Forgotten Island

by Kristi Belcamino

  As I did, I felt something sticky. That’s when I saw that the other side of her head, the one near the wall, was laid open bare. A huge chunk of her scalp and brain were gone. I swallowed my revulsion, looking down on her, her features upside down, her green eyes were wide and glossy. As she rapidly spoke to me in Italian, her words finally came together for me.

  “Sei tu.” It is you.

  I’d never seen her before in my life, but I nodded and continued to brush her hair back on the side that was still intact. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” I tried to keep my voice reassuring even though it wasn’t okay. Not at all. Part of her brain was missing. She was babbling. All I could do was comfort her.

  “Sei tu.” It is you.

  Her green eyes grew wide and she looked angry. She struggled to sit up, but I held her down by placing my forearm across her upper chest. The movement had caused something to ooze out the side of her head. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it wasn’t good. Moving was the last thing she should be doing.

  “Shhh,” I said, searching my memory for remnants of what Italian I remembered. “A chi bene crede, Dio provvede.” It was something my own mother had whispered to me as a child when I was upset. I didn’t know what it meant exactly, but it was all I had. A small part of me wanted to slip out from under her and run away from her as fast as I could. My body pleaded with my mind, begging me to get up and run as far away from this horror-movie scene as possible.

  But my heart ordered me to sit tight. My Budo beliefs gave me resolve, fighting against my body’s natural repulsion.

  Determined to comfort her, I held her as gently as a mother holds her own newborn. My job was to comfort her. I repeated my hopefully soothing words: “A chi bene crede, Dio provvede.”

  But instead of calming her, my words seemed to infuriate her. She said something angry, spitting a little, glaring at me. “Sei tu.” It is you.

  Then her body went limp. She’d been straining against me to lift her head, her neck muscles flexed, but now she relaxed in my arms. In the distance, the sirens seemed to draw closer.

  Hurry. Hurry.

  A nasty taste filled my mouth. I tried not to look, or think about, the side of her head. Instead, I concentrated on her face. Her brilliant green eyes, lined thickly with black eyeliner. Her perfectly shaped eyebrows and lips with red lipstick, forming an “O.”

  The cacophony of sirens was close now. On the street, only a few yards away now. But looking into the woman’s eyes I knew it was too late. She stared at me intently, her gaze full of both fear and fury. I cradled her head as the light left her eyes and the life seeped out of her.

  Bobby came over and tried to move me, but I shook his arm away and continued to stroke the woman’s hair on the one side. I sat there on the cold sidewalk until the paramedics came and gently lifted the woman out of my arms.

  Click Here To Keep Reading…

  Keep In Touch

  Click here to join my newsletter and receive the Gia prequel as a free welcome gift.

  Not available for sale anywhere.

  If you want to chat, you can find me HERE in my Facebook group called Crime, Coffee, & Cannoli. It’s the easiest place to reach me. I’m there every day, several times a day. In addition, it’s a great place to meet and interact with a bunch of kick butt readers just like you!

  Kristi’s Bookshelf

  Gia Santella Crime Thriller Series

  City of the Dead

  Forgotten Island

  Dark Night of the Soul

  Lone Raven

  Black Widow

  Taste of Vengeance

  Day of the Dead

  The Gabriella Giovanni Mystery Series

  The Saint

  (prequel)

  Blessed are the Dead

  Blessed are the Meek

  Blessed are Those Who Weep

  Blessed are Those Who Mourn

  Blessed are the Peacemakers

  Blessed are the Merciful

  Did You Like This Book?

  Reviews are the lifeblood of an author’s business. Reviews, honest reviews, mean the world to me. They don’t have to be fancy, either. Nobody is critiquing you on your review. And they don’t always have to be five-star, either. What matters is that people are reading and have opinions on my books. I am a fairly new writer and don’t have the marketing push that many other writers do that gets their books out in front of other readers.

  * * *

  What I do have is you.

