Blessed are the Meek (3 page)

 

Chapter 4

A
S SOON AS
I enter the gallery, I spot Annalisa Cruz. She's barely five feet tall, and her long dark hair falls in a silky sheet down the middle of her back. She wears sleek black leather pants, stiletto-­heeled boots, and an oversize, blood red cashmere sweater that is falling off one bronzed shoulder. She holds a glass of wine aloft with elbow crooked, head bent to one side, listening to the man beside her. She doesn't look like a grieving girlfriend to me. She glances down, her long eyelashes casting a shadow on her cheekbones.

I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the large glass windows black with night. Despite the way my skirt hugs my curves, she makes me feel boyish. My long brown hair, which I normally like, seems lank and lackluster compared to her shiny blue-­black mane.

She stands by one of her sculptures, which are displayed on waist-­high white pedestals scattered throughout the gallery. Big spotlights illuminate them in the dark room. They are glossy black or white female figures, each about a foot long. They all feature a woman reclined, back arched, head thrown back, hair falling behind. One hand clutches a breast, and the other intimately gropes the triangle between the figure's legs. They look like they are . . . yep . . . I see the name of the exhibit—­
E
CSTASY AND ORGASM
.

Annalisa Cruz watches me over her wineglass as I make my way over to the crowd surrounding her. She peels away from them and steps a few feet away, turning her back to me, facing one of her sculptures. As soon as I'm near, I'm engulfed by her perfume, a spicy, oriental scent. She talks without turning to face me.

“This one is my favorite,” she says with a slight accent, gesturing with her wineglass. “Do you think I adequately captured what it is like to for a woman to have an orgasm?”

She turns and looks right at me.

I blink. Her eyes are blue. Icy. Cold.

I study the sculpture for a second. “Yes, I'd say you nailed it.” I stick out my hand. “I'm Gabriella Giovanni. I left a message about a story I'm writing on Sebastian. I'm sorry for your loss.”

It's a standard greeting to a grieving person, but she ignores my hand. Instead, she blinks rapidly, not as if she is trying to hold back tears but more like she is trying to summon them. She is rewarded with one fat tear that takes its sweet time squeezing out of the corner of one eye.

“Annalisa Cruz,” she says, finally shaking my hand with the barest touch of her fingertips. “
El gusto es mio
”–the pleasure is mine.

“
Encantada,
” I respond—­likewise.

One expertly plucked eyebrow rises. In the background, ­people call her name, “Ms. Cruz. Ms. Cruz.”

She smiles over my shoulder, then looks back at me. “It's a little crazy here tonight. Why don't you come by my place tomorrow morning at eleven, so we can talk.”

She doesn't wait for me to agree. Once again, her attention is captured by something over my shoulder. It's a photographer who begins snapping rapid-­fire photos of her. I back away and watch as she poses like a professional in front of the popping flashbulb.

 

Chapter 5

S
EBASTIAN
L
AURENT LIVED
in an ultramodern metal house squeezed in between other multimillion-­dollar homes on a cul-­de-­sac I never dreamed existed, perched 570 feet above the rest of San Francisco.

In the middle of the cul-­de-­sac is a small park with trees. At the center of the park, a pedestal is all that remains of a statue. I park and walk over to read the marker, which says that years ago, the area, called Mt. Olympus, marked the exact center of San Francisco. In one direction, through the spruce trees, I catch a glimpse of the Bay Bridge and Oakland Hills. In the other, I see the Golden Gate Bridge, which has low-­flying clouds covering the top of the span.

Despite the public park, the area feels very secluded and private. I imagine eyes watching me from all the windows.

I steel myself to speak to Annalisa. She didn't even pretend to be upset over her boyfriend's death. Or rather, she did
pretend.
She's a pretty good actress, but I'm even better at reading ­people. That tear wasn't real. Her performance last night—­so devoid of grief—­prompted me to leave a message earlier with my best friend, Nicole, our courts reporter, asking her to find out more about Miss Annalisa Cruz.

Laurent's house is the smallest one on the block. It's a small squat box that combines huge shiny metal sheets interspersed with textured wood. But I know the exterior must be deceptive. Property records show the house is fifty-­five hundred square feet. It must all be on the back side, sprawling down the hill.

