Blessed are the Meek (17 page)

 

Chapter 36

T
HE SUN IS
setting as I pull up to the rectory, not sure where to go and what to do. In less than thirty seconds, Father Liam is in front of me at the end of a long driveway. Lopez, who has followed me the entire way back from the pier, waves once he sees Father Liam and peels off to head home.

I pull down the driveway. At the back, a small garage backs up against the hillside. The garage door is slowly rising. Father Liam smiles and gestures for me to enter the garage. He follows my car on foot into the large garage and closes the door behind us.

“Hello, so nice to see you again,” he says, opening my car door for me. “Hope you're hungry.”

My head hurts so bad the thought of food makes me feel sick. All I want to do is sleep for a week, but instead, I smile. I feel less awkward once we are inside, and I realize I'm not the only houseguest. A visiting priest from India, Father Michael, is, also, staying in the rectory.

Father Liam explains that there are six bedrooms in the rectory: four downstairs and two upstairs. He and Father Michael are downstairs and he's put me upstairs to give me some privacy. I remember that the study, where he danced, is upstairs.

“Excuse us, Father Michael, I'm going to show Gabriella her room so she can freshen up for dinner.”

I follow him up the stairs.

“I hope you don't mind. Sean told me you had a key under your mat, so I took the liberty of stopping by your house and packing a few of your belongings. And I picked up your cat from Sean's place.”

My small duffel bag is on the bed, and Dusty is meowing from his crate on the floor of the attached bathroom. Small silver bowls, one with water and one with cat food, are already set up on the floor near Dusty's crate.

Father Liam closes the door behind us, then reaches into the top drawer of the nightstand and withdraws a big black handgun. The only thing I can tell about it is that it's a semiautomatic.

“This pistol is called a 9 x 19 mm Grandpower K100, Slovak. Hold it. I want to make sure you're comfortable with it.”

He gives me a brief tutorial. When he is done, he sets it on the nightstand.

“I want you to sleep with it right here. Every night, when you go to bed, I want you to lock this door.” He points to the bedroom door, which I realize with surprise is reinforced steel with two dead bolts.

“Don't worry,” he says, leaning down and giving me a small kiss on my forehead. “You're safe as a baby, here. I don't mean to scare you. I want you to be prepared in the highly unlikely event that someone gets through me. But that's not going to happen. When you're ready, come down. Dinner is in twenty minutes.”

I watch him walk away and am not afraid. I'd like to see anyone try to tackle this man of God.

I
POP SOME
more aspirin and go to unpack my duffel bag. Set gently on the very top of all my clothes is the picture of me and Caterina I keep by my bed. Tears sting my eyes as I set it gently on the nightstand by the gun. I hang my clothes in the small wood armoire. It's strange to think that the priest went to my place and packed my bag. He didn't do too badly. But remembering his designer duds, I'm not surprised. I have enough to last at least a week if I plan it right: He packed the essentials, which include my comfy flannel men's pajamas, a pair of worn and soft jeans, a white blouse, a floral blouse, gray pants, a blue, flowered dress, a bulky gray sweater, and a black dress.

After settling in, I change into the flowered dress, wash my face, and head downstairs. Father Michael is already seated at the large dining-­room table. The aspirin has kicked in, and I'm now ravenous. The crystal chandelier and long, tapered candles softly light the rectory dining room. The mammoth mahogany table gleams, and I'm worried the condensation on my crystal water glass will mar it, so I scoot it over onto my lacy placemat.

“Voilà!” Father Liam says, coming through the swinging door from the small galley-­style kitchen, balancing three soup tureens on his arms. He places butternut squash soup in front of me and pours a deep red cabernet into my wineglass.

I dip my spoon into the creamy, sunset-­colored soup and raise it to my lips. It is so good I pace myself, so I don't slurp the entire thing up in one second.

“This is amazing.”

“It's simple,” Father Liam says with a shrug. “A little squash and milk.”

“You're too modest. It's fantastic.”

I'm filled with guilt, thinking of Donovan behind bars, eating jail slop, while I sit here warm and cozy, dining on a gourmet meal and sipping wine.

Father Michael, who is East Indian, but grew up in Rhodesia, regales us with tales of his life there. He had a pet crocodile named Samuel. As a child, he ran with the monkeys and played in the waterfalls for fun. The crocodile is now full-­grown, living in back of his uncle's store in Rhodesia.

