Blessed Are Those Who Weep (12 page)

 

Chapter 27

“A
NGEL
OF
D
EATH
?”

It's Brian at the morgue.

“Pretty ironic, coming from the Grim Reaper himself,” I answer. “Did you trade in your light saber for a scythe? I barely recognized your voice, since it wasn't quoting
Star Wars
.”

“Got a soldier on ice,” he says.

“I'll be there in a few,” I say and hang up.

Brian is one of several sheriff's deputies assigned to a two-­year stint at the morgue. They are called out to any suspicious death or car crash fatalities and have to take photographs of the death scene, do the initial investigation, bag the bodies, and transport them to the county morgue, where a forensic pathologist does the autopsies. Because death doesn't punch a time clock, they take turns filling the twenty-­four-­hour shift, sleeping alone on a cot in a creepy, windowless room. The last place I'd want to stay the night alone, with about a dozen dead bodies chilling only a wall away.

When I get to the morgue, Rita at the front desk is on the phone, so she buzzes me in and waves me back instead of us catching up with our usual chitchat about her grandchildren and recipes we've tried.

Brian greets me in the back offices with a folder he plops into my arms. With his blond crew cut and ripped forearms, Brian is built like a linebacker, so it always strikes me as funny how nerdy he actually is. He once told me his wife encourages him to collect figurines from
The Simpsons
TV show. I keep meaning to get him some for Christmas.

“I've got a bad feeling about this.” He points me to a chair. “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy . . . We must be cautious
.
”

“Got it,” I say.

I open the file, and on top of a stack of documents lies a vivid picture—­a close-­up of a guy with half his head blown off. I've seen worse in person at the morgue, but this one is particularly gruesome. Brian hovers over my shoulder, so I don't react. I'm sure he'd stop letting me see the complete autopsy files if I'm a wimp about it. Other pictures show the man sprawled on the floor of a garage. His body is near the tire of a silver vehicle. A gun lies nearby. I scan the cover page. His name is Richard Abequero.

“Suicide?”

“Guy ate his gun.” Brian leans against the cubicle wall, flipping through a stack of photos he took out of a large envelope. “Been back from his tour of duty about six months. Lives in Oakland.”

“Iraq?”

“The force is with you . . . but you are not a Jedi yet!”

“Thanks.”

I study the picture closer. Above the bloody mess that used to be a face I can see a close-­shorn haircut.

“Married? Any kids?” I ask.

“Married.”

Brian pulls out a chair across from me. He takes out his Death Book and adds new pictures to it, carefully using a glue stick to adhere them to the professional-­style scrapbook. I know later he will take a fine ink pen and mark poignant details. For instance, on one he wrote, “Father of four. Asphyxiated from sinking into silo bin full of grain.”

Along with photographing the scene officially, he takes snapshots “unofficially” and keeps them in his Death Book, his morbid account of his time at the morgue. And he calls
me
“Angel of Death.”

I continue flipping through the file until I find contact information. His wife. Her name is Carol Abequero.

“They pick him up yet?”

“Yep. He's over at Dunwoody Funeral Home. Viewing is tonight. Seven p.m. Closed casket. Ugh. And I thought they smelled bad on the outside.”

Closing the folder, the image of the soldier's mangled face is seared on my mind. “I'm sure.”

I pick up my bag. “Thanks again, Brian.”

“The circle is now complete.”

“Um, okay. See you.”

I
N
TH
E
CAR
,
I start making calls. First, Liz in news research.

“Hey, sugar,” she says, and I can tell she is smiling.

Liz should work for the CIA or FBI. She could unearth Jimmy Hoffa's body if she set her mind to it.

“Got a name for you, Liz. Carol Abequero. Looking for an address.” The best way to get someone to talk is to show up in person. Anyone can hang up the phone. And they often do.

“Will do, sugar.”

Next, I call Detective Khoury.

