Carlos entered the office and frowned slightly at an inexplicable sense of unease. Just from the stiff expression on Woody’s face, he could guess that he had been called in because there was some kind of problem.
“Yes, Mr. Woody. What did you call me in for?”
As he sat down, glancing at the notebook in Woody’s hand, Woody placed the personnel list he had secured on the desk and tapped it with his finger.
“There are six people here making more than eighteen dollars an hour. What kind of people are they?”
Carlos stepped closer, looked over the list for a moment, and answered.
“They’re all veterans with more than ten years of experience. They’re core personnel on the farm. They handle specialized areas like pruning, soil management, and irrigation inspections.”
“I understand that they’re veterans, but their hourly wages are a bit higher than market rate. The average for California farms is around thirteen to fifteen dollars. Isn’t eighteen to twenty a bit high?”
“Mr. Woody, an average is just an average. Skilled workers get eighteen to twenty dollars at other farms too. On top of that, these people have been with our farm for more than ten years, so their loyalty to the farm is strong. If you cut their wages, they could leave for another farm.”
But Woody tilted his head and pointed to the names on the list with his finger.
“Mendoza, Garcia, Lopez… Are they relatives of yours, Mr. Carlos?”
Only then did he pause briefly before giving a short answer.
“Two of them are my older cousins, one is my cousin’s husband, another is my wife’s nephew, and so on. They’re people who came to America with me from Michoacán.”
“There are more than ten of them.”
“That’s… the rest are friends from my hometown.”
“Hm…”
As Woody looked down at the list with a troubled expression, Carlos hurriedly added,
“Mr. Woody, in farm labor, a lot of relatives come in. It’s common in Mexican farm culture. Because they’re relatives, the work is steadier and there’s more trust. George understood that and accepted it too.”
“......”
“For core farm personnel, trust is the most important thing. Because they’re relatives, they don’t run off, and they have deep affection for the farm. That’s why George accepted the slightly higher wages, and in the end, it’s why the farm’s operations stayed stable.”
At first glance, Carlos’s words seemed to make sense. At least on the surface.
“…Understood. I’ll take it as a part of the operation you’ve managed well, Mr. Carlos.”
When Woody seemed to acknowledge it and move on, a faint smile appeared at the corners of Carlos’s mouth. He gave a slight nod and left the office.
After Carlos left, Woody sank into thought. Setting business aside, one of the things he had learned in life was that if someone had a problem in one area, they were usually like that in most other areas as well. A dishonest person almost never put his hand in only one thing. If he had built his own line in personnel, then he had surely reached into materials, vendors, and somewhere else too.
And since Woody had shown signs of taking a step back on the personnel issue, Carlos would feel relieved, thinking the owner was no longer looking into it. Now was the perfect time to examine the other areas.
Woody immediately left his office and headed toward the office space at the end of the hallway. This was the space responsible for accounting and orders. There were two desks; one seat was empty, and in the other sat the bookkeeper, Linda Carter.
A white woman in her late thirties, she had worked in the farm office for eight years. Woody had greeted her when he was shown around the farm during his first week, but they had not had any deep conversations since.
“Linda. Do you have a moment?”
“Yes, Mr. Woody. What is it?”
She took her eyes off the monitor and looked at Woody, wearing a friendly smile for the owner.
“I’d like to see the order records for the material suppliers. Last year’s records, and if possible, the four years before that too. All five suppliers.”
For a moment, Linda hesitated, then answered briefly.
“Uh… material orders are something Manager Carlos handles personally, so it would probably be faster to get them through him.”
“I’ll receive them directly.”
Sensing the extreme firmness in his tone, a faint hesitation passed through her eyes for an instant.
“…They’re all in the system. You can go into QuickBooks.”
“Do I have access?”
“You have owner privileges, so you can see everything. Attorney Jack transferred all the system permissions after the acquisition process was completed.”
“Thank you. I’ll call you again if I need help.”
Woody nodded and immediately returned to his office.
As he walked down the hallway, Linda’s hesitant gaze lingered in his mind.
‘It’s something Manager Carlos handles personally…’
If an eight-year bookkeeper was told that the owner wanted to look at material order records directly, it was not something she should hesitate over. If it was a normal system, that is. He could guess that she, too, was under Carlos’s strong influence.
