Blessed Are Those Who Weep

by Kristi Belcamino

  This time when I ring the doorbell to the dojo, it clicks open immediately.

  My body is hyper-­alert as I trudge up the stairs, and the hairs on the back of my neck are tingly in anticipation of what awaits me at the top. The door into the dojo easily swings open. I look around to make sure Ninja Dude doesn’t ambush me again. I can still feel the cold steel on my neck. Instead, I’m greeted by a class practicing.

  Fluid movements seem synchronized as the lines of men in black thrust and kick and bow. It is poetry in motion.

  At first I stand, but then I sink into a chair, mesmerized. Their movements are pure art. Their bodies flowing so smoothly, even their falls, are artful, a graceful roll and an easy leap back to their feet.

  I’m so caught up in watching that I don’t realize a man is by my side. The sensei.

  “Maybe you should try? Our beginner’s class meets on Monday nights. These are the black belts.”

  “How long does it take to achieve this level of expertise?” I ask.

  “It depends on the student and level of practice, skill, and commitment. Some . . . never. Others, within four to five years. A few? In eighteen months.”

  I turn and stare at him. His eyes are deepest black. They are shining passion. But I’m not here to talk about martial arts.

  “Joey Martin was in town when his family was murdered.” At those words, his eyes grow flat again. I push on. “I’ve seen him. The question is whether you have? If you have, you are protecting and covering up for a murderer. A man who slaughtered his entire family.”

  He acts like he doesn’t hear me. He turns away, addressing the members of the class, who are wiping their faces with small white towels and chatting in small groups. “I’m canceling the free time for tonight. I forgot I have an appointment, so I’ll be closing up in the next few minutes.”

  Irritation swarms through me. He’s trying to avoid this conversation, isn’t he? He’s kicking us out? Well, I’m not leaving that easily. To emphasize my point, I remain sitting. Reaching for my bag, I take out a nail file and start working on my nails, ignoring everyone around me. Vaguely, I notice the students leave, filing by me, speaking in low voices. Finally, it is silent. When I glance up, the sensei is watching.

  “Now we can talk,” he says. “Would you like some tea?”

  He gestures toward a small doorway. I nod and stand.

  “HE IS A dangerous man,” he says, handing me a steaming mug of green tea.

  “Anyone who kills his wife and parents probably isn’t Mister Rogers. And I think he killed your student, Javier.”

  I take a sip of my tea, watching his face. We are sitting at a small wooden table in the tiny kitchen. Another door must lead to his bedroom and bath. He said he lives here at the dojo. A vase contains some long, thin pussy-­willow branches.

  He plucks some out, wraps the stems with a small piece of leather, and hands them to me. “It is good luck to keep these in your home.”

  “Javier is a bit interesting to me,” I say. “Young kid with a nice pad in Alameda who worked as a DJ, but dressed like a Hong Kong executive and liked to hang out here in his free time. Am I right so far?”

  His nod is nearly imperceptible.

  “Anything else I’m missing?”

  He looks around, as if he’s afraid someone might be crowded in the small room with us, eavesdropping. He even stands and pokes his head out the door to the dojo before sitting back down and saying so low I nearly miss it, “They were friends.”

  Friends? Javier and Martin. Bingo.

  “How did they meet?” I push on.

  “That is all I know. He brought Javier here one day last year. But I didn’t really get to know him—­Javier. He kept to himself. Came to class late usually and left early, before anyone else.”

  “Joey Martin.” I watch him quickly take a sip of his tea. “You might be the only one who can prove he was here. The United States Army—­heck, a general, for God’s sake—­claims Joey Martin was in Iraq the day his wife and parents were murdered. You and I both know that isn’t true.”

  I pause, trying to gauge his reaction to this. His face is stone. I try to appeal to his sympathies.

  “You can help protect that child. She’ll be turned over to him a week from today. You have to stop it. You have to help me. You have to tell the police what you know.”

  “It is not for me to say.”

  “That’s a total cop-­out.” I narrow my eyes at him.

  He presses his lips tightly together.

  “Why won’t you admit it? He was here. I saw him. Why can’t you just say that?”

  He looks away, and I see something in his eyes. Shame.

  “You’re afraid.” I know I’m right, because I see his Adam’s apple as he swallows. He’s making a decision.

  “I have a niece,” he says after a long pause. His eyes meet mine. He folds and unfolds a small napkin as he speaks. “She is the most precious thing in my life. Her father, my brother, is dead. Drug overdose. His death is my fault. I should have taken better care of him.”

  “Taken care of him?”

  “I am older by only two years. But I raised him. We came from China as parachute children when we were ten and twelve.”

  “Wait,” I interrupt. I remember reading a book by crime writer Denise Hamilton about wealthy Chinese kids raised by nannies while their parents remained working and living in Hong Kong and China. “You were a parachute kid?”

  He nods solemnly. “My brother went wild. He got into drugs. Then he met his wife. The love of his life. When she got pregnant, he straightened out. Went into rehab. But the pull was too strong. One night he went looking for more meth and got some bad drugs. He died from it. I am now the closest thing my niece will know to a father. She is the only piece of him I still have. I failed him. I allowed him to get addicted to drugs. Now, because of me, he is dead. I owe him this much. I have devoted my life to her now. His only child.”

