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.
KHOURY 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
“MAMA?” 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 th
e 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.
Chapter 25
WHEN DONOVAN KISSES me good-bye this morning, he seems distant, distracted.
Glancing at my calendar, I note that Joey Martin will take custody of Lucy in less than ten days unless I do something first. I also see that I’m not ovulating again for three weeks. Vaguely, I wonder if abstaining will increase our chances of getting pregnant. I frown. I don’t remember reading anything like that in the stack of books on my nightstand. They all promise to hold the key to getting pregnant. I cling to the small tendril of hope that grew with the doctor’s words: “ . . . I’ve told hundreds of women the same thing, and within a year, I’ve delivered their baby.”
Donovan has to be patient with me. The only thing I can focus on, the only thing I have energy for, is proving that Lucy’s father murdered her mother. That way, she won’t end up in a killer’s hands.
I’M THE FIRST one in the newsroom, and I’m already halfway through typing up some press releases from the police
department about minor burglaries and stickups, when a new one comes across the fax.
It catches my eye because it has a surveillance picture of a man in a convenience store above a photo of a cute, fluffy white poodle.
Thirty minutes later, I’ve talked to the cops and the owner of the poodle. Apparently the dude thought it would be a good idea to steal the poodle, which was tied up in front of the convenience store, while its owner, Josie Bartholomew, was inside buying a half gallon of milk for her Poopsie. No, you can’t make this up. Poopsie.
What kind of jerk steals an old woman’s dog? And what kind of woman names her dog Poopsie?
People will be up in arms over this story. Nothing enrages readers more than someone messing with an animal. Kidnapped and murdered kid stories don’t stand a chance. It still ticks me off, but I’m resigned to the fact that people are more outraged about mistreated animals than mistreated people.
This is front-page material for sure.
With the adorable pictures of the mutt and the not-supposed-to-be-funny-but-hilarious quotes from the cop—i.e., “Our main priority right now is to reunite Poopsie with her owner”— TV will have a field day with this one.
I’m just about finished writing my story, which I gleefully slug “Poopsiepinched,” when the phone rings.
“Giovanni.”
“Hello. I’d like to report a hole-in-one.”
Call sports. “Hold, please.”
I stand on tiptoe. Nobody in sports yet. A few people have trickled into the newsroom, so I shout, “Hey, this guy wants to report a hole-in-one, who should I transfer him to?”
“Tell him one-eight-hundred-call-your-mama!” someone hollers from the copy desk.
My other line rings.
“Cripes.” Instead of getting back on the phone, I send the golfer up to Jan at the reception desk. She’ll be able to figure out where to transfer him. Then I remember Jan is on vacation and there is a temp worker. Not her or his fault trying to figure out where all the crazy, random calls go.
Blessed Are Those Who Weep Page 10
