Blessed are the Meek (14 page)

 

Chapter 29

S
ULLIVAN SEEMS ALMOST
gleeful as he snaps the cuffs on Donovan. I'm frantic. I don't know what to say or do. Donovan doesn't say a word. I run down the walkway. “Don't worry. I'll get you out. I'll call Troutman.”

I grab Donovan's arm.

“Come on, lover boy,” Sullivan says. At the car, he rudely brushes me off and shoves Donovan into the back of the car.

“Don't you dare touch me,” I say.

Sullivan ignores me and slams his car door shut, brushing up against me again. The wine makes me brave—­or stupid—­and I try to push Sullivan back but miss by a mile, sending me off balance. I land on my butt, my jeans firmly hitting the one patch of dirt for blocks around. I scramble to my feet and lunge for the window where Donovan sits just as the car pulls away. He is resolutely staring in front of him, his jaw clenched and his profile rigid. I've never seen that look on his face before. It's a mixture of fury and determination. He doesn't look my way as the squad car pulls away.

I brush off my backside and start the walk home alone, frantically dialing Troutman. Walking fast, I'm filled with rage thinking about that redheaded cop trying to pin this on Donovan. A group of tough-­looking kids start to approach me on one deserted street, but my glare sends them retreating back into the shadows. Troutman tells me not to worry and says he's on his way to the jail to get Donovan out of there.

When I get to my apartment, the door is closed. I know whom I have to call. I take my key off my ring and slip it under the doormat. As I lean down, I hear voices inside. The cops are still processing the scene. I don't need a change of clothes; I'll borrow some of Donovan's jeans. Even thinking his name sends a sob into my throat. I grab Dusty's carrier and hustle down the stairs as fast as I can.

I dial Crime Scene Cleanup as I gun my car through the quiet streets of downtown San Francisco. That's one thing nobody ever talks about—­who cleans up after a violent crime. The cops sure as hell don't do it. In many cases, Scott Dawson does.

I became friends with Scott after I did a story on his burgeoning business. I hung out with him for a week, going with him to all the crime scenes he cleaned up after the cops were through with it. Although his company name specifies “crime” scenes, Scott will do any dirty work you pay him for. He will come in and clean up after a flood, fire, you name it. During my ride along, the most disturbing call we went to was a suicide. A thirty-­two-­year-­old father of two blew his brains out sitting at his desk in the study after his wife caught him sleeping around and threatened to take the kids and leave him. There were brain bits much farther away from the chair than I ever dreamed possible.

“I'll make it my priority,” Scott tells me on the phone. “Your place will be shipshape by tomorrow night.”

“Thanks.” An image comes back to me—­the dead man and the big blob of blood that had pooled on my pillowcase, seeped over the edges, and dripped onto the floor. There's no way I can sleep in that bed ever again. “Can you pick up a new bed for me, too, and bill me for it.”

“No problem, Gabriella. You'll never see it again.”

By now, it's late, nearly midnight when I take the on-­ramp to the Bay Bridge. I don't want to be alone tonight, but I'm not about to go to my mother's and have to explain what is going on. I don't even know what is happening myself.

I'm halfway across the Bay Bridge when Troutman calls back.

He tells me what he's found out through official, and unofficial, channels: Early this morning, around 4
A.M.
, one of the neighbors saw a man with a gun running out of our building. The man's physical description matches Donovan's, but wasn't particularly specific—­man six-­one, average build, longer hair, baseball cap drawn down low, brown leather jacket. The little-­old-­lady neighbor, who lives on the first floor, says she heard running down the stairs and peeked through her peephole. Then she looked out her window and saw the man get into a small, dark vehicle that she says, yes, could have been a black Saab—­the same car Donovan drives.

“They recovered the slug—­it was fired from a SIG .40 caliber, duty weapon.”

I don't answer. I don't have to. It is the same type of bullet that killed Sebastian Laurent. Standard-­issue gun for cops and other law enforcement.

In the back of my mind, I remember Donovan's odd behavior last night and how when I woke the apartment was already empty. He was gone. I shake my head to dismiss the shiver that runs through me. Donovan is the best man I know.

However, I know from my work as a crime reporter that sometimes even the most decent, law-­abiding ­people are put into circumstances where they start to believe murder is their only option. I've seen it again and again—­the father who faces the possibility of never seeing his children again. The wife who kills to stop her abusive husband. The man who kills the young man who raped his daughter. It happens.

