Fields of Wrath (Luis Chavez Book 1)

by Mark Wheaton

  Miguel hesitated. It wasn’t what he expected. Yeah, he’d have to think about it.

  “Let me get back to you.”

  EPILOGUE

  It was a gorgeous Memorial Day weekend. Wilshire was closed between MacArthur and Lafayette Parks, a small carnival parked in the street complete with rides, a midway, and all kinds of food. A concert shell had been erected at the south end of MacArthur Park Lake. Several people had already laid out blankets, set up tents, and fired up barbecues as they waited for the first bands, which were to start around noon.

  Though it was early, peddlers already moved through the area as well, selling everything from ice cream to toys to fresh corn on the cob cooked in a steel vat of boiling water mounted in a shopping cart. Butter and bags of toppings hung off the sides of the cart as steam filled its wake.

  In Lafayette Park a crowd gathered around the outside of a large soccer field. There were six rows of bleachers, but they’d been filled for half an hour. The match was a local club game between a team wearing the red-and-white-striped home jerseys of the Guadalajara Chivas (Nanny Goats) and the blue and red away colors of the Veracruz Tiburones Rojos (Red Sharks).

  Not that the fans or players were from Guadalajara or Veracruz, the uniforms selected mainly because they were easy to find at any local sporting goods store. Still, there were a few diehards on both sides who’d only play if they could wear their home colors.

  A referee sat on the corner of the lowest riser and drank from a bottle of water as the players warmed up. He checked his watch, drank, and checked his watch again. A few rows behind him, Michael checked his watch as well.

  In the weeks after the Marshak raids, Michael had barely been home. He felt tremendous guilt every time he pulled into the driveway and saw that the lights were already off in the children’s rooms. He’d see them in the morning before school, but he was sometimes out the door before they’d even reached the breakfast table. At least summer was almost here, and in theory, he’d see them more.

  Thank goodness for Helen, he thought.

  She’d more than stepped up, even as her own business increasingly took her away at odd hours, necessitating babysitters. When this was all over, he’d have to do something big to make it up to her.

  This was why he was perturbed. He’d wanted to spend time with his family. Sure, he’d have had to put in a couple of hours with the staffers at the courthouse anyway, but that wouldn’t have been much. He’d have had the rest of the afternoon off.

  But given what he owed Father Chavez, he’d agreed to meet.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  Michael turned as Luis appeared alongside the bleachers. In his collar he certainly stood out, but no one seemed to notice.

  “How’re things at the parish?” Michael asked, hopping down.

  “Usual chaos. Had to baptize a baby at Good Samaritan late last night, as they were afraid she wouldn’t make it. When I went back this morning, the doctors had revised their opinions. She might be out of the hospital by the end of the week.”

  “What was it?”

  “Autoimmune encephalitis. The baby’s immune system was creating antibodies to fight an imaginary tumor. It’s often fatal.”

  “Wow. If I was in your shoes, I don’t know if I could’ve handled that.”

  “Well, God helps,” Luis admitted.

  “Of course. ‘In persona Christi capitis,’” Michael quoted. “You are the Lord’s vessel. I think I was better with that stuff when I was a kid.”

  “What about your family?”

  “My wife’s not religious, and we don’t take our kids to church,” Michael said, surprising himself by feeling guilty. “When my oldest started kindergarten, she had a classmate who had spent the summer at Bible camp or something. This kid returned full of stories, ready to convert the rest of the class.”

  Luis laughed.

  “They always start with the kids.”

  “I know!” Michael exclaimed. “She came home asking me all about Noah’s Ark and God and floods. I had to make a choice. Get into the conversation about other people believing different things or just do what parents have done for years and say, ‘Oh yeah—God. Guy who lives in the sky, sees you when you’re naughty, like Santa Claus, so don’t act up!’”

  “Which did you choose?”

  “I compared it to myths and fairy tales she knew: Hercules, Hansel and Gretel, My Little Pony. I explained why people all throughout history have always created fables as lessons and cautionary tales. It was easier than just saying, ‘Here’s a law. Follow it and don’t ask questions.’”

  Luis nodded as if this were what he preached, too. Hoping to get on with it, Michael changed the subject.

  “I don’t know how much you’ve heard, but the state set up a commission to help accelerate the Marshak workers’ applications for legal status. It required emergency legislative authorization, but we called in a lot of favors.”

  “I’d heard some of that,” Luis said. “What about the ones who just want to go home? Like Odilia.”

  “Working out the kinks with their respective national governments, but it’s going to happen, too,” Michael replied. “In fact, the Mexican government has been helping us with the preliminary identifications of the bodies we found out by Maria Higuera’s grave, as well as with rounding up the various overseers and recruiters who made it under the border. What we’re weak on are the cases against law enforcement collusion. It looks like the arrangements between the Marshaks and the cops and local officials were as pervasive as they were informal. No magic ledger or list of names has come up. Did you ever figure out Odilia’s story?”

