Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (19 page)

A
FTER THE CRIME
scene technicians push into the garage to look at the writing, we leave.

As we head home, my face is scrunched and my hands clenched as I mull the message over and over and over again until I think I'm going to scream.

What does it mean? The three points. It's a location. But where?

I'm mulling it over when Donovan stops and grabs a coffee in Berkeley. I wait in the car. He hands me an iced latte, something I would usually savor. I reach for it automatically and tug on the straw, sipping it. Before I know it, the latte is gone and I'm sucking air.

The sun is dipping lower on the horizon behind the Golden Gate Bridge, turning the San Francisco skyline into a landscape of dark, looming towers.

My stomach does a small somersault. The rush of caffeine on an empty stomach, along with all the stop-­and-­go traffic on the Bay Bridge, has made me feel barfy.
Don't vomit.

I keep going over what the tiny message said. “Your iniquities have separated her from you. She will not hear you. Repent at the city of souls and then go where the three points will lead you.”

We are nearly at our exit to the Embarcadero when I burst out.

“Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma.”

He yanks the steering wheel and our tires yelp as we pull into the through lane.

“I don't know what he means by the three points,” I say, “but I remember my mother telling me that not only is Colma called the City of the Dead, it's also called the City of Souls.”

Donovan doesn't answer, just moves his head up and down and grits his teeth. His knuckles are turning white on the steering wheel.

“Do you think we need to call someone else to meet us at the cemetery?” I say.

“You mean, like a cop?” His voice is bitter.

“Donovan?” He glances at me out of the corner of his eye but doesn't answer. “Are you okay?” He knows what I mean. He knows that I'm not asking an inane question. We are both in the exact same spot. Hell. We don't need to acknowledge that. It is as present as the night falling around us.

“I'm a cop. I'm a detective. I'm the one ­people are supposed to call for help. I'm not supposed to call anyone else.
I'm
a detective,” he says. “I used to think I was a pretty good one.”

“You're a fucking brilliant detective,” I say, my voice breaking.

“So why can't I find our daughter?” He bites off the last two words and swallows hard.

I reach over and grab his hand, holding it tightly. I don't know how to answer him.

Traffic comes to a stop on the freeway in front of us and he has to put both hands on the steering wheel. I want to scream. In the last few days, anything that has kept me from going quickly where I need and want to go has felt like a physical barrier to me saving Grace. It's crazy and not true, but I feel like I need to be barreling forward at warp speed or I will lose her. And the one time I tried to quell that despair-­filled anxiety by obliterating my thoughts with sleeping pills, I was nearly comatose. There is no normal.

There will never be normal again.

We both know this in the bottoms of our hearts. But we are here together. For now, we have each other. In the back of my mind, a statistic jumps into my mind: Eighty percent of ­couples separate after the death of a child.

Even thinking this makes my stomach heave.
She's not dead. She
's not dead. She's not dead
. I would know.

I scoot closer to him, sitting on the edge of my seat. I reach over and lace my fingers through his on the steering wheel.
Don't barf. Don't barf. Don't barf
. We both stare straight ahead, our faces lit up by the brake lights in front of us.

 

Chapter 37

W
HEN WE FINALLY
get to Colma, night has fallen and the fog has crept in, low on the ground. The only light comes from orange streetlights that cast feeble glowing light into the cemetery. The gate to the Holy Cross Cemetery is open, but a sign says the cemetery closes at midnight.

As I open the car door, a fishy, briny smell greets me even though we are inland. I stuff the pockets of my trench coat with my gun, a small flashlight, and my cell phone.

Donovan grabs my hand and pulls me along with him to the entrance to the cemetery. My feet are on fire from wearing these high-­heeled Easter sandals all day. I've been ignoring them as we have gone from one place to another, but when Donovan turns to me at the front gate, he sees me wince.

We both look down and see tiny bits of blood seeping out the sides of my sandals. I had thought it felt squishy to walk. At the same time, a wave of nausea strikes me and I hold my stomach. I feel bile rise in my throat, and I swallow it down.

Donovan notices.

“You okay?”

I shake my head. He hands me his keys. “Wait in the car. I'll go check out the grave. I don't expect to see a damn thing. There's not another car parked around here for miles. I'll be right back. Rest here for a minute. I promise I won't be long.”

“No way.” But I'm still so nauseous that any movement seems like torture.

He takes out his gun and checks the chamber. “Please don't argue with me. Besides, I need you to wait here. I doubt he's in the cemetery with Grace. If he is, there is no way he's getting over the twelve-­foot-­high metal fence with her. This is the only way in and out. I need you to stay here and guard this entrance.”

What he says makes sense. I still have the P-­11 in my jacket pocket. Its weight on my leg is reassuring. And the chance to sit back, put my sore feet up, and not move until my stomach settles does sound appealing.

