Blessed Are Those Who Weep (18 page)

 

Chapter 38

D
ONOVAN
IS
ON
his computer and barely looks at me when I come in. Maybe he's angry with me for the other night? I wanted so much to respond to his touch, but lately I'm as cold as stone around him.

“Busy day today?” I ask and lean over to kiss him while trying to get a glimpse at what he's looking at. It looks like he's writing a long e-­mail.

“Huh?” He looks up like he just noticed me.

“You never called me back,” I say.

“Oh, well I figured you were probably too busy hanging out with Detective Strohmayer.”

“I left you a message that I'd finished meeting with him and was available to talk.”

He doesn't answer. The muscle in his jaw gives him away. He's irritated.

“Are you jealous?”

He stands and closes the top of his laptop, turning his back to me. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You're acting like this because I didn't want to be rude and answer my phone in the middle of an important conversation?”

He turns now and stares at me, pouring himself a tumbler of bourbon. “What do you want me to think?”

My eyebrows raise, and my mouth opens.
Are you kidding
?

“I want you to trust me. That's what I want.”

He sighs and slumps onto the couch, taking a big sip of his drink before he answers. “I do trust you.”

I wait for him to say more, but the silence stretches on for several seconds.

“What's going on?” I stand right before him so he has to look at me. I can't read the look he gives me.

“Let's not talk about this right now,” he says, standing and grabbing his gun and wallet. He sticks his wallet in his back pocket and his gun in his side holster. “I've had a long day. I'll be crabby until I eat something.”

We walk over to Mr. Sushi across the lake and eat dinner. Or, rather, Donovan eats. I eat a few pieces of a California roll but plead an upset stomach. Donovan downs several cups of sake and eats the entire fried green tea ice cream we usually share.

Back in his apartment, Donovan is slightly drunk, which surprises me. He's usually a man totally in control. He grabs me as I'm getting dressed for bed and kisses me so fiercely that my body responds wildly to him, filling me with relief. At the same time, I can't help but think it's such a waste.

Long afterward, as I lie in the dark next to his sleeping form, I'm empty, hollow. Even though the sex tonight was more like it used to be, there was something there between us, something nearly tangible, that separated us even as our bodies were as close as they could be. I'm not comfortable with the man I'm supposed to marry one day. The reality strikes me so hard that I have to choke back a sob. What has happened to us? I try to reassure myself that it's nothing. I tell myself that if I can only get pregnant, everything will be fine. But doubt swells within me. I push it way back into the furthest recesses of my mind.

 

Chapter 39

M
ARSHA
BITES
HER
pencil as she watches me.

My heart speeds up. I know her enough to be able to tell she is about to say something I don't want to hear.

I've spent the past hour confiding in her. About my secret sleuthing to find Frank. About hiding the e-­mails from Donovan. About my hunt to prove Joey Martin killed his family and how unless I do something, Lucy's going to be in his custody tomorrow. About my longing to be a mother to Lucy. I've spilled it all, given up the ghost, talked about it all until I feel empty, drained. She's sat and listened thoughtfully without saying much.

She asks how I'm sleeping.

Horrible.

How's my appetite.

Almost nonexistent.

How are my moods?

Shitty.

She leans back and steeples her fingers. Uh-­oh.

“I think you are suffering from postpartum depression.”

Her words make sense, and at the same time, they seem completely absurd.

“It is also complicated by the fact that you are mourning the death of a loved one.”

“My sister?”

“Your baby.”

Her words make me clamp my mouth shut.

It doesn't seem real that I'm mourning someone I never met. But she's right.

It explains a lot.

“I'll write you a prescription for Prozac.”

I stare at her until she looks up from her scribbling.

“I can't take it.”

She raises her eyebrow.

“I'm not going to have any of that in my body in case I get pregnant. I don't want anything to jeopardize another . . . baby.”

“Studies show that mothers who take most antidepressants go on to have healthy babies. It doesn't seem to affect the child at all.”

“Seem to?” I say. “They didn't think thalidomide affected babies, either, until they linked it to all the babies born without arms and legs. I'm just not comfortable with that.”

“I get that,” Marsha says. “It actually takes three months to see any benefits from the prescription anyway.” She stands and holds out the small slip of paper. “I'd feel more comfortable if you'd just have the prescription filled. You'll have that as an option in case your depression gets worse. We can talk about it more next week, okay?”

I shove the piece of paper in my bag even though I have no intention of ever getting it filled. The best cure for me is to get knocked up ASAP.

 

Chapter 40

T
ODAY
IS
THE
day Joey Martin is going to pick up Lucy.

I couldn't stop it. I don't know why I ever thought I could.