  * * *

  I am unbelievably lucky to have very passionate and loyal readers who take the time to let me know what they think of my books (and sometimes even where they think I could improve).

  * * *

  If you liked this book, I would be extremely grateful if you could take a few minutes out of your day to leave a review for Gia and the Forgotten Island on your favorite ebook retailer.

  * * *

  As I said, it doesn’t need to be long or involved, anything will help. Thank you!

  Author’s Note

  In the beginning of this book is a fictional obituary for a fictional character: Ethel Swanson. In 1999, a newspaper, The Central City Extra, was founded to report on the Tenderloin’s improvement efforts. Some years later, at the request of Rev. Glenda Hope, a longtime mover and shaker in the neighborhood, the paper began including obituaries.

  “The obits were a way to put a face on the neighborhood that is populated by ordinary, low-income folks who never got their name in the newspaper while alive and the respectful farewell our obits provided were welcomed by the family and friends left behind,” said Geoff Link, Executive Director of the San Francisco Study Center.

  Many of the obituaries were published in Death in the Tenderloin: A slice of life from the heart of San Francisco.

  In the book’s foreword, Link writes, “This book celebrates the Tenderloin at its most tender. It was inspired by the obituaries published in the Central City Extra—monthly newspaper for the neighborhood’s fixed-income and no-income population. This is a hardscrabble script.

  “The Tenderloin is San Francisco’s poorest neighborhood, a high-density, human services ghetto where hundreds of nonprofit and public providers serve a citywide caseload of homeless people in addition to treating the tribulations of the area’s 30,000 residents.

  “Our hood is a mere few dozen square blocks cemented between downtown and Civic Center. Nob Hill is above. Skid Row below. Death in the Tenderloin is our eulogy this historic, notorious neighbor and its medley of people, absolutely the most diverse community San Francisco, the heart of the city in more ways than one. We want you to come away with a sense of how difficult life is out here on the edge.”

  To put a face to “fixed-income” and “no-income” residents of the Tenderloin who are memorialized in this book, Link and the Study Center Press has agreed to allow me to publish a few excerpts from the book. I include them here in the hopes that you will consider donating to the Study Center.

  You can also support the center by buying the book, Death in the Tenderloin.

  Obituary excerpts from “Death in in the Tenderloin”

  Teresa of the Tenderloin

  HANK WILSON There’s a job that can’t wait, Hank Wilson told the volunteer from Network Ministries. Upstairs, in the Ambassador Hotel that Wilson managed, George was in bad shape, deathly sick, incontinent. He needed a bath. They went upstairs. George had gotten out of his filthy room and was crawling down the hallway naked, covered in his excrement.

  They got him into the bathroom. Wilson drew the bath and with effort pulled George into the tub and started cleaning the tenant who always gave him a hard time.

  “That’s who Hank was at the core,” Rev. Glenda Hope said. She recalled the story in her Network Ministries office, sniffling and dabbing her eyes, not long after Wilson’s death. The incident was more than 20 years ago, and the volunteer was one of hers.

  “That’s what we saw in him. This guy who has so ripped him off—and was
screaming obscenities and cursing him—and Hank was tenderly washing the shit out of his hair like a mother with a baby, and then drying him off with fluffy towels. …

  Hope paused as memories from 28 years of knowing Wilson, often working side by side with him in the Tenderloin’s deepest trenches, flooded her mind. …

  “He was a giant in my life,” Hope said. “More than any other person I’ve known, he showed me the meaning—taught me—forgiveness and unconditional love.”

  Henry “Hank” Wilson, gay activist, innovator and humble servant of the Tenderloin’s sick, poor, and homeless, died at Davies Medical Center. A nonsmoker who had survived the ravages of AIDS, he was 61 when he died of lung cancer.

  Wilson’s achievements are so epic some friends have called him the Mother Teresa of the Tenderloin.

  Musician who almost made it

  GARY MAGUIRE narrowly missed his 15 minutes of fame as a musician. The drummer once tried out for the Jefferson Starship band and had just about everyone’s vote, Stephanie Olson, his wife, said after Maguire’s memorial at the Coronado Hotel where they had lived for six months.

