Damage

by John Lescroart

  Bracco sipped at his own coffee to give himself some time. The silent presence of the Curtlees unnerved him. He looked from the solid, unyielding parents over to Ro Curtlee in his pressed blue jeans and form-hugging black T-shirt and his eight-hundred-dollar cowboy boots. He still wore the cast on his arm from his altercation with Glitsky and his patrolmen; his face, though, had all but cleared up. He’d shaved this morning and his hair was neatly combed.

  When he noticed Bracco’s eyes on him, Ro smiled dismissively.

  Bracco chose his words carefully. “I’m investigating another case and would like to clear your client from suspicion.”

  “You mean he’s under suspicion in another case?”

  “Only in the sense that we don’t have a suspect yet in this other matter. I am in the process of trying to eliminate possibilities.”

  “And Mr. Curtlee is among those possibilities?”

  “Yes.”

  A bark of a laugh from Ro, and then he sat back in his upholstered chair. “Unbelievable,” he said.

  Theresa Curtlee finally got on the boards. “Truly,” she said.

  Denardi held out a warning palm toward both her and his client. “Ro. Theresa. Please.” And then, back to Bracco. “This other case? A homicide, I presume.”

  “Arson murder, actually.”

  This brought a tight little turn-up of Denardi’s lips. “Of course. And how would Mr. Curtlee be even remotely connected to this hypothetical arson murder?”

  “The victim was the wife of the foreman of his jury. Janice Durbin.”

  Another prim smile from Denardi. “I see. And maybe you could draw me a road map, as it were, of how this poor woman’s unfortunate death leads in any way, even remotely, to Mr. Curtlee?”

  Bracco kept it simple. “She was strangled, and somebody lit a fire. The same thing happened to Felicia Nuñez. And of course Ms. Sandoval was also strangled. There would appear to be something of a coincidence. So if your client will cooperate and we can eliminate him as a suspect, I’d like to do so. I just don’t see what your objection could be.”

  Cliff Curtlee ostentatiously cleared his throat but said nothing.

  Denardi took his cue. “Well, on general grounds, Inspector, my objection is that we American citizens have the right to our privacy. Mr. Curtlee doesn’t have to tell you or anybody else what he was doing on Friday morning or any other time.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “On the other hand.” Denardi turned toward Ro again and some signal must have passed between them. “If you’d give my client and me a couple of minutes alone, Inspector, we might be able to come to some accommodation. If you don’t mind.” With that, lawyer, client, and his parents all stood and left the conference room.

  Bracco sat back, crossed his legs, and leaned back to take in the large canvases of modern art and the leather-bound shelves of books, and photographs of the famous and powerful. He cast his glance out over the city—the chop on the bay far below, the scudding clouds, the Ferry Building and Bay Bridge elegantly sweeping out to Treasure Island.

  Then, as though it had been choreographed, and maybe it had been, Denardi, Ro, and the Curtlees came back into the conference room.

  “Inspector,” Denardi began before they’d even sat down, “it would be wonderful if you could pass a message back to your colleagues in the police department that we are always ready to cooperate with its investigations when the proper procedures are followed. Mr. Curtlee is ready to make a statement about his actions last Friday morning. Do you have a tape recorder to get it down for the record?”

  “Sure.”

  They sat down in their previous seats. “If you don’t mind, Ms. Curtlee will be taking notes as well.”

  “Fine.” Bracco pulled out his pocket recorder and placed it on the table. After his standard introduction, he asked Ro Curtlee what he’d done on the previous Friday morning.

  “I woke up late, about nine fifteen, in the house here,” he said. “I went down and said hello to my parents, who were just finishing breakfast, and then had some breakfast of my own—served by our lovely Linda.”

  “We’ll corroborate that,” Cliff Curtlee said, gesturing toward his wife. “Both of us. Would you like to know what we ate, too?”

  Bracco kept his composure. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. Turning back to Ro, he asked, “And after breakfast?”

  “I showered and put on some clothes and at about eleven I was at my doctor’s where he checked the cast on my arm. How’s that? Want to go later?”

  “Yes, please.” They ran down Curtlee’s actions through the whole day until he joined his parents again later for dinner. “That’s good,” Bracco said when they finished. “Let me ask you a couple more questions about the morning. Is there anybody here who might have seen you in bed before nine fifteen?”

  He thought for a moment. “Linda knocked at nine. That’s what woke me up. It kind of pissed me off if you want to know.”

  “So nine, then? And before that?”

  Denardi had had enough. “Before that, Inspector,” he said, “he was asleep in his bed at his home. Is there anything difficult to understand about that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then.” Denardi clapped his hands. “I believe that’s what you came here for. You’ve got your statement, willingly delivered. Full cooperation. Now if you’ll excuse us . . .”

  Bracco made no move to reach for his recorder. Instead, he nodded amicably. “Hey, though,” he said, as though he’d just thought of it, “now that we’re talking, how’s the food at Tadich’s lately? Good as ever?”

  The furtive look between lawyer and client disappeared almost as quickly as it came, but not so quickly that Bracco didn’t see it. And they both knew that he’d seen it.