“I'm not sure you should go alone,” I say. “Maybe we should call nine-­one-­one?”

His eyes narrow. “Ella, I'm a cop. I am nine-­one-­one. I have two guns. I am a trained law enforcement officer. If anything, I'm putting an innocent civilian in danger by having you come in with me. In fact, I should make you get in the car and lock the doors to keep you safe.”

“Okay, I didn't mean to insult you,” I say, a little irritated. “I just worry. Will you call me when you get to Anderson's grave?”

“It's not that far. Less than a five-­minute walk.”

“Will you call?” My voice is pleading.

“Yes.” He takes out his phone and holds it in his hand. “I'll call.”

I sit sideways in the passenger seat so my legs stick out as I pry the bloody sandals off my feet and wince at the pain. I dig in my pocket and take out the gun, laying it on the driver's seat. I rummage in my bag for something to stop the bleeding from blisters erupting across my toes, on my ankles, and on the bottom of my feet.

All the while, I keep listening for any sound from the cemetery. Any voices. Anything. For a second, I reach for the gun as a car goes by on the road, but I relax when it doesn't pull into the parking lot. I look in the glove compartment and see a roll of silver duct tape. Carefully, I rip off strips of the tape and loosely wrap my feet in them, not taking my eyes off the entry to the cemetery.

Donovan should call any second. My feet are taped and my stomach feels much better. If he doesn't call me in two minutes, I'm going in there if he likes it or not.

 

Chapter 38

T
HE NIGHT IS
warm, so I keep the passenger door open and lean my head back on the seat. I look at the time on the phone. One more minute and I'm going in.

Gunshots fill the night. At the same time, my cell phone rings and I scramble to grab the gun, my phone, and get out of the car all at the same time.

“Got . . . me.” Donovan's voice is feeble, weak through the phone line. A tingly chill of horror streaks down my body, and my face feels ice cold.

“Where are you?” I'm in front of the car, peering frantically into the dark cemetery. Even before he answers, I'm running toward the entrance to the graveyard.

He doesn't answer.

“Sean!” I'm shrieking. “Sean. Answer me, Sean? Does he have Grace?”

“No.” He gasps the word out. Disappointment floods me, along with sheer terror. Donovan has been shot.

“I'm coming, but first I'm going to hang up and call nine-­one-­one. Can you wait that long?”

I know I'm asking if he's going to die. If I can hang up and still talk to him ever again.

“Yes.”

I click off and dial 911.

“Officer down. Gunshot. Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma. Detective Sean Donovan with Rosarito P.D. A police officer has been shot and might bleed to death. Send a helicopter now. NOW!”

“Ma'am, could we get your name?”

“Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma. Police officer shot. Get a helicopter in the air. This is a police officer's life you are fucking with. Do you have all of this? Are you sending help?”

“Yes, ma'am, Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma. Officer down. Emergency responders are on their way. What is your name? Are there other injuries?”

I'm about to hang up when I remember something I hear on the police scanner frequently. Dispatchers sometimes won't send in EMTs or paramedics to a shooting until the danger is gone, the shooter is gone, and the scene is clear.

“Scene is clear. Safe for emergency personnel. The shooter has fled.”

I hang up. I don't have time for niceties. Most gunshot victims die from bleeding to death. There is about a ten-­minute window to get a wound sewn up if the bleeding is profuse. I have no idea if the shooter is still around or where Donovan has been shot, but I'm not taking any chances.

I'm punching Donovan's number. His phone rings. He doesn't pick up.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God
. I'm chanting and running, I'm racing through the grass of the cemetery, which feels cold and wet on my nearly bare duct-­tape-­wrapped feet. Inside my jacket pocket, the gun slaps against my thigh. I continue my chant mumble. “Answer, answer, Donovan, answer. Please answer the phone. Please pick up. Please pick up. Please pick up.”

I know the grave is in the middle of the cemetery, so every once in a while I glance to both sides, making sure I'm not getting too close to one fence or the other. I keep running and pleading with him to answer. It feels like hours, but I know it hasn't even been a minute I've been running. The cemetery gets darker as I get farther away from the parking lot. Low-­hanging clouds reflect orangish city lights, but the deeper I get into the cemetery, the more the ground is covered by low, roiling fog clouds. Little puffs of clouds that dissipate as I run through them. At eye level, I can still sort of see, and I'm pleading for Donovan to pick up when out of the corner of my eye I see a whitish blur at the top of the cemetery fence. It stops me dead in my tracks. Someone is scaling the fence.

“Stop.” I scream the word as the figure drops to the ground on the other side. At my voice, the person stops and stands there, an eerie figure in the fog, staring at me. For a few seconds, we both freeze—­me, holding the phone in my hand, which has gone to voice mail for the millionth time; the figure, standing with legs spread, facing me, arms extended toward me. Light from a distant streetlight briefly reflects off what he is holding in his hand. A gun. Pointed at me. The figure is slight, not much taller than me, and seems lithe and willowy, almost feminine. Anders. My gun is in my pocket. He will shoot me before I can draw it. My heart is pounding.