  “Yeah,” Luis admitted. “Turns out she was taken from her home when she was still a kid. That’s how this kind of trafficking works now. They told her parents she’d be working in the north, but really she was in a camp just south of the border being trained. It used to be that sex traffickers looked for girls that were twelve or thirteen. Not anymore. They want them as young as eight or nine to get them trained in these tent cities down south. They just set them up outside an auto plant or other kind of factory. Once they’ve been brainwashed into believing that’s all they’ve got going for them in life, it’s safe to send them to the States.”

  Michael couldn’t quite believe his ears. “Can’t we help them?”

  “That’s the other problem. Prostitution’s the easiest crime here. So if the girls are found, they tend to get arrested. They never really know who was behind it, so they can’t even identify their trafficker, much less reliably testify against them in court. They’re the ones that get lost in situations like these.”

  “Well, I’ll bet Odilia Garanzuay is glad she met you, then,” Michael stated. He searched his memory for anything else. “Was there something more to the case you wanted to hear about . . . ?”

  “There’s you,” Luis interrupted.

  The statement was made without malice, but it hung heavy in the air.

  “What do you mean?” Michael asked, genuinely unsure.

  “Your arrangement with the Marshaks, Jason in particular,” Luis said. “I know it predates your first meeting with Annie Whittaker. But I also know to your credit you realized you were on the wrong side of things and cut off contact. That’s when Jason tried to blackmail you.”

  Michael’s eyes went hot. He had no idea how the priest could know about this. The introduction by Judson to ‘an influential someone looking to make a friend in the DA’s office’? The occasional drop-in by the junior Marshak when he was in downtown LA? He didn’t think Judson would give him away out of revenge. There was no upside for someone so attuned to which way the political winds were blowing at any given time.

  Then he realized: the blackmailer. Though they’d recovered Jason’s laptop from his apartment, allowing Michael to not only discover the identity of his blackmailer but to delete the evidenc
e right away, the possibility existed that he’d made a copy or told someone else.

  That someone else was Odilia.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t have proof,” Luis said, raising his hands. “And as you’re the one overseeing access to Jason’s phone and bank records, I don’t see that changing.”

  Michael shook his head, as if trying to dislodge something caught in his hair.

  “I don’t know what to say. I have no idea what would give you that idea.”

  “Let’s say you were approached at some point by a middle man who said they had a wealthy friend looking for some ‘advice’—nothing illegal, mind you—from the DA’s office. It was presented like a consulting position. There were a few questions easily enough answered, and some money changed hands but not much. If there had been more, a part of you, however small, might’ve felt compelled to formally report it to your superiors as you’re meant to do with potential conflicts.”

  “Father, I really don’t know where you’re getti—”

  “When Annie Whittaker first approached you, you didn’t even think about it,” Luis continued. “You gave him the heads-up that some do-gooder was patrolling his fields and could possibly stir up a headline or two. He reciprocated with the same kind of simple ‘Thanks!’ and asked to be kept informed if she turned up anything else. Which you did.”

  Michael went still. He was no longer interested in hearing what the priest had to say. His gaze traveled to the soccer field, where a Chivas midfielder was dribbling the gold and white ball toward the opposing goal.

  “At some point you stopped. You suddenly realized that what Annie was telling you was true and that your partner, Jason, was a very bad guy. So you cut things off. I choose to believe that version because the alternative, that you were selling her out while you were sleeping with her, is too much. Particularly after he started trying to blackmail you with that information.”

  The Chivas player lined up a shot and fired it toward the goal. The goalie leaped and batted it away.

  “As you said, you can’t prove any of this,” Michael said dully.

  “In your line of work it’s all about what you can prove,” Luis said. “In mine all that matters is belief. If you’d just looked me in the eye and said it wasn’t true, maybe I would’ve been gullible enough to have believed you. You’re good with words. Your job is about convincing people. But it remains a mystery how the sheriff’s deputies knew Santiago would be at that address at that exact time. Especially if you’d stopped feeding Jason information by then.”

  On the field the referee blew the whistle, but Michael couldn’t tell which side was at fault.

  Fuck you, priest.

  That’s when he noticed Luis’s hand outstretched in front of him to shake. He didn’t take it, keeping his eyes on the field as a Red Sharks forward hurried over for a corner kick.

  “Maybe next time,” Luis said, dropping his hand. “But let me put this in your mind. I think—I believe—Annie knew, but she went along with it anyway, hoping it’d turn out different. She had Odilia sitting right in front of her telling her stories of motel trysts and powerful men who made all kinds of promises. How could she not draw parallels?”

  Michael turned back to Luis.

  “I loved her,” he said quietly. “I really did.”

  “Then you’re already in hell. Look for me if you’re ever ready to come out.”

  Michael opened his mouth, but no words came out. Luis nodded and walked away.

  It had taken Luis the better part of an hour to find Nicolas’s grave. His mother had been buried alongside his brother in the same cemetery, so he thought he’d have an easier time. But it was night, and in the darkness he couldn’t make out enough of the landmarks he’d used to find it in the past. He tried to triangulate the location off the surrounding hills, but without a moon, the silhouettes blended in with the night sky.

  At least he’d remembered which gate along the back row was broken, allowing visitors in after dark.

