Damage

by John Lescroart

  Glitsky’s mouth went up a quarter inch. “Wiser heads prevailed.”

  “I’d have thought you wanted to be there.”

  “I did. She took my interest into consideration.”

  Another half block. A restaurant with happy early TGIF revelers. A body repair shop. A tattoo parlor. Four homeless people.

  “Gets home from where?” Jenkins asked.

  “Wherever they wind up going.”

  “They?”

  “Him and the butler. They left at around ten thirty. We got him tagged with the GPS when he stopped at his bank about ten minutes later.”

  “So where’d they go after that?”

  “San Bruno for a half hour or so, and finally Sunnyvale now for a while. I checked just before you came in. He was still there.”

  “What’s down there?”

  “I don’t know. Some lunch place, maybe. A whorehouse. I ...”

  Glitsky came to a standstill, put his hand on Jenkins’ arm.

  “What? Abe?”

  “I just had a horrible thought,” he said. “I could be wrong. I’m probably wrong.”

  “What?”

  Glitsky was already turned around, starting back toward the hall. “We’ve got to get back and find out for sure,” he said.

  “Abe? What?” she asked again.

  “Not what, who,” he said. “Gloria Gonzalvez.”

  Gloria built her work schedule so she would get the maximum time with her children. There was no avoiding leaving her baby, three-year-old Bettina, every day with Angela, who was a find, at eighteen really more like an older sister than a babysitter. But with the boys, Ramón and her six-year-old, Geraldo, both of them finally spending their full days in school, she could leave home just after they caught the bus at eight, clean her five or six houses—only four on Friday!—and still be home by the time they got there at three thirty or thereabouts.

  Today she’d finished a little bit earlier than usual, dropped off her two helpers at their apartments, then did a little grocery shopping for dinner and the weekend before stopping by Angela’s to pick up Bettina. Now she had an hour or so before the boys got home as she turned into her block, enough time to get dinner started and play with her baby alone, which was such a rare and special treat that they both loved. Her street, down in the flats just to the west of the freeway, was wearing its shabby winter coat today, the trees bare, the small, stand-alone houses in dull and faded pastels, what lawns there were as gray as the leaden sky above.

  This was a neighborhood of working people, and the line of cars that sometimes made parking at the curb so challenging at night and on the weekends was missing, making the street feel all the more deserted. Gloria thought it was a little odd to notice a brand-new white SUV parked a couple of houses down from hers. People on this block didn’t buy showroom-quality Toyotas or Lexuses or whatever the car was. It was out of place enough that she glanced over as she drove by and was reassured by the Latino driver—well dressed but clearly one of them, someone who belonged here. Maybe someone’s cousin, she thought. Or new boyfriend.

  She pulled her own rust-stained green midnineties Honda into her driveway and pulled all the way in so that she could enter by the back door directly into the kitchen. She had Bettina buckled behind her in her backward-facing baby seat, and she went around to the car’s back door, opened it, leaned over, and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek—“Momento, chica.” Then she opened the car’s front passenger door to get out her two grocery bags and closed that door when she had them both.

  With a bag in each hand, she turned and went up the three steps on her back stoop. Putting the bags down, she fished for a second in her purse for her keys, then found them, and opened the back door. Picking up the bags again, she brought them inside the house, put them on the counter, and then remembered that she’d bought some Häagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche ice cream, Roberto’s favorite. She didn’t want to let that get warm and start to melt, so she dug down in the bag for it and crossed the kitchen to put the carton in the freezer.

  All the while, she’d been softly humming to herself, as she did when she was happy, and suddenly she thought she heard something. Closing up the freezer, she stopped and listened intently, her head cocked to one side.

  What had that sounded like?

  The answer came to her in a flash—a car door opening!—just as she turned and bolted for the back door and out onto the stoop.

  And there was a man already halfway out of her car on Bettina’s side, the close side to her, straightening up and turning around, holding her baby in his arms.

  She stopped, her eyes wide with terror, frozen.

  Ro Curtlee was holding her baby.

  “Hey, Gloria,” he said with his terrible smile. “All these years and you’re still a damn fine-looking woman.”

  Glitsky placed a cell phone call to the Sunnyvale Police Department while he was jogging back to the Hall of Justice. Since he hadn’t placed it as a 911 call, the dispatcher down there put him on hold before he could get a chance to state his business. Two blocks later, as he was getting to the steps of the Hall, he gave up, hung up, and tried 911, which was busy.

  Inside the building, he lost his signal altogether.

  He ran down the internal hallway that led him to Southern Station, the police precinct located on the ground floor within the Hall of Justice where a sergeant named Mildred Bornhorst was monitoring the GPS results. Here Glitsky learned that Ro’s car was still parked down in Sunnyvale, where it had been for more than an hour. Glitsky got the relevant information, such as it was, to give to the emergency operator, but again he couldn’t get past the busy signal.

  It was not until he was in his office again—the clogged river of humanity in the lobby, the long ride up in the world’s slowest elevator—that he could punch up the emergency numbers again on a landline. This time through a disturbance in the Force he got through and in another two minutes was talking to a Sergeant Bransen at the Sunnyvale Police Department.

