Damage

by John Lescroart

  Until at last Durbin pressed on. “All right. Maybe it’s not the most obvious thing in the world. I admit it didn’t occur to me until yesterday. Which was probably because you had me so rattled with your questions . . .”

  “Why would Ro want to kill your wife?”

  “To get back at me. Just like he burned up that other woman, the witness.”

  “Yes. But she could testify against him. She was a threat in the here and now. Your wife had no connection to him and wouldn’t have any influence on his future. It’s not the same thing at all.”

  “It’s him. I know it was him. Listen, I was at his bail hearing last week and of course now I realize that was probably a mistake, but he turned around and looked right at me. I’m sure he recognized me. And that gave him the idea. Now he’s paying back old debts.”

  Glitsky suddenly realized that this was almost precisely the type of lead that he hoped he would uncover in the course of his investigation. Durbin’s information came from an independent source and led to Ro without any reference to Glitsky or the police department. It was a legitimate lead in the case that he would have to follow up, even if he’d never heard of Ro Curtlee. “That’s a provocative theory,” Glitsky said.

  “It’s a damn sight more than that. I’ll bet you anything it’s what happened.”

  “Well, then, hopefully we’ll be able to prove it.”

  “Not if any part of you is still thinking it could be me. You’ve got to concentrate on Ro, for God’s sake. Before the trail goes too cold.”

  At the vehemence of Durbin’s comments, a small part of Glitsky’s brain nudged him with the idea that Durbin was protesting too much. But he cast that niggling quibble aside—Ro was certainly Janice’s murderer and Glitsky could understand Durbin’s desperation to see him apprehended and charged. He had just lost his wife, after all. And Ro was very much a person to suspect and to fear. Glitsky, his voice matter-of-fact, came back at him. “I’m going to go where the trail takes me, sir. And from your information here today, it sounds like it might be heading toward Ro.”

  “There’s no might about it.”

  “Maybe not,” Glitsky said, “but it’s my job to make sure.”

  Arson inspector Arnie Becker showed up unannounced at Glitsky’s office that Monday morning and now he was sitting across from the lieutenant listening to his wrap-up, where the bottom line had been that no one had seen anything suspicious near the Durbins’ house on Friday morning. “This guy’s luck is just phenomenal,” Glitsky was saying. “Somebody should have seen something, everybody going to work or school about the time the fire started? And nobody saw anything like a purple Z-Four.”

  “How many cars do you think the Curtlees own, Abe? Six? Eight? Fifteen? They got a whole fleet, I’m sure.”

  “You’re right, you’re right.” Glitsky ran his hand back over his scalp. “I just want something, almost anything, so badly I can taste it.”

  “Well, I might be able to help you there. I’ve got some news.”

  “Talk.”

  “I just came from Strout downstairs.” Downstairs meant the coroner’s office outside the back door of the Hall of Justice. Strout was the octogenarian medical examiner who seemed immune to the city’s policies on retirement, probably because he was so good and so fair that no one wanted to rock that particular boat. “First things first. Even without a tox yet, now there’s no doubt it’s a murder. Hyoid bone’s broken, which, by the way, same with Nuñez. So Janice was strangled and dead before the fire started, assuming of course that she didn’t strangle herself after she set it.”

  “No,” Glitsky said, “let’s rule that out.”

  “And it was definitely set, although—a bit of a surprise here—the accelerant was downstairs in the kitchen and dining room, both, and spread up from there. Newspaper and gas, if you’re keeping score. He brought the gas in one of those big plastic Diet Coke containers, pretty much melted away, but identifiable, the twenty-ounce one.”

  Glitsky received that information with a brusque nod. “What kind of accelerant did he use with Nuñez?”

  “Gas, again, with some of her clothes.”

  “Any container in that one?”

  “Not obvious. Nothing I found. And I looked.”

  “So,” Glitsky asked, “he didn’t light Janice on fire.”

  “Well, she was upstairs in a house. Nuñez had just the small apartment. So he didn’t have other options with Nuñez. But he made the best of what he had to work with. And actually, lightly balled-up newspaper is pretty much the best accelerant you can use. So maybe he’s refining his technique.”

  “But Janice didn’t burn as much as Nuñez, did she?”

  “No. Not really close, actually. And that leads to the other thing.”

  Glitsky perked up. “Tell me you got DNA.”

  “Did not, but, maybe something we can work with, we did get chlamydia.”

  “You’re saying that Janice had it?”

  Becker nodded. “Strout wasn’t even looking for it, and one of his assistants caught it on the slide. So he rechecked. No doubt about it.”

  Glitsky sat back and crossed a leg. “When I talked to the husband, Michael, he said they were having some problems. Serious, but nothing to kill her over. Now I know what kind of trouble it was, and maybe it was more serious than he let on.”

  “So we know she was having an affair,” Becker said.

  “Or he was,” Glitsky countered. “She finds out he’s given her chlamydia and they get in a fight and he kills her. Or she’s given it to him. Same result.”

  “Yeah,” Becker said, “except he didn’t kill her. Ro did. Married people have problems all the time and they don’t necessarily kill their spouses over them.”

