Fields of Wrath (Luis Chavez Book 1) (26 page)

“Hadn’t you heard? Father Holmes is leaving us. A seminary in Georgia needed a rector. He has family there, including an older and infirm sister. He wanted to go.”

“And Father Stott-Murray?” Luis asked, referring to an ambitious priest who served as choirmaster at St. John’s.

“Of the many sins of the clergy, being unable to cloak one’s ambition is the most easily and most often punished,” Whillans replied. “Are we done, or do you need to go down the list of every other priest at our parish first?”

Luis did not.

“Then it’s settled. We’ll meet next week to go over your new tasks. First order of business will be for you to go to the archdiocese with me to meet the bishops you haven’t met yet, but also the archbishop.”

Luis hated that this glimpse of power sent a thrill up his spine. Whillans noticed the sour look on his face and laughed.

“If we didn’t glorify the earthly office, why would our parishioners? And there are good men in the archdiocese. It’s just your job to discover who. What do they say? ‘Not all who rise do so for love of the pearl of great price, and those that do aren’t always the enemy.’ There are many things asked of God’s priesthood. If only one type of man was called, we wouldn’t get much done.”

Whillans eyed Luis closely.

“You have a question?”

“Is this because I know about Bridgette?” Luis asked.

“I wish you didn’t think me capable of such a cynical move, but maybe I deserve that,” Whillans sighed. “The answer is no. In truth I initially fled from this decision because not only are you a good priest, you’re a good man. Any minute you’re made to spend on parish bureaucracy rather than ministering to the congregants is a minute wasted. But in the coming months I’ll need to lean on my assistant pastor more and more. I have to trust that person and—”

“Okay,” Luis interrupted.

The pastor extended a hand to him. Luis shook it.

There was a knock on the door, and Erna poked her head in.

“There’s a police officer here to see Father Chavez. He said you called him.”

When she saw Luis’s battered face, she shrank in horror.

“Oh my!”

The police officer waiting in the nave turned out to be Ernesto.

“We tracked Jason Marshak’s phone to LAX using a Stinger,” Ernesto explained. “He got out of his vehicle but never entered the gate. We’re operating on the theory that he saw the heavy police presence and figured it was for him.”

“So, where’d he go?”

“The surveillance cameras show him leaving his car behind to get in the taxi line. He left his cell phone on a bench and disappeared. Any clue where he’d go?”

Luis thought for a moment before nodding.

“I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

XXXI

“Worst-case scenario, you resign but maintain your innocence. The company is sold with the understanding that you will have no involvement with it again, in name or not. No stocks, no board seat emeritus, no consulting on the transition.”

The speaker was a crisis manager named Brenda, allegedly one of the best in the world, video-conferenced in from her office in London. Jack had explained to Glenn that getting her to ring on such short notice, particularly given that it was so early in the morning there, was a coup.

Glenn didn’t quite buy this, given that she could practically name her price.

“You would also have to divest yourself of any investments related to the company, its subsidiaries, or anything else tangentially related,” she continued. “You’d also sign an NDA that would prevent you from speaking to the media about any aspect of the deal or about the company going forward, no matter what form it takes. You would also offer to sign a noncompete contract that would prevent you from ever working in this field again.”

How did it come to this so quickly?
Glenn wondered.

He sipped from a glass of scotch as he sat in his home office, half paying attention to the faces on the computer screen. They weren’t talking about some pop star who’d run over a fan or an athlete busted for drugs. This was a company that had taken a century to build. That it could crumble in an afternoon was somewhere between tragic and surreal.

“Does that make sense, Glenn?” Jack asked, still in his office.

“Are we at worst-case scenario?” Glenn asked.

No one said anything. Brenda gave them another second before jumping in.

“If you wish to maximize your potential profits, then yes, that is where we are,” she said gravely. “Every passing day, you hurt your position. Divest and sell now, separate the charges against the company from any that might be brought against your family, and your losses will be minimal and solely financial. You won’t see the inside of a courtroom.”

“But it’d be an admission of guilt,” Glenn countered. “I’d be a sacrificial lamb.”

The
no shit
look on Brenda’s face made him wonder if she’d forgotten it was a video chat. That made him smile.

“It’s contrition,” Brenda said. “It’s the captain of the ship accepting the blame even before it’s been assigned. We’d then go to work in the press reiterating that you hadn’t been charged with a thing, but that didn’t matter to you. What you cared most about was your reputation and your workers. By putting the company in someone else’s hands, the story dies faster. No one writes hit-whoring op-eds every few weeks calling for your resignation. Think of the press like a predatory animal. It savors the hunt and kills its own food. It loses interest when a scapegoat arrives on a silver platter, and it moves on.”

Glenn supposed it all made sense. She even knew to make it sound like he could wring a small victory out of it. There was just one more point to address.

