Blessed are the Dead

by Kristi Belcamino

  I told her everything and broke down in sobs. She held me and stroked my hair without saying a word until I finally got it all out.

  Am I going to be okay with this? I don’t know, but I don’t think I have a choice.

  I don’t answer, and she doesn’t press. That’s the kind of friendship we have. Her secrets are also safe with me. A family friend raped Nicole in high school. He was never arrested because her parents didn’t believe her. For years, she had to sit by the boy at dinner when their two families got together. She no longer speaks to her parents.

  WHEN I PULL into the parking lot of the Rosarito Police Department, a handful of cops are standing near the front door. One of them, a guy with carefully messy hair, glances over at me. A badge clipped to his belt catches a glint of the morning sun. A detective. For a second I am frozen by his stare. His look is inscrutable. I don’t know why, but I quickly drop my gaze, flustered. His eyes under their dark brows flicker at me, and when he says something, everyone looks my way and heads for the door. He must have made me as a reporter. Right before the door slams shut, I catch him looking my way again.

  I jump when my phone rings loudly, playing the theme song from the Cops television show. It’s Chris Lopez, my favorite photographer at our paper.

  “C-­Lo. What’s up?”

  “Hey, man, saw the Trib story about that kid. Rosarito radio traffic is saying it might be a 207”—­the California penal code for kidnapping. “I’m Code 5 at the PD.”

  “You’re on stakeout?” I ask. “Where? I’m here, too.”

  He’s in the parking lot on the side of the building. We agree to meet later after I talk to someone inside about the missing kid. A few dust balls scatter as I open the door to the police-­station lobby. A smudged glass case holds plaques and awards, and one single, vinyl-­covered chair sits forlorn in the corner. A window on the wall in front of me separates me from the receptionist. To the right, a windowless door leads to the rest of the station. I ask for the public-­information officer, Lt. Kathleen Roberge. She’s not in.

  “You can leave a message,” the clerk says from her side of the glass.

  “I already did—­last night.” I lean down to speak into the hole in the window. “Do you have any information on a missing child? Is there anyone else I can talk to about this?”

  The clerk peers up at me above her glasses and responds slowly as if I’m crazy or dense for asking. “You’re going to have to talk to the lieutenant.”

  Outside, I round the corner into the back parking lot and spot an officer leading a scruffy-­looking ­couple toward a side door. No handcuffs. The girl’s parents? They appear rousted out of bed. The man has dreadlocks down to his waist, and his jeans are falling off his hips. The woman is slight with short, messy blond hair and is wearing pajama pants. Right before the door closes, she glances my way. Her eyes are red and puffy.

  A vague, blurry snapshot of a memory rushes into my mind of a police officer gently easing my distraught mother into the front seat of a squad car outside our home. My big brother and I are watching the car leave from our front window. The image sharpens, and I clearly see my mother’s tear-­streaked face as she sits erectly, staring straight ahead. My mouth feels tingly around my lips, and a wave of dizziness swarms over me. Where in the hell did that image come from? Despite therapy over the years, there is little I have remembered about that day.

  I’m brought back to the present when the door of the station swings open, and a police officer stomps over to a black Honda across the parking lot. It’s Lopez with his camera lens sticking out the car’s window. He pulls away before the officer can get close, but then stops so I can hop in. It takes me a few seconds to respond, still frozen by that unexpected memory, but I shake it away and yank the car door open, sliding inside.

  “Since when’s it a crime to snap a photo? Did you get that ­couple? They’re probably the parents.” I slam the door shut.

  “Man, that cop’s an ass clown. I never liked that guy.” Then he smiles at me. “Yeah, I got them.”

  We decide to get a coffee and figure out what to do next. The cafe is a block away from the police station, sandwiched between a pawnshop and a hair salon. I order a latte, Lopez a double espresso shot. We plant ourselves at a grayish Formica table with attached orange swingy chairs. Sipping my coffee, I try to act casual while I compulsively check my phone for voice messages from Brad.

