Damage

by John Lescroart

  She didn’t care. This was all she wanted. If she couldn’t catch a breath, she would do without it.

  He exhaled completely, nuzzled his head into her neck and kissed it two, three times. Then straightened up. “You’ve been up all this time?”

  “Apparently.”

  “How’s Amanda?”

  “As bad as you’d think. Maybe worse. She thinks it’s her fault.”

  “It’s not.”

  “No. I know that. It’s going to take her a while, though. You want to sit?”

  “I believe I could.”

  Treya sat back down where she’d been waiting on the couch and pulled the blanket she’d brought out of their bedroom up around her. Glitsky eased himself down sideways at the other end of the couch.

  “You get anything?” she asked.

  “Do you want to count getting rejected on the search warrant?”

  “Even with the chief herself requesting it?’

  “Even then. Same rules for the chief. You need probable cause.”

  “How about Matt Lewis was following him and Ro shot him?”

  “How do we know Lewis was following him?”

  “That was his assignment.”

  “How do we know he ever caught up with him?”

  “Because we do. Didn’t he call Amanda?”

  “At lunchtime. This, the shooting, was at least an hour later, maybe more. Maybe in that time he lost them and went on to something else, and whatever that was got him killed.”

  “Does anybody really believe that?”

  “No.”

  “And who’s ‘them’ now?”

  “Another guy was driving, not Ro. Matt Lewis didn’t know him but told Amanda he looked more or less American Indian. They came out of the Curtlees’ house together. I’m thinking it’s the bodyguard I met the first time I went out there.”

  “So Matt Lewis followed them for an hour. Isn’t that probable cause right there? They must know the chief isn’t making this up.”

  “They might know it, but they’re not signing the little piece of paper.” Glitsky drew a hand down the side of his face as though he were wiping dirt off it. “A law enforcement officer, Matt Lewis, is shot execution-style in his car on a deserted street in a very bad part of town. Crawling with the drug trade. Fifty people within the sound of the shot could plausibly have done it. Why pick on Ro Curtlee?”

  “Because we know he did it?”

  “Well, one little bit of proof, and the judge signs off. But . . .” He shrugged.

  “So who was the judge?”

  “Chomorro.”

  Treya clucked disapproval. “So now there’s three of them?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Baretto, Donahoe, Chomorro. Doesn’t anybody on the bench want to put this guy in jail?”

  “Not more than they want to protect his civil rights.” Glitsky went on, “Do you know what it takes to win a contested judicial race, Trey? A hundred and fifty grand walking away, two fifty if you want a landslide, and there’s no limit on contributions to a judicial race. Slick, huh. Bottom line, the whole bench is terrified of the Curtlees.”

  “So who did his initial trial, again?”

  “Thomasino.”

  “How about taking him your warrant to sign?”

  Glitsky was shaking his head. “No. You want a warrant signed, you’ve got to go to the sitting magistrate, and this week it’s Chomorro. Randomly. This, I need hardly tell you, ensures the impartiality of the law.”

  “I don’t want impartial. Not in this case.”

  “Well,” Glitsky said, “in fact, you do. But it wouldn’t break my heart if we got lucky now and again.”

  Treya tightened the blanket around her shoulders. Sitting with her thoughts for a minute, she said in a small voice, “Do you think we need to be worried? Us, I mean.”

  Glitsky heaved a sigh and moved down the couch next to her. “I’d say I’m worried enough for all of us, but that’s probably not what you want to hear.” He took her hand in both of his. “I like to think he’s made his point with us just to rattle my chain. Hurting you or the kids doesn’t get him anything, and he knows I’d hunt him down and kill him. Coming after me or us doesn’t help him with his retrial, either. So, logically I think he’s probably done with us. I hope. Beyond which, the chief’s putting on a few teams to follow him around the clock.”