The door to the house is covered with thick iron latticework, and I'm trying to figure out how to knock when it swings open. Today, Cruz is wearing faded blue jeans and a loose, red, embroidered tunic. Her feet are bare. I feel overdone, garish even, in my pink cashmere sweater and white slacks compared to her effortless chic. Her face, devoid of makeup, may be even prettier today than when she had a full face of makeup at the gallery. Huge eyes take in everything from behind black lashes. Her glance lingers on a small snag in my sweater.

“Come in,” she says, and makes a grand, sweeping gesture, holding the door for me. The hallway leads to a main room with enormous floor-­to-­ceiling windows facing downtown and a balcony that runs the length of the room. Across from the windows, a ten-­foot-­long stainless-­steel bar separates the kitchen from the rest of the room.

Annalisa heads behind the bar and indicates a black leather sectional couch with a wave. Across the room is a long table that could feed my big Italian family. A fifteen-­foot-­high print of Brigitte Bardot standing with her legs spread and her hands on her hips soars above the table.

“Wine?” Annalisa holds two glasses between her fingers. It's 11:00
A.M
.

“Sure.”

I look again for any sign that she is grieving. Nope. Not even a hint of small dark circles under her eyes. Maybe she's numbed her grief with alcohol.

She hands me a glass of wine and curls her legs up under her on the couch facing a huge fireplace. She fishes for a cigarette out of a shiny blue flat pack and lights it with the flick of a match. She indicates with the lit cigarette that I should sit. The couch is about as long as my entire apartment. I plop down about a foot from her, then rummage in my bag for my pen and reporter's notebook.

She offers me the pack. Dunhills. Expensive English cigarettes.

I've been struggling to quit smoking for the past year—­occasionally failing miserably—­but I reach for one anyway. Screw it. I don't normally drink wine before noon, either. She gestures for me to lean closer, and I do, with the cigarette between my lips. She shields it with one cupped hand as she lights it. Her hand brushes my own, and her eyes never leave mine. I look away.

I take a drag on the cigarette, inhaling deeply, somewhat disappointed by the ashy taste but welcoming the small buzz that shoots through me.

“So?” Annalisa says, raising an eyebrow.

I exhale into the air above me. “Tell me about Sebastian. What did he like to do when he wasn't working? Did he have any hobbies or interests?”

My questions hang in the air like the cigarette smoke in front of us. I let the silence do its job. It's an interview technique to get ­people to open up. Most ­people are uncomfortable by silence and try to fill it. Not Annalisa. She looks at me. Then she takes a long puff of her cigarette. Again, her eyes don't leave mine.

“What can I say?” She has the lightest accent. “Sebastian was handsome, successful, rich, everything a girl could want.”

Something about the way she says it provokes my next question. “Was he everything you wanted?”

She avoids my question, running her fingers along the back of the sleek couch. “Isn't that what we are all taught to dream of in a man?”

“You don't seem like the type to follow convention. Living as an artist isn't always what good Mexican girls are raised to do.”

I seem to have hit a nerve. She narrows her eyes at me. The first sign of emotion I've seen since I walked in. “Why do you think you know so much about
las razas, chica
?”

“Soy Italiana. Usted es tambien una Catholica. No mucho diferente.”

She doesn't buy it. “Just because both Italians and Mexicans are Catholic does not mean that they are the same.”

“Yeah, but they are enough alike for me to get it. I know what it's like to grow up in a house centered around food and church—­how you're an old maid if you're not married with kids by the time you're twenty-­five.”

Her laughter tinkles like when a child giggles infectiously. I can't help but smile back. “Okay, maybe there are some similarities,” she says. Her seemingly normal behavior in the face of her boyfriend's death makes me vaguely uneasy

Annalisa's body relaxes, and she taps the long ash of her cigarette into a black ceramic ashtray shaped like a nude woman's torso. The figure is seductively lounging on her side on the banks of what looks like a pond—­the small concave bowl where the ashes go.

“Did you make this,” I say, gesturing with my cigarette.

“Do you like it?” she says, exhaling.

“It's fantastic.” I'm trying to decide when to bring up her apparent lack of grief over her boyfriend's death when she gets up and opens a long cupboard near the kitchen. I see a shelf filled with similar ashtrays. She grabs a glazed red one.

I fish another cigarette from the pack and light it from the dying cherry on my first one.

“Here. My gift to you.” She hands me the red ashtray. I stick it in my bag.

It's generous, but I'm not here to get gifts from grieving—­or nongrieving—­girlfriends. I need information for my story. I'm waiting for the right moment to confront her about her nonchalant attitude regarding her boyfriend's murder. Maybe she's a sociopath, who has zero empathy for others. Or maybe she killed him.