“I don't have anything new for you. They'll look at that weapon you gave me, but there is a backlog of evidence they're working.” She says it before I can ask a question.

“Any chance I can get that recruiter's name yet? I want to know who says Joey Martin was in Iraq.”

“I got some bad news for you. It's more than just the recruiter. My lieutenant apparently talked to a general over there. The big guy is vouching for Joey Martin. That gives the husband the best alibi I've heard in a decade,” she says. “Wait, I take that back. There was a better one. The suspect who was already dead in the cemetery had the best alibi I've ever run across. Even so, his neighbor was convinced he killed her husband. Asked me if I'd ever heard of zombies.”

“I would've liked to have written that story.” I'm impatient with her tangent, but trying to humor her.

“The San Jose paper had a field day with that one.”

“I know you're busy, but I was wondering if you had a name or number for Martin's general.”

I want to hear out of his mouth that his soldier was overseas the day his family was massacred.

There is silence for a few seconds. “If I give you a name, will you back off?”

I hear the rustling of papers and know I'm close, but I'm also not going to lie and say what she wants to hear.

“I can't guarantee that.” The noise of the papers stops. There is silence for a second. I stare out at all the red lights of cars slowing in front of me.

“I haven't had time to look up the recruiter's name. It's buried somewhere in all this paperwork on my desk, but Martin's commanding officer is General Craig Hightower. At least, he's the one who faxed a letter to my lieutenant confirming Martin's return date.”

She hangs up before I can say thank you. I take the exit for Oakland.

“I
DON
'
T
KNOW
General Hightower, but I know the man directly under him,” Moretti says, narrowing his eyes at me and running a hand over his slicked-­back hair. “You really need to talk to someone in Iraq? And it has to be a lieutenant general who is currently overseeing a war in a theater overseas?”

“The higher up the better.” Moretti has bragged about his connections with the power players in the Iraq War; now I'm calling him on it.

He gives me a fake glare. I know his resistance is all an act. At least I think it is. I eye the photo of Moretti and another man in fatigues with their arms around each other in Vietnam. I meaningfully push the bag of pork puns from See Yee Yum across the desk toward him.

In an instance, he's snatched the bag and dropped it in a desk drawer.

“Well, here goes nothing,” he says and pulls his phone toward him.

“What? It's not like you'll get in trouble for calling him.”

“Listen, kiddo, let's just say, it's not going to make me his best friend, putting a reporter on his tail.” He swings his short legs off the desk and leans forward, flipping through his Rolodex.

He's going to do it. I try to hide my excitement. He pauses. “On one condition.”

I nod.

“I'll do all the talking. What's this yahoo's name?”

I scribble “Joey Martin” and push the scrap of reporter's notebook paper his way.

Lighting a cigarette, one practiced hand holding his silver Zippo, he squints at the Rolodex card and punches in some numbers on his phone. I plug my nose and wave my arm widely, as if I'm clearing the smoke from the room.

Even though he's had one heart attack, he continues to smoke. It drives me crazy.

“Lieutenant General David Cooper, please. Tell him it's Michael Moretti.” He hums and taps the desk with his fingers, waiting.

I try not to look impatient. He whispers to me, “You know, this guy is a big deal. He'll probably take over the war soon, because rumor has it Hightower is running for president next year. This better be important, kiddo.”

“It
is
,” I hiss back.

“Yes, Coop, it's Moretti,” he says and laughs at something the other man says. “Kate is fine, thanks for asking. Yep, same with the kids. Janie is at U.C. Berkeley now. No, Tommy is still ‘finding himself,' whatever the Christ that means. Tempted to ask you to find a place for him in your outfit, but I wouldn't wish that kid on anyone.”

More words on the other end I can't hear. Moretti clears his throat.

“I've got a question for you. I've got this pesky friend of the family. A reporter. Gabriella Giovanni. Seems she's covering a murder in San Fran that affects one of your soldiers.”