  “The hell with this,” Ro Curtlee said to Denardi. “This is never gonna end unless we do something about it. I’ll tell you what, Inspector, I’ll take a fucking lie detector test. We got to put an end to this. How’d you like that?”

  Denardi extended his arm to its full length. “Ro!”

  But the young man went on, “No, Tristan, this is just bullshit! The same shit they been laying on us since all this began. I didn’t shoot anybody yesterday or any other day. I finished lunch and me and Ez went to the planetarium ...”

  Denardi actually came out of his seat. “Ro! Shut up! That’s enough!”

  But Ro couldn’t seem to get himself under control. He stood up, too, now pointing at his attorney, his face flushed with anger. “What? I’m supposed to just take this? He just accused me again . . ”

  “Don’t talk, damn it!” Denardi nearly bellowed. “Don’t say another word!” Then he turned to stare down at Bracco. “This interview is over,” he said. “Right now.”

  Bracco got his hands on his recorder first thing. Leaving it on, he stood and backed away a couple of steps. “What are you going to take a lie detector about, Ro? I never mentioned anybody getting shot.”

  “Don’t answer that,” Denardi said.

  “He already did,” Bracco said.

  “This is absurd.” Cliff Curtlee got to his feet.

  Denardi reiterated, “He didn’t admit a goddamn thing.”

  “Oh. Okay, then. He’s got nothing to worry about.”

  Ro took a step toward him. “I got nothing to worry about anyway, dickhead.”

  “Ro. Enough.” Denardi moved his bulk around in front of his client. “Get out of here, Inspector.”

  “Sure,” Bracco said, backing away. “I’m gone,” he said. “Nice chatting with you all.”

  22

  The only Courier reporter who worked in an office instead of in one of the cubicles on the main floor city room was Sheila Marrenas. She had earned this eminence not only because she was an excellent stylist as a writer, with a distinctive voice, but because her column, “Our Town,” was the most widely read and popular recurring feature in the newspaper. She had a great eye for news and especially for conflict disguised as
news. It didn’t hurt, either, that Marrenas had early on been inculcated with a belief system that coincided with the politics of the newspaper’s owners, and that she could and did express these views with the passionate conviction of the true believer.

  Now she came into her office, fresh from her lunch with the mayor’s press secretary, a bit of a coup in itself, her brain considering the slant to take on Leland Crawford’s first weeks in office, to cast him in the best possible light. She wasn’t overly concerned with her objectivity, which so many other news outlets had long ago proven to be a spurious virtue when it came to reporting. Besides, she was a columnist now—not just a reporter. She was all about opinion, nuance, point of view.

  Marrenas knew that newspapers were about wielding influence and molding public opinion, and the point was that Leland Crawford had accepted a great deal of the Curtlees’ campaign money and now, even at the very beginning of his administration, was showing signs that he knew which side his bread was buttered on. He could be a crucial ally in the political wars that were always on the horizon in San Francisco. A flattering column by her on his first weeks could go a long way toward setting his inclinations toward them into concrete. Maybe she could contrast Crawford’s own bold agenda and no-nonsense activism with Wes Farrell’s fairly abysmal continuing performance to date.

  That might really shake things up.

  Her phone was ringing as she came through the door and she reached over her cluttered desk to pick it up, chirping her name in her trademark response.

  “Sheila. Cliff . . . Something’s come up. You got a minute? ... Good. I’ll be right down.”

  She went behind her desk, opened her drawer, and took out her hand mirror, checking to make sure that every little thing about her face and hair was as it should be. She needn’t have worried. At forty-three years old, she possibly looked better than she had at thirty. Certainly she’d grown into her style, which was professional and cultured. She’d tamed the wild mane of frizzy black hair she’d had ten years ago with soft curls now, settling about her shoulders. And her face had never been a problem. Her olive-tinted skin was not simply clear, but luminous, small pored, and glowing. Her smile, under the sultry coals that were her eyes, was genuine and generous after the braces had come off at last about six years ago.

  She was more than comfortable with her looks, and now as she put the mirror back in her drawer, she allowed herself a small smile, thinking that it was almost a shame that she wasn’t inclined to consolidate her position here at the paper by seducing Cliff, who clearly had always found her attractive. Her taste, though, truth be told, ran much more to Theresa, but—she asked herself—what would be the point of seducing the second in command?

  “Ahh, here you are. Looking even more lovely than usual, I might add.”

  “Oh, stop, you flatterer.” But she was smiling as she stood and came around the desk, offering first one cheek to Cliff, then the other one, kissing the air on either side. By long custom, when Cliff came down to her office to visit, they sat on either end of the leather couch that ran along under the window with the view down onto Castro Street.

  “So how’d the lunch with the mayor go?” Cliff asked by way of warm-up.

  “His press secretary,” she corrected him, “but it went very well. She’s very quotable. I got some good stuff. You’ll see.” She shifted, facing him on the couch, tucking one leg up under her. “But you’ve got something hotter.”

  “Not so much hot as in sexy,” he said, “as hot as in urgent. It’s Ro and the police again.”

  A small bubble of laughter shook her. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’d think after last week they would have learned.”

  “I don’t know if they’re capable of learning.”