  His guilt hangs in the air between us.

  “It’s not your fault,” I say. “You shouldn’t have been expected to raise a child when you were a child yourself.”

  He waves away my sympathy. “It is not relevant. What matters now is my niece and her well-­being.”

  “Are you worried that if you say something, Martin will come after you or your niece? Maybe the police can do something to protect her?”

  He shakes his head, and his eyes are filled with hopelessness. “They cannot.”

  “If he’s locked up for the rest of his life, he can’t hurt her, right?”

  “It is not that simple.”

  The words sink in.

  “Who does Martin know? Who is he? Why is he so dangerous? He’s just a man, right?”

  The sensei shrugs and looks out the window.

  “Right?” I repeat.

  “I need to go—­I am expected by my sister-­in-­law and niece for dinner soon.”

  I understand the fierce need to protect family, especially a vulnerable niece, but the sensei might be the only way to prove that Joey Martin is a mass killer. I scribble my cell-­phone number on one of my business cards. “If you change your mind, call me. And you should know, I have to tell the detective what you’ve said. That you know Martin was here but are too scared to say anything. I have to.”

  “Do what you must. Follow your heart. I cannot tell you otherwise.” He says it so quietly that I almost don’t hear him.

  I slip out the door, shutting it softly behind me while he stays staring out the window at nothing.

  Chapter 32

  WHEN I UNLOCK the door to my apartment, the first thing I see is the look on Donovan’s face. He’s sitting at my kitchen table, drumming his fingers on the wood. A tumbler full of golden liquid sits next to the bottle of bourbon. He downs the glass while I watch from the doorway. He doesn’t wait for me t
o set down my bag or take off my jacket. I prepare myself for something I won’t like.

  “I’m worried about you,” he says.

  He doesn’t look angry, just sad. Disappointed.

  “I try to give you your space, let you do what you need to do, but I’m worried you are becoming obsessed.” His voice is gravelly, as if confronting me is costing him. Or that maybe his disappointment in me is painful. I swallow what seems like a wad of cotton stuck in my mouth.

  “I understand you need answers to what happened to your sister. I get that. But I also don’t want it to interfere with you being able to live a normal life.”

  I collapse onto the couch. Dusty hops up with me, but I push him away. How does Donovan know I haven’t given up searching for Frank Anderson? He would never go into my computer. I trust him to respect my privacy. But he is a detective. He must have found out somehow. I think about what he said: “a normal life.”

  “I’m sorry, Sean. I don’t know if I can live a normal life.”

  He runs his fingers through his already messy hair. “Fine. But you can at least try to live a healthy life. One where you are eating and sleeping and not trying to destroy yourself with your obsession.”

  I sit up straighter. “I admit I have been doing a little digging every once in a while to see if Anderson pops up somewhere. But just a little. I promise you that I’m not manic about it.” Like I was. “I am keeping feelers out to find him. I’m not convinced that detective is doing a damn thing.”

  “I’m not, either,” Donovan says in a low voice.

  “Donovan, I am still hunting Caterina’s killer. I’m not sure I can ever stop doing that.”

  Saying it and meaning it and laying it out there like this feels good. I lift my chin as I say it. This is who and what I am. Take it or leave it. And as the words stream through me, I am certain of them. I can’t change who I am for someone else. I wanted to—­I wanted to be a normal girlfriend. But I’m not normal. My sister was kidnapped and killed by a monster. I can’t deny that. Or forget it.

  “You’re right about the detective,” Donovan says. “I’ll check into it.”

  He pours another two fingers of bourbon and downs it without speaking. I can smell the alcohol from here. He stands. Is he leaving? A chill runs through me that has nothing to do with my open balcony door—­it’s sadness and resignation. I can’t change my history.

  “There’s something else.” He shrugs on his jacket.

  My face flushes.

  “I believe you when you say you are only ‘keeping feelers’ out on Anderson.” I’m holding my breath, waiting for his next words. “You may not realize this yet, so this might sound blunt: Your obsession with Frank Anderson? You’ve surpassed that.”

  Donovan is at the door now, his fingers turning the doorknob.

  My forehead scrunches in confusion.

  “Now you’re obsessed with getting pregnant and that baby on top of everything else,” he says.

  But he’s wrong. I’m not obsessed. When I was covering the Jasmine Baker kidnapping and murder, I drank myself silly every night and even lost my job. I’ve got it together now. I’m even covering other stories at work. And just because I take my temperature every day does not mean I’m obsessed with getting pregnant. But in a dark recess of my mind, I know he’s touched on something I don’t want to admit even to myself.

  “Look at yourself. Take a good, honest look at yourself.” He points toward the mirror by my door. “Your clothes don’t fit. You’ve had dark circles under your eyes for weeks. You don’t even seem to like food anymore. . . . You’re not yourself. You are not the Gabriella I met two years ago.”

  He’s not done.

  “And, frankly, our sex life . . . the last few times, well, it leaves something to be desired.” He looks away after he says it.

