Blessed Are Those Who Weep (10 page)

 

Chapter 22

I'
M
RUNNING
LATE
to work the next morning, so I punch the gas along the Embarcadero toward the Bay Bridge. I have a lot to do before I attend the massive memorial ser­vice later today for Maria and her in-­laws. I cut up to a residential street, hoping to save time. I'm swerving around slower drivers when I see red and blue lights behind me. Damn.

My heart is racing as the officer walks up. I'm digging through my purse, but I can't find my wallet. I see the blue uniform out of the corner of my eye at the same time the officer knocks his flashlight on my window. Before I can turn to respond, there's a flurry of movement, and he's shouting.

“Get out of the car with your hands up!”

Turning, I freeze when I see his ser­vice revolver leveled at my face.

“Take your hands slowly out of your handbag.”

My heart is up in my throat as I remove my hands and hold them up. I see passersby on the sidewalk nervously glancing over their shoulders at my car.

“Put them on the steering wheel. Eyes straight ahead.”

I'm staring at the street in front of me, which all of a sudden is disconcertingly empty of ­people and cars. I hear, rather than see, the cop tug open the door. There is a blur of a young guy with a crew cut, sunglasses, and bulging muscles, and I'm yanked by the front of my shirt out of the car and slammed face-­first along my trunk.

“I was looking for my license.”

“Uh-­huh,” he says, patting me down.

I start to get angry.

“I didn't do anything wrong. I was reaching for my wallet. My purse is a black hole. I swear I wasn't doing anything bad.”

He ignores me and holds my hands behind my back with one of his hands.

“You've got to be kidding me.” My mouth grows dry as sawdust as his other hand pats me down again, but this time he starts at my chest, wrapping his big paw around my breasts and fondling them, pressing his body against me and breathing in my ear, “You say one fucking word, and . . .” He punctuates his point by shoving his knee into my tailbone. I wince, but stifle my cry.

“My boyfriend is a cop. You're going to regret this.” I practically spit the words out.

He leans down and puts his mouth to my ear again. “I know who your fucking boyfriend is. He's not here to help you now, is he? Remember that. It's not always daylight. There won't always be ­people around to save you.” A chill races through me as I realize I've never told him my name and never got a chance to get my license. How does he know who my boyfriend is? Who the fuck is this cop? What is he talking about?

“Let me go. Now.” I grit the words out at the same time he presses his groin against my backside and yanks me up from the trunk by my hair. “You will regret this.” I spit the words out, channeling some Italian Mafia ancestor I'm sure I have somewhere in my background.

I'm filing a complaint as soon as I get to the station. He will not get away with this. This is fucking madness. He must hate Donovan. Maybe he's friends with that moron, Detective Jack Sullivan? That guy hates me so much, but even I wonder if he would stoop this low, getting other cops to harass me.

Feeling humiliated and afraid and utterly helpless, I try to blink back hot tears spurting into the corners of my eyes. I won't let this bastard see my cry.

A cell phone rings, and I hear him mumble something. Seconds later, he's thrown me to the sidewalk. As I scramble to my feet, I hear an engine start and see his car peel out. I squint to see his license-­plate number, but his car is too far away. At the opposite end of the street, two squad cars come flying around the corner, with lights and sirens blaring. I slouch onto the curb and put my face into my hands.

A few seconds later, the sirens cease, and I see polished black shoes in front of me.

“Ma'am, are you okay? We got a call about an assault in progress. Someone in one of these apartment buildings called in. Described a victim in a red blouse.”

Yep. That's me.

“It was one of your own,” I say.

The officer scrunches his features in consternation when I explain what happened.

He tilts his head and speaks into the walkie-­talkie clipped to his shoulder before turning to me. “We didn't have anyone over here on the east side. And none of ours called in a traffic stop. Are you sure it was a San Francisco police officer? Any chance it was BART police or something?”

“I don't know.” And I don't. It was a black-­and-­white car, but I don't remember a number or shield on the side. I don't remember a badge number or name, either. I didn't get a chance to look at the cop or his car. I don't know if he actually is a cop. But I do know that I was just given a warning.

“Do you want us to escort you home?”

I decline. As the two officers wait for me to get into my vehicle, I peer up at the tall apartment building. I mouth a silent “thank you” before I drive away. A few curtains fall shut as I do.

 

Chapter 23

S
TEPPING
INSIDE
TH
E
dark church, I'm struck by the Virgin de Guadalupe shrine to one side of the altar. It is so bright with silver and gold that I can't stop staring. How can this tiny church be so amazingly beautiful? The altar itself is lit from above. Sunlight streams down from a skylight and bathes the simple stone altar, which is covered in white cloths and dozens of white roses.

