Blessed are the Meek Read online

  My own past lingers like a smoky subtext beneath my words as I interview others who are reeling in grief. They look at me and somehow sense the darkness I fight to keep at bay, deep down inside. They sense that we are kindred spirits. And that makes them talk. They tell me their stories while they turn other reporters away.

  Because of this, the bottom drawer in my desk is stuffed with awards stating I got the story and told it better than anyone else. But sometimes I wonder if the price I’ve paid for this ability will cost me my soul. As each year passes, I feel small pieces of me harden. At the same time, rather than shunning the dark underworld—­which would be the healthier way to handle it according to my shrink—­I find myself compulsively immersing myself in that world.

  Right now, that means writing about another dead person. According to public records, Laurent owned a multimillion-­dollar home with a woman named Annalisa Cruz. The owner of the red lace panties? A little digging shows Cruz is a thirty-­three-­year-­old artist known for her sculptures. Most of what I can find online about her is solely about her art, so I just skim the information. Another sheet shows a home number for the ­couple. The answering machine picks up. A sultry female voice with a slight accent asks me to leave a message.

  I leave my name, number, and condolences on the answering machine and hang up. I think about my boyfriend, Sean Donovan, and how I would feel if he had been murdered and a reporter wanted to talk to me. I know my mother didn’t talk to any reporters when my sister died. It’s ironic, but I sure as hell wouldn’t talk to a reporter. At least not that first day.

  But I have to try to get ­people to talk. It’s my job. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. What I’ve found is that most of the time ­people find it cathartic to talk to a stranger about their dead husband, wife, brother, sister, daughter, son, father, or mother. It shows that the death was important to other ­people, too. Pulitzer Prize-­winning police reporter Edna Buchanan once knocked on a door a month after the woman’s son was murdered. Instead of slamming the door in Buchanan’s face, the woman said, “I was wondering when you were going to come.”

  My phone rings. It’s Sara Stephens, a features writer. When I sit up straight, I can see the top of her head across the newsroom.

  “Hey, saw on the budget you were writing about Sebastian Laurent. Got some info on his girlfriend.

  “Annalisa Cruz is having a gallery opening tomorrow night in the Castro, a trendy, predominately gay neighborhood in the city. I interviewed Cruz last week for a small write-­up about it.”

  “What’s she like?” I ask.

  “She’s a piece of work,” Stephens says. “Wanted to proofread the news item before it ran and had a hissy fit when I told her we don’t allow that. Kept saying, ‘Do you know who I am? Do you know who my boyfriend is?’ ”

  “Did you laugh in her face?”

  “I ended up having to fax it over for her approval.”

  My mouth drops open. “Are you kidding me? Why on earth would you do that?”

  “Coleman.”

  “Whoa.” I think for a minute. Why would the publisher get involved in a news brief? He is usually hands off even the biggest stories. “Is he banging her or something?”

  “Who knows, but she apparently has the red phone to him because he called me about five minutes after I hung up with her.”

  Chapter 3

  MY SMALL STUDIO apartment is glowing from all the candles Donovan has lit.

  The aroma of a roast and garlic-­mashed potatoes hits me as I open the door. Donovan is busy in my galley kitchen, my pink polka-­dot apron wrapped around his waist. He notices me standing in the doorway grinning at him like a fool, and he smiles back, wiping his hands on the apron and coming over to give me a long kiss. He hands me a glass of red wine as I slouch onto the couch.

  My cat, Dusty, leaps onto my lap. I scratch him behind the ears until his eyes close to slits. I don’t really like cats. Dusty’s an exception. He’s grown on me. He became mine after his owner, my friend, Adele, died. He was kicked onto the street with everything else she’d owned. I will forever have a small piece of guilt lodged in my heart for not being there when she died and for not visiting her more when she was alive. The least I can do is take care of her cat because he was all she had. I push away those memories and concentrate on the good things in my life right now. Like this man in my apartment.

