Damage

by John Lescroart

  Finally Michael sat up straighter and slapped at his arm of the couch. “That’s it,” he said, starting to get up, “I’m going to call the police.”

  Chuck looked over. “And say what?”

  “That my son’s missing. See if they can go on some kind of lookout for him.”

  “But he’s really not missing,” Kathy said softly. “Not any more than he was last night, Michael. He’s just confused, trying to sort things out.”

  “And the police won’t be able to find him anyway. Or—check that—they won’t look for him,” Chuck added. “He’s too old and it hasn’t been long enough. I don’t think they even consider an adult missing anymore unless no one’s heard from them in three days.”

  “Well, that sure gives whoever it is enough time to hide out pretty good, doesn’t it?” He slumped back into the cushions. “I just want to talk to him, that’s all. I can answer any questions he’s got for me. Any of them. I promise.”

  “Of course you can.” Kathy let out an exhausted sigh. “Maybe this news tonight will make a difference to him. They said on the news that the police are closing the Ro Curtlee cases, and that’s got to include Janice, wouldn’t you think?”

  “You would think,” Michael said, “but maybe not. Not the way Glitsky’s been looking at it. He obviously still thinks it was Ro, but keeps talking about things that don’t fit. Which still doesn’t mean it was me. I mean, as far as I know, he hasn’t done a thing about even looking at her clients.”

  “I don’t know if he can do that,” Kathy said. “Isn’t there some kind of privilege or something? And besides, why would he want to talk to her clients? Do you know something that points to any of them?”

  “Only that she was—” He stopped abruptly.

  “What?” Kathy asked. “You were going to say something.”

  “No.” Mike brought his hand up and squeezed at his temples. “Only that I’m so tired. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  But Kathy persisted. “Was there something you know about one of her patients? Michael? That could be real.”

  “I don’t want anything to be real, Kathy,” he said. “I’m sure it was Ro Curtlee. It’s just this other stuff muddying the waters for Glitsky.”

  “But what other stuff?” she persisted.

  Chuck finally spoke up. “Mike thinks she was having an affair.”

  “What? Janice? No way, Mike.”

  Durbin shrugged. “Yeah, Kathy, I think there was a way.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Well.” A brittle little laugh. “That’s kind of personal, if you know . . .”

  “Did you talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Did she say she was going to be leaving you or anything like that?”

  “No.” He hesitated, looked to each of them in turn, then spoke to Kathy. “We hadn’t had the most intimate last couple of months.”

  And now she laughed her own brittle laugh. “Ha! If that’s it, I think they must be putting something in the water.”

  Chuck’s head came up in a quick spurt of anger. “Kathy!”

  She looked right back at him. “What? What if it’s the truth?” Then she turned to Durbin. “Like that’s a sign you’re having an affair? Even happy couples go through some ups and downs like that. It’s part of the package.” Then, back to her husband, “Isn’t that right, Chuck? It doesn’t mean your marriage is in trouble. At least, I hope it doesn’t.”

  “She’s right, Mike,” Chuck said. “She’s absolutely right. But going back to the original question, I’d like to know what Glitsky’s reservations are,” he said. “I mean, it’s obvious enough to all of us that Janice was killed by Ro Curtlee and now Ro Curtlee’s dead and that ought to be the end of it. Is there something none of us are seeing?”

  “Well, this affair, if there was one,” Kathy said.

  “But even if there was one,” Chuck said, “there’s nothing that eliminates Ro Curtlee. He had a reason, he slashed the paintings for the same reason, Mike. He wanted to get at you. Even if Janice was having an affair, why would the guy slash your paintings? That had to be Ro. Which means the fire had to be Ro, too. Why don’t you tell that to Glitsky next time he asks?”

  But all this emotion and discussion, along with the worry over his son, were finally taking their toll. Durbin bowed his head and shook it slowly back and forth. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t,” he said. “Doesn’t think he’s got a reason to ask. Now, if you guys don’t mind, I’m going up to bed.”

