Fields of Wrath (Luis Chavez Book 1) (3 page)

“Did you find the gun?”

“No, but we’re hopeful. The bullets were pistol rounds, which was how we figured it was close range. Markings suggested an automatic. We’re not looking for a decades-old revolver in a haystack for once.”

Fisher hit Michael with a few more questions. Michael asked, as a professional courtesy, to be kept in the loop. Then they went their separate ways.

As he got back into his car, Michael checked his phone. Annie’s law firm had returned his call to say that they’d contacted Annie’s sister out in Florida. Michael’s wife, Helen, had called as well, knowing something about her husband’s evening plans hadn’t gone right. He stopped the message and tossed the phone aside.

This case was supposed to be the stepping stone that would take him to the next level. How the hell could it have gone so wrong?

IV

Growing up, Ernesto Quintanilla
hated
cops. They rolled through his hood staring through those mirrored shades, daring anyone for a reason to get out of the car. You
knew
a beatdown would make their day.

Come on, muchacho. You know you’ll end up in the back of my car one day. Why not make it today?

But Ernesto kept his eyes down, moved along, and stayed out of trouble. When he graduated community college with a degree in criminal justice, he didn’t wait before applying to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. He flew through twenty weeks of departmental training and a few weeks later was a Los Angeles County sheriff.

Now with his own squad car, he never put on shades, never treated anyone with condescension, and introduced himself to residents and business owners, addressing them as “sir” and “ma’am.”

You want respect? Treat others with respect.

At six foot four, he was an imposing presence. He was fair but by the book. The one law enforcement officer in the city who didn’t talk on his cell while driving. His stony gaze alone ended arguments and turned liars into truth tellers.

“Sir?” the pharmacist said. “There’s a problem.”

The pharmacist eyed Ernesto as if fearing this news might lead to trouble.

“What’s that?” Ernesto asked, putting his hands on the counter.

“Your father’s insurance covers three refills, but he needs to go back to the doctor to re-up.”

“Can’t they call it in? It’s hard for him to leave the house.”

“No, it’s a requirement of his provider.”

Ernesto scanned the man’s face for signs he was looking to fuck with a cop. Not seeing any, he paid for the other prescriptions and left.

Traffic was light out to Downey. He parked in front of his old man’s apartment complex and headed in.

“Dad?” he asked, hauling the bags to the kitchen.

“Be right out, Nesto!” came a voice from the bedroom.

Ernesto unpacked the groceries, kicking himself for once again forgetting to bring over the most recent school photos of his boys. The ones on his dad’s fridge were over a year old.

Next time.

Moises Quintanilla, a bent old man in his midseventies, emerged from the hall, an outsized smile on his face.

“How are you,
mijo
?”

“Good,
papi
. I picked up your prescriptions.”

Moises limped over to check the pill bottles. He’d been as tall as his son once but had dropped inches as his spine weakened and bowed. When he’d had hip replacement surgery a few years back, he lost another couple of inches, as well as a step or two. Then came the incontinence, followed by the heart trouble, and finally the rheumatoid arthritis. At this point, getting from room to room in his apartment was about all Moises could manage.

There was a noise from the hallway. Ernesto glanced to his father, who waved the third party into the doorway.

“You remember Father Chavez,” Moises said. “He dropped by to see if I needed anything.”

Ernesto met Luis’s gaze. He’d liked the priest when he met him. The priest was personable and genuinely cared about his parishioners. It was Luis who’d contacted Ernesto about home visits once Moises could no longer attend services, and from the first day Moises had raved about the priest.

It was when Ernesto found out Luis was from Los Angeles that things went south. As he did with everyone who entered his family circle, he’d typed Luis’s name into the police criminal records database. He didn’t like what came back. The city was rife with Chicanos trying to put a heavy street background behind them, but those guys weren’t visiting his father for Bible study and prayer. Luis Chavez had run with some serious criminals.

To his surprise, when he’d confronted Luis about it, the priest copped to everything and even said he’d discussed it with Moises. Regardless, it had given Ernesto pause. If there was one truism in law enforcement, it was that those who broke the law were likely to do so again. Even those who joined the priesthood.

“I was telling Luis it’s a shame you can’t get to services anymore,” Moises said. “One of the boys always has sports. When you were a kid, nobody scheduled anything on the Sabbath.”

“Times change, Pop.”

Ernesto turned to Luis, bracing himself for further chastisement.

“The Bible only tells us to keep the Sabbath holy.” Luis shrugged. “It doesn’t say anything about church. Exodus just tells us to do no work.”

“Is a children’s baseball game keeping the Sabbath holy?” teased Moises.

“In Leviticus, God intertwines the idea of family and the Sabbath,” Luis offered. “So, if they’re together . . . maybe.”

Moises threw up his hands.

