Blessed are the Meek

by Kristi Belcamino

  Laurent’s house is the smallest one on the block. It’s a small squat box that combines huge shiny metal sheets interspersed with textured wood. But I know the exterior must be deceptive. Property records show the house is fifty-­five hundred square feet. It must all be on the back side, sprawling down the hill.

  The door to the house is covered with thick iron latticework, and I’m trying to figure out how to knock when it swings open. Today, Cruz is wearing faded blue jeans and a loose, red, embroidered tunic. Her feet are bare. I feel overdone, garish even, in my pink cashmere sweater and white slacks compared to her effortless chic. Her face, devoid of makeup, may be even prettier today than when she had a full face of makeup at the gallery. Huge eyes take in everything from behind black lashes. Her glance lingers on a small snag in my sweater.

  “Come in,” she says, and makes a grand, sweeping gesture, holding the door for me. The hallway leads to a main room with enormous floor-­to-­ceiling windows facing downtown and a balcony that runs the length of the room. Across from the windows, a ten-­foot-­long stainless-­steel bar separates the kitchen from the rest of the room.

  Annalisa heads behind the bar and indicates a black leather sectional couch with a wave. Across the room is a long table that could feed my big Italian family. A fifteen-­foot-­high print of Brigitte Bardot standing with her legs spread and her hands on her hips soars above the table.

  “Wine?” Annalisa holds two glasses between her fingers. It’s 11:00 A.M.

  “Sure.”

  I look again for any sign that she is grieving. Nope. Not even a hint of small dark circles under her eyes. Maybe she’s numbed her grief with alcohol.

  She hands me a glass of wine and curls her legs up under her on the couch facing a huge fireplace. She fishes for a cigarette out of a shiny blue flat pack and lights it with the flick of a match. She indicates with the lit cigarette that I should sit. The couch is about as long as my entire apartment. I plop down about a foot from her, then rummage in my bag for my pen and reporter’s notebook.

  She offers me the pack. Dunhills. Expensive English cigarettes.

  I’ve been struggling to quit smoking for the past year—­occasionally failing miserably—­but I reach for one anyway. Screw it. I don’t normally drink wine before noon, either. She gestures for me to lean closer, and I do, with the cigarette between my lips. She shields it with one cupped hand as she lights it. Her hand brushes my own, and her eyes never leave mine. I look away.

  I take a drag on the cigarette, inhaling deeply, somewhat disappointed by the ashy taste but welcoming the small buzz that shoots through me.

  “So?” Annalisa says, raising an eyebrow.

  I exhale into the air above me. “Tell me about Sebastian. What did he like to do when he wasn’t working? Did he have any hobbies or interests?”

  My questions hang in the air like the cigarette smoke in front of us. I let the silence do its job. It’s an interview technique to get ­people to open up. Most ­people are uncomfortable by silence and try to fill it. Not Annalisa. She looks at me. Then she takes a long puff of her cigarette. Again, her eyes don’t leave mine.

  “What can I say?” She has the lightest accent. “Sebastian was handsome, successful, rich, everything a girl could want.”

  Something about the way she says it provokes my next question. “Was he everything you wanted?”

  She avoids my question, running her fingers along the back of the sleek couch. “Isn’t that what we are all taught to dream of in a man?”

  “You don’t seem like the type to follow convention. Living as an artist isn’t always what good Mexican girls are raised to do.”

  I seem to have hit a nerve. She narrows her eyes at me. The first sign of emotion I’ve seen since I walked in. “Why do you think you know so much about las razas, chica?”

  “Soy Italiana. Usted es tambien una Catholica. No mucho diferente.”

  She doesn’t buy it. “Just because both Italians and Mexicans are Catholic does not mean that they are the same.”

  “Yeah, but they are enough alike for me to get it. I know what it’s like to grow up in a house centered around food and church—­how you’re an old maid if you’re not married with kids by the time you’re twenty-­five.”

