Damage

by John Lescroart

But the hallway was a crush of humanity, only a small percentage of it moving toward the stairway. Everybody else milling, talking, caught up in the drama, maybe waiting for the opportunity to rub an actual elbow with the mayor.

  Durbin made a half turn into an opening before him in the throng and found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Sheila Marrenas. She had her microphone out and was interviewing some of the random people who’d been inside the courtroom. Durbin had no sooner recognized her than she turned and stuck the microphone up into his face. “Hello, Sheila Marrenas of the Courier. Quick comment, sir. In light of what we heard in there about the arrest of Ro Curtlee, do you think that we’ve got a serious problem with police brutality here in San Francisco?”

  Before he’d even thought about it, he found himself answering. “Not really, no. Nowhere near as serious as the problem with judges continuing to give rapists and murderers a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  Obviously surprised at his answer—most of the “regular citizens” she’d quote in tomorrow’s article were ringers, supplied by the Curtlees—she stepped back and looked up at him, studying his face while her own took on a questioning look. “Don’t I know you?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m sure I’d remember.”

  She kept looking at him.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’m trying to get to the stairs.”

  OUR TOWN

  By Sheila Marrenas

  Tyranny advances by small increments.

  Just last week, as recounted in this column, Roland Curtlee, the son of the publishers of this newspaper, was released on bail while he awaits a retrial for a crime that he may or may not have committed over a decade ago. Though convicted in the homicide of a woman with whom he admittedly had an intimate relationship, Mr. Curtlee was recently ordered released from prison, citing prejudice against him in the courtroom during his trial, by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. While his lawyers prepare for his new trial, Mr. Curtlee was released on bail. And there matters should have remained, and no doubt would have remained if not for the extra legal efforts of San Francisco’s police department, and in particular its head of homicide, Lieutenant Abraham Glitsky.

  Glitsky had been the chief investigator in the original case against Mr. Curtlee and a prosecution witness during the trial. Within days of Mr. Curtlee’s release from jail, another witness in Mr. Curtlee’s trial, Felicia Nuñez, died in a fire in her apartment. Although this death has not been ruled a murder, Glitsky took it upon himself to call upon Mr. Curtlee at his home, ostensibly to verify his alibi for the time of the woman’s death, but in fact Glitsky did not conduct a formal interrogation at all. The visit, then, served no purpose other than to harass Mr. Curtlee.

  Wishing to discuss this issue further with Glitsky, Mr. Curtlee called on the lieutenant at his home the next day, an act that Glitsky quickly and spuriously labeled a threat to him and his family. With this “threat” as his pretext, Glitsky again appeared with other policemen at Mr.

  Curtlee’s home. Showing no warrant and in complete disregard for Mr. Curtlee’s rights, Glitsky tried to place him under arrest. When Mr. Curtlee demanded an explanation, officers attacked and badly beat him.

  In the ensuing melee, the police battered Mr. Curtlee about the head and shoulders, causing multiple lacerations on his scalp and face, and breaking his arm, before they manhandled him into their waiting police car for the trip downtown.

  Yesterday, charged with several absurd criminal counts, including attempted murder, this farcical (were it not tragic) travesty of justice came to an end when Judge Erin Donahoe once again released Mr. Curtlee on bail, and this in spite of the show of force orchestrated by police, with the new chief of police, Vi Lapeer, in attendance along with District Attorney Wes Farrell, Assistant Chief DA Amanda Jenkins, and Glitsky himself along with the two other arresting officers.

  Rarely have the police in our town so clearly demonstrated their utter disregard for privacy, civil rights, and due process as it has in this case. The fact that Lieutenant Glitsky remains in a position of authority argues strongly that this unconstitutional behavior, and police brutality in general, is condoned by law enforcement and prosecutors at the highest levels. And when the rule of law goes out the window, as it so clearly has in this case, we may be sure that tyranny has taken another step forward, and a true police state is that much closer to becoming reality.