We stand there silently for a second until he says in his nasally voice, “You have until dawn to find your daughter. Come alone. If you bring the cops, I kill her and then myself. If you don't make it in time, she dies. When the sun comes up, she dies.”

He lowers the gun and sprints away, disappearing into the night.

I nearly collapse in relief. Grace is still alive. Just then I hear a groan.

“Donovan?”

I scramble toward the noise, tripping over a small headstone and falling flat on my face, but I turn my head to listen. He's close.

“Donovan?” My voice is ragged as I scramble to my feet.

Then I see him. He's pulled himself up to a sitting position and is leaning against a big headstone with an angel statue on top of it. He is holding his side.

I kneel and put my face close to his. I lower him to the ground at the same time I'm clawing and ripping at my dress, tearing strips off. “It's okay. It's okay. Help is on the way. Hang in there. Grace is alive.” I want to give him reason to hang on. My words are one long sob. I have him flat on his back now, and I press the torn fabric of my dress around him, removing his hand that is staunching the blood. It comes away dark and sticky. I work my way under his back, then tie the scrap of dress as tight as I can. The blood doesn't immediately seep through, which is a good sign.

I grab his hand. He squeezes it lightly and makes a grumbling sound. He must be weak from loss of blood?

“So stupid of me. I didn't think he'd be here.”

“You didn't know,” I say, rubbing my thumb across his palm. “Hang in there. Help is on the way.”

Even as I say that, I hear sirens in the distance at the same time I hear the deafening clatter of helicopter blades. “It's okay. They're almost here.”

Then, as if from the heavens, a spotlight illuminates us and sends my hair whirling in front of my eyes from the churn of the blades. Looking up, I try to move my hair to see, but then the helicopter is gone, heading toward the parking lot.

As soon as it sounds like the helicopter lands, I stand and shout.

“Over here. Over here. This way. Over here. Over here.”

As soon as I see a white-­shirted man across the foggy graveyard and see that he sees me, I kneel back down with Donovan.

“It's okay, baby. Help is here.”

“Ella, he said dawn.”

“I know. I know. Don't worry about that right now. Let's get you help first.” I squeeze his hand.

“The three points. The navy. Call West.” The words seem to cost him tremendous effort, and this sends a volley of panic through me. Please don't let this be his last words. Dear God, please don't let him die.

I glance at Anderson's grave marker. Something is different. In front of the grave are some fresh flowers.
How sweet of his son,
I think bitterly. And there is something else. Next to the United States flag is a new flag. This one says United States Navy.

Of course, Frank Anderson was a navy man.

All at once, ­people with flashlights surround me. I'm actually picked up and moved out of the way, and then there are four ­people huddling around Donovan. The first thing they do is shoot questions at him rapid fire.

“Do you have any allergies? Are you on any medication? Where does it hurt? Does this hurt? Are you feeling warm? Do you feel sleepy?”

He is mumbling answers, but at least he is responding. I know they ask the last two questions to gauge whether he is going into shock.

I stand back, watching, clutching my arms around my waist, hugging myself, shivering with fear, not cold.

Within seconds, he's on a gurney and they are running back toward the parking lot. I follow as close as I can. They have some huge pad on his side, and one of the EMTs is running alongside the gurney, holding the pad. Once Donovan is loaded into the helicopter, they hook him up to an IV and EKG. They also press an oxygen mask to his face. His eyes meet mine above it as I peer in, trying to get a glimpse of his face between all the bodies hovering around.

A man warns me I need to move, they are going to close the doors.

Donovan lifts up his oxygen mask and leans a little toward me.

“Excuse me, can I say good-­bye? I'll be quick. I promise,” I say to the man in front of me, leaning into the helicopter.

“No,” the man says without blinking an eye.

“Go. Go get Grace,” Donovan says hoarsely as they close the door. I see the paramedics pressing him back down as he tries to get up. “Go!”

“But I can't leave you, Sean.” I'm sobbing now.

“Go. Get Grace.” He is begging me. I close my eyes for a second and then nod. I have time to duck out of the way before the helicopter blades start up and the helicopter rises into the air and swoops away. I will do as he asks. For our daughter. If his last wish is for me to try to save Grace even if it means I will never see him again, I will live with that. Because I understand. I get it. Because just like me, he loves Grace more than life itself.

But that doesn't stop my heart from breaking a little as the helicopter disappears into the night. I peel out of the parking lot and have blended into traffic when three squad cars come flying past me, heading toward the cemetery.

I point the Saab toward the one place where the three points meet.