  “You don’t think he’ll be able to shake them?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  Treya closed her eyes, took in a breath. “Well, be that as it may, after tonight . . . I mean, I’ve been thinking. I don’t know if I can feel right leaving the kids with Rita anymore. Or at school. Even if you say there’s no risk ...”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “I know.” She took another shaky breath. “This isn’t like anything else, Abe. This is a truly crazy person.”

  After a moment, Glitsky nodded. “I can’t argue with you. You’re right. What do you want to do?”

  “I think I want to go away for a while. All of us. Until this blows over somehow.”

  Glitsky’s nostrils flared and his mouth went tight, the scar going white through his lips. “I can’t do that, Trey. Not in the middle of this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, if for no other reason, that’s telling Ro he wins.”

  “So what if he wins?” Treya’s voice took on an edge. “It’s not you against him.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Well, then, all the more reason.” She brought her hands together over his. “If it’s that personal, then you really are in danger. Don’t you see that?”

  “I do, okay. But I can’t run just because some psychopath is out to get me. There are protections in place and there’s no reason to think they’re not going to work.”

  “There isn’t? Tell that to Mr. Lewis.”

  But Glitsky shook his head. “I don’t really think he can touch me or you or the kids. Or that he has any reason to.”

  “And you’re willing to bet all of our lives, or any of our lives, on that?”

  “Trey,” he said. “That might be a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

  She let go of his hands, and now very suddenly Glitsky realized that she’d quickly worked herself into a cold and unaccustomed fury. “I’m willing to take grief for being dramatic when our children’s lives have been threatened, Abe. And in fact I’m kind of outraged you’re not taking it a lot more seriously.”

  “I am.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re thinking of all this in terms of your job, of you versus Ro Curtlee, and who’s going to win, and you’re willing to risk losing all of this, our home”—she gestured at the room around them—“losing Rachel or Zack or you and me . . .”

  “We’re not going to . . .”

  Now, tears of anger and frustration in her eyes, Treya slammed both fists into her lap. “We will if one of us is dead, Abe! Don’t you see that? How close does it have to get? Just like poor Matt Lewis, all the sudden, poof, gone forever. And never even saw it coming.”

  “Hey.” Reaching out, he touched her shoulder. “Treya . . .”

  Brushing his hand off, she turned on him. “Don’t touch me! I’m not being hysterical or dramatic. I don’t need to get calmed down. You’re talking logic, but don’t you see that that man can take all this away, on a whim, everything we’ve ever built together and care about? And you’re willing to risk that? Why? Because of your job? Your career in law enforcement? I can’t even believe we’re having this discussion.”

  “I told you I don’t think the likelihood . . .”

  “Fuck likelihood, Abe! Fuck that!”

  The profanity hit Glitsky with a titanic force, snapping his head back. She knew that he had a visceral intolerance for that kind of language, and in all the time they’d been together, she’d never said anything like that around him. He ran his hand over his forehead—his blood was rushing to his
head, his stomach roiling—and he stood up and walked over to the front windows, trying to grab a breath.

  “I didn’t mean—” he finally got out. “Whatever I said, I didn’t mean it. Of course you can go. Of course, no risk is tolerable. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to criticize you. You are completely right. If you need to go, you need to go. The children need to go.”

  “And what about you?”

  He turned back to face her, met her eyes, waited, shook his head no.

  “How is this possible?” she asked. “How can we have come this far and I don’t even know you?”

  “Trey,” he began, “you know me. You know who I am. I’ve been a cop ever since ...”

  She held up a hand, stopping him. “Oh, spare me,” she said. “Spare me, please.” And standing up, she gathered the blanket around her and spun on her heel around the corner and back to their bedroom, closing the door hard behind her.

  21

  At seven forty-five the next morning, a homicide sergeant inspector named Darrel Bracco knocked at the door to Glitsky’s office, which was open, although the lights inside were off. The lieutenant slumped in his chair, nearly reclined in fact, his outstretched arm around a cup of something on the desk. “You wanted to see me, Abe?”

