Blessed are the Meek

by Kristi Belcamino

  “I appreciate that,” I say.

  “Here’s what I’ve found—­looks like Frank Anderson might be your man.” He taps a file folder.

  My heart races. His last name is Anderson. Bingo.

  “Was a resident here from 1993 to 2001,” Sandoval says, reading. “From Sacramento. He liked to break into homes and—­well there’s no easy way to put this.”

  He hesitates.

  “You don’t have to censor it for me,” I say. “I can handle it. Besides, my source already told me this Frank guy masturbated with the women’s underwear or something.”

  “Wasn’t women’s underwear.”

  “Huh?”

  Sandoval is clearly uncomfortable talking to me about this, despite my reassurances.

  “You see, he targeted houses with young girls in them.” Sandoval lifts his eyebrow at me. “He liked little girls’ underwear.”

  Sandoval darts his eyes at me, gauging my reaction. He appears startled to see a smile spread across my face.

  “That’s him,” I say, nodding. “It’s got to be.”

  I briefly wonder if I should call the Livermore detective assigned to Caterina’s cold case but dismiss the idea, remembering the cop’s derision for my ideas. First I’ll get proof, then I’ll go straight to the Livermore police chief, bypassing the detective altogether.

  According to what Sandoval tells me, Frank Anderson had broken into more than a dozen homes, leaving his semen on girls’ underwear, before he finally got caught. The police somehow kept his perverted burglary streak out of the news, probably because the crime involved minors. He got caught one morning when a father returned home to retrieve a briefcase he had forgotten. The man, an ex–pro wrestler, found Anderson in his daughter’s bedroom, with his pants around his ankles. He beat the crap out of Anderson before calling police. Anderson, who had a documented history of mental illness, pleaded guilty by reason of insanity. He served eight years. He was paroled last year.

  A thrill of excitement surges through me. Semen equals DNA. I wonder if they have any DNA from twenty-­three years ago, when Caterina was killed? Since we don’t talk about Caterina, it’s a question that has never come up in my family. If he’s the one, we might be able to nail him.

  “Anything else on his record?”

  Sandoval frowns and shakes his head.

  “Current address?” I ask as if it’s my right to have it.

  “We last had him in Moraga. Parole officer lost track of him two months ago. But the good news for you is that his failure to check in makes him an automatic arrest for parole violation. Back in the big house.”

  Even so, my heart sinks. I’m trying not to be crushed that two months earlier, there was an address for Frank Anderson. An actual house. A place where I could . . . do what? I’m not sure what the answer to that is yet. What I do know is I’m not giving up until I look him right in the eyes.

  Chapter 39

  WHEN LOPEZ PULLS up beside me on the street in Moraga, he rolls down his window, eyes my orange beater, and snorts with laughter.

  “Hey man, did you pick up this beauty for undercover work or what?”

  “Hardy har har.” I roll my eyes.

  “No seriously, man. Too bad we aren’t undercover narcs: White woman. Chicano man. Hooptie car. They would totally deal to us.”

  After calling Father Liam and filling him in, I’d called Lopez to check on his mom. She’d been released, so I asked him to meet me near the address I have for Frank Anderson. I thought I could take care of myself, but somehow someone managed to follow me and cut my brake line while I was asleep in the motel. I need to be more careful. I owe it to Donovan.

  Lopez and I meet a few streets over from the house.

  He nods at my car again. “What’s up with the beater?”

  “Car crash. Someone cut my brake line.”

  “What about the chappy?”

  “What?”

  “You know, the padre, man of the cloth, Holy Joe?”

  “You mean Father Liam? He didn’t come.”

  “Goddamn it, Scoop,” he says, raising his voice. “You told me you were going to Napa with the priest. You’re not supposed to be traipsing off in the middle of the night by yourself.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t do it again.” I say the words, but a wave of resentment rises at being treated like a child. Is it because I’m a woman?