  “Grace Slick liked him and the others in the band wanted him, too—he could play all the instruments but excelled at the drums—but the execs didn’t,” she said. “So he didn’t get it. If he had, I told him he wouldn’t have lived very long, leading that kind of life.”

  Maguire didn’t have a long life, as it was. He died at the hotel, presumably of liver complications, at age 49.

  Several generations of his family were from South San Francisco, so he knew a lot of people. He worked in construction for a while, then was homeless with her for several years. Even so, they made the best of it. Once, when they had a little cash, they took bicycles to Woodside and rode around looking at fabulous houses.

  The city’s Homeless Outreach Team got them into the Coronado and Maguire started to change, got edgier. He was cheerful enough indoors, but not out in the hood where danger lurked. He was sensitive about cruelty and injustice.

  Among her fondest memories is when they were homeless in Burlingame and bought a big, six-person tent—Olson 39, is 6 feet tall herself—and pitched it by the railroad tracks. They had nothing but each other.

  “We’d lie there and talk about nothing and everything. He was so happy and generous. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for me. And nobody bothered us … We had no water or electricity,” she said. “But I was so happy to be with him and wake up to the songbirds.”

  A troubled man

  LOUIS O. GUZMAN Temperamental Louis O. Guzman likely got more respect at his memorial than he got in his 14 years living in the Turk Eddy Preservation Apartments. Cantankerous and combative, he was difficult to be around. He constantly complained and swore, and tried to hustle his fellow residents for money.

  “I told him once, ‘Mr. Guzman you can’t go out on the street talking that way to people—you’ll get beat up or killed,” said manager Patsy Gardner. She said he shot back. “That’s why I’ve got this cane!”

  Guzman died at St. Francis Hospital two weeks before his 84th birthday.

  Seven residents from the 20 occupied apartments in the building paid their respects at Guzman’s memorial. A few recalled he had asked them for cash, others said he wanted to sell them things they didn’t want, like the two old bicycles in his room.

  Guzman left Hawaii 59 years ago. He has a sister there and a brother in the East Bay. It’s believed Guzman worked in construction at one time. He rallied against government and disliked handouts, yet drew SSI and Social Security, totaling barely $900 monthly. Still, on a few occasions, he sent his sister $75 money orders.

  “Not many saw that side of him,” said Rev. Glenda Hope, who conducted the memorial.

  Batman

  LONDEVETTE MORGAN earned his “Batman” nickname by keeping a vigil over the neighborhood while seated at the window of his fifth-floor Elm Hotel room.

  The self-appointed street savior claimed to now many of the shopkeepers below and would tip Elm staff to any untoward activity in their vicinity.

  “He saw himself as a peacekeeper,” said case worker Adam Decker.

  Morgan, a garrulous teller of tall tales, often would get lost in his random thoughts until someone pulled him back to his story line.

  “I saw him Monday, the day before he passed,” said Ricky. “He came by and gave me a dollar, sometimes it was $2. He had a good heart. You don’t see many like him.”

  Roz, the only woman among the eight mourners, said Morgan wanted her to be his girlfriend and told her was going to marry her. But it was hard to know when Morgan was kidding or on the level, she said.

  Scott Ecker, Elm services manager, recalled that once, as he was trying to catch a taxi in pouring rain, Morgan came outside and held an umbrella over him for half an hour, as a simple kindness, talking the whole time.

  “His storytelling was crazy, and it was hard to know what was factual,” Ecker said. “But I was fond of him.”

  Other mourners said Morgan had told them he had played bass in a band and had been a boxer.

  A man who lived across the hall said he had had “thousands” of encounters with Morgan and “75% of them were unhappy. He could be a monster, too,” he said, without elaborating. “He was very sick at the end. I think he drank himself to death.”

  Batman, apparently ignoring his failing health, died in bed reading his newspaper. He was 53.