He glances down at the piece of paper I gave him. “A Sergeant Martin, Joey. His wife and his parents were killed this week.”

A deep voice rumbles on the other end of the line. What is he saying?

“Yes. Yes. It's a damn shame. Wanted to check and see if Sergeant Martin was on base at the time?”

“Sure, I'll stand by,” he says. Leaning back in his chair, he exhales perfect smoke rings above his head, giving me a wink.

I cough loudly, exaggerating, and wave my hands to clear the smoke, which is nowhere near me.

He pushes the silver cigarette case my way. “You want a cancer stick, too?” he whispers, holding his palm over the mouthpiece.

For a second, I see myself reaching for it, but I resist. He snatches it back. I make a face at him. Of course I want one. But I want to be pregnant more. No more smoking for me.

The lieutenant general must be back on the line, because Moretti sits up and grabs a pen and pad of paper. “Well, that is interesting. We've been told he's coming home next Friday on bereavement? Yeah. A week from tomorrow. I know. National security and all that. We're good. She just wanted to verify he was on base during the murder. She's as trustworthy as they come. Thanks, Coop. Stay safe over there, my friend.”

He hangs up.

“He doesn't exist.”

“What?” That doesn't make any sense.

“Coop told me this because we go way back. This is off the record—­Martin is Army ‘Combined Applications Group.' Do you know what that means?”

“Not a clue.”

“Some call his unit ‘Delta,' but there isn't an official name. Once you get picked up by CAG, you don't exist anymore. The only ­people who know you exist? President. CIA. Maybe FBI.”

“I don't get it.”

“Officially, he's not there. Not anywhere. There is no record of him. Until the other day. Now, here's the interesting part. Even though he's not supposed to exist, nobody is supposed to say his name out loud. Coop just got a memo the other day saying if anybody asks about Martin, he's been on base since April and will be home on leave a week from tomorrow.”

“But he hasn't been there, Moretti. They're covering up his murder spree. I'm not making this up.” I tell him about getting attacked at the apartment. “I also saw him at his wife's funeral. Or rather, I saw him run out the back door of the church at the funeral.”

Moretti's forehead crinkles. He believes me. But he's not sure how it's possible. Welcome to the club.

I don't get up to leave but sit fiddling with my notebook and pen.

Moretti fills the silence, just as I expect. “I'll make a few more calls. If you say you saw him, then maybe you did. Even Coop seemed surprised by his orders.”

I stand to leave.

“Kiddo?”

I pause.

“I think you should consider backing off this. Talking to Coop has me a bit worried that you're poking around in something this big. If the military is lying, they probably got a pretty damn good reason for it and you should stay the hell away.”

 

Chapter 28

I
HAVE
EIGHT
days to prove that Joey Martin killed his wife, or that he had something to do with it. Otherwise Lucy will end up in the hands of a man his mother-­in-­law called “the devil.”

She belongs with her grandmother. I picture the baby girl a little bit older, dressed in a blue dress and black shiny shoes, her chubby hand in her grandmother's wrinkled one as they walk to Mass at the San Juan Bautista mission.

Back at my desk, I make my “cop calls”—­the long list of calls to police departments I make twice a day to see if they have any newsworthy crimes to report. My tenth call is to Amy Morgan, the Walnut Creek public information officer. Amy is a former reporter, who worked at our paper before my time. She is easy to work with and always returns my calls. Today, she picks up on the first ring.

“You'll like this, Giovanni.”

“Do tell.”

“Bank robber.”

“Go on.” I wait.

“Wrote his demand note on . . . guess?”

“A withdrawal slip with his bank account number on it?”

“Close. The back of an envelope that contained his electric bill. With his name and address on the front. Detectives picked him up five minutes ago. He had all the bait money on him. Open and shut. I'll have a press release out to you in a few minutes.”

“This will be a fun one to write,” I say.

“Thank God for dumb crooks.”

