Blessed Are Those Who Weep (2 page)

 

Chapter 3

T
HE
PETITE
WOMAN
in the suit continues walking, but I'm frozen.

“Hey. Isn't that Gabriella Giovanni from the
Bay Herald
?”

“Gabriella! Gabriella!”

“It's Victor from Channel 9!”

“Gabriella?”

A clump of reporters points microphones our way. Another cluster of ­people stands behind them, probably neighbors, whispering and darting horrified glances my way, with the exception of one man in dark glasses, who leans against a telephone pole, preternaturally still, watching. The street is quaint, with small trees lining the sidewalk, and the tall bell tower of a Spanish-­style church is on the horizon.

The woman in the suit appears in front of me again and nudges me. I snap out of it. The reporter was asking about the baby in my arms.

“You're a reporter?” the woman says. I nod. Does she regret calling reporters “vultures” now? I don't bother telling her that my being a reporter doesn't mean I condone the behavior of all the other journalists in the world. We round the corner where the ambulance waits, and we're finally out of view of the news crews.

Sitting on the edge of the open back of the ambulance, I hold the girl while the EMT checks her out. She hides her face in my neck and hair but lets him do his probing. Her curls smell like baby shampoo. When he's done, the woman in the suit comes back over.

“I need to ask you a few questions.”

When she says this, it sinks in—­she's a
detective
. I thought she was a social worker or something, since I know most of the detectives in San Francisco.

“Are you new?” I squint, noticing the badge peeking out from her suit jacket.

“Started in May. Was with San Jose PD for fifteen years.” She recites it like she's been forced to defend herself this way a lot. Given some of the cops in San Francisco, she's probably had to do just that—­prove she's no new kid on the block. A soft spot for her starts to grow, but my main concern is this child. And if this woman is trying to take the baby away from me, she's no friend of mine right now.

“Why don't you let me give the girl to Officer Jackie,” the woman says, pointing at a ponytailed uniformed officer who looks about twenty-­five. “She's got four kids of her own. She'll take care of her.”

Officer Jackie reaches down and gently wraps her hands around the girl's waist, trying to pull her away from me. The baby shrieks and cries and clings tighter, burying her face in my neck. “No no no no no!” the girl screams.

“I can talk to you and hold her at the same time,” I say.

The woman in the suit shoots a glance toward Officer Jackie, who backs off and walks away.

“Okay. We'll do it your way, little one,” the woman says to the girl and turns to me. “I'm Detective Khoury.”

She doesn't offer her hand but meets my eyes. Behind the cat-­eye glasses, her eyes are soft, concerned. “I'm lead on this case. So far, you're my only witness, you need to tell me everything you know, and you'll need to come into the station later and go over it again.”

As long as she lets me hold the baby, I'll talk. Sitting in the back of the ambulance, I spill everything—­which isn't much. Mrs. Martin called me at the newspaper yesterday and told me she had a big story—­possibly the biggest one of my career.

I usually blow ­people like that off, but for some reason, Mrs. Martin seemed different, sincere. Not like the usual nut jobs that call me with wacky story ideas. She'd read something I'd written that made her decide to trust me with her story, but she was afraid to tell me over the phone. I agreed to meet her at her apartment at 2:00 p.m. the next day. Today when I showed up, the apartment door was ajar and a horror show awaited me.

“So, you don't know this child?” Khoury asks.

I swallow and look away. A few faces peer out of windows at an apartment building across the street. I scoot over until I can't see them anymore.

“Ms. Giovanni? Do you know this child or have any connection to her besides finding her?”

I bite my lip and shake my head. The woman looks around as if someone can help her with me. She unclicks a small radio from her belt. “Swenson, call CPS for me, would you?”

Without waiting for a response, she puts the radio back down and turns to me.

“You realize she needs to go into Child Protective Ser­vices while we find her parents.”

A long white van pulls around the corner. Another identical van arrives. The coroner's office is here. I've never seen two vans arrive at a crime scene before, but I've never covered a story with this many bodies.

“Her mom is dead. I saw her body.” I realize I don't know for sure the woman in the green dress
was
her mom, but I don't take it back.

“CPS will find her family or find a foster home.” Detective Khoury says it matter-­of-­factly and I know she's right, but handing this child over to strangers seems horribly wrong.

“Can she stay with me?” I'm begging.

Khoury shakes her head.

“She's obviously bonded with me. Why put her in a stranger's hands? Do you want to traumatize her more? You saw how she acted when someone tried to take her away from me.”