“What about Jason? Will he be able to stay on?”

The silence that followed was heavy with incredulity that Glenn hadn’t figured this out for himself.

“Same deal as you,” Brenda said evenly. “No involvement whatsoever.”

“No, that’s unacceptable,” Glenn protested. “A lifetime noncompete for me is no big deal at my age. But this is all Jason knows. He’s not the boss here. Why does he have to fall on his sword? I’d think he’d be valuable during any transition, particularly given his relationship with vendors and suppliers.”

“I’m not saying it’s the easiest thing to accept, but his financial compensation would be as significant as your own.”

Glenn stood to make a point, then saw the video screen was framed up on his midsection. He sat back down.

“Hold on a minute. Are you saying it’s the name? The
name
is tainted? In one day?!”

“That is what I’m saying,” Brenda replied, now agitated. “But you can’t look at it like it’s something gone in a day. The allegations suggest a pattern dating back at least ten years.”

“They’re
allegations
!” Glenn roared. “There haven’t even been charges, much less anything proven!”

“Right, but you said reputation. Your brother slash cofounder confessed to a triple homicide on the very day your company was raided by law enforcement and over a thousand undocumented forced laborers freed. Headlines like ‘Marshak Workers Freed’ are already popping up around the world. Not ‘farm workers,’ not ‘undocumented workers,’ but ‘Marshak workers.’ It is the shorthand, it is the perception, true or not. There was no
Valdez
; it was
Exxon Valdez
. This was another hundred-year-old company that had already had to change its name from Standard Oil to Esso to hide negative connotations. These things have permanent consequences in the public sphere.”

“What about putting it all on Henry?” Glenn said, reaching. “He’s already confessed. Let him do something to benefit the family for a change.”

“Doesn’t pass the smell test, Glenn,” Jack chimed in. “We’ve looked at all angles and there’s nothing there. Everyone knows he hasn’t been part of the day-to-day operations for years. It has to be you. If anything, Henry set the stage for you to come in and say that you’re ‘needed at home.’ It’ll be sympathetic. Could even help Jason.”

Glenn emptied his glass. He needed a refill, and the bar was on the other side of the room.

“Give me the night to think about it.”

He heard three or four intakes of breath, the lawyer readying to unleash the many reasons why it had to be tonight as he hit the button to disconnect the call. He smiled at the idea of annoying Brenda and her colleagues, unable to walk away from the big-fish commission, but not knowing if it was theirs or not.

He rose, snagged his glass, and made for the bottles.

“That didn’t sound promising.”

Glenn dropped the glass. It bounced twice on the Persian rug, splashing out its contents, before clunking into the baseboard.

“Sorry,” Jason said, stepping in from the doorway. “Where’s Charlene?”

Glenn wasn’t sure how long Jason had been standing there. He recovered and picked up the glass.

“Catalina. She got on the last ferry. The Seidels are there for a wedding. They booked her a room at the bed-and-breakfast where they’re staying. They thought she could use some privacy.”

“So, it’s just you tonight?”

“Well, me and my new best friends in the press. You must have passed the news vans as you came in.”

Jason shook his head and glanced out the window.

“No. I parked on the fire road behind the pool house and came in through the garden.”

Glenn shoveled the loose ice cubes into the tumbler and made a mental note to tell the housekeeper about a possible stain on the rug. He considered a small pour but then filled it to the top despite the consequences that would arrive in the morning. He’d need all the liquid courage he could summon for the chat he now had to have with Jason.

“So, how much did you hear?” Glenn asked. “I would’ve looped you in to the call, but you were pretty hard to get ahold of today.”

“I heard enough to know it’s serious,” Jason said. “What’re we going to do, Glenn?”

“
We?
I don’t know what
we
are going to do, Jason. Before deciding that, I think I’d like to know what you have done. They’re trying to throw the whole family to the wolves. That’s not something I can allow to happen. But it sounds like you’ve been, well, what’s the word?
Ambitious
?”

For a moment it looked like his nephew might disappoint him with a denial or a lie. His instinct was self-preservation after all. But this receded quickly as the young man’s face became serious and drawn.

“How’d you find out?”

“I didn’t,” Glenn said. “From what little I know about the investigation thus far, you’re the only one with the necessary access other than your father and myself. And Henry—well, he was never one to cut corners.”

“Ah, I should’ve known my sin was getting caught, not committing the act in the first place,” Jason sneered. “That’s really your response?”

Glenn eyed his drink dully. Somehow the conversation had gotten off on the wrong foot. His company was collapsing all around him. He knew he should be furious, at least indignant. But there was a part of him, however fatalistic, that felt he’d been proven right. Jason was incapable of leading the company. Glenn was the only man for the job. It could never survive without his guiding hand.

“No, Jason, it’s not that,” he said, fighting to articulate his thought. “You’re family. You screwed up. Now you’re here for forgiveness, and I’m here to tell you that you don’t even have to ask.”

