Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (13 page)

 

Chapter 24

I
F
I
SQUINT
as I drive along the shores of San Pablo Bay, I pretend I can see San Quentin in the distance, nestled across the bay in Marin County. But the smog is blocking my view. The day is gray and dull. It's how I imagine my heart must look right now. In thirty minutes, Grace will have been gone for twenty-­four hours. An entire day.

Right after we left the hospital, West called. They have an address for Frank Anderson's mother, and we are nearly there. In the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder if West would have been able to find Anderson's mother years ago if it had been a “priority.” I know the FBI's focus has been on terrorism since 9/11, but it is still disheartening to hear that my case was “shelved.”

Donovan's Saab plummets into a huge pothole and back out again, and I grab for the dash. Road repair is the least of the city's problems.

Richmond can be one of the roughest areas in Contra Costa County. Last year the city was dubbed the ninth most dangerous city in the country. But it also has more waterfront—­thirty-­two miles—­than any other Bay Area city. Last year, after a man was shot in the face at a teenager's funeral, a group was formed with the police chief and city officials' blessings to put fifty of the city's most lethal characters in a program to turn their lives around. Our paper's Richmond city reporter is writing an ongoing series about the program, which is still in its infancy.

Passing the Richmond-­San Rafael Bridge, nicknamed “The Rollercoaster Bridge” for its curves and bumps, we pull off the freeway into an older part of the city, with apartments and strip malls and trash clogging the gutters.

Right when we pull up to the address, I look at the clock on Donovan's dash. Three o'clock. Grace has officially been missing for twenty-­four hours. The longest twenty-­four hours of my life.

I debate mentioning the time. Donovan takes his gun out of the glove compartment and tucks it into his shoulder holster before he leaps out of the car and furiously smokes a cigarette before we have to go inside. West pulls up in his dark blue Crown Vic a second later, and Donovan glances at his watch. I don't have to tell him how long Grace has been gone. He already knows.

Although the streets are empty, Donovan sets the car alarm before all three of us head up the cracked sidewalk to the squat apartment building before us. Apartment 3 is on the first floor, behind a barred screen door.

An emaciated woman answers our knock. She has long, stringy gray hair that is nearly yellow and wears a pilled sweater over sweatpants. I can't see beyond her into the apartment.

“Mrs. Anderson?”

Her eyes narrow and her arm flinches, ready to slam the door.

“I'm FBI Special Agent Noah West.” West flashes his badge and wedges his shoe in the space between the door and the jamb. I stare at his shoe, some type of loafer. It looks like something an old man would wear.

“Detective Sean Donovan, Rosarito Police Department.” Like West, Donovan flashes his badge. “We're here to ask you about your son, Frank Anderson.”

She startles us by rolling her eyes. “Frank? You're here about Frank? I haven't seen Frank since he was five. That's why you're here? I thought you were the social ser­vices.”

Her efforts to push the door closed come up firm against Donovan's foot.

“Who raised him then?”

“His father's mother. Lenora Anderson. She's probably dead and gone now, though. Last I heard she was in that home for old folks down the way on Crockett Boulevard.”

Donovan withdraws his foot, and we leave to the sounds of her mumbling. “Thought they were the social ser­vices coming with my check.”

I
NSIDE THE
C
ROCKETT
Boulevard care center, Lenora Anderson sits in her wheelchair in the sunroom, staring at nothing. When I see her vacant gaze, disappointment fills me. She is so old. As we watch, the nurse who escorted us says Mrs. Anderson is 102 and has good days and bad days. She doesn't know which one today will be.

The nurse nods toward Mrs. Anderson. “I'll leave you be. I'll be around if you need me.” She busies herself with cleaning up some Scrabble pieces some other residents of the facility must have left. The care center smells damp and slightly sour and I try to breathe through my mouth. The sunroom is deserted for some reason, which doesn't make sense until I hear laughter and hooting from a room down the hall. It's time for
Wheel of Fortune
in the TV room, apparently.

West turns to me. “Why don't you try talking to her first?”