Returning to his office, Woody logged in through the owner account on QuickBooks Pro, and the accounting system opened. He was able to check the list of material suppliers right away.
Cali-Ag (fertilizer) – Active since 1998
Best Protect (pesticides) - Active since 2001
Vasquez Agricultural Supplies (irrigation parts) - Active since 1995
Ventura Farm Tools (work tools) - Active since 2003
California Nursery (seeds) - Active since 1996
Among the five suppliers, his eyes went to Vasquez Agricultural Supplies. The name itself was Vasquez, and for some reason, that made him suspect it might be one of Carlos’s in-laws.
If that suspicion was correct, it said they had been doing business since 1995. Carlos had said he became manager in 1990, so that meant five years after he became manager, his cousin-in-law’s company had entered as a material supplier.
Next, Woody went to the Reports menu, selected Vendor Purchase History, and brought up five years of order records for each of the five suppliers. Then he sorted the data in Excel by unit price, and he could immediately confirm that the unit prices had steadily risen every year. Even accounting for inflation, the increase was steeper than the normal range.
Even compared to California agricultural supply market price search sites, the prices were clearly high.
The next day, Woody woke up at four in the morning, left the condo early, and headed to the farm. He had deliberately arrived an hour before Carlos came to work.
When he opened the door to the materials warehouse and turned on the fluorescent lights, the 300-pyeong warehouse came into view at a glance. Along one wall, bags of fertilizer were stacked by the pallet; along another wall were pesticide boxes; and irrigation parts were organized on the shelves.
It was neatly arranged. This part, at least, was certainly worthy of praise.
Woody went over to the fertilizer pallets, checked the label and price of the fifty-pound bags of Cali-Ag fertilizer, and took photos. Then the pesticide boxes and irrigation parts as well…
That was not the end. In the work tools corner, he checked pruning shears, shovels, hoses, and so on, and he went through the seed corner too.
“What the hell… How much has he been skimming off? Did they know and just leave it alone?”
Suddenly feeling sorry for George Henderson, who had sold him the farm, Woody soon shook his head and opened a desk drawer on one side of the warehouse to check a bundle of purchase receipts. These were the receipts Carlos managed personally as manager, the originals from before they were entered into the accounting system.
Woody took out the bundle of receipts, spread them across the desk, and began taking photos of them one by one. There were nearly a hundred of them, and every receipt had a supplier stamp and Carlos’s signature.
As he turned through the receipts one by one, something caught his eye. On some of the receipts from Vasquez Agricultural Supplies, there were traces where the unit price had been slightly altered by hand.
“He did this outright, huh?”
He took separate photos of those receipts. When he checked the other receipts again, there were several more with the same pattern.
By the time he put the bundle of receipts back into the drawer and locked the warehouse door, it was already close to five in the morning. Carlos would be coming to work soon.
Returning to the office, Woody sat at the computer and opened QuickBooks again. He began comparing, one by one, the receipts he had photographed with the data entered into the system.
They said bad premonitions were never wrong, and sure enough… the altered amounts matched the entered values. Carlos had altered the receipts and then entered them into the system. Since the receipts and the system matched, there was no flaw from an accounting standpoint, making it a structure difficult to detect even if an external audit came in.
Woody began organizing all of it in Excel. He compared the total materials purchased over five years against the market price difference…
“Hah. He really skimmed off a ridiculous amount, didn’t he?”
The conclusion was that over five years, a difference of no less than $44,000 had occurred. But that was only for the latter five years, after Carlos had become firmly entrenched as manager. Woody knew he had been manager for around twenty years, and since they had started doing business with Vasquez’s company in 1995, if he extended the period, the difference would be far larger.
Even conservatively, the materials price difference over fifteen years was estimated at around five to six hundred thousand dollars. Adding to that the roughly $280,000 in excess hourly wages for the six worker relatives over five years, the total amount soared to around eight to nine hundred thousand dollars.
It was clear breach of trust. With even traces of receipt alteration present, the excuse of Mexican farm culture would not work.
If this were Korea, he would report it to the police, but in America, at times like this, one contacted a lawyer, not the police. Woody immediately made a call.
“I hope I’m not calling too early.”
“Not at all. I always wake up at this hour.”
The person who answered the phone was Harry Montis, the rainmaker who had always handled Redwood’s affairs.