  Glitsky theatrically used his finger to clean out his ear. “I’m sorry, Arnie. I thought I just heard you say spouses don’t kill each other. In which case, this department might have enough inspectors after all.”

  “Are you getting squishy on Ro?” Becker asked.

  “No,” Abe replied without hesitation. “I’m just trying to fit this chlamydia thing into the picture.”

  “Well, the good news,” Becker said, “is that Ro’s going to test positive for chlamydia, too, when you get him locked up again.”

  “Not necessarily, not if he used a condom,” Glitsky said. “Not if he didn’t rape her at all, and there’s no forensic evidence that he did, am I right?”

  “No, not yet,” Becker said, then added, “Do rapists use condoms?”

  “Your higher class of rapists, you bet. All the time.” Glitsky sat back in his chair, his right hand stretched out before him, drumming his fingers on his desk. When he spoke, it sounded like he was working it out for himself. “Ro might not have raped Janice, if in fact he didn’t, because she wasn’t like his other victims. She wasn’t anything personal to him. Just a way to get to Durbin. How’s that sound?”

  “Anything that includes Ro sounds good to me, Abe. I examined the Nuñez scene and the Durbin scene, so you’re talking to a true believer.”

  “That’s two of us,” Glitsky said.

  In his personal parking space behind his store, Durbin sat in his car and waited for some inner voice to give him the secret password that would get him moving. The solid cloud cover had finally broken up and splotches of sunlight had been coming and going for the past ten minutes, pushed along by a strong freshening breeze. He didn’t really know what he was doing here. But then he hadn’t really known what he was doing earlier that morning back at Chuck and Kathy’s either, except rattling around in the big house after the kids had all gone off to school. So he’d gotten into his car and told Kathy he was going to go check on things at his place of business.

  At last, he opened the car door and let himself into the back of the shop. The little bell rang over the door and a couple of his employees turned at their windows, registering surprise and worry, but he simply waved a hand in acknowledgment, turned into his office, and sat down behi
nd his desk.

  It didn’t take Liza Sato ten seconds to appear in the doorway. Wearing jeans and a cowled fisherman’s sweater, with her hands on her hips, she wore an expression of equal parts frustration and concern. “What in the world are you doing here, Michael?”

  He tried a smile that died halfway. “I’m not all that sure, to tell you the truth. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” A vague gesture. “How’s everything out there?”

  “Everything out there is fine. Except you shouldn’t be here.”

  “Where else should I be?”

  “How about back home?”

  “That’s kind of the problem, Liz. Home’s gone.”

  Her eyes widened and her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t mean ...”

  “It’s all right. I know what you meant. You want to come in?”

  “Sure.” She closed the door behind her, then leaned back against it with her arms crossed. “Michael, I don’t know what to say. I am just so, so sorry.”

  His shoulders rose and fell. He spread his hands on the surface of his desk, then simply shook his head and shrugged again.

  Liza pushed herself off the wall and came around the desk, where she draped an arm around his shoulders, leaned down, and kissed the top of his head. She felt his body heave in a sigh, then she let go and boosted herself onto the desk. “Really,” she said, “you don’t need to be here.”

  “I know. But I don’t know where else I should be.” He let out a breath. “I stopped by the house, where the house was, this morning. You know how weird that was? I mean, I leave there Friday and it’s my home, where my kids live, where all of our stuff is, where most of everyday life happens. And then this morning I go by and all that’s gone. And Janice with it.” He looked up at her. “I just don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to do now.”

  “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “No. I’ve at least got to somehow be there for my kids. Although thank God for school, which is where they are now. I don’t know how they’re . . . hell, who am I kidding? I don’t know anything.” He paused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t come down here to cry on anybody’s shoulder.”

  “That’s all right,” she said. “You can cry all you want, Michael. Crying’s okay.”

  “Well, it’s not. Not really.” He quickly patted her knee, right there next to him. “But thanks for the offer.” Pushing himself back a little farther away from her, he said, “I heard you met Inspector Glitsky on Saturday morning.”

  She nodded. “He came by, yes.”

  “And evidently I was late getting to work on Friday?”

  “Were you?”

  “That’s what he said. Or rather, somebody who works here said I was. He seemed to think it was important.”

  “In what way?”

  “In the way that I might have stayed around to make sure the fire was well advanced before I started driving to work.”

  Liza’s face went dark. “That’s just nuts! He can’t really think that.”

  “I was late, though, wasn’t I?”

  She thought a moment. “Well, I remember I opened up, but beyond that ...” She shrugged. “But really, though, so what?”

  “Well, I finally remembered, wracking my brain all weekend, just a couple of other little things on my mind. I stopped for gas coming in, got stuck behind an RV who needed like a hundred gallons, then got caught in a line inside after the pump told me I had to go to the cashier to get my receipt, which I never wound up getting anyway because the guy two people in front of me started screaming something about getting the wrong Lotto ticket. Anyway, in case anybody asks again, which they probably won’t.”

  “I don’t think it was a big deal anyway, Michael.”

  “Well, Glitsky kind of made it seem like one. And you’d think I would have remembered all that insanity at the gas station. But I swear to God, it all just went away.”