  Her laughter tinkles like when a child giggles infectiously. I can’t help but smile back. “Okay, maybe there are some similarities,” she says. Her seemingly normal behavior in the face of her boyfriend’s death makes me vaguely uneasy

  Annalisa’s body relaxes, and she taps the long ash of her cigarette into a black ceramic ashtray shaped like a nude woman’s torso. The figure is seductively lounging on her side on the banks of what looks like a pond—­the small concave bowl where the ashes go.

  “Did you make this,” I say, gesturing with my cigarette.

  “Do you like it?” she says, exhaling.

  “It’s fantastic.” I’m trying to decide when to bring up her apparent lack of grief over her boyfriend’s death when she gets up and opens a long cupboard near the kitchen. I see a shelf filled with similar ashtrays. She grabs a glazed red one.

  I fish another cigarette from the pack and light it from the dying cherry on my first one.

  “Here. My gift to you.” She hands me the red ashtray. I stick it in my bag.

  It’s generous, but I’m not here to get gifts from grieving—­or nongrieving—­girlfriends. I need information for my story. I’m waiting for the right moment to confront her about her nonchalant attitude regarding her boyfriend’s murder. Maybe she’s a sociopath, who has zero empathy for others. Or maybe she killed him.

  “Annalisa, did Sebastian have any enemies? Can you think of any reason someone wanted him dead?”

  “Lots of ­people disliked Sebastian. He could be an asshole.”

  I stay silent, hoping she will continue.

  “He even was like that to me.” She says this matter-­of-­factly, with a shrug.

  This second cigarette already tastes better than the first, but the jolt of nicotine feels weaker, making me inhale harder.

  “Is that why you don’t seem too broken up about his death?” I look away when I say this, keeping my gaze on the flames in the fireplace. She takes a moment to answer.

  “I am sad. But I don’t believe in airing my laundry in public, as they say.” Her lips purse as she exhales. Again, she does the rapid eye blinking and is rewarded with two fat tears this time. She doesn’t bother to wipe them away but let’s them meander down her bronze cheek.

  “My family moved here from Mexico City when I was eight. We may live simply here in this country, but we were royalty in Mexico, friends with el presidente. My father lost everything in gambling debts, and so we had to come here to live with my sister’s family. She married a rich man—­a vintner—­we lived in a house on his property, like a servant’s cottage, you could say. We may not have had much at times, but we’ve always had our pride. My family believes your grief should be expressed in private. It’s not to share with the rest of the world. So, yes, I’m sad. Even self-­centered men don’t deserve to be murdered. Sebastian and I . . .” She falters here and stares into the fire. “We have not been . . . close . . . for a long time. So, in answer to your question, yes, I’m sad. I’m sad to lose someone whom I once cared about a great deal.”

  There is so little emotion there, I can’t decide whether to believe her or not.

  “If all that is true, why did you stay around?”

  “Come now, Gabriella, you know that’s not what good Catholic girls do. Especially good Catholic girls living in sin before marriage.”

  I’m pretty sure she’s joking, but I’m a bit confused.

  “I’d think your family would throw a party if you moved out.”

  “No. They said I made my bed and had to lie in it. My art doesn’t make any money yet. At least, not enough to survive. I wasn
’t willing to give up this lifestyle. What would I do? Move back to the sticks in Modesto and live with my parents, become a maid for my sister?” Her body shudders. “Come, let me show you something.”

  She leads me to a small door off to the side of the kitchen. She flings open the door, and I spot a few steps going down, leading to utter darkness beyond.

  My heart begins to race erratically. I was the one who found my father’s body in the basement. When my mother came to find out what was taking us so long, she went into some form of shock, and the two of us spent the night on the floor with my father’s body until my aunt found us the next morning. Ever since, I’ve had an unholy fear of basements and underground places. I don’t do them.

  After a few seconds, Annalisa flips on a light. Relief spreads through me. It’s a garage. A red Ferrari flanks one wall. There is an empty space where Laurent must have parked his fancy car.