  “The suspect is Ro Curtlee,” Glitsky was explaining. He spelled out the name. “He’s out on bail on a rape/murder charge . . .”

  “There’s no bail on a rape/murder charge,” the sergeant said.

  “Don’t ask,” Glitsky snapped. “In any event, he’s armed and dangerous. He’s due to get indicted on multiple murder within the next couple of hours, so if you can get in his face any way you can, we’d appreciate it more than I can tell you.”

  “Get in his face? What’s that mean? Is he indicted or isn’t he?”

  “He should be by the time you find him.”

  “What if he isn’t?”

  “Then you can at least slow him down.”

  Another hesitation, then Glitsky heard, “And what’s he doing again?”

  “I think he’s threatening or harming one of the witnesses who’s going to testify against him.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Gloria Gonzalvez, although that might not be her name anymore. She might have gotten married or just changed it.”

  “All right. So Gloria somebody.”

  “Right.”

  “And where does the GPS put him?”

  Glitsky had written down this information, and now he consulted his notepad and said, “It looks like the nine hundred block of Dennis Drive, between Burnham and Agnes.”

  “Okay. What’s the address they’re in front of?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “License number of the car?”

  Glitsky gave it to him.

  “Okay. And where the woman lives? Her address?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  A slight hesitation on the other end, perhaps a sigh of impatience.

  Glitsky’s blood pounded from his temples to the center of his forehead. “Look, the guy is serious as a heart attack and he’s down there now. He’s probably stalking this Gloria woman. You need to just send some units down and check it out. Be a presence. You see a guy who looks li
ke he doesn’t belong, get his ID. If it’s Curtlee, hold him or if the indictment’s come down, take him in.”

  “You suggest we go door to door?”

  “Yeah. Absolutely. If you have to.”

  “Can I get the spelling of your name again?”

  “Sure.” Glitsky blew out heavily to release some of his own frustration, then spelled it out for him. “I’m head of San Francisco homicide.”

  “All right. I hear you. I’ll send a unit over.”

  “More than one would be better.”

  Another hesitation. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  On the way down to Sunnyvale, and although it was illegal even for a cop like Glitsky to use his cell phone while he was driving, he checked in again with Sergeant Bransen. He had sent a couple of squad cars over to Dennis Drive, but there had been nothing suspicious going on there. His officers had not seen fit to go door to door.

  Glitsky placed another call back to Southern Station at the Hall and talked to SFPD’s own Sergeant Bornhorst again, manning the GPS feed since the morning. From Bornhorst he learned that Ro’s car had moved on from its Sunnyvale location and was now on the 280 Freeway going north, back up toward the city. There were no units, Highway Patrol or local, in any kind of pursuit, but Bornhorst assured Glitsky that as soon as word of the indictment came down, if it did, police could pull the car over and pick up Ro—it would take some coordination with mobile units, but they could get it done.

  Glitsky was sure she was right. But because of his own history with Ro, as well as the new chief of police’s need to avoid the appearance of anything personal sullying the arrest, Lapeer had rather pointedly taken Glitsky out of the decision-making process on her strategy to serve Ro with the indictment and get him back into custody. The chief was assembling a special team for the takedown, and from what Glitsky had heard, it was going to be near or at Ro’s house, where he could be expected—eventually—to turn up.

  Assuming, of course, that the grand jury could make up its mind on indictment for the first two murders before the end of the day.

  By this time, Glitsky was two-thirds of the way down to Sunnyvale. He could still be useful. He had his own reasons for finding Gloria Gonzalvez.

  During his drive down the peninsula, the clouds had bunched up and condensed and now a stiff cold rain pelted his windshield as he turned into Dennis Drive. Cruising the length of the street, fortunately only one block long, there was still just barely enough light to assure himself that, sure enough, neither of Ro’s two probable vehicles were parked at the curb.

  Finding a space more or less at random, he parallel parked into it and sat for a moment hoping for a break in the rain, since he realized to his chagrin that he only had his regular Mountain Hardwear jacket—he’d loaned his raincoat to Amanda Jenkins for their walk up in the city and she no doubt still had it. Finally giving up as the rain kept falling, he got out and jogged from his car to the nearest house that showed a light, got under the front door overhang, and rang the doorbell.

  After a moment, the inside door behind the screen opened a crack and a female voice said, “Yes?”

  Glitsky, a large black man with a fierce countenance and a long scar up and down across his mouth, almost never encountered less than a severely reserved welcome from his unexpected appearance at someone’s door, if not one of actual fear. And this woman was proving to be about typical. So he had his badge out and introduced himself, then continued: “I’m looking for a woman whose first name is Gloria who lives on this street. Her last name used to be and maybe still is Gonzalvez. I believe she may be in danger and I’d like to talk to her.”

  The woman didn’t open the door any farther, simply said, “Sorry,” and closed it.

  Glitsky didn’t waste any time hoping to alter her worldview about how to act if policemen came to her door requesting information. Instead, reasoning that she would probably at least know the name of her next-door neighbors, he skipped the next house, and the one after that, jogging through the rain, and a few houses down another house had lights showing and he turned in and tried again. This time the resident was a middle-aged African American man and he opened his door and actually gave Glitsky a smile. “Wet enough for you out there?” he said.