Her eyebrows lift, and I know what she is thinking.
Crazy lady
.

“Ella?” We both turn at the deep voice. Donovan. Relief floods my body. I leap up and throw myself into his arms, hugging him with the baby in between. His five o'clock shadow scratches my cheek.

“You okay?” He pulls back and holds my chin, meeting my eyes. His dark eyes under heavy brows look worried.

I shake my head.
No, I'm not okay. I just saw an entire family that had been slaughtered
.

“Heard you were here,” Donovan continues. “What's going on?”

“Detective Sean Donovan. What are you doing slumming in my city?” the detective interrupts. Her voice sounds too familiar for my liking. It's the same thing everywhere Donovan goes.

It doesn't help that this year he was on the cover of the Sexiest Bay Area Cops calendar. He only did the calendar because sales go to fight kid's cancer. Every other cop in the calendar went shirtless, but Donovan refused and still made the cover wearing his tight black tee.

“Hey, Khoury. I see you met my fiancée, Gabriella Giovanni.”

“You still keeping the streets clean in Rosarito?” she asks him.

“Yes, ma'am.” He smiles at her, and she smiles back.

Even after two years of dating, the low rumble of his voice never fails to make me weak in the knees, so I suppose I can't blame other women for turning to mush. He rakes one hand through his perpetually messy hair, making it stick up more than usual. I don't like that he does this sort of anxious, nervous gesture around another woman, but I brush away the flicker of jealousy.

The thudding of a small, dark helicopter above us drowns out Khoury's response to Donovan. She looks up, scowling.

“What the hell is that?” Khoury shouts. Her hair blows in the wind from the chopper. She turns toward Officer Jackie. “Get them the hell out of here. Nobody has clearance to fly over my crime scene. And most definitely not this low.”

Donovan squints up into the sky. I tuck the baby's head into my neck as bits of trash start whirling on the ground around us.

Khoury shades her eyes from the sun with one hand and glares at the helicopter. Almost imperceptibly, the helicopter rises. Pretty soon it is a small dot heading toward the ocean. Almost as an afterthought, Khoury turns back to Officer Jackie. “Find out who that belongs to. If that's a TV news station, I'll have their ass for this.”

Khoury gives me an appraising look and turns to Donovan. “Sean, can I talk to you privately?”

He turns toward the detective, but I touch his arm, feeling the hard muscle underneath, and he stops. He leans in to hear my voice. My mouth brushes his ear as I speak.

“Donovan, they want me to turn this baby over to CPS. I can't do that.” I hate the pleading in my voice. “Can you please talk to them? Tell them she should stay with me. I'll keep her until they find the rest of her family. I'll take care of her.”

Donovan doesn't answer; he only nods grimly before walking over to where the detective is waiting a few feet away.

The baby's eyes are closing, so I rock her, watching Donovan and the detective speak in hushed voices. I can make out some of the words. Bloodbath. Baby. Shell shock.

Every once in a while, Donovan looks my way and gives me a small, tight-­lipped smile, as if he wants to be supportive and encouraging but is more worried than anything. His mouth is set in a grim line as he makes his way back to me. It's not good.

“You have to turn the kid over to CPS,” he says. “No way around it. It's the law.”

Screw the law. I hold the baby even tighter and don't answer.

He hesitates a moment. “You know, maybe you feel this way because—­”

“No,” I interrupt. “It is not because of that. It's not.” Deep down inside, I worry he's right. But I tell myself I would act this way about a helpless child no matter what.

“You don't have a choice. Amanda says she's okay with you taking the child to the police department. CPS is meeting us there.”

Amanda?

“Donovan, she needs me. Look.” I lean my head so he can see how the girl's chubby little fingers are wrapped in my hair. The girl has fallen asleep in my arms, her head nestled into me, her mouth open, her warm breath against the hollow of my neck. “I'll take her to the station, but I'm not handing her over to anyone.”

“I'll meet you there.” Donovan turns to leave.

“Can't we go together?”

He points toward a waiting squad car. “They want to drive you.”

The police officer, a kid of about twenty, holds the back door of the squad car open for me. “Sorry, miss, we don't have a car seat right now, but the station is only about eight blocks away . . .” He trails off.

I pull the seat belt around the baby and me and click it into place. The backseat of the squad car smells like piss and vomit and sweat, all thinly masked with a pine air freshener. The officer meets my eyes in the rearview mirror as he starts the engine. Across the parking lot, Donovan is on the phone, pacing, as if he is agitated. I can tell he thinks I'm being difficult, unreasonable. I don't care right now. This baby needs me. Her entire family was slaughtered in front of her. For whatever reason, she is clinging to me, and I'm keeping her with me as long as I can.