“If a priest leaps to the defense of my backsliding son, there’s little I can say,” Moises said, sighing. “But isn’t Leviticus also the book that says cursing one’s parents is punishable by death?”

Luis and Ernesto put away the groceries, while Moises downed his midday pills. After a few minutes Moises was ready for a nap. Ernesto helped him to his bed.

“Sometimes new medication makes him slur his speech,” Ernesto said after returning to the living room. “On the phone it’ll sound like he’s had a stroke. They’ll adjust the dosage, and maybe the next ones just knock him out. They’re extending his life, but he’s less lucid every time I see him.”

Luis nodded. “I’ll show up sometimes and I’ll know he doesn’t recognize me. Rather than admit it, he invites me in and keeps me talking until he figures out who I am. My worry is one day it won’t be me he invites in.”

This gave Ernesto pause. He hadn’t considered this.

“I’ll talk to him. I know he’s grateful for your visits. The church means so much to Dad. Did you know he was reluctant when you first offered?”

“Really?”

“He thought he was unworthy of the time and attention.”

“It’s a privilege,” Luis responded. “I hope I’m as strong in my faith when I’m his age.”

Ernesto agreed and kept looking at Luis expectantly. He’d been surprised to see the priest still there when he came out of the bedroom and figured he wanted something. Sensing this, Luis dug a piece of paper from his pocket and passed it over. It was a newspaper story about the Annie Whittaker shooting.

“The church has been approached by a possible witness,” Luis explained.

“You advised them to contact law enforcement?”

“Of course. As did the archdiocese. But they think the police are involved.”

Ernesto sighed.

“The witness’s version of events,” Luis continued, “is very different from the one in the media. She was shot at as well.”

“She?”

“She.”

“You know this how?”

“I saw the wound. It’s superficial, but it was definitely from a bullet.”

“The witness was at the same location as the vic?” Ernesto asked with surprise.

Luis nodded. “She mentioned a third party, Santiago Higuera, who went missing at the same time. They were to meet up in Los Angeles the next day with somebody she referred to as a city attorney. I think she meant a prosecutor.”

Ernesto shook his head in disbelief.

“If the witness has information relating to a capital case, withholding it is spoliation of evidence, no matter what the reason,” he said. “They have to come in.”

“I’m afraid she’d clam up. That’s why I came to you. Annie Whittaker was a legal rights advocate. If they were meeting with a prosecutor, there’s a good chance somebody in the DA’s office is already looking for them. If they’re afraid the witness might be targeted, too, they might be keeping the search quiet.”

“Let me guess. You want me to ask around?” Ernesto suggested, annoyed.

“I didn’t know who else to ask.”

Ernesto already had an idea who to call. He just didn’t like being in anyone’s debt.

“I hope you and the archdiocese know this isn’t a game. If this person is right and she was targeted the same as Whittaker, she may still be in danger. Have you considered that?”

“She’s safe,” Luis said. “Nobody knows she’s there.”

Maria Higuera fought the urge to look at the clock. Working in a flower shop had taught her time passed faster when ignored, but she hadn’t heard from her brother since Friday afternoon. He’d told her something big was going on that weekend that would have serious implications for their whole family.

“Why are you being mysterious?” she’d asked. “It’s harvesttime, right? You think you’re going to make a big profit this year or something?”

“I can’t talk about it on the phone,” Santiago had replied. “I’ll explain everything on Monday first thing. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Monday morning came and went. Though the shop owner, Mrs. Ponce, had a strict no-cell-phone policy, Maria had managed to slip out and check her phone a couple of times in the parking lot.

Nothing.

Her brother was a farmer. He owned his own land, over a hundred acres up in Ventura County, and was the only family Maria had in the States other than her son, Miguel. He’d left home when he was a teenager, lured to La Norte with the promise of a job. The family didn’t hear from him for a few years. Then, not long after Maria discovered she was pregnant, Santiago sent word that he wanted to bring her over the border.

That was almost fifteen years ago. It had seemed so daunting at the time, but now Maria regarded her brother as her savior. That he hadn’t called after making such a point that he would deeply troubled her.

Why couldn’t he have just said what was going on?

She finally glanced to the clock. It was five. Half an hour before she could knock off. She plucked another six lilies from the flower box next to her and added them to the arrangement she was finishing up.

“Mom?”

She turned to the back doorway. Miguel stood there. He was out of breath.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, afraid Mrs. Ponce could return any minute. “Why aren’t you at Mrs. Leñero’s? Did you take the bus?”

That’s when she saw the look on his face. It was ashen and strained. He appeared much older than his fourteen years.

“Mom. You need to see this.”

He pulled his iPad out of his backpack and opened the cover. The front page of a Mexican newspaper was up in a browser. When she read the headline, she wasn’t sure what it meant. When she saw the photograph next to it, she screamed.