  He’s seemed a little distant lately—­like he’s had something on his mind. We haven’t spent as much time together as we normally do—­work is keeping him busy—­and the few nights we have spent together have been rocky. He’s woken us both in the middle of the night with nightmares. With all the terrible things he’s seen as a cop, I’m not surprised. My own nightmares almost always surface in the dead of night.

  Tonight, he seems more like himself, and I’m relieved. I take a long sip of wine and lean back into the couch, closing my eyes and inhaling. “Smells wonderful!”

  “It will be. Last year this exact recipe nabbed me this hot-­reporter chick I was wooing. Now she’s mine, hook, line, and sinker—­all because of my secret family recipe.”

  I roll my eyes. “Hook, line, and sinker, my ass.”

  “You have to admit, it is a good roast.”

  “Damn good.” I raise my glass to him in a toast.

  He pops a beer and sits beside me, riffling through the newspaper I brought home. “Nice job on the Orinda fire,” he says, referencing my front-­page story.

  The wine relaxes me, and I sigh with contentment. The doors to my small balcony are thrown open, and the slightest breeze brings in a whiff of the ocean. I inhale and close my eyes. I’ve got it good.

  Donovan has the paper splayed open on the table when he leans in, and his eyebrows draw together.

  “Huh. That’s too bad.”

  I lean over, entwining my fingers in his. He’s reading the obits.

  “What’s that?”

  “Cop I used to know. Jim Mueller. Only forty-­five. No cause of death listed.”

  Donovan folds the paper and stares off into the distance.

  “Were you close?” It’s as if he didn’t hear me. “Donovan?”

  He looks up and seems confused. “Mueller was on this task force with me when I was a rookie. We saw some pretty ugly things. Haven’t seen him for years.”

  I don’t like the look in his eyes, but I push on. He tells me the task force was ordered to crack down on child pornography in the county. The team had carte blanche to do whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted, as long as it reported results back once a month.

  “I was a rookie,” Donovan says. “The only reason I was even a part of it was my partner, Will Flora, was appointed to the team—­basically, I got to tag along.”

  I remember hearing about Flora. He was a mentor to Donovan, a father figure to him after Donovan’s own dad died. I think Donovan told me that Will Flora was the one who talked him into entering the police academy. I vaguely recall that he died not long after Donovan became a cop.

  “Were you guys—­the task force—­were you tight? Was it just the three of you?”

  “No. Six. Us three and Carl Brooke, Mark Emerson, and Tim Conway.” He says the names slowly and absentmindedly, looking off into the distance. “We all lived in this undercover house for a while. Yeah, I guess we were pretty close.”

  He wads up the sheet of newspaper in his fist. His knuckles turn white as he does so.

  “How did Flora die again? He wasn’t very old was he?”

  “He killed himself while we were on the task force. That’s why I left.”

  “I thought he had died of a heart attack or something. He killed himself?”

  Donovan nods slowly, pressing his lips together.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. I want to wrap my arms around him, but he doesn’t look like he wants a hug. “Why didn’t
you tell me?”

  His face scrunches up in confusion. “I thought I did.”

  He gets up and pulls out my chair at the table. “By the way, your mother called me.”

  I choke on my wine. Some dribbles down my chin and splashes onto my white blouse, staining it. My mother left six messages on my cell phone today. I haven’t returned any of them. Bombarding me with calls was her style. Ignoring them was mine. I know if it is something urgent—­like the time my oldest brother got hit in the head with a golf ball—­she’d leave another half dozen messages with the newsroom clerks and several on my answering machine at home.

  Calling my boyfriend was something new.

  “What on God’s green Earth did she want?”

  Donovan, who is now slicing the roast at the counter, looks down. His voice is low. “I guess she wants you to go to the cemetery on Friday.”

  “What?” I’m trying to compute what he’s just said, and it’s not adding up.

  “For the . . . you know . . .” His words trail off.

  Anniversary.

  Of course I know why. The date is tattooed on my brain. What I don’t understand is my mother’s calling about it.

