Shatter Read online

  Every minute outside of school and cross-country practice finds me at Jeremy’s house for mock trial run-throughs. At first Dad wanted the practices to be switched to our house so he could monitor me more closely, but I dug in my heels, embarrassed to bring the group to an old farmhouse with bad carpets, few outlets, and poor Wi-Fi. He consented.

  Dad and I ignore each other except once when I yelled at him for embarrassing me. He showed up halfway through a mock trial practice in order to verify I was actually there. I can’t stop thinking of how a forensic expert will come Saturday, the same day as the mock trial. I can’t go to sleep any night until I hear from Cordero.

  During the day he works in the fields for cash and information that doesn’t come. The rash on his hands is gone now that he’s in a broccoli field. I tell him that if Carrie were alive, she’d want the name and address of the grower failing to pass out gloves for sprayed tomatoes. He answers that she used to reimburse him for handing out twenty dollar bills to anyone he thought deserved it. He used the privilege only twice.

  I love the idea of Carrie trusting a gang member to do her charitable work. I especially love that he actually did it, choosing a blind Apache Indian from Chihuahua and a Polynesian boy with no shoes.

  Cordero says he’s worried that he’ll be dropped from the mock trial class, so we go over the notes he’ll need to write his witness questions. He will play the part of the Cuban conspirator who visited Silvia Odio in 1963. He managed to contact Mr. White on his own and the teacher announced that Cordero’s continued absences will affect his grade, but not his teammates’.

  Finally, Saturday morning arrives.

  I wake up before dawn. The early hour feels calm. I pack the supplies I’ll need for the Laborer’s March and mock trial. Both today. The forensic expert is also coming today. I pause often to stare out the window. The growers and pickers haven’t settled on a wage yet, and it’s early September now. The peaches have all dropped. Almost the whole crop, wasted.

  Beyond our empty field, the trees of our neighbors blur together in the semi-dark outlines in various shades of dark and light grey. They’re just trees. They produce peaches that bring a profit. And someday, new people might die over how everyone is paid.

  But I don’t want it to be today.

  I leave a note on the kitchen counter explaining that I’m safe. Securing my backpack, I dash out the back door. Dad doesn’t catch me.

  I jog through orchards and hit a chain link fence with wild oak trees beyond. I hop it, passing three tents and several groups of Hispanic adults sitting on camp chairs. The farther I travel, the thicker the crowds become. I hit a grassy field surrounded by gravel parking lots. Children run around waving the purple flags of the union. Trucks and vans are parked haphazardly.

  I cross the field and keep going. Envy said to head south into the woods of the state park and there’d be a barn. Finally, I see the bright red building and a swirling mass of people.

  I grab my phone. There are no messages from Dad or Slate. Slate is working this morning, and will text me when he’s ready to go to the mock trial. I wonder if Dad will text me or hop directly into his car when he figures out I’m missing. I feel guilty, but maybe something else too. Maybe hopeful. If I find out who killed Juan today—and if it’s not Dad—then I won’t have to suspect him anymore.

  I call AddyDay. “I’m here.”

  “I see you.”

  I spot her a few tree rows down, motioning me forward.

  “Come on,” she says when I reach her. “The barn’s almost full.”

  We shuffle inside the huge, dark space, lit by cracks in the wooden walls. Dust and the smell of dry rot fill my nostrils. Between bodies, I see a workbench topped with iron tools that probably haven’t seen use for fifty years—heirlooms of a time when small-time landowners picked their own crop.

  A short Hispanic man steps onto something—I can’t see what—and becomes a head and shoulders taller than everyone else. He’s got a round face that’s all smiles.

  “… brought you here to train you.”

  The crowd cheers.

  “Let’s hear it for Benicio de la Cruz, president of the Farm Workers Union!” a woman in the front says. I recognize her styled bleach-blond hair. Senator Lethco. With her is Rick Thornton with his wild cowlicks.

  The cheers become frantic, with whistles and an air horn that makes me cover my ears. Envy and Kimi are in the center of the barn in rapt attention. A half dozen other students are present. I think I see AddyDay’s friends, Marissa and Katelyn, back there.