  “I don’t, either. Was this Glitsky again?”

  “No, although with Glitsky running homicide, it’s obvious where the orders came from. This is an inspector named Bracco.”

  Marrenas nodded. “Darrel. I know who he is. What did he do?”

  “Well, maybe we should thank him, actually, since he’s giving us this story. But he came up to Tristan Denardi’s office today to ask Ro some questions. Tristan didn’t want to let that happen under any circumstances, but on reflection I thought since you weren’t available, it might be a good idea if Tristan and Ro went ahead so long as Theresa and I came along to represent our interests.”

  Her eyebrows went up in surprise. “Go on.”

  Cliff, sitting sideways on the couch, leaned in toward her. “Anyway, Glitsky, it turns out, is working on another murder, just some random murder across the city out in the Sunset. Although Glitsky naturally thinks maybe it isn’t really random. He thinks Ro’s got something to do with this one, too, and he had Bracco ask for the meet today to get Ro’s alibi for the time of the murder.”

  “This other murder, you mean?”

  “Yes, and I know. It’s bizarre.”

  “So what’s the possible connection to Ro?”

  “You’ll love this. You remember that difficult jury foreman at Ro’s trial?”

  “Michael Durbin.” Suddenly she snapped her fingers. “That’s who it was!” she said, her eyes flashing.

  “Who?”

  “This guy outside the courtroom last week who wouldn’t give me the time of day. It was Durbin. I knew I’d seen him before.”

  “At Ro’s arraignment? Why was he there?”

  “I have no idea.” She shook her head. “So, what are you saying? Somebody killed him?”

  “No. Somebody killed his wife. And then burned down the house around her.”

  Marrenas took in a quick breath and let it out in a rush. “That’s not very nice.”

  “No. But the point is that the police apparently somehow think, by some tortuous logic, that Ro had something to do with it. In fact, it’s so obscure that I can’t believe anyone really thinks it, but it seems like it’s going to be the next point of attack on Ro. And this in spite of the fact, as Ro told Bracco this morning, and Theresa and I backed him up because it was true, that he was sleeping at home at the time that this murder occurred.” Lowering his voice, Cliff went on, “And here’s the thing, Sheila. He was sleeping in his room. This was last Friday. I remember distinctly and so does Theresa. He came down and had breakfast with us at around nine or nine thirty and I promise you on my word of honor that he hadn’t been out killing some woman in the Sunset an hour before, and then setting her house on fire. That just didn’t happen.”

  Sheila picked up his thread. “But the cops still came to question him?”

  “Right. And you want to hear another one? That DA investigator who got shot yesterday out in the Fillmore?”

  “Yes?”

  “Evidently that was Ro, too. If you ask Bracco or Glitsky.”

  Marrenas nodded admiringly. “Wow. Ro’s been busy.”

  “Hasn’t he? Isn’t this just totally outrageous? In fact, he had lunch yesterday with Tristan Denardi at Tadich’s, the two of them talking about their legal strategy, then he and Ez went to the planetarium together. They did not stop and kill a DA investigator on the way.” He let out a deep sigh. “This is long past amusing, I must tell you.”

  Marrenas got up, stretched her back, showing off the merchandise, and walked across her office. When she turned around, she asked, “So what do you want to do?”

  Cliff came forward to the last few inches of the couch’s seat. “Well, the story itself, the cops suspecting Ro for every murder committed since he’s gotten out of jail, that’s got to get out. But more particularly, there’s got to be another story around this Durbin murder, and one that doesn’t have squat all to do with Ro, since it’s absolutely definite that he didn’t kill her. Or anybody else.

  “Now we’ve got public opinion largely on our side, I think, especially after your last couple of brilliant articles on police brutality. It would be interesting to illustrate how badly the police can get off course when they’ve got a preconceived idea and they’re out to get an
innocent man. Do you think you could do some looking around and write that story?”

  “With my eyes closed, sir. With my eyes closed.”

  “Are you and Mommy mad at each other?” Rachel asked.

  They had parked at the airport in the hourly lot, and now they were walking out to the terminal. Treya had wanted Abe to just drop them off at the curb by the departures lane, but he had overruled her and said he wanted to be with them all for as long as he could. To which Treya’s response had been silence.

  And which, in turn, led to Rachel’s question.

  The two of them, father and daughter, were about fifteen feet behind Treya and Zachary, lagging on purpose. Glitsky’s daughter was holding his hand with one of hers, pulling her small pink rolling suitcase with the other one. Her monkey doll, Alice, rode on Rachel’s back, its hands Velcro’d together under her chin.

  Glitsky said, “No. We’re having a disagreement, that’s all.”

  “But you’re not mad at her.”

  “I said no.”

  “I know, but I think she’s mad at you.”

  “She might be at that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not going with you.”

  “Why aren’t you? Isn’t this a vacation? Mommy said it was like a vacation.”

  “I know. But ‘like’ a vacation isn’t the same as a vacation. If it was a real vacation, I’d be going.”

  “But why can’t you go on this one?”

  “See if you can guess.”

  She looked up and over at him. “You’ll get mad.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  “Okay, then. Work.”

  “Correct.”