  Vietnam war hero with mystery legacy

  ROBERT DUSSAULT. A dozen friends bid farewell to Robert Frederick Dussault, a Vietnam War hero and former Union Street antique dealer, in a memorial at the Empress Hotel where his friendliness and generosity were highly regarded.

  Dussault died of “natural causes.” His friends said the ravages of old war wounds reduced him in recent years, and hastened his death at 64.

  They described (him) as an intelligent man with a lovely soul who volunteered to help without being asked, was courteous, invariably had a kind word for folks and would do anything for a friend. But he deeply distrusted the government and impressed people by making his conspiracy theories seem so reasonable.

  (In high school), he was elected senior class president. Dussault attended UC Berkeley, married his high school sweetheart and joined the Navy, becoming a lieutenant in the SEALS. He was wounded in Vietnam and sent home for good, but he insisted on returning, and he did as “a river pilot,” a move that ended his marriage… His boat was strafed, he was wounded and lost the use of his right arm.

  Besides the memory of his good will … Dussault bequeathed a mystery. He was believed to have several storage rooms full of antiques.

  They called him Hollywood

  GLEN BURISE had a spark. Everybody saw it. Maybe it was personality, though he wasn’t boisterous, funny, or overly playful, just kind of edgy. It made you look and consider him. And that’s what he wanted.

  That was the image held among the eight friends and acquaintances who gathered at Civic Center Residence for his memorial. The native San Franciscan, 6 feet tall, always smartly dressed, died of lung cancer at Laguna Honda Hospital at age 56. His trademark black hat was hanging from the wall at the head of his bed. His estranged daughter had visited him the night before.

  Donald Beard, who said he met Burise when he was 14, told how he got his nickname. Glen so wanted to be like his late brother, Fred, a colorful and well-known player in the heyday of the Fillmore jazz scene. But the younger brother couldn’t quite pull it off, Beard said, and got called “Hollywood” for his efforts.

  Burise moved into a fifth-floor unit in the 200-room residence a year ago. He was quiet and dignified and spoke like he had some education. He avoided petty fighting among the residents and brandished an occasional smirk to punctuate conversations. Over recent months, according to friends, he was in and out of the hospital, lost 40 pounds and had to wear white support stockings and blue hospital slippers down to the dining room, never complaining about his pain, deterioration or lost i
mage.

  He had another dimension, too.

  “He expected you to look at him and see him, even in a crowd,” said Carlita Barry. “Here, where he lived a reduced life, he continued to be himself. He didn’t dissolve or disappear. And it was refreshing to see.”

  Acknowledgments

  Huge thanks to Sarah Hanley, who is a breathtakingly talented writer and amazing cover designer. In that vein, this book is a million times better after editing from my brilliant pals, Sam Bohrman and Cristina Pippa.

  * * *

  In addition, I’m incredibly grateful for early reads, proofing, and feedback from Erin Alford, Sharon Long, Beverlee Smith, Emmy McCabe, Taloo Carrillo, Iris Brossard, Emily Goehner, John Bychowski, Mimi Ryan, MaryAnn Forbes, Doug Cronk, Liz Cronk, Mikki Ashe, Christine Green, and Karen Hilleman.

  * * *

  As always, my husband, my biggest champion, makes all this possible.

  * * *

  In addition, I must say I have the BEST writer friends. When it comes to encouragement and providing indefatigable support, I am incredibly grateful to Claire Booth, Nancy Allen, Amy Baldwin, Kaethe Schwehn, Sarah Hanley, Kate Schultz, Owen Laukkanen, and Beth Neal.

  About the Author

  Kristi Belcamino is an Agatha, Anthony, Barry, & Macavity Award-nominated author, a newspaper cops reporter, and an Italian mama who makes a tasty biscotti. As an award-winning crime reporter at newspapers in California, she flew over Big Sur in an FA-18 jet with the Blue Angels, raced a Dodge Viper at Laguna Seca and watched autopsies.