“Look, I know what this looks like. We— one sec. Miss?” I turn to the secretary, slipping a $50 out of my pocket and setting it on the front desk. “Give us some privacy and go get lunch, will you? You can tell ‘em we threw you out.”
The secretary looks hesitant for a moment, then takes the money and gives a curt nod before shuffling out.
“As I was saying,” I try to continue with a coy smile, but Cherry doesn’t look amused.
“Save it, Leon,” Cherry almost snaps, “this is too far.”
“Is it?” I say, genuinely surprised. “The weasels who work here are capable of doing a lot more harm than skeezes like Mickey, you know.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Cherry says, pacing around the room. “I know why you’re here, Leon, and this is insane. You claim you’re trying to protect the people in this city, but by all means, tell me how busting up a land sale to keep a shallow grave hidden constitutes ‘helping’ anyone but yourselves?”
The words hit me out of nowhere, and I just stare at her, dumbstruck for a few moments. “...huh? The hell are you talking about?”
“I went to the plot of land these people are trying to sell, Leon,” she says, taking out her phone and showing me the county appraiser’s website. “I found out who’s selling it, as well as the fact that it’s been on the market for ages. And I just stopped by there. I saw the grave, Leon.”
“Wait wait wait,” I stop her, shaking my head, trying to wrap my mind around what I’d just heard. “What’s this about a grave? Cherry, what’d you see?”
Cherry looks long and hard into my eyes, and for a moment, I almost forget she’s accusing me of murder. It’s an intense gaze that holds me still for a moment, and as I look back into hers, I wonder if she feels the same as I do.
“You really don’t know, do you?” she says, her shoulders lowering just a bit. “Oh my God, you don’t. Leon, you need to come out there with me. I think this is more serious than we know.”
Now it’s my turn to rub my hand over my face, thinking quickly. “That doesn’t make any sense, though. If they’re trying to sell the land off, if there’s really somebody buried there, they’ll find them the minute they start setting up for construction. Unless…”
Cherry watches my face for a few moment, then the light of understanding sparks in her eyes, and she blanches. “Unless someone knows there’s a grave there.”
My eyes meet hers, and I give her a hard look before nodding curtly. “The FBI may be in town to do more than intimidate us. Come on, follow us back to the bar. I’ll get the two in the back to finish up and follow us. As soon as it’s night, we’re paying the lot a visit.
The grave we find that night is plain as day. I stand over it with my arms crossed while a few patches from the club patrol around us. Cherry is pointing a few things out on the site.
“I’ve moved a few things around—it wasn’t as plainly outlined as it is here, but this is clearly disturbed dirt, about six by two, and there was brush covering it when I found it.”
The moonlight is scarce, but it casts just enough light for us to see.
“Only one way to know for sure,” I say, and Genn steps forward from behind me with a shovel in hand. Cherry looks horrified.
“Are you kidding? What do you think you’re doing? We can’t just…”
“I know, but would you rather involve the cops?” I ask, a grim look on my face. Cherry looks reluctant, but finally, she steps back and lets Genn get to work.
He’s a tough bull of a man, so it doesn’t take long before his careful digging uncovers something, and he sets the shovel aside to start parting the dirt with his hands. As he starts to uncover the body, my brow furrows, and Cherry covers her mouth with a hand.
“Oh my God…”
I was expecting whatever we exhumed to be a body I recognized—someone the mob had dealt with a while ago, or maybe some unsolved murder case locally. But no.
The face in the shallow grave was foreign; clearly someone from south of the border.
“I’ve heard of this kind of thing happening in Texas,” Cherry breathes, “but all the way up here?”
“Prez!” calls one of the men from a dozen feet or so away. “Got another one over here!”
“Here too!”
Now it’s my turn to go pale as I sweep across the field with the men to see the extent of what we’re standing on. There are over a dozen men and women buried here, all immigrants.
“What do we do, Prez?” Genn asks, kneeling over the grave after looking down on the poor man with a sorrowful look. “We can’t go to the cops with this, can we?”