V

After he left Los Angeles for divinity school, Luis returned only once, for the funeral of his mother. He’d flown in, stayed the night on a cot at Sacred Heart, and flown back to New York after the service. She was interred next to Luis’s brother, Nicolas, in a plot she’d purchased when she buried her oldest son. This was befitting. Luis believed his mother had left a lot of herself behind at the cemetery following Nicolas’s funeral.

Luis’s father hadn’t attended his ex-wife’s services. In fact, Luis hadn’t seen him since they buried Nic. If a part of his mother had never left her first child’s grave, an even bigger part of Luis’s father believed he was responsible for digging it. The old man blamed himself for Nicolas’s death, as well as Luis’s trouble. Luis thought this was bullshit, the senior Chavez looking for another reason for self-pity.

When he returned to Los Angeles for good, Luis made no attempt to contact his father.

But he thought of his parents as he walked down South Alvarado Street. The sights and smells of the open markets were so familiar, the wave of nostalgia practically gave him a head rush.

Moving past MacArthur Park, Luis spotted what he’d been looking for on the other side of the street. Called a phone room, it was just that—a retail space the walls of which were lined with a couple dozen sit-down phone booths and nothing else. Everything about it looked temporary, as if it had snuck in after the last business failed and could be packed up and moved out the moment a new tenant came along.

Luis approached the bulletproof cashier’s cage and took out his wallet. Taped to the barrier were phone cards featuring the flags and outlines of an array of countries. Luis tapped one with a cartoon man wearing a sombrero.

“Where in Mexico you calling?” the skinny Latino behind the glass asked.

“Ixtlan.”

The clerk reached under the counter. Coming back with a stack of cards rubber-banded together, he stripped one off the bottom and slid it to Luis.

“Ten dollars gets you four hours, though I’ve had some customers tell me they’ve gotten days out of these. You know the country code and area code?”

Luis nodded, handing over a ten. He took the card, chose a chair, and scratched off the latex backing. As he did so, the clerk took a cell phone from his pocket and dialed.

“Bueno?”

Luis had expected Zapotec, so he was surprised to hear Spanish.

“Hello,” he answered in Spanish. “My name is Luis Chavez. I’m a priest in California. I—”

“Oh no!” the voice sputtered back. “Odilia?”

“No, she’s okay,” Luis said. “She’s at my parish. She gave me your number, asking me to call. She wanted you to know she’s okay.”

“Thank God. Is she coming home?”

“She wants to.”

“Is she in trouble?”

“Yes,” Luis replied. “I’ll have her get in touch with you as soon as possible.”

“You have no idea how worried we’ve been. You hear nothing for so long, hoping she’s doing well, terrified she’s not.”

“When did you last speak to her?”

“Oh, it’s been nine, maybe ten—”

“Months?”

“Years.”

Odilia couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.

“Thank you for calling, Father. Please help my daughter get home. Promise me.”

“I will.”

After hanging up, Luis headed back to his car with even more questions now. He had a lot of things to go over with Odilia. He was halfway to his car when he heard his name. A heavily tattooed man emerged from a bright-orange Charger parked at the curb.

“Luis Chavez! It
is
you, isn’t it? My God!”

The larger-than-life presence of Oscar Beristáin de Icaza hopped onto the sidewalk next to Luis. Over six feet, with a chiseled physique, Oscar enveloped him in a hug. Luis gasped. When they were coming up together, Oscar had been the first in the neighborhood to hit the weights hard. Now that Oscar was all grown up, his embrace was akin to being stuffed into a stack of tractor tires.

“I’d heard about the collar, but I didn’t believe it,” Oscar said, sizing Luis up. “Looks like it fits.”

“How are you, Oscar?”

“Good, man! When’d you get back to town?”

“Six months ago.”

“You couldn’t call?” Oscar retorted, feigning offense.

“You think I didn’t know who Remberto would call the second I walked in?” Luis jutted his chin in the clerk’s direction as he stood in the doorway of the phone room, trying to look as unobtrusive as possible.

“I suppose not. Who
have
you seen?”

“Nobody,” Luis said. “The archdiocese likes its priests to hit the ground running.”

“What do you do? Other than fuck altar boys, I mean.”

Luis knew Oscar wanted a tolerant sigh in return for his caustic remark and gave it to him.

“But seriously, do you give the sermon? I’d come see that.”

“No. The first six months is for learning the ropes.”

“Picking up the choir robes from the dry cleaner’s?”

“Close,” Luis chuckled. “We have members of the laity who do that, but I have to order new ones soon.”

“
Wow.
They already trust you with that shit, huh?”

“That and preparing communion, replacing candles, helping the pastor organize the service and research passages, minor repairs, and upkeep of the nave.”

“What about confession?” Oscar interrupted. “You listen to little old ladies’ fantasies about fucking Carlos Ferro or something?”

A passerby grunted in disgust but then saw the large men who’d emerged from Oscar’s car as well and hurried along, keeping further comments to himself.