  I sputter to respond, jumping to my feet, indignant.

  “What are you talking about? I want to have sex all the time.” When I’m ovulating. “You’re the one who keeps turning me down. How do you think that makes me feel? Not attractive, that’s how it makes me feel. My fiancé doesn’t even want to have sex with me, so how am I supposed to feel?”

  “It’s not making love.”

  I squint at him. What?

  “It’s like anyone will do. You’ve turned it into a clinical, cold, scientific procedure. It is not working for me. At all. I’m not just some sperm donor.”

  “I never said you were.” As soon as I say it, I realize he’s right. Our lovemaking has turned into a task for me and—­worse—­a chore for him. Is it because I’ve let my resentment toward him grow until it has blossomed into a prickly wall between us?

  And I don’t know what to do about it. I stare at him, horrified.

  “I’m only bringing this up because I’m worried about us,” he says. “And I’m worried about you. I’m worried that this time—­with everything that has happened recently—­I’m worried that this time your obsession will do you in. You aren’t yourself, and you’re flirting with danger.

  “You are pushing me away—­right when I think you need my support the most. I need to be part of this and part of your life, and that means you need to include me in what you do. Don’t hide shit from me. I’m not stupid, and I’m not naïve. I know that things haven’t been perfect, but you have to let me in. I’m on your side. Don’t fucking treat me like a child. I’m your partner, your equal, and you need to treat me that way if you want this relationship to stand a chance.”

  He opens the door and walks out, leaving me alone.

  After staring at the wall for two hours, I finally dial his number and confess to him my furtive searches for Frank Anderson and the e-­mails I’ve received. And he tells me how he found out I haven’t given up my search for Frank Anderson—­Liz called.

  “Your phone rang. I didn’t pick it up, but I heard the voice message. Liz from the newspaper. A hit on someone who might be Frank Anderson. You’ll want to give her a call.”

  He hangs up without saying good-­bye.

  Chapter 33

  “IT’S HIM.”

  Khoury doesn’t need to identify herself. It’s early, and I’m still in bed, putting off getting ready. Tossing and turning over my argument with Donovan last night did not bode well for an early start. He’s angry, and I don’t blame him. But I’m angry, as well. I can’t change for him. He knew what he was getting into when we started dating.

  “The prints were a match,” Khoury says. “And the kubaton has blood spatter from his wife, his father, and his nephew. All on that little piece of metal. I think it might have been attached to his belt during the attack.”

  Blood spatter? She tested it for blood spatter. Not just fingerprints. And found evidence. She believes me. “Thank God,” I say, hopping out of bed. I begin filling my moka pot with water and ground coffee. “So, he was there. He was in town. I did see him. But how do we prove it?”

  She graciously ignores me saying “we.”

  “I’m officially ‘off’ the case since the arrest,” she says. “But I haven’t let go of it for one second—­something about Carol Abequero struck me as wrong from the beginning. She didn’t kill all those ­people. My gut tells me that, even though the evidence is so strong against her.”

  I don’t know why I’m so relieved to hear it. It would be better for Lucy if her father were innocent. Holding the phone between my ear and shoulder, I rummage in my breadbox for some leftover baguette. “What evidence?”

  “Something solid on her. But I think there is a good chance she’s being framed. It was almost too damn easy.”

  “Can you tell me what they have on her?” I hold my breath, but I know she’s going to spill it, because somewhere along the line it became “us” against “them.”

  “I’m not even supposed to talk to the press. I sure as hell can’t give you confidential poli
ce information that will make or break a case.”

  “Oh, come on.” I slam the breadbox shut. “Who are you protecting? You know you need me on your side. When this whole thing is blown out of the water, you’ll be the hero. I’ll splash your picture all over the front page.”

  It almost sounds like she laughs. “The sword.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “In her backyard. Buried in the dirt. Her fingerprints were the only thing found on it besides the victims’ blood.”

  “How the hell would they plant evidence or fake that?” I stick a slice of bread in the toaster oven and pour some milk into a pot on the stove.

  “Believe me, they could do it,” Khoury says. “Think about it. Whoever can get the U.S. Army to lie to the police department can surely plant evidence pointing to her. Here’s the thing. There is some blood on it—­still determining whether it is the victims’ blood—­and her prints, but the thing is brand new. It had a sticky spot, like there had been a price tag recently removed. I don’t think it’s the same sword that killed the Martin family.”

  In the kitchen, the water is percolating. The apartment has that fresh coffee smell I love so much. I pour myself an espresso and add the hot milk. Now that Khoury believes me and is on my side, I tell her everything, including what Moretti’s friend in Iraq said—­how Martin was part of the most elite military organization the country has and that he was supposed to be persona non grata. “But Lieutenant General Cooper was told to tell anyone who asked that Martin was on base,” I finish.

  “Motherfucker.” She clears her throat. “It all makes sense. My father is ex-­Army. Big shot in the Army. He made some calls. His buddies were afraid to talk, but finally he got a hold of one, who said that Joey Martin has been AWOL since before the murders.”

  “Is this on the record?”

  “I’m afraid not. I’m looking into it more. I have no idea why I’m telling you any of this. You’re the media.”