Jason let out a peal of laughter.

“Forgiveness? Do you know what it was like hearing you in that meeting with Crown, railing against them for running businesses into the ground with impossible demands? I almost broke up laughing.”

“What?” Glenn asked. “I’m not sure I’m following . . .”

“You’ve made my life hell,” Jason continued. “When I went to college, the last thing I wanted to do was come back and work in the family business. But you said I’d be groomed, that they needed the next generation of Marshaks, that one day I’d run the whole thing. I said yes and sealed my fate.”

Glenn sipped his drink. He’d witnessed the father’s tantrum that morning at a police station, so why not the son’s tonight?
But what a ridiculous display,
he thought.

“But once I made real inroads and people started to take me seriously, you recognized that your own position was in jeopardy. Everyone talking about pushing you aside and letting the new blood run the show.”

“No one was talking about that,” Glenn said, chuckling.

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Jason shot back. “To prevent it, you put the most impossible tasks in front of me. Streamline this, raise-the-quotas that. Increase profits, lower the overhead. You just wanted me to prove myself unworthy. So maybe I did have to cut corners. Maybe I did have to look to a different labor pool and play a little rougher to keep those rules in place. But I raised those quotas and increased our profits more than you ever could. And there’s nothing harder to argue against than success. I earned my place at the table. I didn’t get it simply because of my name.”

“Is that what you think?” Glenn barked, furious at having his methods questioned in such a way. “It seems your earning of a place at the table is losing us the whole company! There’s your legacy. Congratulations. Now, do what you came to do.”

Jason twisted his face. Glenn nodded to a mirror on the far wall, where the gun tucked into the back of Jason’s pants was reflected.

“You fucking child,” Glenn continued. “A child blames others, never himself.”

“Then maybe I am more your son than Henry’s,” Jason said, pulling the weapon and crossing the room to place the barrel on Glenn’s chest.

Glenn didn’t flinch. He’d had a few guns pulled on him in the early days, usually by mobbed-up liquor distributors. He’d come to realize if they didn’t shoot in the first second, they weren’t actually angry enough. It was all threat, no bite. He raised his glass to his lips and finished his drink. Jason pulled the hammer back and tightened his grip on the handle.

“Jason?”

Glenn glanced to the doorway as the young woman from the party appeared behind Jason. She was flanked by a priest.

“What are you doing here?” he exclaimed.

“I came to see you,” she said. “We ended things badly. I wanted a chance to fix that.”

“Who is this?” Glenn demanded.

“This is Odilia, the girl you said I couldn’t have, Uncle,” Jason said. “The one you humiliated in front of the family.”

Glenn said nothing. Jason turned to Luis.

“You brought her here?”

“I did,” Luis began. “But before she’ll talk to you, you need to put the gun down. You didn’t really come here to kill your uncle. We know that.”

“How do you know that?”

“If you had, he’d be dead by now,” Luis explained. “You just wanted him to understand why you wanted him to die. He gets that now.”

“You think so?” Jason asked cavalierly. “To me he just looks like a drunk version of the asshole he always is. You think he’s come to a great new understanding?”

“I think you tried your best, and a bullet isn’t going to change that,” Luis offered. “But if you don’t put your gun down, we’ve got two sheriff’s deputies with us who have guns of their own trained on you right now. I asked them to allow me and Odilia a chance to talk to you first. You don’t have much time. Do you understand?”

Glenn scanned the room but saw no deputy. It was a good bluff, but he didn’t think Jason would go for it, either. “Fuck you.”

Jason went to raise the gun, but Odilia moved toward him and put her hand on his.

“Jason, it’s over. Please. Put the gun down, or they’ll kill you.”

“I’d think you’d like that,” Jason snapped.

“Not true,” Odilia replied evenly. “Hasn’t there been enough violence? Annie? Santiago? The others?”

Jason held her gaze for a long moment. She stared right back at him.

“Will you stay with me?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Through whatever happens next?”

“Jason. Please do what they say. Then we’ll talk.”

A part of him seemed to relax, the tension leaving his body. Slowly he put his arms around Odilia, and she reciprocated. He held her for a moment tight to his chest, then raised the gun to the back of her head.

“This was all for you,” he said quietly.

The shot was so loud that its echo sounded like two more. The body wavered, as if unable to decide if it should fall or remain standing. It selected the former and toppled to the ground in a heap.

“Jesus Christ.”

The words came from Glenn, who stared at his fallen nephew in shock. Odilia, who had blood splattered up both arms and across her chest and face, eyed Jason’s corpse with revulsion. The shattered balcony door, through which the fatal round had been fired, opened and two sheriff’s deputies hurried in. The lead deputy kicked Jason’s gun aside and knelt next to the body to check the pulse.