I write up a short story about the dumb bank robber, then make a series of calls. When I have about three pages of notes, I ask for a minute of Kellogg's time.

I need an excuse to pursue the Mission Massacre story without Kellogg realizing I'm doing so. Earlier, I thought about the phone call I received from the woman who complained about how the military is shortchanging soldiers who've returned from the war. I realized it gave me the perfect cover to continue investigating the Mission Massacre.

Kellogg and I settle into two old, creaky chairs in one of the empty conference rooms. I lay it all out for him—­too many soldiers are coming back from Iraq with post-­traumatic stress disorder. Some of them are killing themselves. Others are beating up their wives. Others are overdosing. From what that woman said on the phone, the soldiers are having a difficult time assimilating back into life in the U.S. and may not be getting enough—­or any—­support from the military. I explain all this to Kellogg, who raises his eyebrows. He's interested.

He leans forward. “This is definitely different than what we saw in the Vietnam War. This is a different type of war. There are different types of issues the soldiers are facing. Could be a Sunday piece.” He strokes his beard. “Be sure to focus on a Bay Area angle.”

While the story
is
fascinating, my goal is to be able to work the Lucy story in under the radar. If my research on the vets pans out right, the story can be a sidebar to my scoop on Joey Martin being the killer.

“I'll start by talking to my sources at the morgues and find out if they've had many veteran suicides,” I say, not mentioning I already have one—­the Abequero suicide. “I'll see if the military has any stats and what kind of resources they're providing. They might be doing something, but from what this woman says, it doesn't seem like enough.”

“I think you're onto something here, Giovanni,” he says as he stands and waits for me to follow suit. Turning toward the door, he says over his shoulder, “Glad to see you're letting the Mission Massacre story go. Those are the kinds of stories that will fuck you up.”

Guilt swarms through me as I nod, afraid to speak.

On my way home, I swing by the sex club. This time there aren't any kids hanging out on the street. Probably too early in the day. I'm parking, when a car pulls up in front of the door. A beautiful woman wearing Chanel gets out of the backseat. The windows are tinted dark, so I can't see inside. She touches a doorbell, and the steel door opens automatically. She doesn't break stride, just pulls the door open and disappears. I rush over and tug on the handle, but it's locked again. The big black car beside me starts to pull away, and I jump in front of the hood. The car stops on a dime, touching my hip. The driver is a young woman with a buzzed head and a suit jacket. She glares at me, and I give her a big smile.

Keeping my fingers trailing on the hood of the car, I make my way over to her window. She makes a face but lowers the glass.

“I'd like to talk to your lady friend, the one you just let out.”

“Miss Sabrina doesn't talk to ­people she doesn't know.” The woman says the words in a snotty voice.

“She might want to talk to me,” I say. I lean in a bit on the lowered window. The woman glances down, and I realize I'm giving a free peep show. My face warms as I stand up and tug my top up higher. The driver snickers.

“Listen. I'm trying to find out about someone who worked here. A kid named Javier. You know him?”

I watch her eyes dart to the side when I say the name. She knows him, alright.

“I'm trying to find out who killed him. Maybe Miss Sabrina or you could help.”

“You the po-­po?” She leans away from the window and puts her hand on the button to roll it up.

“No, I'm not a cop.”

She studies me for a minute and bites the inside of her lip as she speaks.

“Javier was okay,” she said. “I don't know anything about what happened to him, though.”

She's telling the truth. I lean back down one more time.

“I'd like to get in there and talk to someone about Javier. Can you help me out?”

“Listen, lady, I have never even been in there. Miss Sabrina has me drop her off and calls when I'm supposed to pick her up again.”

I press my lips together. If that is true, then how does she know Javier? This isn't working. I fish out one of my cards and hand it to the driver. “Can you give Miss Sabrina my card?”

She doesn't answer, just nods and rolls the window back up. Within thirty seconds, the car is gone.