  “I think we should, too.” Kathy pushed herself up and looked down at her husband. “Chuck?”

  He brought his head up and smiled at her. “Right behind you,” he said.

  “You said call anytime.”

  “I did,” Treya said, “but I’m not sure I meant one o’clock. You’re never out until one o’clock.”

  “Occasionally I am, as you can see. But I can hang up now and call you in the morning.”

  “Or you can just tell me what time you’re getting down here, and then I can go back to sleep and wake up in time to greet you warmly.”

  “Well, on that ... I thought you and the kids might want to consider coming back up here, get back to normal life.”

  She paused for a long beat. “You got your indictment and arrested Ro.”

  “No. Close, but better.”

  “What could be better?”

  “If one of the maids he raped shot him.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Not even a little.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Completely.”

  He heard her exhale. “I know I shouldn’t be too happy about somebody dying, but ...”

  “There are cases it’s warranted. This would be one of them. So, do you want to come home?”

  She paused again. “What’s the weather like?”

  “Beautiful. Forty-five and pouring. What could be nicer?”

  “Seventy-eight and sunny, for starters.”

  “Seventy-eight?”

  “Scout’s honor. Sixto told the kids we’d take them to the beach tomorrow. Do you realize we’ve never taken either of them to the beach?”

  “I’m not surprised. Why would we?” It was Abe’s turn to hesitate. “It’s really going to be seventy-eight?”

  “If not eighty.”

  A last pause, and then Glitsky said, “I’m on Southwest, landing in Burbank at eleven fifteen. Maybe you could pick me up?”

  “Not impossible,” Treya said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  38

  Farrell crossed the threshold from the hallway inside to his outer office and stopped in his tracks. He broke a genuine smile, his hands outstretched with more than a bit of theatricality. “The sun shines, my secretary returns, Ro Curtlee is off to that big appellate court in the sky. Could life get any better?”

  At her desk, Treya rose out of her chair. “There are a couple of bear claws on your table,” she said. “Would that do?”

  “It’s a good start, anyway. Very nice. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. They’re by way of an apology. I’m sorry about the absences, just taking off like I did. I didn’t mean to leave you in the lurch, but . . .”

  He waved that off. “No explanation necessary, Treya.” His expression sobered. “I should have taken it more seriously myself. Maybe sent Gert down to be with you.”

  “I’m so sorry about that.”

  “Me, too.” His smile didn’t quite take. “I try to console myself that she was some kind of a martyr to the cause. Cliff, that son of a bitch, killed her to try to scare me off, and it almost worked. Instead, much to my own surprise, it kicked me in the ass and got me moving. Although in the end, I guess, it didn’t matter one way or the other.”

  “No. It mattered. Either way, it was going to end Friday night. You just provided the insurance.”

  “Maybe. That’s another nice spin on it. But if somebody told me I could trade Gert’s life for Ro’
s, I’m not sure I would have done it. Even though she was just an animal . . .”

  “So was he.”

  “Well, there you go.” Changing gears, he pointed toward his office. “Anything else I should know about in there, besides the bear claws?”

  Treya glanced down at the book she kept next to her computer. “Vi Lapeer wanted to have a talk with you when you got in. Also Mr. Crawford.”

  “Himself?”

  “In person. After that,” Treya continued, “nothing else till ten, when you swear in the two new ADAs. Their names are in your folder. Then at noon, lunch with the Odd Fellows and a few words on disaster preparedness.”

  Farrell chortled. “My specialty.”

  “Don’t worry. I got the talking points from the IO.” This was the information office. “Again, it’s all in the folder. Just don’t forget the folder and you’re golden. You want a cup of coffee?”

  “A cup of coffee would be wonderful. And, Treya?”

  “Sir?”

  “Good to have you back.”

  Glitsky said, “I think I’ve got a vitamin D overdose, or hangover, or whatever you’d call it.”