  I was only six when my sister, Caterina, older by fourteen months, was kidnapped out of our front yard. Her body was found eight days later in a rural area by off-­road bicyclists. My father never got a chance to learn this—­he dropped dead of a heart attack three days after she disappeared. The doctor blamed it on the stress of my sister’s kidnapping.

  My world dimmed that day with the murky darkness that now always lurks right outside my peripheral vision. I’ve fought against those hovering shadows ever since. Sometimes they briefly take over, fluttering onto my shoulders, squashing any light in my life. Other times, I’m strong enough to push them someplace deep inside.

  In my family, we don’t talk about unpleasant things. My mother has spent the past twenty-­three years avoiding talking about the kidnapping and murder of my sister. I walked the party line until a year ago, when I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I need to know what happened to her. I need her killer behind bars. Or dead.

  Donovan and I have only been dating for about a year, but we’ve spent numerous hours trying to track down Caterina’s killer. Donovan succeeded in getting the Livermore Police Department to reopen the cold case, but the detective the chief assigned is a pervy old curmudgeon counting the days until he can retire. I can’t count on him to do anything except stare at my chest and patronize me.

  I can’t help but be shaken by my mother’s wanting me to visit Caterina’s grave. If my mother is turning over a new leaf—­I’m not sure what to think about this. My hand is shaking as I dab my mouth with my napkin. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I don’t understand,” I say, my voice quiet. “Why now?”

  Donovan sets down our plates and sits across from me. He doesn’t answer. Just shovels a large forkful of roast into his mouth. He knows my mom. He knows our history. He knows my family’s dysfunctional attitude toward our tragedies.

  “If you want, I’ll go with you.” He looks at me over the top of his wineglass.

  My heart melts a little at this, but I can’t do it. I shake my head. Impossible. I haven’t been to the cemetery since Caterina’s little white casket was lowered into the ground. I’m going to have to think about this—­my mother’s sudden change of heart. It both scares me and fills me with hope at the same time. Inside, I’m still the little girl who was afraid to talk about Caterina because I didn’t want to see despair blanket my mother’s face.

  I butter a thick slice of sourdough bread and shove it in my mouth. When I’m done chewing, making sure I’ve chewed until it can’t be chewed anymore, until it has dissolved into nothing in my mouth, I swallow.

  Donovan watches me until I meet his eyes.

  “Went out to a fatal today,” I begin, “and when they dragged the body up from the ravine, they found a bullet hole in the guy’s head.” Dating a cop means that this topic is fair game for the dinner table.

  He nods, following my lead to change the subject. He doesn’t seem surprised at what I’m saying.

  “Did you already hear about it?”

  He takes a huge bite of mashed potatoes and nods.

  “Of course you did. You cops are the worst gossips around.”

  We push back our empty plates, and Donovan pours us more wine.

  “Sure you can’t come Saturday?” he asks. Now he’s changing the subject. A muscle in his jaw is clenched. He’s still irritated I’m not going to his nephew’s baptism in Sacramento. I made some lame excuse about having to finish up a story about a surge in meth production in suburban neighborhoods. The story could be done right now if I really wanted to go to the baptism. But I don’t.

  “Aren’t baptisms supposed to be on Sundays, anyway?”

  He clears his throat. “It’s called a christening at their church. And I guess they do it on Saturdays.”

  I bet Donovan’s strict Catholic mom doesn’t like this one bit, but at least the kid’s getting some type of blessing on him. I feel a little bit bad for not going, but the last thing I want is to spend the day with Donovan’s six sisters grilling us about starting a family. We’re not even married, and they won’t let up. Before I met Donovan, I dreamed of getting married and having kids, but now that it’s closer to reality, I’m not so sure. The truth is I’m afraid. If I had my back against the wall right now and had to decide, it would be a big fat NO. I’m just not ready yet. But Donovan is. Inch by inch, it’s become a source of conflict between us, driving a small, invisible wedge into our relationship.

  So instead of answering him, I lean over and fiddle with my boom box. The sound of The Cure’s Disintegration album filters out. It’s our music. It’s a signal. Donovan takes my hand and leads me to the bed—­conversation over.

