Blessed are the Meek

by Kristi Belcamino

  Lopez lifts an eyebrow. “What the hell, man?”

  THE TOW-­TRUCK DRIVER drives us to the newsroom. The mechanic promises that the garage will drop off my car in the paper’s parking lot by six tonight. I’ve been going to the same garage for years because of little individual touches like this.

  The Moraga Police Department was not the least bit interested in my punctured tires. A bored beat cop came out to the newsroom to take a report, but only after I insisted. “Probably some punk kids,” he said. His lackluster attitude made me clam up about the police badge.

  But I know. Somebody is trying to send me a message, and it’s not a message I want to receive.

  Chapter 22

  AFTER I WRITE and turn in the trench story, I’ve got a few hours to kill until my car is ready. I’m writing up briefs about identity-­theft tips when something on the scanner catches my attention.

  “Fell five stories.” With all the crackling, I can barely make out what is going on. I catch snatches of conversation. It sounds like a guy fell five stories off a downtown building. That’s not going to be pretty. I grab my bag, dial Lopez, and am halfway across the newsroom when he answers.

  “Pick you up at the back door.”

  We race down the main drag to downtown Walnut Creek, Lopez punching the dash whenever the light turns red. The building they are talking about on the scanner is right across from the downtown mall.

  When we pull up, a fire truck and three police cars are leaving.

  No ambulance. No coroner’s van.

  Nobody anywhere. It’s baffling. We circle the building, toward the back, I see a few guys standing around a cable company van. One guy is in the middle, and they are patting him on the back and laughing. We stop and introduce ourselves.

  “I heard something about a guy falling off a building.”

  The men are giddy, as if they’ve been drinking.

  “That’s old lucky Bob, here,” one guy says, slapping another guy on the back. “Thought he was a goner.”

  “Wait? You fell off this roof?” I peer up to the top of the building, my eyes widening. Lopez gives me a look.

  “Yup.”

  “We need to talk,” I say, whipping out my notebook.

  They take us up on the roof to tell the story, with Lopez taking pictures the entire time.

  Apparently, Bob Nelson was walking backward, laying out cable, and walked right off the edge of the roof. His partner, Dale, tried to warn him, but by the time the words came out of his mouth, it was too late.

  “My heart was pounding. I thought for sure he was a goner,” Dale said. “I crawled to the edge of the roof, scared sick about what I was going to see.”

  He pauses, either for drama or to let me catch up on my note taking. I finish and look up, waiting.

  “So’s I look over the edge, expecting to see the nastiest thing I ever saw, and sure as shit, Bob is down there walking on the sidewalk, walking around like nothing happened.”

  “No kidding,” I say, eyebrows raised.

  Bob explains that when he went over the edge, the cable looped around his ankle. It stopped him about four feet off the ground, right in a bush. He extracted his ankle and fell into the bush, uninjured. “Some lady came running outside all frantic,” Bob says. “I was just sitting here on the ledge, trying to figure the whole damn thing out, and she runs up to me and is all panicky, and says ‘Oh my God, oh my God, I just saw some guy fall off the building.’ ”

  “What’d you tell her?” I ask.

  “I says, ‘Yup. That’d be me.”

  Bob and Dale say good-­bye. They’re off to buy lottery tickets.

  “I figure today is my lucky day,” Bob says.

  I finish the story in record time. It practically writes itself. It’s a good distraction. I haven’t thought about the badge or my flattened tires at all. The garage calls me to tell me my car is in the parking lot, and the keys are at the reception desk. I make a note to send a giant box of biscotti to the garage at Christmas.

  When my desk phone rings, I jump, hoping it’s the man who has information on Caterina.

  It’s not.

  It’s Nicole. “Hey, lady, want to meet at The Bear after work? I’m craving their garlic fries. I can leave right now. The Larson case was continued.”

  “Awesome. I’ve had a hell of a day. I desperately need a drink. Plus, I’ve got something to show you.” I eye the book on my desk.