  “It’s big.” Lopez taps his fingers on the table. One leg is crossed on his knee, and his elevated foot is beating out a rhythm only he can hear. He downs his coffee in one swig. His black eyes are staring right at me, but he’s off somewhere else thinking about how he can photograph this story. He has laserlike focus when it comes to breaking news. ­People underestimate him sometimes because of his slight size. He’s only five-­five or so and maybe 150 pounds, but he’s all sinewy muscle.

  He’s ex–Green Beret, although he would correct me and say once a Green Beret, always one. He also packs a pistol or two although most ­people don’t know that. I’ve seen one strapped to his ankle and accidentally came across another one in his glove box one day when I was snooping around waiting for him to get back to his car. He’s never talked about it, but the rumor in the newsroom is that he saw some crazy shit in Vietnam.

  Lopez is legendary for photos he took when a disgruntled worker at the oil refinery took a coworker hostage. The gunman fled with his hostage, leading police SWAT team members on a high-­speed chase before he crashed on the Bay Bridge. After a twenty-­minute standoff, the gunman killed a cop before taking a spectacular suicidal plunge off the bridge.

  Lopez snapped a series of images during the shoot-­out on the Bay Bridge, but his pièce de résistance was when he dangled over the side of the bridge and nabbed a shot of the gunman’s swan dive to his death.

  The kicker was that it happened at three in the morning and Lopez was on vacation that week. But he heard it on the scanner and was out the door. For a true news junkie like Lopez, there’s no such thing as vacation. I feel the same way.

  “Who can we call?” I say, absentmindedly staring at Lopez across the table but talking to myself. Lopez shrugs and pulls at his lip, thinking.

  Maybe Moretti knows something more today. I punch in his number.

  “Sorry, kiddo. I don’t know anything more than last night,” he says.

  “I don’t know anyone in the Rosarito PD. I’m totally screwed,” I say.

  A pause, then Moretti says, “Well, I do know the lead detective.”

  “You’re kidding? What do you know? What can you tell me? Can you call him? Can I call him?”

  “Slow down,” he says, and laughs. “Name’s Sean Donovan. I’ll call him, tell him you’re a good kid, you won’t burn him.”

  “Really? Thank you.”

  “Don’t know if it will help, but either way, I think you owe me some of your biscotti.”

  “Deal.”

  I’m about to hang up when Moretti tells me to hold on, saying he’s checking something. I wait a few seconds, and he comes back on the line.

  “Got something else: 410 Main Street. Kid’s address. Didn’t get it from me.”

  “You’re the best.” I scribble it down and hang up.

  Lopez is tapping his fingers on the table.

  “The cops are acting freaky, man. This is the real deal.” His head bobs up and down as if his earpiece spouts music instead of police chatter.

  Unbidden, a memory of that Rosarito cop’s stare comes back to me. I bet that’s Moretti’s friend. He definitely seemed like he was in charge of that group of cops. There’s no denying his gaze sent a jolt of electricity through my body. It was something in his look. Something a bit disturbing that triggered small alarms in my head.

  Lopez has been a Bay Area photographer for twenty years and knows just about everyone.

  “Some detective at the
cop-­shop parking lot was acting hinky when he saw me—­maybe knew I was a reporter, told everyone to go inside. You know him? Longer brown hair that looks messy. Five o’clock shadow. About six feet tall?”

  “Pretty boy?”

  I nod.

  “Donovan.”

  So, it was the Irish boy. Just then a group of senior citizens come in, scouring the remaining pastry selections and guffawing about some inside joke. They are so loud I practically have to shout my question.

  “What do you know about this guy—­Donovan?” I slant my eyes at Lopez, hoping I sound casual and businesslike. I have to lean forward to hear his answer over the chatty seniors.

