Blessed are the Dead (4 page)

“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

T
HE 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.

“No, I'll probably head back to the office.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Lopez bobs his head in agreement.

 

Chapter 5

T
HE DECREPIT LIGHT
blue Victorian is squished between two apartment buildings right smack in downtown Rosarito. I check the address Moretti gave me. Yep, this is where Jasmine lives—­close to where Main Street dead-­ends at the harbor. This area was once a thriving shopping district but now is home to seedy bridal shops, abandoned businesses, and bars.

Pressing my face against the building's glass front door, I smoosh all the door buzzers at once. As we wait, a man on the sidewalk below stops in his tracks and stares at me. Lopez gives him a look, and the man walks on. The once-­elegant house is now home to apartments. The view through the glass front door shows a hallway with about eight doors leading to apartments. After a moment, a little girl comes out of Apt. 2. She looks about four years old.

“Honey, can you open the door?” I say it loudly, so she can hear me through the glass. She pushes the door open and leans against the wall, gazing at her bare feet. She wears a faded, too-­short flowered dress, and her hair is tangled.

“Does a little girl named Jasmine Baker live here?” She points to an apartment door at the end of the hall on the right-­hand side. Jackpot. “She lives in that apartment?”

The little girl nods and starts sucking on her two middle fingers.

“Are her mom and dad home?”

The girl looks away. She twists her ankle around and digs her big toe into the hallway's carpet, which is dotted with cigarette burns and unidentifiable stains forming Rorschach splotches. Making our way down the hallway, which stinks like rotten potatoes, we rap on doors. Nobody answers. I leave my business cards sticking out of doorjambs with peeling pink paint. Finally, a woman answers our knock. The wail of children crying inside momentarily escapes into the hall before, upon seeing us, she slams her door.

When I knock on Apt. 5, an elderly woman peeks out of her apartment. I hold up my identification badge hanging on a chain around my neck and identify myself as a reporter. Issued to police reporters by the California Highway Patrol, the IDs have the CHP badge next to your picture and the name of your paper. I admit it's sometimes misleading. Every once in a while, ­people think I'm a cop even after I clearly say I'm with the newspaper.

“Ma'am, we'd like to ask you about Jasmine, the missing girl.”

The woman wears a pale green housecoat, and her white hair is neatly smoothed back in a bun. Her blue eyes are bright and sharp behind rhinestone-­studded glasses. She holds a gray cat that she absentmindedly strokes as she leans over to us, whispering loudly.

“All I know is what I see when her mother locks the girl out of the apartment. She plays in the hall in her pajamas for hours. Once I heard her crying and knocking on the door. She was saying, ‘Mommy, please open the door. I promise I'll be good.' ”

I exchange a look with Lopez. His camera is still in its bag. He fiddles with the knobs on the police scanner clipped to his belt and chews on his lower lip.

“Could I get your name?” I ask the woman. Without her name, it's going to be tough to convince the editors to let me use anything she says.

“I'm on a fixed income here. I don't want any trouble. I thought I should say something to somebody because that poor little girl didn't do anything to anybody.”

“Does this happen often?”

“All the time. At least a ­couple of times a week that girl is out playing in the hall.”

“Did you ever notice anything else out of the ordinary?”

Her gaze turns away as if she is thinking, then shakes her head.

“Are you sure you can't give us your name?”

She presses her lips tightly together and wags her head vehemently. I know better than to push anymore. I give her my card and ask her to call if she thinks of anything else or changes her mind about letting us use her name.

We knock on the other doors, but nobody answers. Before leaving, I stop in front of Apt. 8. There's a chance the parents are back home from the police station by now. I tap on the door and wait a few seconds. No answer. “Excuse me, I'm with the
Bay Herald,
” I say to the door. “I'm trying to find out some more information about Jasmine, so we can help find her.”

Nothing. I stand and listen. The hair on my arms starts to tingle. For some reason I get the feeling someone is there—­right on the other side of the door. I leave my card stuck in the doorjamb.

We're about to cross the street when a yellow taxicab slows down to let us pass. After we cross, it stays stopped. I look over, and the driver guns the motor. I get a glimpse of a pale, angular face gaping at me. For some reason, a chill travels down my arms. It's either getting cold now that clouds have drifted over the sun, or I've had enough of guys I don't know staring at me today. I pull my sweater closer as I walk to my car.

I decide to grab lunch at the cafe near the police station before heading back to the newsroom. It's going to be a long day, and my stomach is grumbling.

I'm digging into a giant spicy Italian sub when a group of men walks in. Cops. Even though they're in plain clothes, I know immediately. It's like a sixth sense I've honed as a reporter. Then I notice that cop, Donovan, is with them. I'm trying to figure out how to introduce myself when he gets up to fill his soda cup at the self-­serve machine. I jump up with my cup, which is still full of soda.