I take a seat in the back. I'm still shaken up from my encounter with the fake cop. I called Donovan on the way over here, but I left out the part about the fake cop's beefy hands touching me. When he heard what happened, Donovan swore and said in a dangerously low voice, “I'll handle this.”

I'm worried about what he has in mind. He has a temper that sometimes gets him in a heap of trouble. I remind myself to concentrate on this memorial and paying my respects. I know I never met Maria Martin in person, but she turned to me for help. And I failed. I was too late. Whatever she needed to tell me is going to the grave with her.

The five coffins at the memorial are almost too much to take in. The altar is covered with more flowers than I've ever seen in a church in my life.

Mrs. Castillo won't return my messages, and I don't spot her in the church. For a second, a flicker of fear shoots through me. What if Joey Martin went after her? Is that why she's not answering her phone? She seemed so afraid the other day.

As I scan the heads in the church, I spot Nicole's blond bob toward the front. In her big Sunday story about the massacre, Nicole wrote about a brouhaha in the church over the memorial ser­vice.

Some ­people wanted to wait to hold the ser­vice until Joey Martin got home, but others said he didn't want them to wait. Apparently a military official told one of them that Joey Martin gave his go-­ahead to have the ser­vice early, since he wouldn't be home for another ten days.

Nicole is trying to track down who this “military official” is. Right now, she's getting the runaround. Each time she's referred to a person who spoke to the military official, they say it was someone else. It sounds bogus. Everything about Joey Martin seems suspicious to me now.

I'm darting glances at the ­people around me, when my scalp tingles, as if someone is staring at me. I'm in the back row, so I don't know who it can be. I turn in time to see a man with full lips, bushy eyebrows, and a baseball cap pulled low slip out the back door.

Joey Martin. I leap from my feet and brush past ­people in my pew, leaving them mumbling irritably in my wake.

Pulling the heavy doors open, I squeeze through and look both ways.

The streets are empty. In the distance, the growl of a motorcycle grows fainter.

K
HOURY
SEEMS
LESS
than enthused that I've had another Martin sighting.

Even on the phone, I can hear her exasperation. I'm pacing on the church's stone steps, wishing I'd been quicker to spot him and react.

“Don't take this the wrong way.” She pauses before continuing. “Have you seen anyone about what you saw? You know, talked to someone about it?”

She means a shrink. She goes on.

“Even the most hardened cops on the force go talk to the department's psychiatrist about these types of things.” She waits in silence for a few seconds. “I had a case once. A really bad one. Dead kid. Didn't handle it well. It helped to talk to someone.”

She is opening up to me, telling me things she doesn't have to so she can help me, but I can't go there, so I change the subject. “I found this dojo that sells kubatons.” I wait for her to tell me to quit butting in. She doesn't, so I go on. “It's the same dojo that Javier went to. I talked to this sensei. He gave me a list that shows Joey Martin bought a kubaton there.”

“Hmmm.” She actually sounds interested. “Can you get me that list?”

“Of course.”

“And do me a favor?”

“Yes?”

“Next time you stumble onto something like this list or this sensei, please give me a call and let me handle it. It's my job. This isn't a game.”

Anger flares through me, but I choke it down. I need her on my side.

Before I hang up, I have another question for her. “Who told you Joey Martin was in Iraq and on his way home?”

She breathes heavily before she answers. “First off, I don't have to tell you any of this. I'm doing you a professional courtesy because your boyfriend stuck up for me once at a training deal. I like him and I owe him. Otherwise, I'd never be talking to you, got it?”

Feeling chastised, I mumble, “yes.”

“One of my men talked to a local recruiter about Joey Martin. I don't have time to find the guy's name. And I don't mean to be a hard-­ass. I get your personal involvement and sense of responsibility in this case. That crime scene was hard even for those of us who routinely investigate homicides, but you're going to have to let us do our job here. I need to devote every waking second to finding that killer, not digging through paperwork looking for phone numbers for you.”

I'm about to hang up when I remember. “By the way, you might want to check on Mrs. Castillo. She's not returning my calls.”

“She's fine.”

“How do you know?”

“Spoke with her a few minutes ago. She's fine. Don't take this personally, but did you ever think that maybe some ­people just don't want to talk to reporters?”

I hang up without answering.