  The deck at our favorite sports bar overlooks the bustling downtown Walnut Creek streets. The entire downtown area has a cool, European vibe, with its big trees and wide sidewalks. The restaurants have cafe tables outside, and ­people stroll the summer streets laughing and talking as they visit boutiques and bookstores carrying bags from Pottery Barn and Saks Fifth Avenue.

  I’ve ordered my signature drink, Absolut vodka, straight up, chilled in a tumbler. Instead of her usual frosty Honeyweiss beer, Nicole has what looks like a soda in front of her.

  “What’s up with your drink?” I lift my glass toward hers.

  “Giving my liver a break,” she says. She raises her glass to clink mine. “Cheers! Saw the storyboard, you’re right—­you’ve had quite a day. It’s not every day that both your stories are slated for A1.”

  “No kidding. Bizarre stuff. But that’s not the half of my crazy day.”

  I tell her that both Donovan and I were brought in for questioning this morning at the San Francisco PD. I also tell her about the tipster who said he had information about Caterina and how I had to miss the meeting.

  “I don’t get it,” she says, her brow furrowing as she munches a garlic fry. “Why are the investigators wasting time pestering you? Let me talk to the D.A. again and see what he’s heard. They must really not have any leads. I know the pressure is on because this murder is huge. It’s all anybody is talking about at the courthouse.”

  “I just can’t understand why they are brushing me off when I tell them to find the woman in the black bikini.” I say, dipping some fries into a small dish of malt vinegar.

  Nicole finishes chewing before she answers. “ ’Cause they found her. Alibi. Rock solid. She was arrested for drunk driving about a mile away from Grant’s house. Spent the night in the Napa clink. According to time of death and when the maid last saw Grant, she was already in custody.”

  “Shit.”

  Nicole laughs. “Don’t worry. They don’t have anything on you. Let’s talk about something else. What’s the surprise?”

  I rummage around, then pull a book out of my bag, holding it up for her to read: Homicide Investigator’s Handbook. “This came in the mail this afternoon. Brand-­new! I haven’t looked at it yet. Waited to share it with you.”

  “Cool!” There aren’t a lot of ­people in the world who would react this way. That’s one reason we’re friends.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  She nods. I close my eyes and crack the book near the binding. When I look down, I see a picture of a charred burn victim. It looks like something out of a horror movie with its empty eye sockets. Both of us involuntarily squeal.

  I pass it to Nicole, “Your turn.”

  She flips a few pages, chomping on garlic fries. “Holy shit, look at this one —­what a way to go,” she says, pointing out a page where the guy’s dog had stepped on the accelerator, pinning his master between the truck’s bumper and a fence.

  Nicole shakes her blond bob and wrinkles her freckled nose as she thumbs through the book. “Wow. Never thought about what a body would look like after an explosion—­it’s just a pile of mush.”

  We close the book when the waitress returns to check on us. After she walks away, I pick up the book again and come across a photo I never needed to see—­an up-­close shot of a guy with half his head blown off by a .50 caliber bullet.

  “Okay, you win. That one is horrific.” Nicol
e says, grimacing and looking away.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I don’t think I ever need to look at this picture again in my life.” I take a Post-­it note out of my bag and stick it over the picture so I don’t accidentally turn to that page again. But I’ve seen worse.

  “Sorry about that,” I say to Nicole. “That one was pretty bad.”

  “Yeah, but it’s nearly impossible not to look at.”

  “I know.” I look off in the distance. Nicole picks up on my worry immediately.

  “Okay, fess up. Besides all the other crazy shit you dealt with today, what else is bothering you?” Nicole’s probing gaze is kind, but I can tell she is worried.

  “Boy problems.”

  I tell her everything—­including my irrational fear that Donovan is still in love with Annalisa—­gulping my drink a little faster than usual. Nicole knows the history of my rocky love life, picking one wrong guy after another. Until I met Donovan.

  “Sometimes I feel like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop,” I say, and look away, wishing I had a cigarette. Nicole waits, watching me with a furrowed brow as I continue. “Sometimes I worry that maybe . . . maybe he’s out of my league.”