  12

  On the following Friday morning, Glitsky came out of his bedroom at a few minutes after seven and stopped a minute at the kitchen door to watch his daughter work on her pancakes. Intent as a sculptor, Rachel was wiping a loaded forkful around her plate, catching every possible drop of syrup, humming quietly to herself. Finally, quick as a mouse, she brought the bite to her mouth and popped it in, only now looking up and seeing her father. Having her mouth full didn’t stop her from breaking into a grin and talking. “Daddy’s up.”

  “That he is. How’s my sweetie pie this morning?”

  “Good.”

  He came over and kissed the top of her head. “We’ll continue after you’ve swallowed, okay?” Walking over to the stove, only a couple of steps in their small kitchen, he poured water from the simmering teakettle into the cup that Treya had waiting for him on the counter. When he turned around, he saw that Rachel had scrunched her face into a question mark. “Is today Saturday?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  A pause. “Are you wearing your bathrobe to work?”

  “Sure.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I thought it would be fun. What do you think?”

  “I didn’t think they’d let you.”

  “Who?”

  “Everybody.”

  “You think somebody would try to stop me? What if I gave them my look?”

  “What look?”

  “This one.” With his scar, his hawklike nose, and jutting brow, Glitsky had a fearsome visage when he frowned, and now he leaned in close and gave his daughter his best shot, accompanied by a threatening growl.

  She broke into laughter.

  “Hey,” Glitsky said, “that’s supposed to scare you. What kind of a cop would I be if I couldn’t scare people?”

  “Maybe you scare other people, but not me. I know when you’re teasing.”

  “I wasn’t teasing. I was practicing.”

  “You better practice more, then.”

  Glitsky sat down, sipped at his tea. “You’re right. Maybe I’d better. Where’s your mom?”

  “Back with Zack. I think he wet again.” She went back to her pancakes for a minute, and when her mouth was completely full, she said, “You’re not really wearing your bathrobe to work, are you?”

  “Really? No. I’m just a little slow getting dressed this morning.”

  “Mom was, too, you know.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “She had on her bathrobe, too.”

  “She did? Maybe we’ll start a club.”

  Glitsky rarely took a day off. When he’d had his heart attack and then, not so long after that, had been shot, he’d drawn down significantly on his sick leave. His recovery from the shooting featured medical complications too numerous to mention and he’d gone on long-term disability for the better part of two years. In short, during his career the city of San Francisco had already paid him for five hundred and thirty-two days—he’d counted and kept track—when he hadn’t gone in to work. This bothered him. He figured that was more than enough and he generally felt that it wouldn’t be right to take any more, especially when he wasn’t sick.

  Likewise, except for the births of Rachel and Zachary, Treya hadn’t taken a day off for the whole time she’d worked for Wes Farrell’s predecessor, Clarence Jackman. Now she was only a few weeks into Farrell’s administration, and she didn’t want to make an unfavorable impression on her new boss by missing work before he clearly understood that she wasn’t the kind of person who took days off when it suited her.
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br />   Now Treya came into the kitchen and stopped when she saw her husband, sitting drinking tea in his bathrobe. She only had time to give him a quick questioning look before Zachary barged his way in around her and over to the table. Their son had been hit by a car the year before and now wore a helmet against further brain trauma whenever he was awake and ambulatory. He got into his chair and looked in disbelief at his plate. “Rachel ate my pancakes!”

  “You weren’t here.”

  “I was, too!”

  “But you left.”

  “Hey, hey, hey.” Treya came over to the table. “Stop bickering. I’ll make some more pancakes for both of you two. Abe? How about you? The batter’s all ready.”

  “I could probably force myself. Thanks.”

  “More pancakes, coming up,” Treya said.

  “Hey!” Zachary asked. “How come you aren’t dressed yet?”

  “Hay is for horses,” Glitsky said. “And I’m taking a day off.”

  At the stove, Treya stopped ladling batter into the frying pan. “Really?”