Before I drive away, I cross the street and look up at the windows. They're all covered with thick curtains. I try knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell one more time before I give up and head to Donovan's place.

D
URING
DINNER
—­
ENC
HILADA
takeout
from one of my favorite Oakland restaurants—­I go over my day with Donovan.

We both have the night off, and we decided to eat at his place. He's hinted a lot lately, especially when I first got pregnant, about me moving into his apartment on Lake Merritt, but I've been reluctant to let my place go. My studio apartment barely fits me alone. I use the excuse that the deal on my rent-­controlled apartment is just too good, but I know it's more than that.

I know when we get married one day, my life in San Francisco will be over. But I'm not willing to do that yet. And so far, I haven't managed to convince Donovan to move into the city.

His apartment has an actual bedroom. With a door. And it does have spectacular views of Lake Merritt and the downtown Oakland skyline, which is so cheery at night, all lit up with the fairy lights surrounding the path around the lake and sometimes little glowing lights from ­people taking nighttime gondola rides on the water.

And we can walk most places we want to go, like the Holy Land deli, La Casita for enchiladas, and now even See Yee Yum.

But. It is still not San Francisco.

When I finish telling him about my day, I take a deep breath and tell him my idea about working the Mission Massacre story under the guise of doing a story on soldiers coming home traumatized from the war. “I mean, I'll do both stories, of course, but this gives me the excuse I need to be out talking to generals and recruiters and whatnot.”

When I finish, he doesn't say anything. He looks worried.

I poke around at the food on my plate, forcing myself to take another bite. I chew and chew and swallow and he doesn't answer.

“It's not like that,” I finally say.

“Just be careful. This might be another case that will end up unsolved.”

“Another case? What do you mean?” My voice rises in outrage. Is he referring to my sister's murder?

“San Francisco doesn't have the best clearance rate. They are overwhelmed and underfunded. You know how it goes. I don't want you to be crushed if this remains an open case.”

“I'll only be ‘crushed,' as you put it, if they give that baby to her murdering father.”

“It's more than that,” he says. “If the government is covering something up, I want you to stay far, far away.”

I appreciate his concern, so I try not to make a face. But his next comment sends a ripple of irritation down my back.

“And you're sure you saw him?”

“Are you joking?” My voice is steel.

“You need to be open-­minded to what I'm going to say next,” he begins, and I close my eyes in annoyance for a second. He waits for me to open them back up before he continues. “Is there any chance that the strain of what you've gone through—­”

“What
we've
gone through,” I interrupt. I stand and clear my plate, scraping the remains of my enchilada into the trash.

“What
we've
gone through—­is there any chance that you might have been seeing things? With the strain and lack of sleep. I mean, those things could be hallucinations.” He says all this to my back as I rinse my plate at the sink.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me.” I turn toward him, feeling as if lightning bolts are shooting out of my eyes. “I'm ninety-­nine-­point-­nine percent sure he was the one who attacked me and that he's the one I saw at the funeral,” I say as calmly as I can.

He watches me for a long moment. “Okay. I believe you saw Martin,” he says. He starts cleaning the dishes from the table but stops. “Are you carrying a gun?”

“No.” I scowl. “I don't own a gun. You
know
that.”

“Yeah, but you could take one of mine. I've got plenty. Unless you want me to follow you around all day, because I can do that, too.”

I laugh. “I promise I'll be careful.”

We stand at the sink and do the dishes together, like we always do, but this time there is little splashing or flicking bubbles at each other.

When we are done, I dry my hands and head for the bedroom. My eyelids are heavy, and all I want to do is curl up in a warm bed and sleep for two days.

Caterina's unavenged murder, my miscarriage, the two men who have died at my hands, the fate of Lucy—­sometimes I don't want to think or feel anything anymore.

In the bedroom, I'm so exhausted that I shrink away from Donovan when he turns and wraps his arms around me. I keep my back to him, and before I know it, I fall into a dark pit of unconsciousness.