Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (12 page)

 

Chapter 22

W
E ARE BACK
at the police station. While we were at the beach, Sergeant Jackson called. A task force comprised of police officers and FBI agents has been set up to find Grace, and he wants us to attend the first meeting.

When we are escorted back, the small conference room at the police station is full. ­People are poring over maps taped to the wall showing where searches have been done and what searches need to be done. They are also sharing information on the three women's bodies.

“We've got a rush on DNA analysis for the three vics,” someone is saying as I walk up. “We can compare to Anderson's DNA.”

Anderson's DNA is in the system. After killing Caterina, who knows what Anderson was up to throughout the years, but we do know one thing—­details of the crime that put him away for a few years after that. He broke into a home and masturbated on a little girl's underwear. He got caught when the 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 Anderson to a pulp before calling the police. There was some discussion that Anderson had to have reconstructive surgery in prison. I'm sure they didn't bring in the best surgeons for that.

Investigators were able to link him to several other break-­ins, but Anderson had a documented history of mental illness from a military stint and pled not guilty by reason of insanity. He got out on parole after only eight years at the Napa State Mental Hospital.

I know it is good that they are trying to match the DNA, but that's not helping them find Grace. They can work on linking him to the three murders all they want as long as my baby is home safe with me.

A small table in one corner is filled with donuts and coffee and sodas. My stomach growls seeing the donuts, but I'm worried that if I eat, I will puke. That doesn't stop Donovan, who doesn't even like donuts, from grabbing three and scarfing them down in less than a minute.

I glance at the clock. It is one o'clock. Grace has been gone for twenty-­two hours.

We stand in a corner with Sergeant Jackson and his boss, Lieutenant Bruce Campbell. The rest of the room is filled with plainclothes detectives from San Francisco, Martinez, and Rosarito trying to put their joint pieces together.

FBI Special Agent Noah West is also in the room. His gut hangs over his belt, and his swept-­back hair has grayed. His forehead now has permanent creases. He is no longer the young buck agent I met five years ago. I suppose that seeing what he does would age anyone prematurely.

After everyone settles down into chairs, Donovan, West, and Sergeant Jackson stand at the front of the room. I stand against the wall off to the side.

As Donovan and West fill the other cops in on Grace's disappearance and our family's history, the connections between my sister's kidnapping and death and the recent murders become stronger:

All three women were taken and held for six days.

My sister was taken on a Tuesday, and her body was found on a Monday. Six days later. Grace was also taken on a Tuesday. If the pattern is repeating itself, and Grace's kidnapper intends to kill her in six days, we are running out of time. West passes out mug shots of Anderson. A few seconds later, someone hands me a stack. I take one and pass the stack on.

Fury crawls up my neck like a warm rash when I see his picture again. I clench my hands. And I know for certain. I would kill this man. If he were in front of me, I would rip his throat open with my bare hands.

“Find him.” I say it in a low voice. Only one person nearby hears me and gives me a quick look before glancing away. My hand holding the photo betrays me with tremors, making the face on the photo jump around. I turn around and examine one of the maps on the wall behind me. They've searched every nook and cranny within a mile radius of Ocean Beach.

“I'm shooting photocopies up and down the state and as far north as Washington and as far east as Utah,” West is saying in the front of the room, dragging his hand through his hair. “Every cop shop in the West is going to have this dude's mug on their wall.

“We're also having a sketch artist do an age progression photo. This was about a decade ago. We'll put both the sketch and the mug on one page. The composite sketch will show more wrinkles, less hair, etc.”

West is very matter-­of-­fact about what needs to be done, and for some reason this calms me, makes my heart rate slow back down. I turn back around and face the front of the room. Donovan meets my eyes and gives me a barely perceptible nod.
Stay strong
.

“We've amped up the pressure to find Anderson's last whereabouts,” West says, now chewing on a toothpick I didn't notice he had. “If he's been anywhere in this part of the state, we're going to find him.”

I nod, meeting Donovan's eyes, but the truth is my faith in West has slightly evaporated. He's had more than five years to find Anderson, and he is trying to convince us he can find him in the next five days.