  Dismas Hardy had a court appointment on this Monday morning, but things were dragging downstairs in the departments, and his hearing wasn’t going to be called anytime soon. So he dropped in at Glitsky’s office to share some peanuts and abuse with his friend. “You can’t get a vitamin D overdose. And in my extensive research into hangovers, I haven’t run across that one. What’s it feel like?”

  “Weird. It’s like I’m almost, I don’t know, happy, I guess.”

  “Wow.” Hardy cracked a peanut. “That would be weird. And it’s neat how you qualified the living shit out of it. Almost, you guess, you don’t know. Bar the door, Katie, Glitsky’s on a roll.”

  Glitsky ignored the derision. “I think it was the beach. All that sunshine.”

  “Hey, the sun is shining here, too.”

  Glitsky, with a dour look, glanced up and over at the high windows in his office. “Yeah, but here it’s only fifty-two degrees. Down there it was eighty-two. That’s thirty degrees difference.”

  “He excels at math, too. But it’s a rare treat to see you even almost happy, I must say. You think it might also have something to do with the Curtlees?”

  Glitsky chewed his own peanut. “I’m not ruling that out.”

  “So how many cases did that clear for you?”

  “Well, not including the retrial, at least Felicia Nuñez and Matt Lewis and Janice Durbin. To say nothing of Gert, Wes’s dog. Plus the damage Ro will never get a chance to do to Gloria Gonzalvez or her kids or my kids or anybody else.”

  Hardy hesitated for a minute. “Not to pick nits,” he said, “but last time we talked, you had a small problem with Janice Durbin.”

  “Not really.” Glitsky shook his head. “Mostly logistical. If we couldn’t prove it to the grand jury. And now there’s no need.”

  “Okay,” Hardy said.

  “Okay what?”

  “Nothing.” Another peanut. “I don’t want to be the proximate cause of you lapsing back into your traditional funk.”

  “No chance. Right now I’m too high on life, too hooked on a feelin’.”

  Hardy sat back, grinning. “If you break into song, I swear to God I’m calling the paramedics.”

  “B. J. Thomas,” Glitsky said.

  “I know who it was. ‘Raindrops,’ ‘Good Time Charlie.’ I know every song the guy’s ever sung.”

  “Of course you do. With your eidetic memory, I’d expect nothing less.”

  “Okay, then. With my eidetic memory, I need to tell you that I remember Ro Curtlee had apparent alibis both for Janice and Matt. That’s not logistical, as you put it. That’s factual.”

  “Well, then we’ll never know for absolute sure, because his parents were it for Durbin, and his butler was it for Lewis. All three of them being dead, I choose to believe both alibis would fall apart under questioning. Sometimes you just take a free gift from the Almighty, bow your head, and say ‘Thank you, Lord.’ These cases are done, Diz, all closed up. And more power to ’em. That’s what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’?”

  “I’m not arguing,” Hardy said. “You know best.” He broke another grin. “As the great bass player Ray Brown once said: ‘I just came to town to help with the fuckin’.’ ”

  Amanda Jenkins felt about as attractive as a turnip.

  She hadn’t slept more than three hours at any stretch since she’d heard about Matt, and the past weekend—in spite of the apparent closure and cosmic justice represented by the deaths of the Curtlees and their butler—had been more grueling still. She had dated him for more than a year, but she had never met Matt’s parents or his three sisters or his older brother. Nevertheless, on Saturday she’d been included in the extended family for the huge funeral Mass at Saints Peter and Paul at Washington Square, and then the burial down in Colma, after which she’d been seated between his mother, Nan, and his sister Paula at the reception at Fior d’Italia.

  That had gone on until seven or so, and then she and Nan—by now her best friend—had gone out on an old-fashioned roaring drunk around North Beach, where they hooked up with some other assistant DAs and cops who’d also been at the funeral. In spite of the alcohol, or maybe because of it, she woke up before dawn yesterday, Sunday, and cried pretty much nonstop until the late afternoon, when her crushing hangover finally began to fade after a two-hour doze. She had moderated the drinking somewhat last night, ate some Chinese at home and then didn’t fall asleep again until three A.M.

