’d only seen him the night before, Luis was still aghast at his pastor’s appearance. In three short months the cancer that was laying waste to Whillans’s body had diminished him to the point he was almost unrecognizable. Gone was the bombastic and imposing clerical figure Luis had so admired when they first met. In his place was a wizened old man who looked decades older than he was.
The first policeman relaxed as Whillans approached with his partner. Luis came over to take the pastor’s arm.
“Is everything all right?” Luis asked.
“Well, no,” Whillans admitted, glancing to both officers. “There’s been a shooting. Father Benedict Chang at St. Jerome’s. He was shot and killed last night in the parking lot. Though the killer was apprehended, the police—rightly so—have come to check on the other parishes.”
Luis searched his memory. He didn’t know Father Chang and barely knew St. Jerome’s. Still, it was troubling news. People were killed every day in Los Angeles, but Luis couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard of the murder of a priest.
“If you see anything, give us a call,” the first officer, whose name badge identified him as Ybarra, said as he handed cards to Luis and Pastor Whillans. “This appears to be an isolated incident, but you never know.”
Appears to be.
“Thank you very much, Officer,” Whillans said, his hand weighing heavily on Luis’s arm.
They watched the squad car drive away, then turned back to the chapel.
“Awful story,” Whillans said. “It sounds like someone was waiting for him and shot him as he went to the rectory.”