Blessed are the Meek (18 page)

 

Chapter 38

W
HEN
I
PULL
out of the rectory, a car parked on Lakeshore Boulevard turns on its lights and pulls out behind me, several hundred feet back. It gets on the freeway after me. I watch it in my rearview mirror. I've promised everyone I'm going to be careful, so if it stays behind me any longer, I'm pulling off and heading right to the Albany police station.

But as soon as I merge onto I-­580, weaving in and out of traffic, I realize I'm being paranoid. Nobody is following me.

Besides, if anyone is tailing me, it's probably those damn detectives. Maybe they've been tailing me the whole time since I left the hospital, and I've never noticed. They can follow me all they want. Maybe they'll learn something that proves I'm not the killer. Even so, I keep a close eye on my rearview mirror every time I change lanes or freeways.

On Interstate 80, I'm sleepy and somehow miss the turnoff for Napa, ending up a bit northwest of the town. I'm too tired to care. I'll get a room and hit the jail first thing in the morning.

Nobody is behind me when I take the exit for the motel. I make sure. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I'm not taking any chances. It's the least I can do since I already feel guilty about leaving without waking Father Liam. In my motel room, I shove a small dresser in front of the door. It won't stop someone but will at least wake me up if it topples or moves. I put the gun near my head on the nightstand.

It takes me a long time to fall asleep. I startle at every little sound

At one point during the night, I hear voices in the parking lot and peek out the blinds. It's a ­couple that appears to have been drinking. The woman laughs shrilly and totters in her high heels, leaning heavily on the man. I close the drapes and lie back down. I feel scared, lonely, and guilty that I'm not doing more to help Donovan clear his name. But right now there's something concrete I can do to find Caterina's killer, so I need to follow up on it. I fall asleep toward dawn, but only for an hour.

Only once morning sunshine filters through the thick drapes and I'm showered and dressed, do I move the dresser aside to leave. I peer around the parking lot, but it's quiet. There are a few other cars, all empty.

I grab a bagel and coffee in the lobby when I check out. The map shows two different routes to the mental hospital One is a windy, mountain road. The other seems less daunting but is still a curving passage through steep hills. Either way, my old Volvo will strain chugging up the incline, but I opt for the slightly flatter route even though it will take me twice as long to get to the mental hospital I glance at my watch, but it's still too early to call Father Liam. Besides, he has my number.

The radio is blaring, “Pride” by U2, and the combination of this song and the brilliant sunshine fills me with a mix of hope and excitement and makes me punch the accelerator as I navigate the curvy road toward Napa and the mental hospital. The road is cut out of the side of a hill that is a soaring chunk of land. Seeing a sharp turn ahead, I gently tap on my brakes. My foot presses down flat to the floorboard a little too easily. But my car doesn't slow. I press the brakes again. Nothing.

I lift my foot completely off the accelerator and grip the steering wheel, realizing my brakes are shot. I have nowhere to go. The mountain road, which has begun to climb out of the valley is already about ten feet above the ground. My side is lined with pine trees and a wall of dirt and rock, roughly hewn out of the mountainside, borders the other lane.

My car has slowed a bit since I took my foot off the accelerator, but it is still going too fast for the curve ahead, which is alarmingly close. Vaguely I register the radio is still blaring U2. At the last minute, I remember my emergency brake. I yank up on it and my car spins as the tires shriek. My car whirls violently and jerks around like a bumper car. The world around me is a blur of colors. I hear a loud crunch, then a rat-­a-­tat-­tat noise. Then silence.

Distantly, as if I am watching myself in a movie, I note that my bagel is now upside down, cream cheese sticking it to the dashboard and my coffee with cream has disintegrated, coating the windshield in a weird light beige Rorschach pattern. My sunglasses somehow left my face, and I'm not sure where they landed.

At the same time, my cell phone rings, but I'm not sure where it landed in the chaos. I hear the beep indicating someone has left a message.

