City of Strangers (Luis Chavez Book 2) Read Online Free

to take the other. Michael remained standing.
    “I’ll get right to the point,” Michael said. “You’ve no doubt heard about the shooting last night in the San Gabriel Valley. Did you know Father Chang?”
    “Not at all.”
    “I didn’t either, so I looked into him today. Seems like a good man actually. Cared a lot about his parishioners and the community around the parish as well.”
    “So, the shooter gave a reason.”
    Michael eyed him with a look that suggested he felt Luis may have missed his true calling.
    “He did,” Michael said. “But in a letter to his lawyer he also admitted the killing was premeditated. He says Chang molested his daughter.”
    Luis’s face flushed hot. He knew he wasn’t supposed to judge others, but he couldn’t help the flash of anger and hate that coursed through his brain. The molestation scandals that had just about brought the church to its knees were such a raw wound, Luis winced at the possibility of another one.
    “Is the girl safe?” Luis asked.
    “We have no reason to believe not,” Michael said. “The confession states that she’s gone back to China. Just we can’t get any kind of confirmation on that. We get a lot of ‘yes’ from people we talk to, only to find out it means ‘Yes, I understand the question,’ not ‘Yes, I know where she is.’ It’s a cultural gap. Of course, we’d love to talk to her, but like you, her safety is our primary concern.”
    Luis could tell from Michael’s body language that this last bit was a lie. He didn’t care, though. The sooner he could get the deputy DA out of here, the better.
    “So, why are you here?”
    “We’re getting some red flags,” Michael admitted. “And given the recent scandals, including here in the LA archdiocese, we have to be right about this before the confession hits the press. No one wants to embarrass the archbishop, but no one wants to sweep something like this under the rug if it is true.”
    “What’re the red flags?”
    “It’s just all so convenient,” Michael said. “The daughter who doesn’t leave a trace. The confession arriving at the station a moment after the shooter was brought in. The accusation of sexual misconduct at a time when everyone is primed to automatically believe it’s true.”
    “What do you want me to do about it?” Luis asked, afraid he already knew.
    “No one at that church is going to talk to the cops,” Michael explained. “But they might talk to another priest. And you’re good at this. You have an instinct for knowing who the bad guys are and the background to understand what makes them tick.”
    This tossed-off allusion to Luis’s criminal past angered Luis even more. Michael didn’t seem to notice.
    “On top of that it’s your own church’s reputation on the line here. If anyone’s motivated to get in there and get people talking, it’s you. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as anyone. If it’s a case of a molested daughter and a revenge shooting like he says, I want the truth of that to come out. If it’s something else entirely and that’s a smoke screen, I want that truth to come out. With you, I can get that done.”
    Luis eyed Michael for a long moment before rising to his feet.
    “The answer’s no,” Luis said. “If you need someone to play mediator between you and Father Chang’s congregants, the best person to ask is the parish priest at St. Jerome’s or someone from the archdiocese. Not me.”
    “This is one of your brother priests,” Michael protested. “Don’t you even want to think about it?”
    Luis considered a raft of responses to this. Instead of choosing, he turned and returned to St. John’s.

III
    “This is amazing,” Oscar de Icaza, small-time gangster and car chopper, enthused as he stared out the bay window overlooking Los Angeles. “You feel like the king of the city.”
    “It’s what they mean by ‘jetliner views,’” the listing agent, a middle-aged woman named Miranda, said.