“Hi, I'm Gabriella. I'm with the
Bay Herald,
and I'm covering the Jasmine Baker story.” I glance down and start fiddling with the ice machine. I feel ridiculous, but stand there because I desperately need to have a source in the police department.

“I know.” He fills his cup with root beer. “You wrote about the Chairman Bank Robbery last year.”

That was a doozy. It turned out the chair of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco had a part-­time hobby during his lunch hours—­donning a clown mask and robbing banks in East Bay cities.

Now I remember—­I interviewed a Detective Sean Donovan about that story over the phone. I stare at him but can't see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses. When he turns his head toward me, a shiver of apprehension ripples through me. I don't know if it's good or bad.

He pauses. He's getting ready to walk away. I search for something to say to keep him standing here.
Pull it together, Giovanni. Quit acting like an infatuated teenager for Christ's sakes.
Right when he turns away, I say the first thing that pops into my head. “I was wondering why you were investigating the Jasmine Baker case. Aren't you in homicide?”

He cocks his head, looking at me for a few seconds before he answers. “We've got detectives from almost every division on this one. It's a kid. Time is of the essence.”

“That makes sense.” Any cop, or cop reporter, knows the odds of her being found alive are decreasing quickly. Statistics show the best chance of finding a missing child alive are within the first forty-­eight hours. Deep down, I wonder if this is true. It wasn't in Caterina's case—­her killer kept her for a week. At least that's what they think since her body wasn't decomposed.

I push away those memories and remind myself why I'm talking to Donovan in the first place. I need to make him a source. I need some inroad to the detective bureau if I'm ever going to beat the
Trib
on this story.

“Do you think I could call you about this case? You know, to check if there is anything new?”

“Nope. Can't go against department regs. If the chief tells me to talk to the media, then I'll talk to you. Otherwise, you've got to go through Roberge.”

“Yeah, just like every other reporter on the planet.”

He shrugs and walks away.

Back at my table, I wad up the remains of my sandwich and toss it in the trash bin. I want to get the hell away from those cops. As I leave, nobody at his table even glances my way. But passing the big front window, I notice Donovan watching me. He quickly looks away.

Does he feel that same spark of attraction I do? Out of the corner of my eye, I glance at my reflection in the window of a nearby store. Huh? Something white is sticking out from the side of my dress near my thigh. I stop and look down. Yep. It's the tag. My dress is inside out.

Back in the newsroom, I'm trying to keep it together as I write my story. The little girl inside me still pictures a gibbering monster—­a half-­human creature with rolling eyes and pointy yellow teeth—­preying on little girls like Jasmine Baker and my sister.

When May arrives, she starts slamming drawers open and shut and punches the keyboard so hard logging in I think she's going to pop the little letters right off. Her phone rings. I try not to eavesdrop, but hey, it's what reporters do. We are natural observers of everyone and everything around us.

“I told you, I don't care,” she says into the phone. “It's really no big deal. I didn't wait that long anyway. Yes. The waiter gave me your message. Yes, he brought me out a cupcake and a candle. Thank you. Listen, Dad, I have to go, I'm at work now. Bye.”

She hangs up, and I see her surreptitiously run a manicured finger below her eye. I give her a moment.

“Hey, May, is it your birthday today?” I ask in a quiet voice.

“Yes,” she snaps at me.

“Can I buy you a coffee? I'm heading to the cafeteria.”

“No,” she says, and sniffs.

I'm walking away when she calls my name, so I turn back.

“Thank you,” she says, and quickly turns away.

I feel bad for May, but we've had a rough start. Her first day, I had spent the morning crawling through underground tunnels and climbing around abandoned buildings on the Fort Ord former military base for a story about FBI training. I'd tagged along behind agents lugging M15 rifles at The Impossible City—­a replica of a real town with a gas station, s schoolhouse, bombed-­out vehicles, and mannequins scattered throughout the city, seemingly jumping out at every turn. Creepy. But most of the base is like that—­a ghost town.

My clothes were ripped and filthy when the editors called me over to introduce me to May DuPont.

She sported pearls, perfect hair, and shiny penny loafers. I caught her briefly wrinkling her tiny nose at my unkempt clothing before she plastered a wide smile on her face and gushed about how she was a big fan of my reporting. As soon as we were alone at our desks, she turned her back on me without another word the rest of the night.

Back at my desk with my coffee, I concentrate on finishing my story. I push back my memories and give myself a pep talk as I type. Just write the story. Stick to the facts. Who. What. Where. When. How. Why.

See. It's only a story like any other. You can handle it. No problem. It's not the same. It's a totally different situation.

I just need to do my job. If I know anything, it's how to write about the seedier side of life. And in all honesty, that's what I love about the crime beat. Life isn't one party after the other. Bad things happen. Anyone who doesn't realize that is foolish and living in a dreamworld. I know the truth about life—­that you can never take one second of it for granted. I'm better off because I realized this at a young age. But deep down, I know that I'm ignoring the shadows hovering just outside my peripheral vision.