I can't see out my front windshield. My side window is surprisingly dark. The dark is actually dirt. My car and window is jammed up against the hillside. I'm in the wrong lane, facing the wrong way. I spring to action, releasing my seat belt and scramble out the passenger door. I don't want to be sitting in my car when an oncoming car rounds that corner.

I fish around on the floor and find my cell phone. I have to push past a piece of my bumper to open the passenger door. I quickly open my trunk. Then I run as fast as I can to set up flares several hundred feet up the mountain to give a driver coming down the hill warning. Then I do one more flare on the road coming up before I stop, catching my breath, and dial 911.

While I'm on the phone with the 911 dispatchers, another call tries to get through and goes to voice mail.

I try to piece together what happened, tracing back my trajectory based on my skid marks. Apparently, the pine tree trunks were so close to the shoulder of the road, they acted like bumpers on a pinball machine, keeping my car from plunging off the side. There are about ten trees that have the bark completely stripped at about the level where my car would have scraped against them.

My knee is howling. I think I whacked it on the steering wheel. My collarbone is chafed from my seat belt. My neck doesn't hurt, but I remember whiplash usually doesn't show up until the next day.

I give my poor car a look. The front is mangled. Seeing my hood munched up into a triangle, I make the sign of the cross. I thank God, the Virgin Mary, and the engineers who design Volvos.

I grab my duffel bag and catch a ride back to town with a nice friendly police officer. He offers to put my bag in the trunk, but I clutch it on my lap, hoping he can't tell that it has a big fat gun inside. I'm sure his colleague, Detective Harry Gold, would love to hear I crashed my car in his county and am packing illegal heat. He'd lock me up for sure.

I'm still a little nervous, hoping Gold wasn't listening to his police scanner when they ran my driver's information over the air talking about the crash.

At the garage, the officer is sympathetic when he sees the tow truck pull up with my crunched Volvo hanging off the back like a fish on a hook.

“Looks like she's totaled,” he says.

I nod solemnly. She was a good girl who served me well.

“You were lucky,” the cop reminds me. “Volvo's are tanks. Any other car would have probably collapsed like a tin can with you inside.”

The tow-­truck driver, who is peering underneath my car, calls the cop over to him. I wander over to listen in. The brake line was cut. Not a drop of brake fluid was left. A cold chill races across my scalp. Thank God I hadn't taken the steeper, mountain route to Napa. The attack at the park—­and now this. Those weren't just warnings. I know for sure now.

Someone wants me dead.

A
FEW MINUTES
later, I eye an orange Dodge Charger circa 1980s with a
FOR SALE
sign on it. It's only $400. I head to the ATM inside the nearby convenience store.

Within the hour, I'm motoring over the mountains in my new ride. I listen to my voice-­mail messages. Father Liam. He doesn't sound happy. But I'm not going to call him back until I'm already at the mental hospital. It's too late to turn back.

The big orange car clunks, thuds, and even smokes a little, but keeps on puttering up the hill. The passenger door is completely crunched in. I'm sure that door won't open. The driver's side is spotted with bondo. The mechanic promised me the beater would get me from point A to point B. That's all that matters. My neck is now starting to hurt, and it seems like every muscle on my body is sore and aches, so I pop more aspirin and make the sign of the cross that I'm still alive.

When I pull into the Napa state hospital parking lot, I return Father Liam's messages.

“Good grief, child, you've had me worried sick.”

“Father Liam, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to wake you last night to tell you where I was going. I couldn't sleep, but I, also, couldn't sit still and do nothing.”

“Are you okay?”

“Everything is fine.” I feel a surge or guilt lying to the priest, but I'm too embarrassed to tell him someone tried to kill me. “I'll be back to the rectory by dinner.”

“Please call me when you leave.” He doesn't sound happy.

C
OMMANDER
L
ONNIE
S
ANDOVAL'S
office walls at the Napa State Mental Hospital are lined with a variety of awards and plaques. A big U.S. Marine flag takes center stage. His tight-­cropped hair, crisp uniform, and posture smack of a man who is good at following orders. That worries me. He doesn't have to share any information with me.