  So when she got to the police lab at nine thirty, she knew she wasn’t at or even near her physical peak. Still, you had to play the cards you got dealt, and she knew that her aces were her legs, so it would be foolish not to play them. She wore her shortest miniskirt, dark green, under a severely plunging green pullover sweater. And three-inch heels. Checking herself in her mirror before she went out, she was reasonably certain that nobody was going to spend much time noticing the pallor of her face, the sag in her cheeks, the red in her eyes.

  She’d handed in the request early Saturday morning, to one of the CSI guys, who promised he’d take it out to the lab as part of their general delivery. Glitsky had been right and there had been no legal issue at all with serving a search warrant at the Curtlee mansion. Amanda was still there, going on two o’clock in the morning, when they found the safe in Eztli’s room and broke into it. What they found inside brought to six the number of handguns in the house—the Curtlee/Eztli murder weapon, the gun under Eztli’s armpit, an S&W .357 in his safe, and three other pistols in another unlocked safe in the headboard of the Curtlees’ bed. Four of the weapons were .40 caliber and could have been the weapon used to kill Matt Lewis.

  For some reason, Amanda had become fixated on getting all the details right about Matt’s murder. She thought she knew that Ro had killed him, but somehow it had become very important to her to make absolutely sure, if only so that it might help her better understand, although to understand precisely what was something she could not have elucidated.

  From Linda Salcedo’s statement, the murder weapon in Friday night’s massacre had been Ro’s personal gun, so what Amanda had requested was that the lab conduct a ballistics test with a bullet from that gun against the bullet that had killed Matt. Since she’d marked it as high priority and rush, she’d hoped to have it by first thing Monday morning, assumed that someone would have pulled some overtime to get it.

  When she’d called at eight, hoping to get some results, they hadn’t even started yet. When she got the name of the ballistics tech, Vincent J. Abbatiello, and realized that it was a guy who sounded on the phone to be about in his late twenties, probably straight if he was a cop, she’d reached for her miniskirt.

  Now Abbatiello had invited her back with him, showing off the still relatively new lab in the department’s Building 606 facility in Hunters Point Naval Shipyard with ill-concealed pride. This was an
enormous and modern structure, a far cry from the tiny and cramped lab of the past. Amanda oohed and aahed her way along with him, and by the time they reached his area, what she wanted was his first priority.

  Given that no one had seen fit to get to it over the weekend, Amanda was amazed at how little time it took. The lab really had modernized its capabilities, and the shooting and computer analysis of ballistics results took no more than five minutes per test, including shooting the gun and retrieving the bullet to test against the standard.

  Fighting her nerves and the residual alcohol, the tension while she waited on the first test—with Ro’s gun, a Smith & Wesson Military and Police semiautomatic 9 mm—was nearly unbearable. She sat next to the microscope that Abbatiello used and while he calibrated the machine, she had to lean over, her hands over her stomach. And the result of this first test was obvious, although not in the way she hoped. It was clearly a mismatch.

  “Oh God,” she said to Abbatiello. “How could that be?”

  “It’s all right. We got three more tries.”

  They got it on the second one.

  Glitsky was down on the third floor in Amanda’s office, leaning back against one of the counters with the door closed behind him. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t Ro,” he said.

  “But it was this guy Ez’s gun. I mean, it was in his safe. It’s registered to him. He’s got a carry permit. And while we’re at it, tell me, would you, how in the world does that happen? How’s a guy like this get a carry permit?”

  “He’s a citizen, right? Naturalized, but even so. He works in security. He’s got no criminal record. But mostly, Cliff Curtlee is behind him pulling strings with just a tiny bit of influence. No problem.”

  “So here’s the problem with that. I don’t see him letting Ro shoot his gun. I don’t know if I see anybody letting Ro even hold a gun, much less shoot it. He might point it back at you and pull the trigger just for jollies.”

  “He might.” Glitsky chewed his cheek. “Any of Ro’s prints on the gun itself?”