  “I did. Come on in.”

  “Lights?”

  “No. Leave’em, please. Take a chair.”

  Obeying orders, Bracco entered the office and sat. Glitsky made no effort to sit up straighter. Even in the dim light, Bracco could see a grayish pallor under the lieutenant’s light brown skin. His body language screamed exhaustion, although when he spoke, the words came out with a clipped precision. “You heard about Matt Lewis.”

  It wasn’t really a question. Even if word of the shooting hadn’t permeated as if by osmosis into every inch of the Hall of Justice building itself, the shooting of the DA inspector had been the lead story on all the local network news programs last night, and had made headlines in both the Chronicle and the Courier this morning.

  Bracco knew that the whiteboard on the wall behind his head already had his name down as the lead investigator on three active homicides: a no-humans-involved gang-banger shooting in the Lower Mission, a tragic shaken baby case out in the Sunset, and a fiftysomething unmarried insurance broker who’d gotten himself stabbed to death the week before in the alley outside Alfred’s Steak House. These, Bracco felt, put him at about the limit of his capabilities, particularly since he was working solo lately.

  But now Glitsky was asking if he’d heard about Matt Lewis, and Bracco said, “Sure. Terrible thing. And I’ll take it if there’s no choice, but if somebody else wants it, my plate’s pretty full.”

  “I’m not asking you to take it, Darrel.”

  “Sorry. I just thought . . .” He shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  “So what have you heard about it?”

  “Lewis? Not much. Out there in the ‘Mo’”—this was department slang for the lower Fillmore—“it could have been anything. Who’s got the case?”

  “Nobody. Not yet. I might wind up taking it myself.” Glitsky turned his cup. “So you haven’t heard anything?”

  “No.”

  “What if I told you he was following Ro Curtlee around?”

  Bracco kept his reaction low-key. “That’s not come out.”

  “No.”

  “Is it true?”

  “True enough.”

  In all of the news reports, Glitsky had carefully declined to state whether they had a suspect, or even a person of interest, in the shooting. It appeared to be a random, perhaps drug- or gang-related, homicide, but no one yet knew for sure. The investigation was continuing. That was all he could divulge.

  “So . . .” Bracco waited.

  “So I need a volunteer to call Curtlee’s lawyer to ask him for an interview, and for obvious reasons that can’t be me. No way is Denardi going to let that happen, but we have to ask. I don’t want the accusation that we never gave him a chance to tell his side of the story.”

  “But supposing he says yes, do you want me to talk to him about this Lewis thing?”

  “Actually that and one other case. Janice Durbin.”

  “Don’t know her.”

  “Friday, her house burned down around her. Just like with Felicia Nuñez, who happened to be a witness in Ro’s trial. Also, like Felicia, strangled. And this latest victim, Janice Durbin, was married to the jury foreman in Ro’s trial.”

  “I’m seeing a pattern,” Bracco said.

  “No flies on you. But the good news is that because of Lewis, and the fact that we know he was following Ro around, you’ve got a reasonable, even plausible excuse to talk to Ro, see what he says he was doing yesterday. And while you’re at it, get his alibi for Janice Durbin, if he’s got one.”

  “You think he’ll talk to me?”

  “Not a chance in the world. But we’ve got to do the drill.”

  Bracco said, “Lewis was really tailing him?”

  “What, Darrel, you think I’m making this up?” But then, hearing how brusque he sounded, he held up a hand in apology. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t sleep last night. But yeah, Lewis was tailing Ro, at least until an hour or so before he got shot. That was his last check-in with Amanda Jenkins, outside Tadich’s, where Ro met his lawyer.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then Ro came out and hopped in his car with his driver.”

  “And Lewis took off after them?”

  “Said he was going to, anyway. After that we don’t know.”

  Bracco considered, then gave a brusque nod. “Close enough for me.”