And he makes that clear from the get-­go.

“The only reason I'm talking to you is because of Michael Moretti. We go back a long ways, and if he says to tell you what I have, then I'm going to give it to you because I'm sure he has a good reason.”

“I appreciate that,” I say.

“Here's what I've found—­looks like Frank Anderson might be your man.” He taps a file folder.

My heart races. His last name is Anderson. Bingo.

“Was a resident here from 1993 to 2001,” Sandoval says, reading. “From Sacramento. He liked to break into homes and—­well there's no easy way to put this.”

He hesitates.

“You don't have to censor it for me,” I say. “I can handle it. Besides, my source already told me this Frank guy masturbated with the women's underwear or something.”

“Wasn't women's underwear.”

“Huh?”

Sandoval is clearly uncomfortable talking to me about this, despite my reassurances.

“You see, he targeted houses with young girls in them.” Sandoval lifts his eyebrow at me. “He liked little girls' underwear.”

Sandoval darts his eyes at me, gauging my reaction. He appears startled to see a smile spread across my face.

“That's him,” I say, nodding. “It's got to be.”

I briefly wonder if I should call the Livermore detective assigned to Caterina's cold case but dismiss the idea, remembering the cop's derision for my ideas. First I'll get proof, then I'll go straight to the Livermore police chief, bypassing the detective altogether.

According to what Sandoval tells me, Frank Anderson had broken into more than a dozen homes, leaving his semen on girls' underwear, before he finally got caught. The police somehow kept his perverted burglary streak out of the news, probably because the crime involved minors. He got caught one morning when a father returned home to retrieve a briefcase he had forgotten. The man, an ex–pro wrestler, found Anderson in his daughter's bedroom, with his pants around his ankles. He beat the crap out of Anderson before calling police. Anderson, who had a documented history of mental illness, pleaded guilty by reason of insanity. He served eight years. He was paroled last year.

A thrill of excitement surges through me. Semen equals DNA. I wonder if they have any DNA from twenty-­three years ago, when Caterina was killed? Since we don't talk about Caterina, it's a question that has never come up in my family. If he's the one, we might be able to nail him.

“Anything else on his record?”

Sandoval frowns and shakes his head.

“Current address?” I ask as if it's my right to have it.

“We last had him in Moraga. Parole officer lost track of him two months ago. But the good news for you is that his failure to check in makes him an automatic arrest for parole violation. Back in the big house.”

Even so, my heart sinks. I'm trying not to be crushed that two months earlier, there was an address for Frank Anderson. An actual house. A place where I could . . . do what? I'm not sure what the answer to that is yet. What I do know is I'm not giving up until I look him right in the eyes.

 

Chapter 39

W
HEN
L
OPEZ PULLS
up beside me on the street in Moraga, he rolls down his window, eyes my orange beater, and snorts with laughter.

“Hey man, did you pick up this beauty for undercover work or what?”

“Hardy har har.” I roll my eyes.

“No seriously, man. Too bad we aren't undercover narcs: White woman. Chicano man. Hooptie car. They would
totally
deal to us.”

After calling Father Liam and filling him in, I'd called Lopez to check on his mom. She'd been released, so I asked him to meet me near the address I have for Frank Anderson. I thought I could take care of myself, but somehow someone managed to follow me and cut my brake line while I was asleep in the motel. I need to be more careful. I owe it to Donovan.

Lopez and I meet a few streets over from the house.

He nods at my car again. “What's up with the beater?”

“Car crash. Someone cut my brake line.”

“What about the chappy?”

“What?”

“You know, the padre, man of the cloth, Holy Joe?”

“You mean Father Liam? He didn't come.”

“Goddamn it, Scoop,” he says, raising his voice. “You told me you were going to Napa with the priest. You're not supposed to be traipsing off in the middle of the night by yourself.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I promise I won't do it again.” I say the words, but a wave of resentment rises at being treated like a child. Is it because I'm a woman?