 

Chapter 24

“M
AMA
?”
I'
M
WALKING
down Columbus Avenue in North Beach when my mother answers my call. It's hard to hear her over the booming music filtering out of the street's restaurants and clubs, a mix of opera from the Italian restaurants and hip-­hop from the strip clubs. I'm trying to hit a quick chess game on Market Street before it gets dark. I have so much anger ready to burst out of me that I need to do something besides sit in my apartment. I've fallen into a funk since Donovan left a message telling me he's working late—­on the verge of an arrest for the weekend's homicide.

I planned on making gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce for him and sharing a bottle of wine. Now I'm all alone. Again.

I try to focus on my mother's words through the phone.

“Thank God you finally called back. I saw you on the TV news. Are you okay?”

“I'm doing alright.” I wait for a second before blurting out, “Mom it was awful.” My mother is the first person I've said this to. I don't tell her about my appointment with my therapist. My mom doesn't approve of me in therapy. It is something to do with her old Italian roots, something she likes to call “
omerta,
” which is basically the Italian tradition of the Mafia not talking to the cops, but which my mother likes to interpret as not sharing the family business outside the family.

“
Dios mio
! It sounds . . . horrific . . . like a horror movie.”

A bus passes me and pulls to a stop about two blocks up. I debate jogging to hop on, skipping the longish walk to Market Street. After ­people file out of the bus, a man with dark sunglasses consults a piece of paper. He looks vaguely familiar. I can't place him. As I come up on him, he turns, and I smile absentmindedly as I pass.

“Honey?” My mom's voice in my ear is nearly drowned out from the sounds of cars honking and music blaring out of the strip club I'm passing. Two guys smoking out front make kissy faces at me. One gestures and grinds his hips and comes dangerously close to getting a kick in the crotch.

“Murders don't usually bother me, Mama. But there was so much blood . . . so many bodies right there in front of me, where I could reach out and touch them . . .” I say it looking directly at the guy who had his lips puckered at me. He draws back, his lips baring his teeth, his eyes wide, backpedaling to get away from me now. His friend mutters something that sounds like “
Loca chica
”—­crazy girl.

“I don't know why you don't quit that job.” My mom knows quitting is not an option. “That poor baby. She was clinging to you for life.”

“I know. They pawned her off to CPS. Her whole family was killed in front of her, and they handed her over to strangers.”

“Now, that's not fair. You know your cousin Tricia works for CPS. She's been there about a year now. She says it's the best thing for kids in most situations.”

“Tricia works there?” I pretend to be surprised. But that's the main reason I called her back. “You got a number for Tricia? I might ask her about how it works. Might make me feel better.”

“Sure, honey. Just a sec.” I hear her flipping through papers in her flower shop and humming to Maria Callas singing in the background. “Here we go.”

She gives me the number.

“Thanks, Mama.”

“See you Sunday at Nana's house. We missed you this week. Tell Donovan I'm making cannoli.”

“Will do.”

By now, I'm in the heart of Chinatown. A few blocks ahead of me are the ornate green gates that lead to Market Street. Strolling under red, green, and blue paper lanterns strung across the street, I pass a tiny bank with an elaborate red-­and-­green pagoda storefront. One store window is full of hanging meat, what looks like chickens, and ribs, and turkeys. Walking through Chinatown, with all its brilliant colors and plethora of trinkets to buy, always sends me to the edge of sensory overload, but I can't resist.

Tricia answers on the first ring.

“Hey, it's Ella.” I stop and finger a soft turquoise cashmere pashmina on a table outside one shop. I'm dressed in my chess battling clothes: old jeans, combat boots, and a hoodie, but the fall air has chilled. Now the scarf seems like something I need.

“Ella! Geez, cuz, I haven't seen you since, what was it, Uncle Robert's wedding?”

I pick up the scarf and loop it over my shoulder, peering in a mirror hanging outside the shop.

A woman with an enormous bun comes out and smiles. “So pretty on you. Color is good. I give you big discount. You lucky. I give it to you for twenty dollars.”

I gesture that I'm on the phone. The woman nods and moves away.

“I know, Tricia. We only live about a mile apart. What's up with that? When you going to make it to Nana's on a Sunday? We all miss little Federico.”

“Soon. Not tomorrow, but soon. Raul keeps telling me his mom will lie down and die of a heart attack if we don't come to her place for Sunday suppers, but I miss seeing all the Giovannis and Nana. It's not the same. They don't have pasta. Mama Ruiz makes a killer carnitas taco, mind you, but I am craving some manicotti, you know? One of these days. Freddy just started walking, keeping me crazy busy plus my new job. You know how it is.”

I don't, so I just murmur appreciatively. The woman in the bun has returned outside. She holds up a piece of paper with “$18” written on it. I clear my throat. “Tricia, did you hear about those horrible murders . . . in the Mission?”