Then Sergeant Jackson gets up and talks about how his officers need to work with the FBI agents and set past differences aside in order to find a missing little girl. Cops usually resent the feds moving in, but this is standard procedure when a child is missing. I stare at the heads of the cops seated in the white plastic chairs. Nobody rolls his eyes or scowls. They are going to work together to find Grace. I'm so grateful I want to cry, but instead I pull my shoulders back and head for the door as soon as the meeting ends.

 

Chapter 23

S
TANDING IN THE
doorway of my mother's hospital room, I hold my breath watching my grandmother. It is two in the afternoon. My mother has now been unconscious for more than twenty-­three hours, nearly an entire day.

Besides my grandmother's fervent whispering above my mother, the only sound is the beeping of the monitors. The breathing tubes obscure my mother's face. Wires trail from her throat, her arms, her mouth, and her face. Dread fills me seeing her like this. Donovan stayed downstairs to smoke, and I suddenly wish he were by my side.

My grandmother doesn't notice. Although her back is turned to me, her face is reflected, ghostlike, in the window. She holds a bowl above my mother's head. She speaks in a low murmur and drips drops of oil from a small crystal cruet into the bowl.

In an instant, I'm transported back to my childhood.

M
Y GRANDMOTHER AND
mother stood over my bed. My grandmother held a small bowl. My mother had my feet out of the covers and was doing something near my feet.

I sat up and my grandmother pulled back, mumbling something in Italian.

“Shhhh,
mia cara
. We'll be done in a minute. Lie back and close your eyes.”

My mother came to stand beside me then. “Nana came over here tonight because she wants to make sure you are protected against the
malocchio,
” my mother said and gave me a wink I nearly missed. It was a game. She was humoring my grandmother and wanted me to do so, as well.

But I didn't understand. Why did she need to protect me against the evil eye? What about Caterina? I glanced over to the place where Caterina's bed once was. It was gone. Then I remembered. Caterina was dead. She'd been gone for a while, but I still sometimes woke up in the mornings and forgot until I looked around for her. I hadn't spoken a word since they found her body in some bushes by the side of the road.

Then it hit me—­they were casting out the evil spell they thought was on me that prevented me from speaking. I could talk if I wanted. I just didn't want to. To prove it, I opened my mouth to tell them this, but nothing came out except a little grunt. I clamped my mouth closed.

In defeat, I slumped back down and closed my eyes, wanting everyone and everything to go away. I didn't want to talk anyway. What was the use of anything? Caterina was gone. A monster took her and then my father died. They were both dead in the ground and buried. I was only six years old, but I knew then—­monsters are real.

I reached up and angrily swatted at my grandmother's hands holding the bowl over my head. Water and something slimy splashed on my face, and my grandmother scolded me in Italian. I didn't recognize the words she used, and I didn't care. I just wanted her to leave me alone.

I rolled over until I was facing away from them, keeping my eyes scrunched tight until I heard their footsteps leave my room. Only then did I reach down to my feet to feel what my mother had been fiddling with. She had tied a silky ribbon around my ankle. I flipped on my bedside light and crouched, examining it. It was red like blood. I tore at it to rip it off, but it only stretched out and hurt my fingers.

I got out of bed and stood by my bedroom door, listening. I heard my mother and grandmother talking and then the front door open and close. I waited until I heard my grandmother's car drive away and my mother's bedroom door close. Then I crept into the kitchen like I did every night. My mother's kitchen shears were in the drawer. They felt giant in my fingers. In one smooth motion, the ribbon was off. I left it where it fell on the floor and put the shears on the counter, not bothering to hide my handiwork. I turned toward the kitchen table, where my uncle had left the chess game.

Each day he came over and moved a piece. Each night I got up after everyone else was asleep and moved my own piece. Chewing on a strand of my hair, I studied the board.

On that day, my uncle had moved his knight and now was about to take my queen. I knew I had two choices: move my queen or kill his knight. Quietly, I scooted a kitchen chair out and leaned over the board. The pieces cast long shadows from the tiny stove light.

I could take his knight, but if I did, he would not only take my pawn with his bishop but he would also put me in check. And then when I moved to get out of check, he'd take my queen anyway. So I'd lose my pawn and my queen.

