Read Online Blessed are the Dead by Kristi Belcamino - Free Book Online Page A

crayon with arrows point to the figures: “Jasmine. Mommy. Daddy.” The sun is an orange blob at the top of the picture.
    â€œWe only got a little bit of time,” Baker says. “The detectives want us to come down to the station again.”
    â€œThey do? Why?”
    It is suddenly quiet. They both stare at me. I want them in my pocket. I need to be able to come to them again and have them be willing to talk to me. They must believe we are friends and that I’m on their side.
    I watch as Silva thumps the Marlboro pack against his palm, packing the tobacco firmly into the cigarettes—­a motion I’ve made hundreds of times in my life. Watching him and hearing the thudding sound makes my fingers itch to hold a cigarette.
    They continue to stare at me in my linen pants and high-­heeled sandals. We obviously come from different worlds and have nothing in common—­except maybe nicotine addiction.
    It’s never been hard for me to relate to a source. I have a strange talent. Well, it’s either a talent or a curse. I know what I need to do and say to make ­people open up to me. These ­people who live in the shadows, existing in the dark underbelly of life, believe that I’m their friend. Or they might be wallowing in the excruciating pain of losing a loved one, and I can reach down and dreg the depths of the darkness I have deep inside me and convince them that I understand.
    I don’t know if I’m disassociating, but I can detach from my true emotions and, chameleon-­like, enter their world. I can fit in with the district attorney and his cronies one minute and chill with gangbangers on the corner the next. These ­people see something in me they recognize, and it makes them relax and open up. They tell me their stories, and I put them in the paper.
    What Richard Silva and Kelly Baker tell me today could save me, give me the scoop I need. I have an ace in the hole—­the story about my sister Caterina—­that will immediately gain me entry into their world. But I’m not willing to share that with these two. However, there’s another way, I think, as I watch them flick the ashes off their butts.
    It wasn’t easy for me to quit smoking. I was the type of smoker who actually went to bed anxious for the morning to come so I could have a smoke with my coffee. I quit last year thinking that I should start getting my body in shape for having a baby. Now, I wonder if that will ever happen.
    â€œWhy do the police want to see you today?” I ask, expertly lighting the cigarette Silva hands me and shaking the flame from the match. The ­couple exchange a glance.
    â€œThey keep asking us if we did something to Jasmine,” Baker finally says.
    â€œThese are supposed to be the happiest days of our life,” Silva says. He takes a deep drag on his cigarette and takes his time exhaling. “We just got hitched a few months ago, so technically, we’re still honeymooners. I can’t believe this has happened. Cops even confiscated our wedding pictures. They took a bunch of stuff.”
    â€œThey took her little plastic Dora brush,” Baker says. “They also took some clothes and her toothbrush although I don’t know why they would want that.”
    I do. DNA sample. To match a dead body. I slowly exhale, watching them to see if they get the significance of the police taking these items. They don’t. A fuzzy memory appears—­ my mother falling to her knees as she opens the front door and finds a grim-­faced police officer on the other side. I return my focus to Jasmine’s parents. For the next half hour, we sit and smoke together.
    They are so relaxed. I watch, incredulous. Why isn’t Baker curled up in the fetal position? I want to shake her, and yell, “What is wrong with you? Your daughter is missing and probably dead. You have no idea what hell your life has just become!”
    Instead, I ask