  Lopez relieves my guilt by bursting into laughter when he gives my car another look. He leans over and unlocks his passenger door. “Why don’t we take my ride, it’s a little less . . . obvious.” He stifles another snort of laughter.

  We creep around the corner in Lopez’s dark gray Honda. I am checking the addresses when I realize that Frank Anderson’s house is the one with the FOR SALE sign in the yard. We park and peer through the curtainless windows, but, of course, the place is empty.

  A voice behind us startles me.

  “What business do you have with this house?” says a man with a baseball hat and tan jacket. His tone indicates he is not part of the neighborhood welcoming committee.

  “We’re looking for Frank Anderson.”

  His lip turns up a little into a sneer and his eyes narrow. “How come?”

  “He needs to be behind bars.” I say it matter-­of-­factly.

  The man’s scowl disappears. His arms unfold.

  “That’s a fact. The most we could do was drive that son of a bitch out of our neighborhood. A person like that has no right to live in a place where there’s kids.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, he has no right to live anywhere. He should either be behind bars or underground.” The man can tell I mean it.

  He gives me an appraising look. “I like what you’re talking.”

  “Any idea where he moved?”

  The man shrugs. “One day I woke up, and the house was empty. Must have packed up in the night and left. Don’t know why. Figured our prayers were answered. We found out about him ’cause of them notifications from the sheriff’s office—­you know those ones they send out for when a pervert moves into your neighborhood?”

  I nod.

  “This fellow moves in and sits there on his front porch, smoking and eyeballing the kids in the neighborhood. He’s lucky he got out of here alive. John Snelling—­he lives in that white house—­comes over and tells him to get back in his house and quit looking at our kids. Snelling grabs Anderson and throws him into those bushes. He’s lucky. If it’d been me, I’d a thrown him through his own front window. So you know what this pervert has the nerve to do?”

  I shake my head.

  “Calls the cops, he did. And Snelling, a hardworking family man, a Persian Gulf veteran, gets picked up on an assault charge. What the hell is wrong with this world? A pervert calls the cops and gets a decent man arrested? A sick son of a bitch can sit on his porch and leer over our children, and it’s okay because they sent us some damn notice in the mail telling us he lives here?”

  The guy is working himself up into a frenzy.

  “What kind of car did he drive?”

  “Piece of shit. Beat-­up Chrysler LeBaron. Beige.”

  “Know if he worked?”

  “No, that loser just sat around all day perving out.”

  I figure we’ve hit a dead end, so I turn to leave.

  “You might want to ask around at the Depot. I saw his lady friend come home wearing a shirt from there, like she was an employee.”

  Lady friend? “Do you know her name?”

  “Yeah. Only because that pervert was yelling at her in the driveway one night. It’s Delilah.”

  THE DEPOT ISN’T half-­bad. It’s a run-­down hamburger joint. Old posters are peeling off the walls, and the linoleum is black and scuffed in places.

  Lopez orders a beer and my Absolut. The bartende
r looks like she’s seen it all. I bet if a gunfight broke out right in front of her, she would yawn and check her lipstick. Her long, bouncy blond curls and her trim figure make her look youthful from behind, but when she turns around, her stringy neck, the puffy bags under her eyes, and her lined face reveal that she hasn’t had an easy life. When she asks if we want another round, I pop the question.

  “I’m trying to locate a friend of mine—­Delilah. I haven’t talked to her for a while, but last I heard, she was working here.”

  “You and me both, sister.”

  I raise an eyebrow, keep silent, and hope she’ll keep talking. She obliges.

  “She didn’t show up for her shift last week, and she won’t answer her phone,” the woman says, plopping my Absolut down in front of me. “Had to pull a double three nights in a row until I could bring someone else in to take her place. She’s got some explaining to do.”

  I do some fast thinking. “Well, maybe her mom will know where she is—­lives over on Manzanita Way. I’ll head over there next. Hey, I don’t want to be disrespectful to her mom and not call her the right thing, but I can’t for the life of me remember Delilah’s last name.”