I want to learn more about Father Liam, but being the perfect host that he is, he expertly steers the conversation away from himself at every turn. He is an adept conversationalist, focusing on listening more than speaking. Few ­people have mastered this skill.

The most I manage to pry out of him is that he came to America after abandoning his dreams of becoming a professional dancer when he injured his foot. Apparently, the injury wasn't from dancing, either. Some kids in the neighborhood beat him up, hitting his foot with baseball bats until it disintegrated.

“Good God!” I say, forgetting for a moment who I'm talking to.

His parents immediately shipped him to America, where he first lived in New York City and worked for a distant uncle. He's a bit vague on what that job for his uncle entailed.

I try to steer to conversation back toward him.

“What happened to those kids? Did they get arrested?”

“I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind,” he said with a sad smile. “Let's talk about you. You are a much more interesting topic, don't you think, Father?” He turned to the other priest.

“Fine, but one more thing,” I say, not giving in that easy. “You have to admit you aren't a typical priest. I mean, the priests in North Beach are nothing like you. You are a lot different . . . than the others.”

“Yes. Sometimes the archbishop gets very frustrated with me,” Father Liam says thoughtfully. “But in the end, he always supports me. There aren't a lot of Catholic churches that welcome the diversity of ­people that I do. In his heart, he knows that we are doing the right thing by offering these ­people a spiritual home even if our methods are a bit unorthodox.”

I remember Donovan's telling me that his church had openly gay ­couples with children, African-­Americans who wore their traditional garb to Mass, and liturgical dancers at many Masses. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Part of me really likes that the church welcomes all types, but I crave the traditional Masses that I was raised on. I'm not sure I would like the dancers flitting around with their scarves on the altar.

I don't get the friendship between Donovan and Father Liam. To me, priests have always been revered—­someone to have over for dinner, sure—­but always held a little at a distance.

After he clears our soup tureens, Father Liam disappears for a few moments into the kitchen, only to reappear with a rack of roasted lamb that he sets in the middle of the table. A small side platter of roasted eggplant, zucchini, and peppers is nearby.

After we finish our main course, Father Liam brings out a green salad. The vinaigrette is the perfect blend of flavors. A plate of fruit is brought out for dessert with espresso.

“I'm glad that Donovan can turn to you for advice,” I say, taking a sip of my espresso. “Right now, he needs that more than ever. But I'm still a little thrown off by your relationship.”

“Gabriella, what you have to realize is that while I am a priest, I am, also, a man,” Father Liam says. “I have chosen to spend my life serving God. It wasn't an easy decision, but it has brought me more gratification than I could have ever dreamed. But my life in Ireland was not simple. Or easy. If you had told the teenage me that I would turn to the priesthood, I would have laughed. But sometimes, these matters are out of our hands.

“I think that if you spend any time with priests, you will realize that they are like you in many ways. Except instead of pursuing a career, say in journalism, they have devoted their lives to bringing ­people to God. That doesn't mean that we are immune to all the temptations and foibles of being human.”

Okay. I get it. It's a major paradigm shift for me to see a priest as somebody like me. I had a hard enough time reconciling that Donovan once wanted to be a monk, and say as much to Father Liam.

“Donovan's father's death really tormented him. He thought the way to make his mother happy was to become a monk, but then he realized it wasn't the right life for him. So he became a police officer.”

“Those two professions seem like polar opposites. That's one reason I have such a hard time imagining him as a monk.”

“They are not very different when you think about it,” Father Liam says after a pause where he takes a bite of cantaloupe. “They are both professions of ser­vice. Donovan became a police officer because he felt that was the best way he could serve others in this world.”

I am silent. Tears are ready to erupt. I clench my jaw until they go away. Crying won't help anything. Donovan is in jail. For murder. I feel so guilty sitting here when he is in a squalid, smelly jail cell.

“They've got to find the real murderer,” I finally say, once I compose myself.

Father Liam closes his mouth and nods, looking at me. “Have faith, my dear. We know Donovan didn't kill anyone. Have faith that the truth will emerge.”

I'm Catholic, and I believe, but I decide right then, I'm not going to wait around hoping the truth will emerge on its own. I'm going to make sure to give it a little push. Or shove.