  “Maybe something to do with your house burning down and your wife dying. You think that could do it?”

  “Yeah. Maybe that. But I just wanted to tell you.”

  “I never thought anything about it, Michael. Really.”

  “Well, good. But I think the question is going to be moot anyway.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m pretty sure I know who did it.”

  17

  Ro Curtlee and his lawyer, Tristan Denardi, sat at the bar at Tadich Grill, both of them eating cioppino.

  “I know you’re not supposed to ask,” Ro was saying. “I know you don’t want to know. But I’m telling you anyway. I wasn’t anywhere near the place. I did not kill Nuñez, though it doesn’t break my heart to see her out of the picture.”

  “Well, she’s not quite out of the picture, Ro.” Denardi, for all of his theatrics in the courtroom, cut a more or less paternal, patrician, low-key figure. A full head of silver hair, an unlined face that suggested time spent in a tanning salon, a beautifully cut Italian suit with a gold silk tie. “They’re still going to use her testimony from last time.”

  “Sure. But it won’t be her on the stand giving it again. You said they’re just going to read what she said last time, right?”

  “Right. There’s no other option.”

  “So how convincing is that going to be?

  “Not very. And I know and agree, it’s a definite plus for us. Although I admit I would have liked it better if she were still alive and we could persuade her not to testify at all. Or even to change her testimony. Plus, then there wouldn’t be any question at all of your possible involvement in her death.”

  Ro rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you . . . ?”

  Denardi raised his hand, palm out. “I understand that. I’m not accusing you of anything, Ro. It’s just that the timing, her dying in the week after you’re released. You have to admit it’s unfortunate.”

  “Not my problem, Counselor. And not yours.” With his good hand, Ro stabbed a scallop. “Seems to me our one problem remaining is that other witness, Gonzalvez. We’ve got to find her and make her change her mind either about what she’s going to say or whether she really wants to say it at all. We don’t want her showing up as a surprise if this thing ever goes back to trial.”

  “No. I understand that. But as I’ve explained to you, she disappeared right after your trial. She’s likely to stay disappeared. I think that if your parents haven’t been able to locate her, it might prove to be a little difficult for anybody else.”

  Ro shook his head. “I don’t buy it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they weren’t really looking for her. They were going to hassle her, maybe, put her out of work if they could, but once she was gone they let it go. What was the point? But now, for us, it’s a different story. Now, she alone could swing a jury. You see that?”

  “I acknowledge the possibility, yes.”

  “Well, then, I say we find her first.”

  “How do you propose we do that?”

  “You got private eyes who work for you, don’t you?”

  “Sure. Several.”

  “Well, put one of them on it.”

  “You know, Ro, the rumor is she’s in Guatemala. She’s really not coming back.”

  “I’m just saying, why not be sure?”

  In spite of how he’d left it with Arnie Becker, Glitsky had his tape recorder out on Michael Durbin’s desk in the back of the shop. The door was closed behind them, rendering into a muted white noise the normal business dealings taking place out front among the customers. Glitsky had recognized Liza Sato among the employees right away from his Saturday morning interview, and twice now, in his peripheral vision, he’d noticed her at the window, coming back to check on how things were going between her boss and the cop.

  He’d already covered Durbin’s belated and labored explanation of his tardiness coming into work last Friday morning. Durbin had then mentioned his suspicions about Ro Curtlee, and Glitsky had dutifully listened and asked the appropria
te questions. Now, though, with that line pretty much played out, he thought he’d bring things a little closer to home. “But having been at the arraignment, you knew about the recent history between me and Ro? The arrest and so forth?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m just curious why you didn’t come by and say hello to me then.”

  “Well, you were obviously busy and in the middle of things. And I was way back in the gallery. I would have had to wait and then walk back through a lot of people. And then of course I didn’t have anything specific to talk to you about, either.”

  “So what happened this morning, with the phone call to me?”

  “Well, I put it together about Ro and me yesterday and I thought you’d understand. I mean, knowing all the background with Ro and me and all.”

  “It would be easier to sell the idea to me, is that it?”

  “I didn’t really think of it in those terms. I figured I’d pass along whatever I knew to you. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “Well,” Glitsky said, “as far as that goes, you did fine.”

  “That’s a relief. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I just thought ... well, you know. Ro. He’s a dangerous man.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Listen.” Durbin cleared his throat. “Could we take a short break, maybe get us something to drink? I’m dying of thirst. Could I offer you some water? Coffee? Coke? Only diet, I’m afraid.”

  “Thanks. I’m good, but you go ahead.”

  Durbin got out of his chair and walked around Glitsky and out into the hallway. Glitsky turned off his tape recorder and looked around at the small, well-ordered office. At a glance, it reinforced his view that Durbin was an organized, well-ordered guy.

  After a minute or so, he returned with a clear plastic cup full of ice cubes and an oversize plastic bottle of Diet Coke. He poured a splash into the glass, let the foam settle, and poured a little more, then placed the bottle on the desk between them.

  Glitsky turned his tape recorder back on. “When we talked Saturday,” he began, “you mentioned that you and your wife were having some troubles.”