“The truth is, I recently acquired an avocado farm, and I’ve discovered corruption by the farm manager here. Through material kickbacks and inflating relatives’ hourly wages, he skimmed off $44,000 even if we count only five years.”
“Bold fellow.”
“It’s a farm in Ventura County. How soon can you come?”
“Would tomorrow work?”
“That’s good.”
“If you send me the materials in advance by email, I’ll review them on the way. We’ll also consider the option of criminal charges.”
After sending the materials, Carlos happened to arrive at work.
“Good morning.”
To Carlos, who showed him a bright smile, Woody gave a benevolent smile in return.
“Good morning.”
The lawyer should be the one to draw the blade. Until then, Woody simply had to remain the good-natured owner.
At ten o’clock the next morning, Harry Montis arrived at the farm.
As always, Harry heaved himself out of the car with some difficulty, wearing a suit that looked about to burst, and entered the farm office with a briefcase in hand. He exchanged a brief handshake with Woody and took a seat on one side of the office.
“I reviewed all the materials. The traces of receipt alterations are decisive. Even if you proceed with criminal charges, there’s enough for a conviction.”
“Yes. But I’d like to end it with a settlement. I don’t want the farm’s operations to be shaken.”
“I understand. Then let’s begin.”
For some reason, Harry’s appearance made Woody feel reassured. Woody called Carlos through the intercom.
Carlos entered the office and, upon seeing Harry, his expression instantly hardened. A huge white man in a suit. Just one look was enough to tell that he was no ordinary person; he reeked of ink and legal paperwork.
Sure enough, the white man smiled softly and
said,
“I’m Attorney Harry Montis. Please sit.”
At the word attorney, Carlos’s heart dropped. He swallowed and sat down. Harry then sat on the sofa across from him with a creak and spread several documents across the table.
“Do you know what these are?”
“......”
The materials he had laid out on the table were the Excel sheet comparing market prices, photos of the warehouse receipts, traces of handwritten unit price alterations, a difference calculation sheet, and documents confirming familial relationships.
“You know Vasquez Agricultural Supplies, don’t you?”
“O-of course.”
“I looked into that company, and it turns out it’s run by your brother-in-law, Mr. Carlos.”
“That… is that a problem?”
“It may be a problem, or it may not. If they supplied proper goods at fair prices, that is. But that wasn’t the case.”
To the flustered Carlos, Harry pointed out his wrongdoing one by one without even pausing for breath. Even one issue would have been suffocating, but as Harry laid out every bit of corruption he had built up over twenty years, Carlos’s face turned pale.
“Approximately eight to nine hundred thousand dollars over fifteen years flowed out of the farm through your line, Mr. Carlos. It’s far too much to excuse by talking about Mexican farm culture or whatnot. Do you admit it? Though even if you don’t, there’s nothing we can do about that.”
“Listen, all of this was done with George’s permission, the former owner—”
“Did you really receive permission? Even for falsifying the receipts? If you had permission, there would have been no need to go so far as to falsify receipts, would there?”
“Listen, Mr. Carlos, you have two choices.
First, you can face a one-million-dollar civil damages lawsuit and a criminal complaint to the county district attorney’s white-collar crime unit. If you’re indicted for receipt forgery and embezzlement, there is a high likelihood it will be considered an Aggravated Felony, one of the thirty crime categories defined under U.S. federal immigration law.”
As Carlos’s face turned white as a sheet, Harry lowered his voice and continued.
“If a permanent resident like you, Mr. Carlos, receives an Aggravated Felony, your green card will be revoked, and you’ll be deported to Mexico. Your brother-in-law, Miguel Vasquez, can be indicted along with you.”
Carlos’s hands began to tremble, and he looked at Woody with eyes asking for salvation. Woody spoke with a pitying gaze.
“I don’t want to take it that far either. These are my settlement terms. You voluntarily resign as of today, immediately compensate five hundred thousand dollars out of the eight hundred thousand from your own assets, and accept installment payments over five years for the remaining three hundred thousand. As for the remaining relatives, if they accept market-rate wages, they can stay. If they refuse, they’ll be let go as well. Lastly, transactions with your brother-in-law’s company end as of today. What will you do?”
Carlos spoke in a voice that was almost tearful.
“I’ll accept.”