  The bartender gives me a look. “You ain’t her friend.”

  Busted. Something I said blew my whole cover story. Her mother is probably dead or something. I can tell I better come clean if I want any information.

  “You’re right,” I down my vodka. “I’m sorry I lied. I’m a reporter. I’m looking for the man Delilah was living with. He’s up to no good. She’s probably in danger if she’s with him.”

  The woman starts drying some glasses. I know she’s thinking about whether to tell me anything more. She continues swabbing water off the glass mugs. I wait. She doesn’t look up.

  “Can you at least call me if you hear from her?” I hand her my card but don’t feel optimistic that Delilah is going to return to the Depot anytime soon—­or that the bartender will pass on my message. Before I leave, I ask the bartender what gave me away.

  “You said you couldn’t remember her last name,” the bartender said. “Oh please. Who can’t remember a last name like Jones, for crying out loud?”

  THE NEXT MORNING, I fill Donovan in during my daily visit.

  “You’re getting close, Ella,” he says, smiling. “We’re going to find him.”

  His enthusiasm for this makes me want to cry. He is sitting in a jail cell, yet he is excited that I’m making progress in tracking down my sister’s killer. But his reaction fills me with guilt.

  “But what about you?” I practically whisper it into the phone, wanting so badly for the glass between us to vanish. All I want to do is touch him and have him hold me.

  “If there was something I thought you could do to help, believe me, I’d tell you,” Donovan says. “I get it. I know you feel helpless. That has to be horrible.”

  Again, he is turning it around to me and not him. Not fair. “Who cares about me? I want you out of here. You’re innocent, and they are crazy to have you here.”

  His eyes turn steely and the set of his jaw is firm. “I’m working on something. Troutman and I are getting close. You have to trust me on this.”

  “Can you please tell me?”

  He slowly shakes his head.

  “But why?” I know I’m pleading, practically begging.

  He gives a long sigh, and says, “I can’t. I’m already worried about you enough as it is. I can’t put you in more danger.”

  The guard who has been standing behind him gives him a final tap on the shoulder. He stands. “I love you. Trust me.”

  He hangs up before I can say I love him back. I head for the door and the tiny hallway separating the visiting from the lobby.

  Walking to my car, I go over everything I know about the three murders.

  Troutman had told me Annalisa had lunch with the dead cop who was found in my room the afternoon he was murdered. That’s the reason the detectives are looking at Donovan, painting him as a jealous lover killing men who are connected to Annalisa. What is the connection? How are Donovan, Annalisa, and the cop connected? The common thread seems to be that special-­task-­force team where Donovan met Carl Brooke.

  How does Annalisa fit into all of this?

  A long time ago, Donovan had said he’d tried to get back together with the girl he’d left the monastery for. He told me it was shortly after he became a cop, while he was still a rookie. Maybe I’m wrong, but what if all this took place at the same time, and that’s how Annalisa knew Brooke? It might add up. I get excited thinking about it but then realize it still doesn’t explain anything. For instance, how do Sebastian Laurent and Adam Grant fit into the puzzle?

  Donovan won’t—­or can’t—­talk. Brooke is dead. That leaves Annalisa. She won’t return my calls. Time to pay her a visit. I immediately turn the wheel toward Laurent’s house on the hill, which I guess I should start calling her place. I pound on the doorframe. The door itself is covered in thick iron lattice. I yell, loud enough for the neighbors to peek out their second-­story window at me. I’m hoping she will be embarrassed enough to open the door. No go. The garage has no windows, so I can’t tell if she is even home, but something tells me she is just avoiding me.

  After a few minutes, I stop yelling and dial her number nonstop, letting it ring and ring—­she must have disconnected her answering machine. I listen to the continuous buzzing, then hang up and redial. I pound the door at regular intervals. There’s no way to creep around to her steep backyard overlooking the city because the houses are fenced. Finally, after forty-­five minutes, I leave, making a racket as I turn the ignition of the orange beater and it backfires. Driving to the office, I call Annalisa every five minutes or so. I’ve dealt with enough politicians before I got on the crime beat that I have pesky reporter down to a science.