  He’d finally happened upon the pair by accident. He was moving methodically from row to row, trying to read the names on tombstones in the dim light. He wasn’t having much luck until he recognized the shape of one headstone as the kind his mother had. This made it easier. Four rows later he was standing over her and her other son.

  “Hello,” Luis whispered, lowering himself to his knees.

  When he prayed anywhere else, he prayed to God. But when he was at Nicolas’s grave, he prayed to his brother. He knew this was not only apostasy but ridiculous, but he found it a way to place his brother’s voice in his head. Not his actual voice, but its memory. This always brought back so much else.

  He didn’t have a conversation in mind tonight, though. After all he’d been through, he wanted silence, but silence in Nicolas’s presence. He wanted to remember what it felt like when he still had a brother.

  He’d arrived just past ten. It was getting on toward two when he heard the voice.

  “Luis? Hey, man, where are you?”

  For a moment he couldn’t place the voice. When he opened his eyes and rose to his feet, he saw Oscar loping toward him with a six-pack of beer, two bottles already missing.

  “Oscar,” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Looking for you, man,” the gangster said, holding out a beer for Luis to take.

  Luis considered leaving it in Oscar’s hand but realized he really wanted it. Just one, he thought, taking the proffered bottle and keying off the cap. Oscar sank onto the ground above Nicolas’s grave and popped the cap on his own bottle. Luis noticed that his hair was askew and his face slicked with sweat.

  “Where are you coming from?” Luis asked, unable to banish the innuendo from his voice.

  “Where do you think?” Oscar scoffed.

  “What’s her name?”

  Oscar said nothing for a moment. Then shrugged. “Can’t tell you that.”

  “You don’t know, or you don’t want to say?” Luis asked.

  Oscar shrugged again.

  “Sounds like love,” Luis said.

  “It wasn’t, then it was, then I found out a little about her, then it was complicated, and I thought we’d have to go our separate ways. But then we both realized neither of us want to.”

  Luis didn’t know what to make of this, so he quietly sipped his beer. He wondered if Oscar’s “work” had ever led to anyone winding up here.

  “I’m proud of you, Luis,” Oscar said quietly. “You did something good out there.”

  “It was God, Oscar,” Luis replied. “I was just his instrument.”

  Luis felt Oscar’s eyes peering at him through the darkness. When he tried to meet his gaze, all he saw were two tiny pinpricks of light at the center of twin black orbs. It was like looking into the face of a spider. He turned away.

  “What’s crazy is that you believe that,” Oscar said.

  “You don’t believe in God?” Luis asked.

  “I didn’t say that. I just don’t think God gives a good goddamn what we do. He’s not trying to tell me how to live my life.”

  Luis shot back the rest of his beer. Oscar offered him another, but he shook his head.

  “Yes, he is,” Luis said. “Just because you’re not listening, doesn’t mean he’s not there trying to get through to you.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.”

  Oscar chuckled. Luis reached out and took his hand. Oscar froze.

  “Pray with me,” Luis said. “Just pray with me.”

  Oscar seemed so thrown by Luis’s hand on his that he didn’t respond at first.

  “Pray with you?”

  “Yeah, Sunday school style. On your knees, head bowed, eyes closed. Pray with me.”

  Oscar moved as if to leave, but Luis tightened his grip. When Oscar tried to bounce to his feet, Luis kept him
anchored.

  “Thought we weren’t going to do any of this ‘change your ways’ shit,” Oscar tried.

  “I’m not asking you to pray for yourself,” Luis said. “I’m asking you to pray for me.”

  Luis felt the tension leave Oscar’s hand. He still seemed confused but now amiable.

  “How do we do that?”

  “Get on your knees, bow your head, and close your eyes.”

  Oscar did as he was told.

  “Now, without speaking, imagine that you are before God and you are alone with God.”

  There was a long pause. Then finally, “Okay.”

  “Now let him ask you a question. When he does, you answer in whatever way you’d like. And I’ll do the same.”

  Luis watched as Oscar’s features relaxed. His breathing remained steady as his shoulders rose and fell. He closed his eyes now and found his brother still there waiting for him. He tried to see if he looked proud of him, angry about his tactics, or conflicted about what had happened. He waited to see if he would say anything. He waited until Oscar had fallen asleep, until the sun began to rise in the east, and until the morning dew rose on the grass around him.

  And when it was too late to wait anymore and he had to get back to St. Augustine’s to change clothes before heading over to teach at St. John’s, he heard the tiniest voice whisper:

  Wait just a little longer . . .

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author would like to acknowledge the contributions of the many talented people who took this book apart and put it back together in a clearer, more readable form each time, including Lisa French, Charlotte Herscher, Kjersti Egerdahl, Marcus Trower, and Will Tyler. Also, his agent, Laura Dail, who had faith in the piece since day one and who encouraged the early and most significant cuts (and a thank-you to Sarah Mlynowski for slipping it to Laura in the first place). Finally, he would like to acknowledge the contribution of filmmaker and frequent collaborator Morna Ciraki, with whom he spent hours discussing this story, as he does just about every writing project.