But I refuse to believe Donovan would let it go that far.

As I cross the Bay Bridge, I listen to what else Troutman has to say. His “unofficial sources” have some bad news. Although police are holding Donovan for the murder of the man in my apartment, they are, also, trying to tie him to the deaths of Sebastian Laurent and Adam Grant. They are painting him as a jealous lover who kills anyone Annalisa has contact with. Apparently, Annalisa and the dead man were seen together at a Mission District restaurant yesterday afternoon.

Troutman's voice seems a universe away. Donovan's killing men connected to Annalisa? Donovan's killing someone would be devastating. That he did it for another woman? It would destroy me.

 

Chapter 30

“I
'M GOING TO
be late.”

The silence on the end of the line makes my stomach hurt, then I hear Kellogg exhale loudly. “It's Sunday. Your day off.”

I swallow hard and close my eyes as I say, “I can't sit home. I just can't.”

Another long sigh. “Can't you go be with your family?”

“Good God, no!” I practically shout. “Please. Please let me come in. I'll work on that story about the dead body they found in the Delta on Friday. Maybe it will end up being Jimmy Hoffa.”

“Fine. Come in,” he says. “I'll be there, too. I'm overseeing the coverage of . . . you know.”

The arrest. Of my boyfriend. For murder.

I hang up and close my eyes, fighting back the tears.

Of course he's going to be at the paper. A cop arrested for murder is huge news. And I get it. He's got a job to do. He can't ignore crime news because my boyfriend was arrested for murder.
My boyfriend arrested for murder.
Even thinking those words sends a sob rising in my throat.
Die before cry.

I grab my things and head for the San Francisco jail.

T
HE DEAD M
AN
was a cop. Or former cop, I should say. He worked at the Rosarito Police Department. That's how Donovan knew who he was.

Donovan tells me this through the bulletproof glass at the jail. Seeing him in the orange coveralls makes my stomach churn. The last person I visited in jail who wore an orange jumpsuit was a monster—­a serial killer who preyed on children. Now, Donovan is the one on the other side of the glass, wearing the jumpsuit.

“I didn't do it.”

“I know,” I say. “Who's the dead cop?”

“Carl Brooke.”

“Wait a minute.” The name is familiar. “Isn't that one of the guys who served on that task force with you and Flora?”

“Same guy.”

“When's the last time you saw him?”

“Years ago.”

Brooke had left the department on a mental disability a long time ago, Donovan says.

I point out that two members of that task force are dead within a month—­Carl Brooke and Jim Mueller.

“That is not okay. What if the killer is targeting you?”

“Well, I guess I'd be safe in here.”

I'm glad he has his sense of humor intact, but I don't think any of this is funny.

“I'm serious.”

“I made some calls after I read that in the paper. Jim Mueller was a suicide. Does that ease your fears?”

I think about that for a minute. Will Flora killed himself, as well. Two guys from the task force committed suicide. That's not as surprising as ­people might think. From what I've heard, cops tend to be more prone to suicide than the average person. It would make sense based on what they deal with every day.

“Maybe we should check on the other members. Are you still in touch with any of them?”

He doesn't answer my question.

“I left the team when Flora . . . you know.”

Behind him, a guard pokes his head in to give him a warning. Five more minutes. I need to speak fast.

“What happened to the team after you left?”

“It puttered around for a while, but that was the last I heard of it. It was very hush-­hush. It wasn't really supposed to exist. Some of the methods used were . . . unorthodox.”

I'm horrified to find that despite the circumstances in which I'm hearing this story, I'm intrigued. It's that reporter instinct. The idea that a top secret special team is out fighting child porn appeals to my superhero-­liking sensibilities. “Unorthodox? Like what?”

“Well, let's just say that one place—­a shithole where they were making films of kids, really, really bad films—­burned to the ground. With the owner inside.”

I'm stunned. Murder approved by the higher-­ups? I'm not saying the guy didn't deserve to die, but I'm astonished something like this was sanctioned.

“This happened after I left the team,” Donovan says, “but unlike most ­people, I knew they'd been investigating that house, so I put two and two together. They all left the Rosarito PD within the year. I think the higher-­ups quietly encouraged them to find work elsewhere. They all got hired on at other departments. I hadn't seen any of them . . . until today.”

“What if someone—­maybe some relative of that guy in the fire—­is seeking revenge on you guys?”

Donovan's eyes narrow. I stare at the scratched window between us. Somebody has kissed the window and left fuchsia lip marks on it.