  “I’ve become accustomed to a lifestyle that most men could not provide for me. This house. This car. Weekend getaways to Paris, London, the French Riviera. Do you understand?” She gives me a cunning look.

  “Who gets this now? This place,” I say, gesturing to the living room. “That car?”

  “I’m listed as an owner on both.” Annalisa turns off the light, closes the door, and returns to the living room. She settles back onto the couch and takes a sip of her wine. “After we started having problems, Sebastian never got around to changing that—­or his will. I guess in that respect, I am lucky.”

  “Lucky? Or it makes you look like you killed him before he could cut you off. Did you know the police found a pair of lacy underpants in the car with his body?”

  Annalisa has a look of nonchalance on her face and ignores my comment. “The police, of course, think I did it. They have been following me. They even came to the gallery last night. They can look for evidence, but there is none.”

  This woman has more motive than Catherine the Great. Well, it’s now or never. I take a breath. “Did you kill him?”

  Her eyes grow wide. I don’t know if she plans on answering me or not because we are interrupted by pounding from the front of the house that coincides with a chiming noise that can only be a doorbell.

  “It’s probably someone from the police department,” she says with a sigh, unfurling her legs and standing. “The detectives said they were sending someone over to talk to me again today.”

  If the cops are here, it’s time for me to go. I stuff my notebook in my messenger bag as I follow her to the front door. The ceramic ashtray clinks against my keys in my bag. I wonder if the gift is considered graft or swag. I’m pretty sure it’s against newspaper policy to accept it, but I don’t make a move to return it.

  Annalisa undoes the dead bolt. The door swings open, along with my mouth, when I see who is standing outside.

  It is a cop. But not one I expected to see.

  It’s my boyfriend.

  Chapter 6

  “HELLO, SEAN,” ANNALISA PURRS.

  He doesn’t say a word as we stare at one another.

  “Oh, pardon me, Gabriella,” Annalisa says. “Let me introduce you to Detective Sean Donovan.”

  Silence.

  Annalisa must sense the tension because she adds, “Don’t worry. He’s not here to question me. He’s here to help. He’s my ex-­boyfriend.”

  Ex-­boyfriend? It takes me a second to process this information. When I do, I don’t like the conclusion I come to.

  “Gabriella, I saw your car out front. What are you doing here?” Donovan finally says. We lock eyes, ignoring Annalisa.

  “Doing my job,” I say, biting the words out. “I didn’t know Rosarito police were involved in this case.”

  Annalisa is looking back and forth at us with one arched black eyebrow.

  Donovan looks down for a second at his shoes, then rakes a hand through his perpetually messy hair. “I’m not on duty.” He looks past me, over my shoulder.

  “I’ll let you explain to Annalisa how we know each other.”

  Donovan starts to reach for me but drops his arm to his side as I rush past.

  I gun my motor as I leave the neighborhood, not even glancing back at the house. I’m gripping the steering wheel so hard, my knuckles are white. Donovan didn’t have a single thing to say about Annalisa Cruz the other night when I told him about Sebastian Laurent’s death. Not one damn word. He sat there shoving mashed potatoes in his mouth, saying nothing.

  Chapter 7

  DURING THE REST of my day at the newspaper, I know in my heart that Annalisa Cruz is the girl who seduced Donovan away from a life of celibacy. He doesn’t have many ex-­girlfriends. She has to be the one.

  When we began dating, Donovan told me that after his father died—­in an effort to please his grieving mother—­he’d considered life as a monk. Before he took his final vows, he met a Mexican-­American girl who had come to visit her brother, a fellow monk, at the Berkeley monastery. He had consulted with a priest and, within twenty-­four hours, packed his meager belongings and moved in with the girl. I had never known her name. And I was okay with that. I buy into the whole don’t talk about your exes thing. But now I don’t have a choice. Now I know. Her name is Annalisa Cruz.

  When he told me this story last year, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that my sexy, tough, cop boyfriend had ever even considered life as a monk. The only part that made sense was when he explained that a girl had lured him away from that path.