  Chapter 4

  AS SOON AS I enter the gallery, I spot Annalisa Cruz. She’s barely five feet tall, and her long dark hair falls in a silky sheet down the middle of her back. She wears sleek black leather pants, stiletto-­heeled boots, and an oversize, blood red cashmere sweater that is falling off one bronzed shoulder. She holds a glass of wine aloft with elbow crooked, head bent to one side, listening to the man beside her. She doesn’t look like a grieving girlfriend to me. She glances down, her long eyelashes casting a shadow on her cheekbones.

  I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the large glass windows black with night. Despite the way my skirt hugs my curves, she makes me feel boyish. My long brown hair, which I normally like, seems lank and lackluster compared to her shiny blue-­black mane.

  She stands by one of her sculptures, which are displayed on waist-­high white pedestals scattered throughout the gallery. Big spotlights illuminate them in the dark room. They are glossy black or white female figures, each about a foot long. They all feature a woman reclined, back arched, head thrown back, hair falling behind. One hand clutches a breast, and the other intimately gropes the triangle between the figure’s legs. They look like they are . . . yep . . . I see the name of the exhibit—­ECSTASY AND ORGASM.

  Annalisa Cruz watches me over her wineglass as I make my way over to the crowd surrounding her. She peels away from them and steps a few feet away, turning her back to me, facing one of her sculptures. As soon as I’m near, I’m engulfed by her perfume, a spicy, oriental scent. She talks without turning to face me.

  “This one is my favorite,” she says with a slight accent, gesturing with her wineglass. “Do you think I adequately captured what it is like to for a woman to have an orgasm?”

  She turns and looks right at me.

  I blink. Her eyes are blue. Icy. Cold.

  I study the sculpture for a second. “Yes, I’d say you nailed it.” I stick out my hand. “I’m Gabriella Giovanni. I left a message about a story I’m writing on Sebastian. I’m sorry for your loss.”
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br />   It’s a standard greeting to a grieving person, but she ignores my hand. Instead, she blinks rapidly, not as if she is trying to hold back tears but more like she is trying to summon them. She is rewarded with one fat tear that takes its sweet time squeezing out of the corner of one eye.

  “Annalisa Cruz,” she says, finally shaking my hand with the barest touch of her fingertips. “El gusto es mio”–the pleasure is mine.

  “Encantada,” I respond—­likewise.

  One expertly plucked eyebrow rises. In the background, ­people call her name, “Ms. Cruz. Ms. Cruz.”

  She smiles over my shoulder, then looks back at me. “It’s a little crazy here tonight. Why don’t you come by my place tomorrow morning at eleven, so we can talk.”

  She doesn’t wait for me to agree. Once again, her attention is captured by something over my shoulder. It’s a photographer who begins snapping rapid-­fire photos of her. I back away and watch as she poses like a professional in front of the popping flashbulb.

  Chapter 5

  SEBASTIAN LAURENT LIVED in an ultramodern metal house squeezed in between other multimillion-­dollar homes on a cul-­de-­sac I never dreamed existed, perched 570 feet above the rest of San Francisco.

  In the middle of the cul-­de-­sac is a small park with trees. At the center of the park, a pedestal is all that remains of a statue. I park and walk over to read the marker, which says that years ago, the area, called Mt. Olympus, marked the exact center of San Francisco. In one direction, through the spruce trees, I catch a glimpse of the Bay Bridge and Oakland Hills. In the other, I see the Golden Gate Bridge, which has low-­flying clouds covering the top of the span.

  Despite the public park, the area feels very secluded and private. I imagine eyes watching me from all the windows.

  I steel myself to speak to Annalisa. She didn’t even pretend to be upset over her boyfriend’s death. Or rather, she did pretend. She’s a pretty good actress, but I’m even better at reading ­people. That tear wasn’t real. Her performance last night—­so devoid of grief—­prompted me to leave a message earlier with my best friend, Nicole, our courts reporter, asking her to find out more about Miss Annalisa Cruz.