Blessed are the Dead (3 page)

 

Chapter 3

M
Y LANDMARKS ARE MORBID.

Driving through the lush, green, East Bay suburbs that make up my beat, I realize every reference point I have in this area stems from a crime or tragedy I've covered. The rolling hills are deceptively bucolic. My mental map includes a legend depicting the dead in 3-­D relief: stabbing, fatal car crash, strangling, house fire, and so on.

For instance, down this road is the house where two brothers, saying they believed they were serving God's will, chopped up three ­people in a bathtub, put the body parts in duffel bags, and dumped them in the waters of the San Joaquin River Delta.

A man died on this steep hillside when the backhoe he and his teenage son were on toppled. He only had time to shove his son out of danger. Later, his son and wife asked permission to go lie down in the dirt beside his body to say their good-­byes.

Deep down this ravine, a man lay trapped upside down in his car for two days before a local guy noticed new skid marks and hiked down the hill to investigate. The shivering driver hung upside down by his seat belt for nearly forty-­eight hours. The first thing he said to his rescuers was, “My wife must be worried sick.” He died the next day in the hospital.

Each time I pass one of these places, I make the sign of the cross. These dead ­people haunt my memories and leave ghostly trails throughout the territory I cover.

Rosarito holds no such ghosts for me. Because it's outside the
Bay Herald
's typical coverage area, when there is a murder in Rosarito—­and there are plenty of them —­it must be practically tabloid-­worthy for us to cover it. Of course, a missing child could be big. Or it could end up being nothing at all. A lot of missing-­children cases stem from custody disputes where a disgruntled parent flees with the kid.

My best friend, Nicole, the courts reporter at the paper, calls as I'm driving.

“Holy shit!”

“I know,” I answer. “Shitty thing is I had the tip, but Kellogg didn't have the balls to run with it.”

“Cops wouldn't confirm kid was missing?”

“Nope.”

“And the dad was dressed in drag?”

“Yeah. I'll probably get reamed for that, too. I thought it was too much. Those kids will have that small detail haunt them forever. I just couldn't do it.”

“That was probably the right call.”

Probably?

“Listen, I'm on my way to Rosarito. I'll talk to you later.”

I'm about to hang up when I hear her clear her throat.

“You going to be okay with this one?” She says it softly. I can almost imagine the crease of concern between her eyes. She's the only one at the newspaper who knows about Caterina. The night I told her, we'd been drinking wine at my place, celebrating a big scoop we'd both worked on when she noticed a picture of Caterina and me on my nightstand.

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.

W
HEN
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.