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

that fast? If the goal was the car or the purse, why the killing? If, as Odilia suggested, Annie was simply shot in the back of the head, had there even been time for a struggle?
    Luis had been around his share of crime. This sounded like murder, not robbery.

    The drive from Los Angeles to the Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office was the longest of Michael Story’s life. He hadn’t slept, having stayed in his office at the Criminal Justice Center until well past sunrise, waiting to hear back from Annie. When his phone finally rang, Annie’s cell number on the caller ID, he was surprised to hear a man’s voice on the other end of the line.
    “Who is this?” Michael asked.
    “Camarillo Police Detective Lawrence Fisher. Who am I speaking to?”
    “LA Deputy District Attorney Michael Story. Why do you have Annie Whittaker’s phone?”
    Before he got to the end of his question, his heart sank. He called down to the bailiff and asked that the day’s proceedings get pushed to the afternoon.
    Though he was going to Ventura County to identify the body, the mention of an armed robbery had given rise to several questions of his own. Annie didn’t live in the big city. He didn’t know the crime statistics of her neighborhood but imagined they were more along the lines of noise complaints and the occasional report of teen vandalism than murder and attempted carjacking.
    The media had the story before he was outside the city limits. Another hour and they had police quotes to go with it. A random homicide with the hook that the victim was a young white woman in an upscale neighborhood.
    He’d warned Annie. The stakes were high. Even so, he hadn’t believed he’d one day be standing over her ruined body, nodding to a detective and a coroner’s assistant who hadn’t quite mastered a look of solemn concern.
    “For the record, you’re identifying this person as Anne Whittaker?” Fisher asked.
    “I am,” he agreed, glancing away as quickly as he could.
    “Looks fishy, right?” Michael said when he and the detective stepped into the hall to compare notes.
    “How do you mean?”
    “A carjacker just happened to be in her neighborhood that time of night?”
    “We’re operating on the theory that it was a day laborer. They’ve got those fields across the highway. It’s the peak of the season. All it takes is one guy to get high and go looking for trouble.”
    “Has anything like this happened before?” Michael asked.
    “Not a murder, but there’s been drunk driving, fights, burglary. You’d better believe I’ll be spending the next few weeks getting all kinds of calls from the upstanding white people of this city asking what’s being done about the illegals who they rely on the other fifty weeks of the year.”
    “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