  It is the first time I’ve ever said this out loud, and I’m a little embarrassed to hear the words come out of my mouth. Nicole startles me with a big laugh.

  “You’re crazy,” she says, waving my concerns away with her hand. “Do you ever look in the mirror? You got that Sophia Loren thing going on.”

  “No wonder I like you so much,” I say. Talking to Nicole always makes me feel better.

  I think she’s the beautiful one, classy and poised, with her Grace Kelly looks. She’s, also, an ace reporter. She never fails to dig up dirt on suspects that even the best detectives have sometimes missed, which has earned her grudging respect from both defense attorneys and prosecutors—­even when her information ends up clearing a suspect of wrongdoing. And, not many ­people know it, but she has the Contra Costa County district attorney’s personal cell-­phone number and is invited to his family’s annual Fourth of July party.

  Besides all that, she’s a hell of a lot of fun. She’s the closest thing I have to a sister. I wonder what my life would have been like if Caterina had lived. What would she look like now? Would we be best friends?

  “Gabriella?” Nicole’s voice brings me back.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” Nicole says. “I was prattling on about Ted’s job search. He finally got a new one. No more long-­distance relationship.”

  Nicole’s husband’s job in medical device sales required him to spend five out of seven days on the road.

  “That’s great news!” I held my glass up and clink hers. “Tell him congratulations!”

  She smiles at me. We are both quiet for a moment.

  “I’m just worried he’s still in love with her.” I look down when I say this.

  “Besides that one time, has he ever talked about her?”

  “We haven’t really talked much about our past relationships with each other.” It seems we’ve both done a damn good job of avoiding anything like that. I guess I didn’t realize how bad it was until now.

  “And you haven’t talked to him about this fear?”

  I shake my head. This morning we talked about Caterina and getting questioned by the cops, but not my jealousy, which is the last thing I want to talk about.

  Nicole drains the last of her soda and signals for the waitress. “You need to go home and talk to him. Now.”

  I don’t want to admit it, but she’s right. I sigh and get out my wallet.

  Chapter 23

  WHEN I GET to Donovan’s place he’s already in bed.

  It’s only ten thirty.

  Although he was at the cop shop all night getting questioned, I’m still surprised. I’ve seen him work all-­nighters and not go to bed before midnight. Something is wrong.

  I don’t know what else to do, so I wash my face and brush my teeth and crawl into bed with him although I know I’ll be staring at the ceiling for a good long while.

  He mumbles something and wraps his arms around me. I want to wake him and talk. I want to confess I’m jealous of Annalisa. I want to tell him that someone is threatening me—­popping the tires on my car and leaving a police badge as a calling card. How did someone get a badge, anyway? It’s not like you can buy them at the store?

  At the same time, I feel relieved to postpone those conversations until the morning. I’m sure my shrink would have something to say about it. Thinking of my therapist, Marsha, makes me feel guilty. Ever since Annalisa has come into our lives, I’ve missed my appointments and ignored Marsha’s phone calls. I’m not sure what I’m trying to avoid, but even to me, it’s obvious I’m dodging something.

  The night passes very slowly. I get very little sleep. Donovan makes it nearly impossible by tossing and turning all night long. A few times, I wake and hear him moaning, as if he’s in pain. At one point, he starts swinging when I try to wake him, and I jump out of bed, hugging the sheet to me, pressed against the wall.

  “Donovan! Stop it! You almost hit me!” My shouting wakes him. He looks disoriented, rubbing his eyes, then sees me cowering in the corner.

  “Sorry. I was having a bad dream.” He turns and starts snoring. I crawl back into bed. My eyes are heavy, so I roll over and go back to sleep.

  When I wake at dawn, he’s gone.

  I CAN BARELY concentrate at work. I’m dead tired and keep thinking about missing that appointment with the man with information on Caterina’s killer. Unlike yesterday, the news this morning is so slow, I have plenty of time to think.