  The union president calms everyone using both arms, palms out. “Okay, now you can hear me. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Here today, our mission is peace. That is our message.”

  The barn ripples with excited chatter. AddyDay gets her cell phone out and snaps a picture of Benicio.

  “Violence is among us,” he says. “It does not come from us, but we must deal with it. We are peaceful. But we do have a weapon when violence happens to us. We have the media.”

  “Amen,” a woman next to me with dark cornrows calls.

  “So now I say to you. Bring out those cell phones. That’s right. Get your cameras.” His voice takes on the timbre of a preacher as the cell phones appear above people’s heads. “Now, today. Document what is happening—really happening. The slurs, the man who punches a brother for going on strike, the woman who refuses to see hungry children begging. This is your mission. We will not back down. Come bombs, threats, or death, we won’t back down!”

  The thunder of the onlookers shakes the wooden floorboards. Dust floats down from the rafters.

  “Make it your mission!” he roars. “Find the violence. Expose it. Don’t stop until you have pictures, websites, whole newspapers showing the greedy, bloodied hand of the growers. When our nation sees our suffering, it will not turn its back on us.”

  I watch men and women clap, eating up his emotion.

  “The nation will not put up with the violence of the most murderous of growers,” he continues.

  Something about the tone of his voice makes me look up in alarm.

  Benicio is looking right at me, eyes narrowed.

  “Oh no,” AddyDay says as everyone turns to us.

  “Do I see someone who wasn’t invited to this meeting?” Benicio asks. “Someone who lives on the property Juan Herrera was murdered on? The very dirt used to bury him?”

  People gasp as Benicio climbs down from his perch. His shirt is a red and black flannel. It’s long-sleeved and buttoned to the collar. Verona High students lean around each other to see, parting for Benicio until he’s right in front of me. If he knows who I am, he knows who my sister is. I guess being Carrie’s sister isn’t enough to make up for living on the property where the body of a union official was unearthed.

  Envy steps toward Benicio, anxious. “I invited her.”

  “Does she know our other plans today?” he whispers in answer. He’s old enough to be hard of hearing. I think he thinks he’s quieter than he is.

  She shakes her head, and he breathes in relief.

  “Still,” he says so everyone can hear. “This meeting is private. Envy, I’m disappointed.”

  Kimi steps beside Envy and looks at Benicio in jealous alarm. No one is allowed to pick on Envy but her.

  “Salem helped start Students for Strike,” Kimi tells him. She points at AddyDay. “It’s this girl who shouldn’t be here.”

  AddyDay reddens. “You said Salem could bring a friend.” She wants so badly to be accepted.

  Kimi folds her arms. “We voted you out of the club, remember?”

  My shoulders drop in disappointment. I didn’t know they’d done that.

  AddyDay’s two friends step to face her, glaring.

  Marissa folds her arms. “I can’t believe you came, knowing who your stepdad is.”

  “No, no!” Jeremy interrupts, threading bodies to get to us. “Let Addy tell the union president. You’d love to tell President de la Cru
z about where you live, Addy? Who your stepdad is?”

  “Young lady?” Benicio prompts her.

  AddyDay glances at the union president. “Well … my mom got married a few years ago and we moved into my stepdad’s house. Bill Knockwurst’s house.”

  “The mayor who filed a lawsuit against us?” he booms, louder than necessary. He dons an elaborate frown.

  Boos fill the air.

  I fist my hand, ready to defend AddyDay. “She has as much right to—”

  “No, I don’t.” AddyDay gives me a significant look and then drops her head like she’s sad. “The club didn’t invite me—but it did invite Salem. She’s Carrie Jefferson’s sister.”

  The name sends a ripple through the jeering crowd, silencing it. The expression of the woman next to me changes from angry warrior to reminiscing grandma. Benicio may have known Carrie was my sister, but this woman didn’t. Carrie was a hero despite being the daughter of a grower. It’s like she’s not entirely gone, like a piece of her is lending me her importance and giving me a voice.