The question I really want to ask is why he took that badge off the dead man's face, But I can't. Not if our conversations are taped like they are at the Contra Costa County jail. I don't see any cameras but I can't take a chance.

We sit there in the silence for a few seconds. The guard opens the door. Time is almost up.

“Hang in there,” I say. “You'll be out on bail tomorrow. They would've arraigned you today, but it's Sunday. What a total rip-­off. I bet that jerk cop planned it that way on purpose.”

At my words, Donovan gives a wry smile. “Yeah, that guy hates my guts.”

“You think?” I say, making his smile widen.

The guard says something to him, and Donovan stands. The guard looks sheepish and meek. I wonder if he knew Donovan before his arrest.

“I have to go,” Donovan says. I see his Adam's apple as he swallows hard. “Wanted to let you know I got a visitor request from that reporter at your paper, May. I'm not going to talk to her.”

He says it defensively. I feel irrationally jealous and disturbed that Kellogg has already pulled May into this.

“I don't expect you to,” I tell him. “But I will kick your ass if you talk to someone at the
Trib
.” That makes him smile.

Donovan's arrest was splashed across the front page of our paper—­and probably every other one in the state—­this morning. San Francisco PD didn't waste one single second before they sent out a press release last night, in time to make the morning paper.

I can only imagine the media frenzy that is going to occur if the cops leak that they are looking at Donovan in connection with Sebastian Laurent or Adam Grant's murder, as well.

Seeing Donovan in orange jail coveralls makes my stomach clench in knots. I try to hide my feelings from Donovan. I've got to be strong for him and figure out how to get him free. But I feel the small fissures that are trying to expand into a large crack. I am trying to keep it together but am starting to feel a little hysterical.

The guard leans in again. “Detective, time's up.”

I speak fast. “Why would someone you worked with years ago end up dead on my bed? Why? I don't understand.” I know my voice is verging on hysteria, but I can't stop. Troutman had said they were trying to pin all three murders on Donovan.

He's silent on the other side of the glass. The guard is standing behind him now.

I look right at him. “What the hell is happening to our lives? Because there's one thing I can say for sure—­all this is centered on you. You.” I slump into the hard plastic chair and blink back tears, putting my hands over my face. I manage to stifle the waterworks, and when I peer through my fingers, Donovan is standing.

He speaks slowly and dully. His voice has no emotion, and his eyes are dull.

“I'm going to figure that out. You're going to have to trust me.”

His words hang in the silence between us.

 

Chapter 31

W
HEN
I
WALK
into the newsroom, all conversation ceases. It's like a bad movie. ­People glance away or furiously pound their keyboards with heads bent low. Nobody looks at me. The walk to my desk is like the perp walk.

Thank God it's Sunday, and the newsroom has a skeleton staff. But even so, Kellogg has brought in ­people to work this story. The realization brings a lump to my throat.

At the cop-­reporter station, May is on the phone and barely glances my way. Her voice drops to a whisper. I'm sure she's talking about Donovan.

Kellogg is the only one who has any balls in this operation. He immediately comes over to my desk and engulfs me in a big bear hug. It's awkward and embarrassing, but I'm grateful.

“Giovanni. You let me know what I can do to help.” He leans in and lowers his voice. “I told everyone—­you're off-­limits on this. The other reporters are on their own finding out info about Detective Donovan.”

Reporters? I was right. He's assigned more than one to this story. I swallow hard and blink even harder. He notices. “You sure you want to be here? Maybe this is a good time for you to take a few days off? Some personal days, huh?”

I shake my head. “I can't. I can't sit around at home.”

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

He gives me a light punch on the shoulder and walks away.

May gets off the phone and gives me a look. “It's not my fault I have to cover this, so I hope you're not going to be a royal bitch to me about it.”

“Fuck you, May,” I say. “It wouldn't have hurt to say something compassionate, like you're sorry I have to go through this or how about this: ‘I'm sure your boyfriend is innocent, and I'll try to prove that.' ”

“I don't know what your definition of the cops reporter beat is, but mine doesn't involve proving a suspect's innocence. I report what the cops tell me.”

“Fine.” I jump out of my chair so violently, it tips over, making a loud crash. I stomp out of the newsroom glaring, daring ­people to look at me. They all keep their noses to their desks. Cowards.

O
UTSIDE, MY HANDS
are shaking so badly, one of the press guys lights the cigarette I bum from him.