Lopez relieves my guilt by bursting into laughter when he gives my car another look. He leans over and unlocks his passenger door. “Why don't we take my ride, it's a little less . . . obvious.” He stifles another snort of laughter.

We creep around the corner in Lopez's dark gray Honda. I am checking the addresses when I realize that Frank Anderson's house is the one with the
FOR SALE
sign in the yard. We park and peer through the curtainless windows, but, of course, the place is empty.

A voice behind us startles me.

“What business do you have with this house?” says a man with a baseball hat and tan jacket. His tone indicates he is not part of the neighborhood welcoming committee.

“We're looking for Frank Anderson.”

His lip turns up a little into a sneer and his eyes narrow. “How come?”

“He needs to be behind bars.” I say it matter-­of-­factly.

The man's scowl disappears. His arms unfold.

“That's a fact. The most we could do was drive that son of a bitch out of our neighborhood. A person like that has no right to live in a place where there's kids.”

“As far as I'm concerned, he has no right to live anywhere. He should either be behind bars or underground.” The man can tell I mean it.

He gives me an appraising look. “I like what you're talking.”

“Any idea where he moved?”

The man shrugs. “One day I woke up, and the house was empty. Must have packed up in the night and left. Don't know why. Figured our prayers were answered. We found out about him 'cause of them notifications from the sheriff's office—­you know those ones they send out for when a pervert moves into your neighborhood?”

I nod.

“This fellow moves in and sits there on his front porch, smoking and eyeballing the kids in the neighborhood. He's lucky he got out of here alive. John Snelling—­he lives in that white house—­comes over and tells him to get back in his house and quit looking at our kids. Snelling grabs Anderson and throws him into those bushes. He's lucky. If it'd been me, I'd a thrown him through his own front window. So you know what this pervert has the nerve to do?”

I shake my head.

“Calls the cops, he did. And Snelling, a hardworking family man, a Persian Gulf veteran, gets picked up on an assault charge. What the hell is wrong with this world? A pervert calls the cops and gets a decent man arrested? A sick son of a bitch can sit on his porch and leer over our children, and it's okay because they sent us some damn notice in the mail telling us he lives here?”

The guy is working himself up into a frenzy.

“What kind of car did he drive?”

“Piece of shit. Beat-­up Chrysler LeBaron. Beige.”

“Know if he worked?”

“No, that loser just sat around all day perving out.”

I figure we've hit a dead end, so I turn to leave.

“You might want to ask around at the Depot. I saw his lady friend come home wearing a shirt from there, like she was an employee.”

Lady friend? “Do you know her name?”

“Yeah. Only because that pervert was yelling at her in the driveway one night. It's Delilah.”

T
HE
D
EPOT
ISN'T
half-­bad. It's a run-­down hamburger joint. Old posters are peeling off the walls, and the linoleum is black and scuffed in places.

Lopez orders a beer and my Absolut. The bartender looks like she's seen it all. I bet if a gunfight broke out right in front of her, she would yawn and check her lipstick. Her long, bouncy blond curls and her trim figure make her look youthful from behind, but when she turns around, her stringy neck, the puffy bags under her eyes, and her lined face reveal that she hasn't had an easy life. When she asks if we want another round, I pop the question.

“I'm trying to locate a friend of mine—­Delilah. I haven't talked to her for a while, but last I heard, she was working here.”

“You and me both, sister.”

I raise an eyebrow, keep silent, and hope she'll keep talking. She obliges.

“She didn't show up for her shift last week, and she won't answer her phone,” the woman says, plopping my Absolut down in front of me. “Had to pull a double three nights in a row until I could bring someone else in to take her place. She's got some explaining to do.”

I do some fast thinking. “Well, maybe her mom will know where she is—­lives over on Manzanita Way. I'll head over there next. Hey, I don't want to be disrespectful to her mom and not call her the right thing, but I can't for the life of me remember Delilah's last name.”