  Benicio watches AddyDay slip out of the barn. There’s a victory in the corner of his lips. He’ll never advocate violence but that doesn’t mean he can’t see it coming, can’t use it for his purposes. Carrie was better than that. AddyDay’s better than that. She knew I’d get more information if she took the fall for both of us. She’s braver than she gives herself credit for.

  Inspired, I gather my own courage.

  “It’s true. Juan Herrera was buried behind my house,” I announce. “I came today because I wanted … well, I—I wanted to know him, who he was. I lost my sister too, and I just … she loved the union so much …”

  My voice shakes. Dust tickles my nose. Nearby, Rick Thornton listens, nodding. The silence in the barn makes my emotional rawness stand out all the more. I’m grieving, just like they are. It makes me one of them.

  “So you want to know about Juan Herrera.” Benicio takes me by the shoulder with one hand. He motions for Rick. “Rick, tell her.”

  Rick looks at him in surprise. The crowd shuffles aside so he can approach.

  “Juan grew up troubled,” Rick explains to everyone. “I knew him back then. The union gave him a chance. A job.”

  Benicio nods. “You got Juan that job. How long was he employed with us? You’re in charge of our records, right Rick?” His eyes twinkle.

  “Oh, now you’re making fun of my record-keeping,” Rick says with a smile. He addresses the crowd to explain. “I lost the recording of the May grower’s meeting. Twice.”

  “Twice?” I say, coloring as the union members laugh. I found that recording and gave it to the police. Here Rick is casually mentioning the tape, obviously not worried about how it verifies many of the grower’s alibis and calls into question those of others. When the growers asked him for the recording, I wonder if they even mentioned why they wanted it.

  Rick grins. “I left it at the grower’s meeting, still going. At the end of the meeting, the mayor stopped the recording and got it back to me. Then I lost it again.”

  I stare at him in shock.

  “The mayor?” I ask. “He stopped the tape on May 24? You’re sure?”

  If the mayor stopped the recording at the end of the meeting, that gives him an alibi for Juan’s murder.

  Rick nods. “Well, that’s what everyone said. Him and Mr. White. Hey, they’re not bad on a personal level,” Rick says, defending himself from the crowd’s grumbling at the mention of the mayor. “We have friends among the growers, remember. Like Carrie. In fact, look at this right here.”

  Opening up a laptop case, he rifles through it. He pulls out the plaque Carrie got him, calling him the World’s Best Union Club Advisor. “I ran into this the other day and, man. It put a smile on my face. Carrie Jefferson ran a club to support the union and she was the daughter of the union. The union helps people. It changes people. It changed Juan. His experience with the union turned him around.”

  “And then Juan became a victim of a senseless crime,” Benicio roars, reengaging the crowd. He’s so short I can see the top of his gelled black hair. “Why was Juan killed? Why, any of us could have been Juan. But all of us can also be a source of inspiration like Carrie Jefferson.”

  The mood in the room is electric. Be Carrie Jefferson? Everyone wants that.

  They stomp and shout. I have to call AddyDay immediately. I can’t believe it. Her stepdad isn’t a murderer. But who is? Dad and Officer Haynes are our only remaining suspects.

  “For a while, Carrie herself was tempted by lies—the lies of the growers.” With his loud voice, Benicio has grabbed the attention of the crowd again. He takes my shoulder. He’s about to cry. “She even questioned union officials, concerned someone could take bribes, fussing over voting process details so that every vote for or against the strike would count. Carrie … so dedicated to fighting corruption outside the union and even within it.”

  Any temptation I had to follow Benicio’s emotional rollercoaster collapses under the weight of mental calculation. If Carrie thought a union official was taking bribes, she must have had a reason. Who did Carrie think was taking bribes? And why was she worried about the union’s voting process?

  “Did Carrie suspect Juan of taking bribes?” I murmur, realizing my mistake as Benicio’s eyes widen.

