Fields of Wrath (Luis Chavez Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

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