The bartender gives me a look. “You ain't her friend.”

Busted. Something I said blew my whole cover story. Her mother is probably dead or something. I can tell I better come clean if I want any information.

“You're right,” I down my vodka. “I'm sorry I lied. I'm a reporter. I'm looking for the man Delilah was living with. He's up to no good. She's probably in danger if she's with him.”

The woman starts drying some glasses. I know she's thinking about whether to tell me anything more. She continues swabbing water off the glass mugs. I wait. She doesn't look up.

“Can you at least call me if you hear from her?” I hand her my card but don't feel optimistic that Delilah is going to return to the Depot anytime soon—­or that the bartender will pass on my message. Before I leave, I ask the bartender what gave me away.

“You said you couldn't remember her last name,” the bartender said. “Oh please. Who can't remember a last name like Jones, for crying out loud?”

T
HE NEXT MORN
ING,
I fill Donovan in during my daily visit.

“You're getting close, Ella,” he says, smiling. “We're going to find him.”

His enthusiasm for this makes me want to cry. He is sitting in a jail cell, yet he is excited that I'm making progress in tracking down my sister's killer. But his reaction fills me with guilt.

“But what about you?” I practically whisper it into the phone, wanting so badly for the glass between us to vanish. All I want to do is touch him and have him hold me.

“If there was something I thought you could do to help, believe me, I'd tell you,” Donovan says. “I get it. I know you feel helpless. That has to be horrible.”

Again, he is turning it around to me and not him. Not fair. “Who cares about me? I want you out of here. You're innocent, and they are crazy to have you here.”

His eyes turn steely and the set of his jaw is firm. “I'm working on something. Troutman and I are getting close. You have to trust me on this.”

“Can you please tell me?”

He slowly shakes his head.

“But why?” I know I'm pleading, practically begging.

He gives a long sigh, and says, “I can't. I'm already worried about you enough as it is. I can't put you in more danger.”

The guard who has been standing behind him gives him a final tap on the shoulder. He stands. “I love you. Trust me.”

He hangs up before I can say I love him back. I head for the door and the tiny hallway separating the visiting from the lobby.

Walking to my car, I go over everything I know about the three murders.

Troutman had told me Annalisa had lunch with the dead cop who was found in my room the afternoon he was murdered. That's the reason the detectives are looking at Donovan, painting him as a jealous lover killing men who are connected to Annalisa. What is the connection? How are Donovan, Annalisa, and the cop connected? The common thread seems to be that special-­task-­force team where Donovan met Carl Brooke.

How does Annalisa fit into all of this?

A long time ago, Donovan had said he'd tried to get back together with the girl he'd left the monastery for. He told me it was shortly after he became a cop, while he was still a rookie. Maybe I'm wrong, but what if all this took place at the same time, and that's how Annalisa knew Brooke? It might add up. I get excited thinking about it but then realize it still doesn't explain anything. For instance, how do Sebastian Laurent and Adam Grant fit into the puzzle?

Donovan won't—­or can't—­talk. Brooke is dead. That leaves Annalisa. She won't return my calls. Time to pay her a visit. I immediately turn the wheel toward Laurent's house on the hill, which I guess I should start calling her place. I pound on the doorframe. The door itself is covered in thick iron lattice. I yell, loud enough for the neighbors to peek out their second-­story window at me. I'm hoping she will be embarrassed enough to open the door. No go. The garage has no windows, so I can't tell if she is even home, but something tells me she is just avoiding me.

After a few minutes, I stop yelling and dial her number nonstop, letting it ring and ring—­she must have disconnected her answering machine. I listen to the continuous buzzing, then hang up and redial. I pound the door at regular intervals. There's no way to creep around to her steep backyard overlooking the city because the houses are fenced. Finally, after forty-­five minutes, I leave, making a racket as I turn the ignition of the orange beater and it backfires. Driving to the office, I call Annalisa every five minutes or so. I've dealt with enough politicians before I got on the crime beat that I have pesky reporter down to a science.