Scrapbook of the Dead

A few years back, Hathaway Transatlantic had been investigated for human trafficking. Newspaper articles and research papers had been published on the net. Annie read and read, gobsmacked by the fact that Hathaway was still in business, skirting around the law with high-paid lawyers, no doubt. She read an article from a newspaper in Texas.

As federal investigators raided the brick building in Houston, similar raids were happening at businesses in at least ten other cities in Texas and Louisiana.

“Finger after finger was pointing to Hathaway Transatlantic,” said US Attorney Chris Carpenter.

Hathaway Transatlantic is an international employment referral business operating out of Wichita. Prosecutors say they filed charges after years of extensive investigation.

“There were court-ordered wiretaps, undercover projects, and long term physical surveillance,” Carpenter said.

Authorities were able to arrest 23 of the 32 people accused of recruiting, transporting, and housing undocumented Spanish speaking immigrants who were already in the United States illegally and giving them low paying jobs at restaurants.

“In essence, they ran a takeout and delivery service,” said Agent Smithers. “Not for food but rather for people. People they called ‘amigos’ who were in this country illegally.”

Federal agents say the recruiters made millions off those “amigos” by collecting finders fees from greedy restaurant owners and managers looking for cheap labor. And while the workers broke laws to get into the United States, “it is also fair to say that they were exploited by the defendants,” Smithers said.

Hathaway spokesperson Gary Laskowski says that with such a huge, multifaceted operation, it’s difficult to police all of their operations, but in the future the company will endeavor to do more policing. Laskowski claims, however, that the management of the company did not know about these middleman operations.

Annie keyed PAMELA KRAFT into Google. The first page was nothing more than PR pieces about the restaurant, her Web site updates, and so on. The second page listed some genealogy sites. What the heck? Annie clicked one. Turns out Pamela was really into genealogy. Well, that wasn’t unusual. Especially for someone who appeared to be enamored with the past as Pamela was. Annie didn’t get the whole “rockabilly lifestyle” thing, but to each his or her own.

Annie scrolled through the Kraft family tree. Interesting. There was a Bixby connection. Looked like Pamela’s second cousin was Sheriff Bixby, who in turn was married to a Drummond. That much she already knew from Beatrice. Pings of her reporter’s intuition zoomed through her. What is going on here? Is this all just a coincidence that all of these folks are related? And are all involved somehow with the Martelinos? Or not?

Had Annie been taken in by a smiling sheriff? In some ways, Bryant was actually easier to deal with—at least he was honest, even if he was a sarcastic grump. But Sheriff Bixby? Always smiling, polite, and friendly. She should have suspected him from the beginning—not necessarily of committing murders, but of knowing more than what he’d been telling. Yes, she was certain of it, the more she mulled things over.