  Chapter 40

  PULLING INTO NANA’S curved driveway and seeing her sprawling house nestled in the hills of Livermore’s wine country always brings peace to my heart. The slanting sunlight gives the house’s white Carmel stone an ethereal glow. Giant, overflowing flowerpots and trailing vines add splashes of cheerful color to the front of the home. The extensive garden beds in the back are testimony to my grandmother’s endless energy. In her eighties, she won’t even consider slowing down. Her home has been the host to our family’s big Sunday dinner for the past fifty years or so, ever since my mother was a little girl, and the family moved out of San Francisco’s Italian neighborhood.

  Donovan has been in jail a week. It’s time for me to face my family. Father Liam and Donovan agreed it would be safe for me to spend the weekend with my grandmother. I’ve hardly come up for air all week. Every day I stop at the jail to visit Donovan. After, I head to Annalisa’s, where I pound on her door for a few minutes before heading into work. In the newsroom, I spend my days churning out as many evergreen stories as I can before heading to the rectory late and falling into bed.

  I’m so relieved to be at my grandmother’s house. Lopez followed me to her long driveway, then peeled off, back to his place in Oakland. I know I’m lucky to have such a loyal friend, but I need my family at the moment.

  My world feels so uncertain right now—­I need some grounding. Nana has always been my confidant. And I need to confess.

  “Mi cara. You make your nana so happy coming to stay,” she says, giving me kisses on both cheeks. “I heat up some pasta fazool, we have some wine, and watch Wheel of Fortune, okay?”

  “That sounds perfect,” I say with a smile. That’s what I need—­something normal and mundane and wonderful with someone who loves me unconditionally. I need some relief from the despair I feel. Thinking of Donovan sitting in jail sends flutters of panic through me as if a heavy weight is pressing on me, and I can’t escape.

  I know tomorrow is “D” Day. The day I have to face my family about Donovan’s arrest. If my Nana kno
ws anything, she isn’t letting on. By the way Nana is treating me, I have a feeling my mother didn’t tell her.

  For some reason, I always blurt out the things that are bothering me while my Nana and I do dishes after a big meal. Tonight is no exception. She hands me a glass to dry and I say, looking at the big colorful ceramic cross above the sink, “Donovan was arrested for murder last week. But he didn’t do it.”

  Very little ruffles my grandmother, who has outlived one husband, three children, and one grandchild, and I find it comforting that this doesn’t, either. She stops and looks at me, with her brow furrowed with thought.

  “He has good lawyer? Does he need money? I have some money, okay?”

  “He’s got a really great criminal lawyer. One of the best. A friend of his family. Thank you. Save your money for your trip to Italy this winter.”

  “Then he should be set free.” She dismisses the problem as if it were nothing, handing me a bowl to put away on a high shelf.

  “It’s not that simple. Someone has done something to make him look guilty, and I’m not sure we can show he’s innocent without finding the real killer.”

  “So. You find the real killer,” she says with a shrug. I find it refreshing that instead of trying to protect me and warn me off my own efforts like the rest of the world is doing, my grandmother has faith that I can do something to help.

  I give her a big hug. I’m so lucky to have her.

  Before bed, I sneak into the living room and dig out an old photo album my nana keeps in a drawer. Flipping through photos of Caterina and me as children is always bittersweet. I think of Frank Anderson. As far as I’m concerned, his days are numbered.

  THE NEXT MORNING I attend Mass with my grandmother in Livermore, then we come home to stir the sauce for Sunday supper. It’s been simmering on the stove since seven this morning. Two gigantic, industrial-­size pots hold the red sauce, a dozen pork chops, three dozen meatballs, and two dozen Italian sausages.