“Bad day?”

“If you only knew.”

I start pacing underneath a tree, restraining myself from punching the bark. That would be dumb. I'm on my second smoke and feeling dizzy. I slump down onto the picnic-­table bench right when Lopez comes flying out the back door.

“Saw your car in the lot. Thought you might be out here.”

I shake my head.

“I'm sorry, man.” He stands there for a minute with his hands shoved in his jeans pocket. “Let me know if there's anything I can do.” I nod and bite my lip. He goes back inside, giving me one last glance before the door closes. It's not the first time I've fought back tears today.
Die before cry.

I grab a crumpled reporter's notebook out of my bag and start writing down possible suspects.
Annalisa,
I scribble. Then, I close my eyes. I have zero suspects. Who else would kill these three men? A dot.com billionaire. The mayor of San Francisco. A former cop. What is the connection? Nothing I can see besides Annalisa. She was seen with the cop the day before? I need to talk to her a.s.a.p.

How does that task force figure into this? I don't care what Donovan says—­if the task-­force members are dropping like flies, maybe that's the connection. It started out years ago with six cops, and now half of them are dead? Something is going on. I rush back to my desk and dial Troutman, glad that May is away from her desk.

“I think someone is targeting Rosarito cops.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize it's true. There
is
something to my theory. I just know it. “Can you get extra security on Donovan in the jail? Just in case.”

Troutman clears his throat. “Gabriella, I've already got him in protective custody.”

“You do?”

“He's a police officer. Cops are more at risk in jail than child molesters.”

“Oh.”

He clears his throat again, and I know I don't want to hear what he has to say next.

“You should probably know that when they booked him, they did a lineup.” He pauses. I hold my breath. “That witness identified him as the man she saw at the scene.”

“That's impossible.” I shriek it so loudly, ­people stop what they are doing and stare. I lower my head, hiding behind the wall of my cubicle. I lower my voice, “Plus, everyone knows eyewitnesses are completely unreliable.”

Pulitzer Prize-­winning reporter Edna Buchanan once demonstrated this to a class of journalism students. She paid a friend to run into the class, snatch her handbag, and run out. As the students panicked, she yelled something like, “Freeze. Write a description of the suspect.” When students' descriptions ranged from tall to short to blond to brunette, she told them this is why eyewitnesses are so unreliable.

“We'll figure this out,” Troutman says, and hangs up.

On top of my worry about Donovan, I'm disappointed my anonymous source hasn't called again. Maybe that was my one shot, and now he'll disappear without my finding out what he knows about Caterina.

It was probably another dead end anyway. Still, my heart leaps every time my phone rings. It's always a false alarm. I try to lose myself in my work, ignoring everyone around me. I work on a short story about the dead body they found in the Delta—­homeless guy died of exposure—­and then start on an evergreen story. Evergreens are stories that aren't timely and can run anytime space needs to be filled in the paper. My story about scam artists targeting the elderly keeps me busy most of the day.

One seventy-­five-­year-­old woman tells me how she lost her life savings after turning over her bank-­account information to a “nice young man” who told her she had won $250,000 and he needed her account number to deposit the winnings. There's a special place in hell for ­people like that.

I haven't been able to eat at all, but around three my stomach starts making embarrassing noises, so I hit the newsroom cafeteria. Greasy pizza and a small salad fit the bill, and I bring it back to my desk. I only manage a few bites before I push it aside.

At seven, my phone rings, and I yawn, taking my time before I pick up. I've left several messages about my scam-­artist story. But now that the story's done, I don't really have room for any more comments.

“Giovanni.”

“Do you know who this is?” It's a deep voice. My heart starts thumping up in my throat. It must be the man with the information on Caterina.

“I'm so sorry I didn't show up for our meeting on Wednesday. I was . . . well, I was detained. Can we try again?”

The man is silent.

“Hello? Are you there? I won't bring the cops. Just you and me, okay? I really need to meet with you. Please. I need to know what you know about Caterina.”

Again, there is a long pause before he answers. “Okay.”

“Do you want to meet at the same place?”

“No.” The quickness of his answer startles me.

I wait.

“Oakland Hills Park. Tonight. Nine.”

My stomach gurgles at the thought of meeting in such a remote area at night, but it's my fault for blowing our first rendezvous. Or rather, it's the cops' fault.

He must sense my hesitation and says this before he hangs up. “If you want to know about . . . Caterina, you'll be there.”