“I could make you do the work.”
“You could, but I don’t think you will.”
Another silence. Then Nalchek finally answered, “I didn’t suspect anything. Not right away. It wasn’t until after my grandfather’s accident that I put it all together. Before that, I only thought that my grandfather had aged enormously since I had last been with him.” He grimaced. “But after Afghanistan, I thought the whole world had aged and was going to hell.”
“Your grandfather had this accident a year after you went to work for him,” Joe said. “Would you like to continue?”
“No.” Nalchek’s lips twisted. “But I’m sure that you have an idea where this is going and are planning a follow-up.”
Joe nodded.
Nalchek shrugged. “We found my grandfather in the wine cellars one morning with his head split open. I had reason to believe that it was no accident. He kept holding my hand and telling me that it was a warning. He kept saying the word over and over. Warning. On the way to the hospital, he had a massive stroke that affected both his body and mental capacity. My entire family was devastated. He was taken to Bryland for rehab, but we knew he’d probably never come out of it. So did he. We were right, he died six months later. It was a bad six months. Whenever I visited him, he tried to talk to me. He appeared wracked with guilt. I could make out a few words and those words were … chilling.”
“He told you that he was the one who had arranged with the Castino cartel to bring in those forced laborers to work his properties,” Joe said.
“What?” Margaret said.
Both of them ignored her. Nalchek nodded. “I found out that he’d had to salvage the harvest any way he could. He kept the vineyards out of the deal. It was his home territory, and any change would have been noticed. But he made a deal for forced labor for his farms to the south. He didn’t realize the horror of the human trafficking … until he experienced it. He said … slavery.”
“Did he mention anything about Walsh?”
He shook his head. “Do you think I wouldn’t have gone after him, if he had? I think my grandfather tried to get out of the deal once he realized what he’d gotten into. Too late. I knew that someone had tried to keep him from confessing what he’d done when he was struck in that wine cellar. It must have been Walsh. But I had no names then. Not Walsh, not Castino. I even put out some feelers with the Mexican government, but nothing came of them. My grandfather was a powerful and influential man, and Walsh didn’t dare kill him outright. The second-best deterrent was a warning. I’m sure it would have been followed by a deathblow if the warning hadn’t worked.” He added bitterly, “It turned out not to be necessary after that stroke.”
“What else did he tell you at the medical center?”
“Not much. The three words I remember most clearly. Forest. Child. Grave.”
Margaret felt a chill run through her.
“Anything else?” Joe asked.
“He mentioned a name. Elena Pasquez … Help her.”
“He wanted you to help her?”
“Or he wanted to tell me that he had helped her. After he died, I went to his office at the vineyard and went through his books. He always kept meticulous records. Yet he’d destroyed all paperwork connected to his deal with the cartel. Not one name or contact. But I found an entry for Elena Pasquez for $75,000 deposited in a bank in San Francisco. No reason given for the disbursement. I checked, and all the money had been removed the day after he’d deposited it. Enough funds to keep Elena and Cara hidden and safe for quite a while.”
“Elena must have come to him to ask for help when she was taking Cara on the run,” Margaret said. “And told him about Jenny.”