  “You would smear the name of a fallen hero?” Tears stream down Benicio’s face, a hand on his chest. He’s not mad at my accusation. He’s worried my soul is in danger of perishing. “Blame each other, we fall. United, we stand. Unity is the strength of the union. Unity is the union. We win by boarding those buses to Sacramento and showing the world we will not be intimidated. We will hold our Laborer’s Rally this evening come death! We will fight for fair wages come anything!”

  He’ll lead his followers straight to the edge of a cliff. If they fall to their death, all the better as long as a camera captures the image.

  “I’m taking the first picture of grower violence!” Senator Lethco shouts, holding her cell phone above her head. She races to the barn door.

  Amid the cheering, people shove to follow her lead. Someone knocks over the workbench, leading to an eruption of shouts as tools fall. One man picks an old ax off his shoe and slams it in anger onto the floor, broadside. The blade breaks free from the dry-rotted wooden handle.

  My phone vibrates. AddyDay’s text says she’s gone home to get ready for the mock trial and not to worry about her. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to meet Cordero to fill him in on what we learned from the union meeting. There’s a message from him as well, a pinged location about a mile from here. We have two hours until we have to leave for the mock trial.

  I sprint outside, ready to jog to Cordero and tell him the rumors about union bribery. What did Carrie think was going on? What was going on?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Backpack jostling, I run through the woods until trees give way to the floodplains of the San Joaquin River. The grass is long and golden brown. This afternoon, the mock trial will start. Soon after, the Laborer’s Rally will begin, despite a bomb threat. Peril feels terribly soon—like a literal ticking time bomb.

  Off to the side of the country road, Cordero is leaning against the trunk of a shade tree, watching me approach.

  A stirring of breeze does nothing to cool my anxiety as he scrutinizes me the way he always does.

  The cuts on his arms have healed, as mine have. My heart rate increases as my pace slows. He doesn’t react to my arrival, just keeps his head tipped back against the bark, eyes alert. The sixty seconds it takes me to reach him seem to take an hour.

  He pushes away from the trunk and faces me. His lips are chapped, but he’s managed to shave recently.

  “Are you eating enough?” I ask before I can think. Why don’t I ease into topics, the way normal people do?

  “Yes.” A smile plays on his lips. “You looked scared of me.”

  I make a face and then focus on the news I have for him.

  “The m
ayor has an alibi,” I say. “I couldn’t believe it. That leaves only Dad or Haynes.”

  I try to explain what Rick said and how AddyDay was thrown out of the meeting. The people weren’t angry, they were motivated. They were true believers.

  “It was like church,” I say. “Like Juan Herrera’s their slain prophet. Rick said Juan was kind of messed up when he was a teen, but straightened out basically when he had the farm union preached to him.”

  Cordero nods, eyes alert in the face of all the new information. “Yes, this sounds like the union.”

  “I guess they have to be big-time believers to go on strike. For a group of people who don’t eat when they don’t work, strikes are no small thing.”

  “It’s better than getting deported,” he says.

  “True. I just felt like … I don’t know. Benicio says the right things but … I wish I knew what Carrie thought of him.”

  What I mean is that I wish I knew what she’d tell me if she’d seen him today. She’d probably tell me that she loved him even if he did kick AddyDay out of a meeting. Union officials are dying. What’s he supposed to do when a potential spy is in his midst?

  “Benicio thinks Juan was just a random victim—wrong place, wrong time,” I continue. “But I did learn one thing. He said Carrie suspected a union official of taking bribes. Like she didn’t just wonder, she was asking specific questions. Benicio also mentioned she was looking into the union’s voting process. If a union official was able to tamper with the vote, he could have made sure no strike ever happened, no matter what union members wanted.”

  Cordero doesn’t answer, thinking.

  “Well, what if there was a person taking bribes and tampering with votes?” I ask. “Juan Herrera.”

  Cordero tests the idea aloud. “The growers bribe Juan, who was supposed to throw the vote and keep the strike from happening.”

  “Exactly. Maybe the deal soured. Maybe he stopped taking their money and told them he didn’t want to keep the strike from happening. This gives the killer a specific motive for targeting Juan, but we still don’t know who the killer is.”