  The story has always disturbed me, making me jealous of a girl with such allure that she was able to change Donovan’s mind—­and the course of his life—­within hours of meeting him.

  Driving across the Bay Bridge toward home after work, I steel myself to talk to Donovan about it. He had today off work, and we had made plans to have dinner together at my place. Now that I know he spent part of his day off with an ex-­girlfriend, I’m not really much in the mood to see him. But it will be worse if I show up at my place, and he’s not there.

  My apartment is in the heart of North Beach, the Italian part of town. My grandparents settled here when they came over from Italy. The landlady gives me a great deal on my tiny studio because she went to Catholic school with my grandfather. I am usually filled with excitement when I hit the streets of North Beach, with all the cafe tables overflowing onto the sidewalks and all the good smells and music, but today my heart is heavy.

  Does Donovan’s odd behavior and nightmares lately have to do with this woman?

  Our bed is a battle zone because my sleep isn’t that peaceful, either. I still have nightmares about the day I killed a man—­waking up crying and frantically scrubbing at my face and hair until I realize in relief that it was all a dream and that Jack Dean Johnson’s guts aren’t coating my hands. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over killing a man. Even one as awful as Johnson.

  At the time, I’d thought Johnson was the one who kidnapped and killed my sister, but it turns out Caterina wasn’t one of his twenty-­four child victims. Until I hunt down the monster who snatched my sister, I know my nightmares will loop on replay.

  I pound up the stairs of my apartment building, trying to prepare what I’m going to say. I slam open the door of my apartment. Donovan is sitting on my beat-­up red velvet couch, holding a tumbler of bourbon.

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” I cringe at my own words. It’s exactly the opposite of how I had intended to broach the subject. I had coached myself driving home to be calm and rational—­not a jealous girlfriend. So much for that.

  I throw my bag down and slam the front door behind me. I gave him a key to my place about a month ago. Right now, I’m wondering if that was a mistake. “Annalisa Cruz is that girl—­the one that you left the monastery for, isn’t she?”

  Donovan rakes his fingers through his hair before he lifts his head again. His look says it all. It’s her.

 
“Are you still in love with her?” I’m not breathing, waiting for his reply. I turn away and lean over my chessboard on a side table, pretending to analyze my next move to send to my long-­distance opponent, Tomas, in Ukraine. I’m pretending that my whole life doesn’t depend on the answer Donovan is going to give me. The board blurs below me as I swallow and blink. Die before cry. It’s my mantra.

  I can’t decipher the look on his face as he stands and heads my way. I brace myself. He’s going to tell me he is leaving me for her. I know this is absurd. I know because of therapy that this fear stems from my father’s dying when I was six and the irrational belief that every man I love will eventually leave me. But I’m frozen, waiting for his answer. Does he still love her?

  “I still care about her,” he says, “but I’m not in love with her.”

  Relief floods through me.

  He paces my small studio apartment. “But I am going to help her. They want to pin the murder on her. The underwear they found in Sebastian Laurent’s car were hers, she admitted it. They think she was”—­he looks up at me—­“pleasuring him in the car and that’s why his clothes were off. They think she shot him and put the car in gear, sending it over the embankment.”

  “Sounds pretty plausible to me, especially now that I’ve met her and seen how warm and loving she is.”

  He ignores my snarky comment.

  “It sounds like the evidence against her is pretty strong, even without their finding a gun, but I don’t think she killed Sebastian Laurent. I can’t let her take a murder rap.”

  I brush past him into the kitchen and slam cupboards around, hunting until I find my favorite rocks glass—­an old vintage one with tiny gold stars. He says he doesn’t love her, yet he feels compelled to be her knight in shining armor. I yank the vodka bottle out of the freezer, upsetting some frozen-­chicken-­noodle-­soup containers. My studio apartment is tiny, stuffed with bookshelves and big plants, and that usually doesn’t bother me, but right now, I’m not interested in being in the same room as Donovan.