I'm surprised, but grateful.

Mrs. Anderson is facing a big picture window. She is tiny and shriveled, with wispy white hair in curls. A red-­and-­gold-­colored crocheted blanket covers her lap. Beside it is a small teddy bear. I crouch in front of her, looking for any comprehension in her eyes. She smells like talcum powder.

“Mrs. Anderson?” I say gently, putting my hand on hers.

Her head wobbles on her neck as she takes me in.

“I don't know you,” she says in a voice barely above a whisper. “Am I supposed to know you?”

“No. We've never met. I'm Gabriella Giovanni. I'm here to ask you about your grandson, Frank Anderson.”

She looks blank and kneads at the blanket on her lap. “My grandson?”

“Yes, Frank,” I push on. “Your son's child. You raised him, remember?”

“Frank.” She lets the word roll across her tongue slowly, without revealing whether she remembers him or not.

I give Donovan and West, behind her, a look of despair. She doesn't remember her own grandson, whom she raised?

“I know Danny. My son. He was such a good boy. He was the light of my life.” Her head wobbles as she speaks, and a big grin spreads across her face, then fades. “But he never comes to visit me. I think he's dead. They won't tell me that, but I know. A mother always knows.”

Her words send a brief chill down my spine.
A mother always knows
.

“Maybe you could tell me about Danny?”

She doesn't answer. She smacks her lips together and leans her white curls back on the chair's cushion. Soon, the soft sounds of snores are coming out of her open mouth.

The nurse is at our side with a sympathetic look.

“I saw you on the news,” she says, looking away as soon as she says it. “Why don't you come back in about an hour and try again?”

I
N THE PARKING
lot of the care facility, Donovan and West talk and smoke outside, while I lean back against the car seat, closing my eyes. I say a silent prayer.
Please bring Grace home safe
. I'm worried if I elaborate on that one desire, it will take power away from my prayer. So I say it over and over and over.
Please bring Grace home safe. And alive,
I add, suddenly worried that God's idea of “safe” might be different from mine.

I know I'm being ridiculous. When I was little, my grandmother used to tell me that the words you used to pray didn't matter. God always saw your heart and what you really wanted and needed.

As I sit there, Donovan's conversation with West only reveals itself in a word here and there drifting through the cracked car window. “Body. Benicia. Bible verse.”

West walks to his car, and Donovan climbs in the driver's seat and puts his hand on my thigh.

“You hungry?”

No,
I think, but I nod.

“West has a meeting,” Donovan says. “We'll come back here alone in an hour or so. Right now, I need to eat. Those donuts at the police station didn't cut it. Let's go eat and come back in an hour.”

As we leave the driveway, I wonder about something. “Where did they find that third body again?”

“On the shores of Benicia.”

I sit up straighter. “All three bodies were found within a few square miles. Do you think he's dumping them close to where he's living or staying?”

Donovan gnaws on his inner cheek, nodding. “That's what we're going on,” he says. “We've got detectives canvassing all the businesses around each murder scene to see if they saw anything suspicious, but also showing ­people in shops and houses Grace's flier, the composite sketch of the man on the beach, and Frank Anderson's picture.”

I
PICK AT
some calamari at the restaurant and sip on a soda. Nothing seems real. The world around me appears flat and dull.

As I'm eating, my sister-­in-­law Sally calls and tells me that the family talked and they want to hold a candlelight vigil at Ocean Beach tomorrow night a few hours after the family meeting at my grandmother's. They'll only hold the vigil
if
Grace is still gone, she adds quietly.

I close my eyes as she says the word “vigil.”

“Vigil” means that Grace is a missing person. It means she's been gone for much too long. My mind dips into a whirlpool of memories flying around, and as much as I don't want to, one huge question leaps to mind: Have they ever found someone alive after a vigil is held? I push the thought back down into the darkness before I even try to answer it.

“Gabriella?” Her voice startles me back.

“I'm here.”

­“People want to come together and pray, you know.”

“Yes.”

“I've already called Father Liam. He says he'll come and lead the prayer.”