Another baby-­faced cop holds up the crime-­scene tape and our car slides under it. I make the mistake of looking out the window right in time for the photog at our competition—­the
San Francisco Tribune—­
to snap a picture. The camera is so close to the window that I'm surprised his toes aren't run over from our tires. The flash momentarily blinds me, and when I can focus again, we are past the mob of reporters that had been running alongside our car. I close my eyes and dip my head into the girl's curls.

 

Chapter 4

M
Y
CAT
, D
USTY
,
is kneading the pillow near my head and meowing loudly with hunger when I wake the next morning.

The sun is streaming through the windows of my studio apartment. Donovan is long gone.

During the several hours I spent at the police station last night, I repeated my account of finding the bodies once again, got fingerprinted to rule my prints off anything in the apartment, and handed the baby girl over to a woman from Child Protective Ser­vices.

“It looks like most of her relatives were in that apartment, but luckily, the police have located her father. We'll take good care of her until he can come get her,” the woman said and handed me her card. Mrs. Kirkland. No first name. Like a kindergarten teacher.

The last image I have of the girl is her reaching over the woman's shoulder, arms outstretched toward me, her face bright red from howling.

I know she'll be with her father soon, but I can't help feel I let her down.

The clock shows it's past nine. I'm late to work.

Thinking of work sends me sitting straight up in bed. I never returned the messages on my cell phone last night. I meant to call my editor, Matt Kellogg, and tell him everything as soon as the police released me, but when I saw it was past midnight—­past our deadline—­I went home and fell into bed.

A knot forms in my stomach when I think about the newspaper, but I couldn't exactly excuse myself from being questioned as a witness in a mass murder by telling the cops I was on deadline.

Guilt is replaced by a pang of longing. Even though I never saw her before yesterday afternoon, my arms yearn to hold that baby, as if they'd spent the last year cradling that girl and now there's a phantom feeling of something missing. It doesn't make sense. I don't even know her name.

In the kitchen, Dusty winds himself around my bare legs as I dump some cat food in his bowl and cut up some small pieces of cheese to make up for his late breakfast.

Next, I head straight to the bathroom and stick the thermometer in my mouth before logging the numbers on the chart I have taped to the wall. When I'm done and see today's temperature next to the number from yesterday, my heart pounds so hard that I feel it in my throat. I'm ovulating.

I dial Donovan. His voice mail picks up.

“Are you in the city? I just took my temperature, and I need you to come home if you're still around. Otherwise, let's meet back here tonight. Love you.”

I hang up, and a tiny tendril of hope unfurls. We can try again tonight.
Please make it work this time
.

After starting the moka pot on the stove, I heat some milk and set out my big coffee bowl. Donovan has left out the sourdough bread for me on the kitchen table and scribbled a note:

“Wanted to let you sleep in. Call me if you need to talk or grab lunch or something. See you tonight.” He signed it “D” with a big heart around it.

Once the coffee percolates, I pour the liquid gold into my big mug and top it with the warm milk. Hopefully the caffeine will give me the kick start I need. I slept fitfully, glancing at my red clock numbers every half hour until about 4:00 a.m., when I must've fallen into such a deep sleep that I slept through Donovan getting ready for work.

Besides the note and bread, other signs he was there remain . . . an empty press pot of coffee, bread crumbs from his toast on the table, a knife smeared with Bonne Maman wild blueberry preserves in the sink. The stack of newspapers he usually leaves for me is missing, though. The coffee table in front of my beat-­up red velvet couch is also bare. I peek out onto my balcony, where we sometimes have coffee on sunny mornings, but the papers aren't there, either.

I need to know what the
Bay Herald
had on the murders. That way I'll know how deep shit I'm in when I get to work.

As the hot water beats down on my head in the shower, a memory rushes back, as it sometimes does when I'm especially tired, like this morning.

I'm staring at the monitor off to the side of the exam table. Anxiety surges through me. The cold, flat metal slides around the slimy jelly on my abdomen. The flickering gray-­and-­white image on the monitor shows a tiny, shrimplike object curled into a comma. Not moving.

Please, God. Please let there be a heartbeat.

Wetness slips down my cheek into my ear. It takes me a few seconds to realize the doctor has removed the cold metal from my belly and gently pulled down my exam gown. She takes my hand in hers. Before she says a word, I see her eyes as she leans down. Before her lips move, I already know what she'll say.