“Annalisa, did Sebastian have any enemies? Can you think of any reason someone wanted him dead?”

“Lots of ­people disliked Sebastian. He could be an asshole.”

I stay silent, hoping she will continue.

“He even was like that to me.” She says this matter-­of-­factly, with a shrug.

This second cigarette already tastes better than the first, but the jolt of nicotine feels weaker, making me inhale harder.

“Is that why you don't seem too broken up about his death?” I look away when I say this, keeping my gaze on the flames in the fireplace. She takes a moment to answer.

“I am sad. But I don't believe in airing my laundry in public, as they say.” Her lips purse as she exhales. Again, she does the rapid eye blinking and is rewarded with two fat tears this time. She doesn't bother to wipe them away but let's them meander down her bronze cheek.

“My family moved here from Mexico City when I was eight. We may live simply here in this country, but we were royalty in Mexico, friends with
el presidente
. My father lost everything in gambling debts, and so we had to come here to live with my sister's family. She married a rich man—­a vintner—­we lived in a house on his property, like a servant's cottage, you could say. We may not have had much at times, but we've always had our pride. My family believes your grief should be expressed in private. It's not to share with the rest of the world. So, yes, I'm sad. Even self-­centered men don't deserve to be murdered. Sebastian and I . . .” She falters here and stares into the fire. “We have not been . . . close . . . for a long time. So, in answer to your question, yes, I'm sad. I'm sad to lose someone whom I once cared about a great deal.”

There is so little emotion there, I can't decide whether to believe her or not.

“If all that is true, why did you stay around?”

“Come now, Gabriella, you know that's not what good Catholic girls do. Especially good Catholic girls living in sin before marriage.”

I'm pretty sure she's joking, but I'm a bit confused.

“I'd think your family would throw a party if you moved out.”

“No. They said I made my bed and had to lie in it. My art doesn't make any money yet. At least, not enough to survive. I wasn't willing to give up this lifestyle. What would I do? Move back to the sticks in Modesto and live with my parents, become a maid for my sister?” Her body shudders. “Come, let me show you something.”

She leads me to a small door off to the side of the kitchen. She flings open the door, and I spot a few steps going down, leading to utter darkness beyond.

My heart begins to race erratically. I was the one who found my father's body in the basement. When my mother came to find out what was taking us so long, she went into some form of shock, and the two of us spent the night on the floor with my father's body until my aunt found us the next morning. Ever since, I've had an unholy fear of basements and underground places. I don't do them.

After a few seconds, Annalisa flips on a light. Relief spreads through me. It's a garage. A red Ferrari flanks one wall. There is an empty space where Laurent must have parked his fancy car.

“I've become accustomed to a lifestyle that most men could not provide for me. This house. This car. Weekend getaways to Paris, London, the French Riviera. Do you understand?” She gives me a cunning look.

“Who gets this now? This place,” I say, gesturing to the living room. “That car?”

“I'm listed as an owner on both.” Annalisa turns off the light, closes the door, and returns to the living room. She settles back onto the couch and takes a sip of her wine. “After we started having problems, Sebastian never got around to changing that—­or his will. I guess in that respect, I am lucky.”

“Lucky? Or it makes you look like you killed him before he could cut you off. Did you know the police found a pair of lacy underpants in the car with his body?”

Annalisa has a look of nonchalance on her face and ignores my comment. “The police, of course, think I did it. They have been following me. They even came to the gallery last night. They can look for evidence, but there is none.”

This woman has more motive than Catherine the Great. Well, it's now or never. I take a breath. “Did you kill him?”

Her eyes grow wide. I don't know if she plans on answering me or not because we are interrupted by pounding from the front of the house that coincides with a chiming noise that can only be a doorbell.

“It's probably someone from the police department,” she says with a sigh, unfurling her legs and standing. “The detectives said they were sending someone over to talk to me again today.”

If the cops are here, it's time for me to go. I stuff my notebook in my messenger bag as I follow her to the front door. The ceramic ashtray clinks against my keys in my bag. I wonder if the gift is considered graft or swag. I'm pretty sure it's against newspaper policy to accept it, but I don't make a move to return it.

Annalisa undoes the dead bolt. The door swings open, along with my mouth, when I see who is standing outside.

It is a cop. But not one I expected to see.

It's my boyfriend.