  “He’s good. Real good. At one time, golden boy could do no wrong. Racked up a few awards for yanking some kid out of a car before it blew to smithereens. Was solving drug cases left and right. Chief had him on the fast track. Was supposed to go right up the line to captain by the time he was thirty and maybe”—­here Lopez lowers his voice—­“even step into the chief’s footsteps when the old guy retired. But he blew it, man. Big-­time.”

  “What happened?”

  “He beat the shit out of his partner,” Lopez says, downing his second espresso. “On duty. In uniform.”

  “What? Are you serious? They were on duty?”

  “No, just Donovan. His partner was butt naked, man. Slipping the sausage to Donovan’s wife. Pretty boy caught them in bed having a little roll in the hay.”

  “Mother Mary.” I blush when a little blue-­haired old lady winks at me after she hears Lopez say, “slipping the sausage.”

  “Yeah, man. I guess his partner gave as good as he got, though. They both spent a night in the hospital. Not long after that, partner took a job up in Marin County. Donovan got suspended, been in the doghouse ever since. Only moved him up to homicide this year even though he’s been a detective for a decade.”

  I file this little tidbit away. A cop who doesn’t always toe the line often makes a good source. Then, it strikes me—­why is a homicide detective working a missing-­kid case?

  Finally, the seniors settle into tables at the back, and it’s quiet again, so it startles me when my phone rings. Kellogg tells me the Rosarito Police Department is holding a press conference about a missing kid in a half hour. The familiar adrenaline rush of covering a big story is making me forget exactly what that story is about. A missing kid. I can do this.

  “Stick to the press conference, then after, hit the girl’s house. Talk to her parents, neighbors, the homeless guy out front, whatever,” Kellogg tells me. “I’ll get another reporter to do your morning cop calls.”

  Each morning, the first thing I do when I get to the office is call the thirty-­plus police and fire agencies in our coverage area to see if we missed anything big overnight, between when May left the office the night before and when I arrive.

  “What about the murder-­suicide follow?” I ask.

  “I’ll stick May on that when she gets in.”

  This morning, rummaging through my bag, looking for a reporter’s notebook, I realized that May must have gotten the detail about the father in drag from snooping through the notebook I’d left on my desk last night. Now, Kellogg is handing off my story to her.

  Great. I bet she’ll enjoy that. I’m sure she’ll figure out another way to screw with me.

  Chapter 4

  THE SUN IS already hot when we get back to the police station for the press conference. I’m wiping the sweat from my brow and pushing back hair that’s sticking to my face, but Andy Black from the Trib looks like a hair-­and-­makeup crew on a movie set just finished touching him up. Maybe that’s what you look like when you work for the biggest paper in town. Black notices me and nods. A reporter’s notebook is jammed in the back pocket of his pressed khaki slacks.

  He’s one of about twenty-­five reporters congregating near the cement steps leading to the front door of the police station. Some are duct-­taping microphones to a podium with the Rosarito Police Department seal. Most of the Bay Area TV stations are here, judging by the number of trucks with satellite dishes poking up into the sky.

  Police Lt. Kathleen Roberge comes out the front doors wearing aviator sunglasses and pink lipstick. She is trim in her blue uniform, her dark hair smoothed back in a neat chignon.

  Reporters immediately swarm the podium. I hang back, waiting. So does Black. We exchange bemused glances, watching the TV reporters jostle for alpha-­dog position. Even though we’re supposed to be sworn enemies, Black and I both share a disdain for most television reporters. Many are pushy, and most ask inane questions.

  “Good morning,” Roberge says. “I’m going to read a statement and will take questions after.”

  As she begins to read, another officer passes out copies of the press release she is reading, along with some flyers. My hand is shaking a little bit as I hold the flyer with the picture of the girl. The first thing I look for is the girl’s address. It only has Main Street, which is a long road. Probably nobody has the exact address yet but me. Good. But as I read on, a wave of dizziness hits me.