  Glitsky nodded. “Really.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing. Maybe go to lunch. Maybe see my dad. Think about things.”

  Treya leaned against the stove, her arms crossed over her chest. “How’d you like some company?”

  “I wasn’t going to ask,” he said, “but if you’re offering, I’d like it a lot.”

  Durbin got into work, letting himself in through the back door, about a half hour late. He received an arched eyebrow from Liza Sato, his assistant manager, as she turned around and spotted him, but he simply evaded the unspoken question with a wave and a stop at the coffee machine.

  Twenty-eight years old, personable, super-competent, single, and very easy on the eyes, Liza was in Durbin’s opinion one of the main reasons that the business was so successful. She’d opened the place on time this morning, as she had on the previous Monday when he’d gone down for Ro Curtlee’s arraignment. The franchise handled UPS, FedEx, and Parcel Dispatch, and was a registered Postal Service office as well, and this morning, by the time Durbin got there, customers stood in lines at every one of the seven workstations.

  About a half hour later, the morning rush just about abated, Durbin’s private telephone line rang in his office. He walked back inside the half-enclosed glass cubicle and picked it up on the second ring.

  He had barely finished saying hello when he recognized the voice of his neighbor from across the street. “Mike. Thank God you’re there. You’ve got to get back home right away. Your house is on fire.”

  On the way out, blowing through streetlights and stop signs, almost praying he’d be pulled over, Durbin tried Janice’s numbers on his cell phone and got nothing but her outgoing messages.

  He caught his first glimpse of the smoke—lots of smoke—as soon as he’d cleared the escarpment that ran from Union up to Broadway. He was still two or three miles away and the dark plume had already risen in the still, clear air to the height of the Sutro Tower. This was no small grease fire in a kitchen. Tires squealing, he finally turned onto his street, Rivera, and immediately saw that he wasn’t going to get within a couple hundred yards of his house, which in spite of the presence of six fire trucks spraying water from at least four hoses still looked to be completely engulfed in flames.

  Janice’s sister, Kathy Novio, stood next to Durbin by the incident commander’s station near one of the trucks. Her arms folded over her heavy jacket, she made no effort to conceal the tears that coursed down her cheeks. “I can’t stand this,” she said.

  “I know. Me, neither.”

  “I keep thinking she might be in there.”

  Durbin put his arm around her. “We don’t have any reason to think that.”

  “Michael, she wasn’t at work.” After she’d gotten Durbin’s call, immediately before she’d come up here to the fire scene, Kathy had driven by Janice’s office over by the Stones town shopping center, which was relatively near her own home, and even though the lights weren’t on, she wanted to be certain and so she banged on the door for almost a full minute to no avail.

  “I know. You said that. That doesn’t mean she’s in there. She might be on some errand she didn’t tell me about.”

  “With her phone off?”

  Durbin shrugged. “Sometimes she forgets to turn it on. Sometimes she forgets it entirely. Why would she be in there anyway?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes went back to the now-gutted house. The flames were mostly contained by now, although men still worked a couple of the hoses and a pillar of thick, black smoke continued to rise into the sky. Her voice broke. “I’m just so afraid that she is.”

  Durbin reached over, put his arm around her shoulders, drew her in next to him.

  Chuck came jogging up from where he’d parked a couple of blocks away. Kathy threw her arms around her husband and he embraced her, patting her back consolingly and whispering words of comfort. Then, over her shoulder, he said to Durbin, “I’m sorry it took so long to get here. I didn’t check my messages until after my morning class.” His eyes went to the house. “God, Michael, Jesus.” Then he paused in a kind of double take. “Where’s Janice?”

  Kathy, blotched and tearful, made a mewling little noise and just shook her head against him.

  “We don’t know,” Durbin replied. “Not at work. Not answering her phone.”

  Chuck threw a glance at the smoldering ruins, came back to Durbin, gesturing now toward the firemen. “Do these guys know anything?”