  It was nursery-school day at the DA’s office. Treya came in late, getting on toward nine o’clock, trailing her two children. About fifteen minutes later, Farrell showed up with his dog in tow. Luckily Gert was well-behaved and liked children, so it wasn’t the chaos it could have been. But neither was it exactly a finely tuned, professional office environment.

  Now Rachel and Zachary were coloring together on the library table in Farrell’s inner office, while Gert had stretched out under them. Treya and Wes had some important issues to discuss and they had migrated out to the reception area, Treya’s domain, and closed the doors both into Farrell’s office and leading out into the hallway so they could have some privacy.

  Farrell was perched on the front of Treya’s desk. “For how long?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know. As long as it takes.” Treya stood leaning up against the wall of law books in the outer office. “I’m not leaving the kids with this kind of risk.”

  “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “I’ve got a brother in LA. We’ll start out down there. And then Abe’s father has a place here in town where we’d be welcome, although that may be too close. I don’t want to be find-able.”

  “And what’s Abe going to do?”

  Treya’s mouth went a little loose before it tightened up again. “He’s staying on. He says it’s only going to be a couple of weeks, now. Hopefully. I mean, until Ro’s in jail again.”

  “If we can get an indictment. And now, with Amanda ...” Farrell ran his hand back through his hair. “She was going to be presenting the case, but I don’t know if she’ll be able to pull it together quick enough after this Matt thing.”

  “You could do it yourself.”

  “I know. I might. But meanwhile”—he spread his hands out in front of him—“what am I supposed to do around here with you gone?”

  “I’m sorry about that, sir, I really am. I wish there was some other way, but I don’t see what that would be. I’m sure there’s somebody good here in the building who could cover for me.”

  “You are? You got a name for me?”

  She crossed her arms and shook her head. “No.”

  A silence built up between them.

  “This is a real problem, Treya. You realize that? The more I get used to the idea, the more it’s a real problem.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand. It’s
a real problem at home, too. But what am I supposed to do? I’ve got the vacation time accrued.”

  “That’s not the issue.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s my issue. I can’t keep the kids here. I’m afraid of what Ro might do to them. And you know he’s capable of it, whatever it is.”

  Farrell digested her answer for a moment, then shook his head in disgust. “Fuck,” he said. “Pardon me.”

  “The least of my worries,” Treya said. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you in person, see if I can help you find a replacement.”

  “In one day?”

  Treya tried to put on a brave face, but it didn’t take. She shrugged. “That’s all I can try for. I’m sorry.”

  Wes boosted himself off the desk and looked straight across at her. “You know, Treya,” he said, “if you do this, I don’t know if I can guarantee that I’ll be able to take you back in the same job. That’s not a threat. It’s just reality. I need somebody who’s in here every day.”

  “I realize that,” she said. “I couldn’t ask that you take me back.”

  “Just so you know.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I think that’s clear enough.”

  Bracco found out why Denardi had agreed to the interview when he showed up at his downtown office and found Cliff and Theresa Curtlee there, too, along with Ro. Tristan Denardi introduced them both to Bracco, explaining that they were here not only in support of their son, but as representatives of their newspaper. Bracco understood that clearly, no matter what happened, their presence meant that the Courier was going to spin this interview as a further example of police overreaching.

  Denardi crossed an ankle over his knee, revealing a flash of argyle sock over his highly polished black brogues. The impeccably dressed elderly attorney took his cup of hot coffee on its saucer and placed it on the low table in front of him in the conference room.

  “I’m not sure my client has anything to say to you,” he said to Bracco when they settled down to business. “In fact, I’m fairly certain that he doesn’t. It’s clear that you people have a vested interest in harassing Mr. Curtlee, and I hope we’ve made it equally clear that we’re not about to let such harassment go uncontested. Now you’re here asking about my client’s whereabouts on last Friday morning, and we’re not inclined to provide that information without some sort of explanation as to why anyone should care where he was or what he was doing.”