“No confessions yet. A couple of home and hospital visits, a few counseling sessions, a few drop-bys on Bible study groups.”

“The excitement never stops,” Oscar scoffed, now meaning the insult.

“At the beginning it’s about establishing yourself into the ritual and routine,” Luis said, actively trying to make his vocation sound as boring as possible to avoid a repeat encounter. “Also, putting in the time to adjust your expectations to life in the parish. You’re looking for how God is already operating in the lives of the people around you.”

Oscar stared at Luis with a look equal parts horror and amusement.

“That’s fucked up, man,” Oscar said. “Sounds like you joined the army but agreed to rank specialist seventeenth class your whole life.”

Luis laughed but wondered if there’d come a time either of them could step out of the roles they’d embraced—Oscar as likely criminal, and Luis as priest—to catch up for real.

“How are things with you?” Luis asked.

“Not without responsibilities, but I choose my path.”

“Which has led you . . . ?”

“To my own shop on Lemoyne,” Oscar boasted. “Started out doing oil changes and tires, moved into custom bodywork and rims. Now got a second shop on Pico, and we’re looking at locations around Culver for store number three, Marina del Rey for store four.”

Chop shops,
Luis figured.

“That’s great.”

“Yeah, but it’s just the beginning,” Oscar continued. “I’ve got big plans. You should come by. I don’t know what you’re driving, but I’ll bet we could do a number on it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

It was the moment when small talk ended and either a real conversation or a parting of ways came next. Luis offered his hand. Oscar opened his arms.

“Come on, man. Are we cousins? Or are we
brothers
?”

Luis returned the embrace but didn’t reply.

The El Sauzal overpass a few miles north of Ensenada, Mexico, had hardly been used by the locals it had been built for, and was barely noticed by travelers who had passed under it for decades.

This might have continued if not for an accident of location. Though thousands passed under it every day on their way north to Tijuana or south to Ensenada, only a handful passed over the bridge. When the drug war engulfed Mexico around 2009, the bridge was adopted for a secondary purpose. The first incident happened in March of that year, when three bodies were found hanging over the highway, facing the southbound lanes. The second came only weeks later—this time just one body—but a pattern had been established. Over the next few years, sixteen bodies would be left hanging over the guardrails on nine different occasions.

The onetime lonely overpass had become notorious.

Today there was only one body. Like the others, the individual had been killed elsewhere and brought here to be displayed. The victim was bound at the wrists and had been lowered over the side. Unlike the others, there was no message attached to the body taking credit for the slaying.

The Servicio Médico Forense unit came out, pulled the body onto the bridge, and began what was often the impossible task of identifying the victim. Though the claims of credit often gave the forensics techs a starting point, the cartels usually mangled a body beyond recognition. Even the dead person’s family would never know peace, only the fear their vanished loved one had suffered a horrible, dehumanizing death.

In the case of the El Sauzal victim, the SEMEFO techs worried only DNA testing could make a positive ID, a process still expensive and labor intensive in Mexico. It was a welcome surprise, then, when they found a partial denture in the back of the victim’s mouth. Within an hour they had a manufacturer and serial number. A call to the Indiana-based manufacturer traced the piece to the office of a Dr. Butchart in Ventura County. After some wrangling over patient confidentiality, they got a name: Santiago Higuera.

When it was determined that the victim might have been a native of Mexico but was now a naturalized citizen of the United States, the US State Department was alerted. Someone voiced the fear that the press might get word of this before they were able to notify the family. One look to the Internet told them they were already too late.

Maybe if he hadn’t been an American.

Maria stared at the pixilated camera-phone image alongside the story, looking for that one telling detail that would reveal this to be a case of mistaken identity. It had to be. What would Santiago be doing in Mexico? He
never
went back. It was hard enough to get him to leave his land during the regular part of the year, but at harvesttime? Impossible.

She recalled his cryptic phone call. They hadn’t been the words of a man in fear for his life.

She didn’t know how she made it home without falling apart. When she walked into the house, she expected the phone to be ringing off the hook, but it was silent.

“I unplugged it,” Miguel admitted. “And I deleted all the voice mails from reporters. Also got on the computer and delisted us from the phone books.”

You can do that?
Maria thought, always marveling at what her son was able to do online.

“There was one call from some lawyer about the farm, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I saved it as an audio file, if you want to listen to it later . . .”

The image of the unrecognizable corpse hanging lifeless from a bridge returned to Maria’s mind’s eye. Her body began to quake as she tried to connect it with her brother, so strong and so confident. New tears poured from her eyes as she collapsed on the floor in anguish.

“Ah, Mom,” Miguel said, kneeling and putting his arms around her. “It’s going to be okay.”

They huddled together for the better part of the next hour, Maria crying intermittently, until the sun set and the house was dark.