Biting my lip, I looked at all the possible things that could happen if I moved my queen. If I did, he could put me in check in two moves. Then, for me to get out of it, he'd walk away with my rook and bishop. I couldn't let that happen. Without my rook and bishop, I'd lose.

As reluctant as I'd been to play chess with my uncle, I was then desperate for the game to continue. I sat and stared at the board, going over various combinations until I fell asleep, slumped on the table. In the morning, my mom found me there and woke me with a kiss to my forehead. I sat up, and she set the table for breakfast like she had done for the past five months, ignoring the chessboard in the middle.

I glanced at the board and finally admitted what I hadn't wanted to the night before: I was going to lose this game. No matter what I did, my uncle would have me in checkmate in three moves or less. Then I did what I had never done before—­I tipped over my king. I resigned.

For the next few hours, I restlessly paced my room, glancing out my curtains every few minutes until I saw my uncle's car pull up. I waited until I heard him and my mother settle in at the kitchen table with their coffee cups before I came out.

My uncle, my mother's brother, owned an Italian shoe store less than a mile from our house. After my father died, he came over for coffee every single day.

On this day, I hovered in the doorway, spying on my mom and uncle. I glanced at the board. He had accepted my resignation and moved all the pieces back to starting position. But he hadn't moved a pawn to start a new game. I swallowed back disappointment that it was over. When my foot made a scuffing sound on the wooden floor, he looked over.

“Gabriella,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “You were smart to resign. That little formation is exactly the same as the move that allowed Bobby Fischer to win the World Chess Championship against Spassky from the Soviet Union. It was Fischer's dream to win this match. And in the nineteenth game, it all came down to one move. Just like Boris Spassky, you saw by moving bishop to d7, my next move would have been king to g4, and one more move to win. It is a tricky one, and you were intelligent enough to see the outcome. That's why I think you are ready for this.”

He leaned down and rummaged in a plastic bag at his feet. When he sat up, he had a beige rectangular piece of plastic with silver buttons on the top. On the front on each side were clocks, timers.

“I'm going to show you a new way to play,” he said.

My mother cleared the dishes.

“Sit down here.” He pointed to the seat across from his. We played three fast games. I liked punching the button after I made my move. The fast pace was exhilarating. In the third game, I saw it. The perfect move. Maybe even checkmate. I picked up my black piece and carefully moved it.

“Check!” The word flew out of my mouth before I realized it.

My uncle stopped, frozen, his hand hovering in the air above the chessboard.

At the sink, my mother dropped a glass, shattering it. She stood at the sink, her back to us, shoulders hunched over, quaking.

It was the first word I'd spoken in six months.

To this day, my mother will tell you that my grandmother broke the evil spell of the
malocchio
that night and that is why I started speaking again.

Me
? I really don't know.

W
ATCHING MY GRANDMOTHER
now in my mother's hospital room, I know that at the very least, what she's doing won't hurt my mother.

“Nana?”

She jumps, and a little drop of water from the bowl spills on my mom's cheek. I stare as it slowly dribbles down my mother's neck.

“I tell you about this at Christmas,” my grandmother says, shaking her head. “It is time you know.”

“What?”

“This. I get rid of the
malocchio
on your mother.”

“I remember when you did it before. For me.” I hover in the doorway, afraid to disrupt what she is doing by coming closer.

“It is a sacred ritual that was passed down to me by my nana. It can only be shared at midnight on Christmas Eve. It is time you know.”

She sets the bowl down and holds her hand out to me. I walk over and put her hand in mine.

“Okay. It's a date. Why don't you go home, Nana?” I say, squeezing her hand.

She is about to protest, but then nods. “Yes, I'm very tired. Your uncle Dominic is supposed to be here soon. Any minute. I want to get home and get the house ready for everybody coming over tomorrow. I need to make coffee and some biscotti and maybe some ravioli.”

“Nana, don't worry about that. Nina and Sally said they are bringing treats. You don't need to do anything except be there and relax. Go. Go on home and take a nap. I'll sit with Mama until Uncle Dom comes.” I grab her and hug her, folding myself into her softness.

“I say the rosary for Grace today,” she says, pouring whatever is in the small bowl into a bag, then tucking them both in her handbag.

“Thank you,” I whisper in her ear.

I watch as she leaves the room, giving one last glance at my mother.