  I try to distract myself by working on a story about Adam Grant. His funeral is tomorrow, Friday. It’s not often I’ve written a story about someone I know who died. I once had to write a story about a cop I knew who died coming home from a bar. He was drunk and flipped his car.

  So, I have mixed emotions when I sit down to write about Grant. I’m a little sad, but I barely knew the guy. It’s hard to realize that less than a week ago, I was having dinner with him at the Fairmont Hotel.

  I call the number listed for Grant’s San Francisco apartment, hoping to reach family members in town for his funeral later today. The woman who answers the phone, Grant’s sister, Daphne, agrees to talk. Although she is clearly grieving, she is happy to share her memories of him. She talks about what a great sense of humor Grant had and how, in many ways, he never lost his childish delight at what the world had to offer.

  “He always knew how to appreciate everything, especially those little things we forget to pay attention to,” she says. “In some ways, that makes me happy—­that when he was alive, he truly lived. And in other ways, that breaks my heart that someone who loved life so much had it cut short.”

  I highlight this quote. It’s a good one. It reminds me how I caught a glimpse of what she is describing when I gave him biscotti—­he was sincerely excited and appreciative.

  I wonder if his sister knows I was at Grant’s house the day he was murdered. Obviously, she doesn’t know the police are questioning me about his murder. I’m worried she will hang up or yell at me, but I have to tell her.

  “There’s something you need to know,” I say, then blurt it out in a rush. “I was at the party. In Napa. Your brother invited me. I met him the night before at a press dinner. The police questioned me—­because I was there. I feel awful about what happened—­that someone did that to him. He seemed like such a great guy . . . I’m so very sorry.”

  For a few seconds, she is silent, and I brace myself. She has every right to scold me for not telling her this up front.

  “Thank you for telling me that.” Her voice is quiet.

  Before she hangs up, she gives me phone numbers of others who might want to talk to me about Grant, including his cousin and a childhood
friend.

  After several interviews, I begin crafting a story about a man who appeared to be loved by everyone who met him. When I have the skeleton of a story, I hit SAVE and close the file.

  Writing the story has made me melancholy. Life cut short too soon always does. I remember what he said about Sebastian Laurent: “I don’t believe anyone deserves to die a violent death.”

  I open my file on Sebastian Laurent. He was murdered nine days ago and is quickly fading from the public’s eye and attention span. I don’t want that to happen. I told Kellogg I’d have a follow-­up story for Saturday’s paper, but I need the autopsy results. My source at the morgue, Brian, told me tox was a rush job, and the autopsy report would be available today. He said he’d shoot me an e-­mail when he got to work. I check my in-­box.

  There it is. The message itself is empty. The only writing is in the e-­mail’s subject line.

  It says, “I see dead ­people.”

  Chapter 24

  DEATH HAS A very distinct smell.

  Once you’ve smelled it, you’ll never forget it. It’ll linger in your olfactory memory like a shadowy dream. And I can’t explain it, but now that I know the smell, I sometimes catch whiffs of death in the oddest places—­on the breeze as I walk to the corner market, on a stranger sitting nearby on the train, a faint hint in the hallway of a decrepit apartment building.

  I punch the accelerator on my old Volvo and head toward the morgue in Martinez. With the windows down and the scent of summer in the air, I remember the first time I smelled death—­during an autopsy. Dead man about my age who had overdosed on smack. Unfortunately, he had the same exact build and coloring as my boyfriend at the time, which messed with my head. So to avoid looking at his naked body, I ended up staring at the man’s head the entire time. Now his lifeless eyes and slack face are ingrained in my memory.

  The most poignant part of the autopsy was for the first time in my life—­even though I had attended several open-­casket funerals and am Catholic—­I realized that the body truly is merely a shell, a carcass. What lay before me was not a person anymore. An enormous sense of peace came over me as this heavy realization set in. When my sister and father were lowered into the dark ground, whatever had made them alive wasn’t there anymore. They were already gone.