  Underneath the word “Missing” is the smiling face of a little girl with blue eyes and long, curly, blond hair. She wears a 49ers jersey. The flyer says the girl’s name is Jasmine Baker. She’s eight years old, weighs fifty-­six pounds, and is four feet tall. She was last seen wearing a purple jacket, jeans, and pink tennis shoes.

  My mouth is suddenly filled with a sour taste. I swallow a few times and look down at the cracked pavement.

  Lopez gives me a quizzical look. “You okay, man?”

  I close my eyes for a minute. My little sister’s face keeps filling my thoughts. This is not the time to lose it. Pull yourself together. I need to pay attention to the press conference. I open my eyes and give Lopez a thumbs-­up before I start scribbling in my notebook. I hope he doesn’t notice that my hands are shaking.

  According to the press release, the last person to see Jasmine was her stepdad, thirty-­six-­year-­old Richard Silva, who said she left their Main Street apartment around seven thirty yesterday morning to walk to the school bus stop. At the time, her mother, Kelly Baker, twenty-­seven, had not returned yet from working the night shift at her convenience-­store job. She called police to report Jasmine missing when the little girl didn’t return home from school later that day.

  I write, “mom night shift . . . stepdad saw her off to school.” I’m sure the ­couple entering the police station earlier was the mother and stepfather.

  Lopez was right. This is big. The manpower the police already have dedicated to this search proves it. More than thirty police officers and FBI agents are out searching for the girl. An AMBER Alert has been issued and bloodhounds have been brought in. Investigators are also questioning the three-­hundred-­some known registered sex offenders who live in the city.

  In addition, more than 150 search-­and-­rescue volunteers are searching abandoned buildings and fields, and dive teams have explored the harbor waters. Other volunteers are blanketing the city with missing posters.

  When Roberge finishes, all the reporters push forward in a group, trying to be the first to ask questions.

  “You said divers are searching the harbor. Does that mean you think the girl’s body is somewhere in the water?” asks a Channel 4 reporter in a broadcast reporter’s typical uncouth manner. I cringe at his thoughtless, idiotic question. Plus, even if the cops had something that led them to believe that was true, they weren’t going to say squat on the air.

  “We have no reason to believe that at this time,” Roberge answers. “The search team is following routine protocol by combing the surrounding area.”

  “Did anyone see her at the bus stop?” an Associated Press reporter asks. “And where is the stop?”

  Uh-­oh. That’s going to narrow down where she lived. I was hoping I’d be the only reporter with the address.

/>   “We are trying to determine whether she made it to the bus stop—­at the corner of Summit and Fourth Street—­the morning she disappeared. Some downtown regulars think they may have seen her there.”

  “Visit bus stop,” I write in my notebook and circle it.

  While other reporters continue asking questions, I squeeze my way to the front of the crowd. It takes a while before I get my question answered. Every time I start to speak, a TV reporter interrupts me. Two female reporters keep subtly blocking my way as I try to poke my head around their big teased hair. I’m starting to elbow a few of them back when finally Roberge notices me.

  “Are you considering this a kidnapping?” I ask, thinking about how Lopez heard it was a possible 207 on the scanner.

  “We have no reason to believe that at this time,” Roberge recites like a robot.

  Black clears his throat. “You said police were contacting convicted sex offenders in the area. Do you think the girl came into contact with one of them?” he asks.

  “We are not releasing that information at this time.”

  Just like politicians, cops are good at answering a lot of questions without saying anything. After the press conference, I dial Kellogg and give him a summary. I’m about to hang up when he says my name. I wait.

  “Evans was on the rampage this morning when she saw the Trib story on the missing kid. I told her what happened, that we had the same tip about the missing kid but couldn’t nail it down.”

  Not good. Evans already hates my guts. I wonder if Kellogg told the executive editor it was his decision not to run with it. I doubt it. I don’t know what she has over him. I hang up, trying not to worry about Evans.

  Black catches up to us as we walk to Lopez’s car. “You guys sticking around Rosarito today?”

  “No, are you?” I lie without an ounce of guilt.