I'm a failure. I couldn't save that girl from her father, who, according to his mother-­in-­law, is, at the least, a jerk and, at the worst, a mass murderer. And now with Khoury's murder, the missing evidence, and a cover-­up that extends to the U.S. military, I'm more convinced than ever that Joey Martin had something to do with the massacre.

I'm also a failure in my relationship, which I can sense slipping into an abyss that will be greater than both of us. It seems like Donovan and I have barely spoken in days. We have a date tonight. In the morning, he's leaving for a weeklong conference on policing in Washington, D.C. I already miss him, but I'm too exhausted to care.

A little after noon, Tricia calls. I've been expecting her call all morning.

“He just picked her up.” She is whispering. “I'm watching him take her to the car right now.

“What's he like?”

“He's hugging her and stuff, but there was something about his eyes. He looked a little off, you know.”

“Tricia, okay, now this part is important. Can you describe his car? Can you write down the license-­plate number?”

“I'll try. It's a little hard to see. Oh God, I'm practically leaning out the second story here, Jesus. The things I do for my
famiglia
.
Ohibò, cosa mi tocca sentire
!”

“Try really hard.” I'm squinting my eyes, as if I'm her trying to see the license-­plate number.

“It's a dark green four-­door sedan. Maybe Nissan or Toyota, I can't tell these things, for Christ's sake. Oh Jesus wept, he's blocking the plate. He's standing right in front of it, putting a bag in the trunk . . . okay, now he's in the car . . .”

“The plate. The plate, Tricia.” I practically hiss the words.

“Okay, okay. S . . . M . . . or maybe it's an N. D. It looks like a one, a six. Oh shit, he pulled out. I can't see the last number. Oh crap. He pulled out on the street. I'm sorry. That's all I got.”

Not good enough.

I slump back in my chair. I was leaning forward in excitement.

“Sorry. I'll see if I can find out more about him. Maybe where he's staying or something.”

I sigh. She didn't have to call me. It's not her fault. “Thanks, Tricia.”

“No problem, babe.”

I hang up and close my eyes.

He got Lucy. I didn't save her in time.

M
Y
FAILURE
FILLS
me with a heavy sludge of inertia all day. I don't want to do anything except curl up into a little ball and sleep for three weeks, but I manage to pound out a few stories before deadline. As my car slips into the Caldecott Tunnel into Oakland, a motorcycle with its light on pulls up so close to me I can't see anything in my rearview mirror except his form. We are the only two vehicles in the tunnel, but he keeps revving his engine, as if urging me to speed up.

Every time I try to look behind me, the bright light from his headlamp blinds me. He's dangerously close to my bumper. I gently tap on my brakes, but it only makes the motorcyclist angry, and he weaves back and forth behind me, stepping on the gas and letting off.

I did a big story a few months ago on motorcyclists who did these types of stunts on I-­680. Sometimes a dozen of them would line up in a row and zoom down the freeway with their front tires in the air, popping wheelies. Others stand on top of their bikes at speeds of nearly eighty miles per hour. It seems pretty cool until someone dies, which eventually happens to many of them. What triggered this story wasn't the death of one of the bikers. It was the death of an innocent bystander. A teenage girl.

The motorcyclists were doing their stunts down the freeway, and one smashed into a car carrying a fourteen-­year-­old girl. The impact killed her instantly. As fate often has it in these types of things, the motorcyclist was not killed. He might walk funny for the rest of his life, but he's alive.

I named him in the story and received a flurry of hate mail, saying that I wrongly blamed him for the death and that if the girl had been wearing a seat belt, she'd probably still be alive.

The logic of the hate mail infuriated me. I wonder if this motorcyclist behind me somehow recognized me and is taunting me.

When we emerge from the tunnel, we come up on some slower traffic. I slam on my brakes to avoid hitting a slow car in front of me, and the motorcyclist zips off to the side of me on the shoulder. For a few seconds, he is right beside me, head turned to look in my window. His helmet's visor is opaque and pulled down past his chin. I dart a glance at him. Then he is gone, zooming down the freeway on the white line, leaving all of us behind.

My heart is racing, and a small part of me wants to keep on driving into San Francisco rather than keep my date with Donovan. I want to go home and lock my door and get in bed. But I drive to his place on autopilot. I need to take advantage of any time I have with him before he leaves for his trip.

He wants to see a movie at the Grand Lake Theatre. Usually, I love watching the elderly woman play the Wurlitzer organ before the show, sitting on a small platform that rises as she plays. She seems to float up from the floor, stopping five feet above the ground and playing the entire time. The haunting organ notes reverberate throughout the older theater, and raucous whistling and applause always follow the performance. After, there is a small light show as layers of curtains part in a swishy flourish.