  “Not yet. The arson inspector couldn’t get inside until, like, five minutes ago.”

  But even as Durbin spoke, the arson inspector—Arnie Becker—emerged from the front door. He’d stuck his hands deeply into the pockets of his coat and walked, leaning slightly forward as though into a stiff wind, with a slow deliberation. His shoulders sagged. Looking up, his eyes glanced over where Durbin stood—the incident commander had introduced them to each other soon after Durbin’s arrival—and then quickly he looked away. In a few more steps, he’d come up to the IC’s table.

  Durbin, who’d moved away from the immediate area when his brother-in-law had come up, now broke out of their little knot of neighbors and other onlookers and got back over to the table in time to hear Becker say the word police.

  “What do you need the police for?” Durbin asked.

  The two men turned to look at him. The expressions on both of their faces were so obvious that neither of them really had to say anything, but Becker reached out a hand and placed it gently on Durbin’s arm. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but there’s a woman’s body in there in one of the upstairs rooms.”

  Kathy and Chuck had come up directly behind him, and now she split the air with a keening scream. “Janice! Oh God, no! Janice!” As Chuck turned and held her, she covered her face with both of her hands and broke down.

  After they left messages at their jobs saying they wouldn’t be in, both leaving their excuses suitably vague, Abe and Treya dropped the kids off together at their respective school and preschool, then had come home and gone back to bed. Closing in on noon, they had finally gotten dressed and now sat in a booth at Gaspare’s.

  “This is the best pizza in the city, you know that?” Treya said. “I don’t care about any of those newfangled places, or even the other old ones.”

  “Tommaso’s?” Glitsky said.

  “Very good, no question. Just not this good.”

  “A-sixteen.”

  Treya shook her head. “Again, delicious, but too long a wait. So let me ask you a question.”

  “General category of pizza?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, hold it.” Glitsky put down his pizza slice. “No, wait, it’s coming to me. The Battle of Thermopylae.”

  “Wrong. The what?”

  “The Battle of Thermopylae. And how can you say it’s wrong when you don’t know what it is?”

  “I know what it is, or was. It was a battle betwe
en the Greeks and somebody, maybe the Persians, I think.”

  “Correct. Very good. What year?”

  “What year? I’m sure. Sometime around ancient Greece. Close enough?”

  “How about four-eighty BC.”

  “I’d say definitely yes. What a relief to have that nailed down. That sounds just perfectly right.”

  “It is completely right. And yet you said it was wrong.”

  “It was wrong because it definitely wasn’t the answer to my question, which was going to be, if I remember correctly, if you felt as guilty as I did.”

  “What’s it going to be now?”

  “What’s what going to be?”

  “Your question.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “That silver tongue of yours got to wagging so much I don’t even remember.”

  “Something about if I felt guilty.” He reached over the table and put his hand over hers. “You really feel guilty?”

  She cocked her head sideways. “A little bit.” Now sighing. “I feel like I’m letting Wes down. He’s clueless enough about his appointments and his schedule as it is anyway. If I’m not there to spoon-feed him . . .”

  “He’s a big boy.”

  “Not so much, really. And pretty much out of his depth.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “You’re not the only one. I know you don’t read the Courier, but he’s taking some pretty serious abuse there.”

  “That paper’s a rag. Nobody reads it.”

  “Well, that’s half right. The ‘rag’ part. But don’t kid yourself, Abe. People read it. It swings a lot of votes.”

  Glitsky shrugged. Votes were not part of his universe. And his respect for those people to whom votes were the issue was minuscule. “I don’t know. You want my opinion, Wes deserves to swing in the wind a little.”

  “I don’t know how you can say that, Abe. He came down on the right side with you last week.”

  “Only under great duress. And let’s not forget that the reason Ro Curtlee’s out in the first place, and the reason we got threatened, is because Wes didn’t step up and do the right thing the first chance he got. He could have demanded no bail, and got it.”