“Christ on a cracker, I did!” she says. “Saw it in the paper. They said you were there. I don't know how you do that job of yours.”

“Did you see the picture? Me holding that baby?”

“Yeah, she was a little sweetie. Reminds me a little of what Freddy looked like as a baby.”

I'm looking down, fingering different colored scarfs, when I notice someone beside me. It's that man in the sunglasses I saw consulting a piece of paper a few blocks away. Damn. I should've never smiled at him. Of course, it's feasible he was heading into Chinatown the entire time, but I don't like his sudden appearance beside me. Besides, it's getting dark for sunglasses, and I'm still wary, because although he's familiar, I can't quite place him.

“That one's pretty,” he says and points to a pink scarf. I point to my phone. He nods, puts his finger to his lips, and mouths, “Sorry.” A group of boys practicing for a parade come around the corner. Each one has a piece of a colorful dragon costume. The first boy's holding the head. Two boys with drums follow.

I duck into the little shop so I can hear better, then say, “They had to turn her over to you guys—­CPS—­because most of her family was in that apartment.”

I peer out the front window through a rack of clothes. The man smiles, hands twenty dollars to the woman in the bun, and walks off with a black scarf tucked under his arm. He never looks inside where I am, so I relax, but I keep an eye on his retreating back for a minute to see if he's going to turn around and look for me. He has short-­cropped hair and a dark suit. He never turns to look back and soon disappears in the crowded street.

“That poor baby. Why did the killer let her live? Do you think she was asleep and he thought she was dead, like in that one case in Colorado?”

“Maybe. I don't know. It's hard to believe someone who could slaughter an entire family would have enough of a conscience to not kill a baby. Who knows why she was spared.” But in the back of my mind, I remember the UPS box outside the apartment. Maybe the killer was interrupted?

The woman with the bun comes inside. She scribbles on another piece of paper: “$15.”

Tricia continues. “Well, she's in the right place, then.”

“Huh?” I'm not sure what she's talking about.

“CPS. She's in the right place. They'll find her family.”

The woman in the bun follows me as I pace the store. I wait the beat of ten before I answer Tricia.

“Well, Tricia, this is what I'm wondering. I know there are privacy restrictions on kids in CPS, but I . . . need . . . want to find out what happened to her. I mean, maybe if the dad isn't around or something, I could maybe take care of her.”

Again, I wait, making the sign of the cross and closing my eyes. The woman in the bun throws up her hands in exasperation.

“Well, that privacy stuff is to keep some abusive parent or something from finding a kid taken away for their own safety, so that doesn't
really
apply here. Still, I'm not supposed to do this . . . but I'll see what I can find out.”

Score.

I thank her and hang up.

“I go to dinner now,” the woman says offhandedly while folding and refolding some scarfs that are already neatly stacked. “This is my final offer. You very, very lucky I give you this price. This is very good deal. Twelve dollars.”

I walk out with the turquoise scarf looped around my neck.

As I pass through Chinatown, I remember where I first saw the man in the sunglasses. Coming down the stairs at the Oakland dojo. Did he follow me to San Francisco? How did he know I would be walking in Chinatown? The coincidence is too much and sends a chill down my spine. The sound of a motorcycle nearby sends me darting into a doorway, but the growl grows fainter. I duck into doorways every once in a while and peer out to see if the man in the sunglasses is following me. I don't catch sight of him again, so I continue on to Market Street, where I play chess until the sun sets. The Bulgarian who runs the chess games eyes me as I leave, pockets stuffed with forty bucks in winnings.

“Natasha, you are wasting away.” He clucks at me with concern.

He's called me “Natasha” for years. I've never bothered to correct him. She has now become my alter ego—­Natasha, a motorcycle-­boot-­wearing chess master who is not the sister of a dead girl.

I shrug and turn away. Natasha is a woman of few words.

But he's right. I hitch up my jeans as I walk. I need to eat more. If only to keep up my energy so I can do the things I need to do. Time to focus my energy less on my sorrows and myself and more on someone else—­helping figure out who murdered Lucy's family.

I round a corner a few blocks up from Market Street and leave the noise and bustle behind. The sudden quiet and dark make my heart beat faster. I look behind me every few minutes until I spot a cab and flag it down. I can't usually afford to take a cab for a distance I can easily walk, but after realizing the man with sunglasses from the dojo might be following me, I'm willing to fork over whatever it takes to get off the deserted streets tonight.

When Donovan gets home at 2:00 a.m., he crawls into bed and says he has to be at work in three hours. He turns his back to me and immediately begins to snore. I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, once again feeling the seed of resentment inside me grow bigger.