About once a month, we walk over here from Donovan's place on the lake. Although I like listening to the organist, tonight I'd rather be home in my pajamas snuggling on the couch and watching classics, such as
Houseboat
with Cary Grant and Sophia Loren.

I'm irritated that we are going to waste tonight together sitting side by side in a dark movie theater, where we can't even talk. Even though my body seems numb lately, I do want things back to normal. That's why under my dress, I'm wearing sexy lace stockings and a garter belt that match my red lace bra and panties.

As the previews play, I lace my fingers in Donovan's. In the flickering light from the big screen, I study his face and give his hand a squeeze. He returns the squeeze, but it seems halfhearted. In the light from the big screen, his jaw seems set. Hard. The muscle along his sculpted cheekbone is tight. I take his hand and put it in my lap, moving it down to my thighs to let him touch the lace top of my stockings, but he erupts into a cough and removes his hand from mine to cover his mouth.

I stare at his profile for a few more minutes until the main feature begins. He doesn't look over at me even once. I know things have been tense lately. Losing the baby wasn't easy on him, either. The night I told him is the only time I've ever seen him cry. It didn't last long, and he would be mortified if I ever brought it up, but the fact is, he was as heartbroken as me.

So how come he seems to have gotten over it so much easier than I did?

At first, after I miscarried, I was probably no picnic to be around, obsessed with my cycle. But I'm over that now. Or at least trying to be better.

In the back of my mind, I remember him complaining the other night about me obsessing on the Mission Massacre. He also didn't like that I'd lost weight. Well, I can't help either of those things. As the movie plays, I zone off. No matter how hard I tried, it's too late now. Lucy ended up in her father's care. Every once in a while, I dart a glance at Donovan's profile. At one point, I try to hold his hand again, but he withdraws it almost immediately to dig into the popcorn tub in his lap. That's when I know I'm not imagining it; something is wrong. Hopefully we can get over it when we get back to his place. I didn't wear this lingerie for nothing.

W
E
ARE
NURSING
drinks at The Black Cat Café down the street from the theater, and a lot more than my garter belt feels uncomfortable right now. Donovan is downing bourbon, and I'm sipping a Pellegrino. Donovan thinks it is because I'm trying to get pregnant, but the truth is I can barely make myself sip even water.

The dark bar is lit from the ceiling with turquoise neon lights, giving everyone an unearthly glow and making all the silver mirrors on the walls glitter. The room is the size of a large hallway. Its few black velvet chairs are taken, so we sit at the bar. I study his reflection in the mirror. He hasn't smiled at me once tonight. I swing my legs around to face him.

“What gives?”

He presses his lips together, and my heart seems to stop for a second.

“I've been thinking a lot about us, our relationship,” he finally says, turning to face me on the stool so our knees are touching.

“I know it hasn't been easy—­” I start, but the look on his face silences me.

“I know this miscarriage was hard on you. It was hard on me, too.” He exhales. “It still is hard on me.”

My heart melts at these words, and I reach for his hand. He doesn't return the pressure. My throat seems to swell until I can't swallow the lump that has appeared there.

“What I'm trying to say is, I'm sure losing the baby triggered all of this, but that doesn't make it okay.”

All of this?

“Your obsession with Frank? I get that, too,” he continues. “These are things I can handle. Because I love you.” He pauses and looks me so deeply in the eyes that I feel naked in the dark bar.

A weight lifts from my chest. No matter what he is saying, he loves me, and that means we can handle everything else, right?

He looks away for a second as he presses on.

“But what I'm not sure I can handle is your . . . obsession . . . transferring that fixation to every story you report about. And frankly, I don't think you can handle it, either.”

“I can—­” I interrupt, but he holds up a hand so he can continue, and he says the words that lodge themselves like a knife in my heart.

“We shouldn't even consider having a baby until you get this . . . handled. You've checked out completely. Our sex life—­it's like we're in a laboratory. I don't want to have a baby under these circumstances. I don't think you do, either.”

I'm stunned into silence. I blink, and he continues.

“I love you too much to sit back and watch you destroy yourself.”

Destroy myself? Because I want to put a killer behind bars? He watches me and waits for my response. I take a long drink of water before I speak.

“You're a cop, Donovan,” I say finally. “You of all ­people should understand.”

“It's because I'm a cop that I do understand. I've watched many of my colleagues get too close to a case and let it destroy them. It's always that one case—­the one that got away—­that leads them to ruin their lives. But what worries me the most about you is that there will always be a new one. At least that's the way it seems to be going.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Silence stretches between us.

He sighs and stands. “We need some time to think about all of this and our next step.”

I know my mouth is open and my forehead is wrinkled in confusion. What the hell does that mean?