 

Chapter 37

I
'M RESTLESS.
I
need to do
something
. Donovan needs my help right now, but I feel like I'm spinning in circles. I'm not a detective; I'm just a reporter. And I'm not even an investigative reporter, either. What can I do to help?

I've never felt so helpless in my life. Not even when Caterina was missing. Then, I was just a kid and
knew
there was nothing I could do. I looked to the adults to do something. But now, I'm the adult, and if I don't do something, the man I love might go away forever for a crime he didn't commit.

It's late, but I try Annalisa's line once again. She doesn't pick up. I leave a message, another stab at reaching her. I've left messages for her all week.

I pace. But no matter how long I stay up at night, lying in bed, racking my brains and trying to figure out if there is some clue or some detail I've learned that could clear Donovan's name, I've got nothing.

I'm torn by two different pressing needs and desires—­proving Donovan is innocent and finding the monster who killed my sister. I feel helpless to do either.

Looking at the picture of Caterina and me on my nightstand, I realize that maybe there is something I
can
do. I have something. A name. A first name. I'm not sure what to do to help Donovan, but now that I have a name, a jail, and a crime, I can try to track down Caterina's killer. And if I don't act, that man might continue to kill, leaving a trail of bodies behind him.

I feel guilty, remembering what Marsha told me about using the past to avoid dealing with my present. Well, I have to do
something.
If I can't help Donovan, at least I can get some answers about Caterina. If I don't, I'll lose my mind.

Liz, the librarian, hasn't called and won't be in the office again until morning. I don't know if she's had any luck with finding a Frank, or Red's friend, Mickey. I know she has access to LexisNexis, which means she can find almost anything on a person—­their address, their criminal record, the year they got divorced or married, you name it.

I set up my laptop on a small table in my room. Father Liam has AOL ser­vice. I sign in with my user name and after a few minutes am connected to the Internet. I start to search: burglary, underwear, women, Frank. Nothing. Then search with HotBot and excite.com.

Nothing for a Mickey Menendez in Pleasanton. I grab my cell phone and punch in Moretti's number.

“Hey, kiddo.
Come stai?
”

“Not so good, Moretti.”

Of course he knows what I'm talking about. “Anything I can do?”

“Prove he didn't do it?”

“Wish I could.”

I can sense his sadness in the silence that follows. He's a good friend.

“Moretti, there's actually something else you could help me with. Something to do with my sister.”

My words immediately change the tone of our conversation.

“Anything.”

I tell him my story about Red. After a few seconds, Moretti clears his throat.

“I know a guy who works at Napa. Haven't talked to him in years, though,” he says.

That's it. I can't sit still another minute waiting for someone else to do something about finding the man who killed my sister. “Well, I'm heading up there tonight,” I say. “I'll be visiting the Napa hospital first thing in the morning. Can I use your name?”

“Ask for Lonnie Sandoval.”

I
CHANGE INTO
jeans and the bulky sweater and throw my pajamas and extra clothes and a toothbrush into the duffel bag. At the last minute, I stick Father Liam's big black gun in, too. It's already ten, but I need to get out of the rectory right this minute before I go crazy. I need to feel like I'm doing something useful. Otherwise, despair is going to settle over me, and once it's made itself at home, it's hard for me to get rid of it. I've felt this way before. I know where it leads. It's not good.

I dial Lopez.

“Feel like going on a road trip?”

“Sorry, man. My ma just landed in the hospital. Her blood pressure was super-­high, and she threw up. Doctors say she's probably cool now, but I'm on duty to sit with her tonight.” I hear the hesitation in his voice. “But if you need me to, I'll call my sister.”

“No. Give your mama a kiss for me. I'll see if Father Liam wants to come with me.”

I hang up, feeling guilty for lying, but I'm not going to pull him away from his sick mother. And I'm not going to wake Father Liam. I'll just be extra careful.

Downstairs, I stop by the kitchen and scribble a note to Father Liam.

“I'm sorry to run out, but I didn't want to wake you. I'm tracking down something in Napa. I've got your gun, and I promise to be careful. Here's my cell number. Will call in the morning.”

I feel like a teenager sneaking out of the house as I quietly pad my way to the door to the connecting garage.