“Yes.” Over the past five years, Father Liam has become something of a father figure to me in addition to being a spiritual counselor.

“Gabriella,” her voice breaks. “We'll plan for it and then maybe won't even have to hold it, right?”

“Yes.”

When I get off the phone, Donovan raises an eyebrow.

The words stick in my throat, and I have to take a few sips of water before I can speak.

“A vigil. Tomorrow night.”

He closes his eyes for a few seconds, then opens them and nods, staring straight ahead.

B
ACK AT THE
care facility, Mrs. Anderson is back in the sunroom but now has something orange smeared around her mouth. Her early dinner? Pureed carrots? I want to wipe it off but am worried she will recoil from my touch, no matter how gentle I am.

“Do you remember me?” I ask. Donovan sits nearby. We decided it would be less intimidating if it was only me talking to her.

“Yes. You wanted to know more about Danny.”

A smile reveals a missing tooth off to the side, and her eyes grow glassy. “He was such a good boy.” Her mouth closes, and she frowns, as if remembering something distasteful.

“Can you tell me about Danny as an adult?” I'm hoping to gently get to the part where Danny has a son.

Mrs. Anderson spends the next twenty minutes talking about Danny. The nap has done her good. She tells us what a great soccer player he was. How he opened up his own garage at twenty-­two and then died when a car fell on him.

The sunlight is now streaming through the window, making her glow a golden color. She closes her eyes for a second and grows quiet. I put my hand on hers again. It's now or never.

“What about Frank? Was he close to Frank?”

“Danny died when Frank was just a grade-­school kid.”

I shoot a glance at Donovan.

“Do you remember Frank now?”

“Why, yes.” She shakes her wobbly head, and her eyes grow wider. “I remember Frank.” She narrows her eyes. “Why do you ask if I remember him ‘now'?”

“This morning you didn't remember him.” I pat her hand with mine. It feels like velvet.

“This morning? That doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't I have remembered Frank? I had that boy since he was a child. I raised him. Why wouldn't I have remembered him?”

She looks at me beseechingly for answers.

“Well, Mrs. Anderson,” I say. “Give yourself a break. I'm sure you have a lot to remember after a hundred and two years on this earth.”

I smile and squeeze her hand.

“One hundred and two years old, huh?” She looks as if she is marveling at this number. “Well, that explains a lot.”

She is such a sweet lady. I feel slightly guilty about what I'm about to say, but I know Grace's life might depend on it.

“Mrs. Anderson, I have something to tell you.”

She tilts her head and listens.

“I think your grandson might have done some bad things. Frank might have hurt my sister, and he might have my daughter right now. I need to find him to see if he has my little girl.”

“Oh good Lord, help us,” she says, letting out a puff of air. “He saw his daddy get killed, so that might be it. He cut out of my house when he was fourteen. I never saw him after that. I'm sorry. I'm not going to be much help. I'm so sorry.” Her eyes turn down with sadness. And disappointment fills me.

I'm about to stand up from my crouch in front of her when her eyes grow wide and she leans forward in her chair.

“But his son might know where he is,” she says with a gasp of excitement, clutching the arms of her chair as she attempts to sit up straight.

“His son?” I lean forward, taking her hand between both of mine.

“Frank's son. He came to me one day. I hadn't even known I was a great-­grandmother.”

Frank Anderson has a son.

This stops me in my tracks. I shoot a glance at Donovan, who is reaching for his phone.

“He was a good boy. He brought me flowers and chocolates and spent the afternoon with me.”

“When was this?”

She scrunches her face and closes her eyes, then opens them in defeat. “I don't know. I don't remember.”

“What was his name? How old was he?” I find myself pressing her fingers in mine and let up the pressure, worried I'm hurting her. Donovan is behind her, tapping the buttons on his phone. Texting someone what we are hearing.

“His name is Frank, too, but for some reason he used that as his last name. His name is Anders Frank,” she says in a matter-­of-­fact voice. “He seemed like a young man, but I can't tell how old ­people are nowadays.”