  “Just about.” Glitsky held up his badge and gave him his pitch.

  The man didn’t have to think about it. “That’d be Gloria Serrano.” He actually came out and stood next to Glitsky on the small porch, pointing to be helpful. “She’s four houses down on the other side, the blue shutters. Is she all right?”

  “I hope so,” Glitsky said. “Thank you.”

  “You need any help?”

  “No. You’ve been one. Thanks.”

  Half a minute later, Glitsky rang her doorbell. It was apparent that several people were inside. There was a bit of commotion—children’s exclamations and then an authoritative man’s voice. When the door opened, Glitsky was holding his badge out again and looking at an obviously angry, worried Hispanic male of about thirty-five. He was holding a fireplace poker in his right hand and looked ready to use it at the slightest provocation.

  “Sí?”

  “Abe Glitsky, San Francisco homicide,” he said. “Homocidio. Comprendo?”

  Behind the man, the small living room was well lit. Two young boys stole glances at Glitsky around their father’s legs. Glitsky caught a glimpse of a woman sitting on the couch who appeared to be holding a toddler on her lap, and now hearing Glitsky’s name, she stood up and came into the light. “Roberto. It’s all right,” she said. “I know him. Let him in.”

  She offered Glitsky a small bath towel to dry his head and his face and hung his soaking-wet jacket on the back of a chair over a heating duct. The house was pin neat, bare bones, and warm, the windows cloudy with condensation. Glitsky sat down across from her, sideways to Roberto, at the Formica table just off the living room. She had the toddler back on her lap, while the father ordered the young boys to sit quietly on the couch, which they did without a word of resistance. To Glitsky, there seemed to be enough tension in the room to spontaneously combust.

  “I’m so glad I found you,” Glitsky began.

  She forced a polite smile. “It’s good to see you, too. Is there a problem?”

  “Well.” Glitsky’s relief at seeing her alive and unharmed was substantial. “There may be. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Ro Curtlee has been released from prison.”

  She glanced—a warning?—at her husband, then pulled the toddler in closer to her, her arms encircling her, bouncing her on her knee. She shook her head no. “How did that happen?”

  “He appealed the guilty verdict and they’re going to give him a retrial. In the meanwhile, they let him out on bail.”

  “Why did they do that?”

  “There’s no good answer to that. The point is, they did. So you haven’t heard from him?”

  “No. Why would I have heard from him?”

  “He might want to talk you out of testifying against him again. Because if he has a new trial, we’re going to need you to give your testimony again.”

  “But I have already done that, last time.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Doesn’t that count anymore? What I said?”

  “Yes. But it will be more persuasive if you tell it to a jury again.”

  “I am sorry,” she said. “But I do not think I can do that another time.”

  Glitsky, of course, never thought this was going to be easy. “I can understand how you feel that way,” he said. “But it’s come to the point now where you are the most important witness from the last trial if we are going to hope to put him back in prison.”

  Gloria looked again at her husband, whose eyes had never left Glitsky, and who hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d sat down. “How has it come to that point? What about the other witnesses? What about Felicia?”

  Glitsky took in a quick breath and came out with it. “Felicia is dead.”

  Gloria crossed
herself, her lip quivering.

  “She was in a fire,” Glitsky said.

  “Since Ro got out of prison?”

  A hesitation, then a nod. “Yes.”

  “He killed her.”

  “Maybe. That’s not impossible.”

  Suddenly Roberto spoke up. “She cannot do this again,” he said. “That is all.”

  “Well, I’m afraid that’s not all, sir. I’ve been trying to locate Gloria for almost a month. Now that I’ve found her, all of you, I’d like to put her—and now your family—into a witness protection program until the trial.”

  “No. We cannot do that,” Gloria said. “I did that last time when I was alone, but now we have jobs, a life, as you see. I can’t just disappear again.”

  “It would only be until you testified, like last time.”

  “And when would that be?”

  “August, at least. Maybe later.”

  She almost broke a smile at the absurdity of the request. “No,” she said. “I am no threat to him, and he is no danger to me if I don’t testify. So I will not. It is simple.”

  Glitsky all at once felt a chill settle on him, and he shivered against it. He did not want to bring undue pressure to bear on this woman, but she had to realize the danger of her situation. “Do you know how I found you here?” he asked her, and when she shook her head no, he went on, “We put a tracking device—a GPS unit—on Ro’s car. He drove down to this street today and stayed here nearly two hours.”

  Roberto and she shared another blink of a look. “I was not here,” she said.

  “You didn’t see him? He didn’t talk to you?”

  This time Gloria’s glance at her husband conveyed a true message: Don’t say a word. “No,” she said. “I will simply call his parents and tell them I won’t testify. He will not come back.”

  Glitsky held his hands clasped tightly on the table in front of him. He became aware of the tension in them and consciously willed them to relax. He didn’t want to snap or become argumentative, positions from which there’d be no extrication. He met Gloria’s eyes, tried to soften what he knew was the harsh set of his features. “He came by here this afternoon and threatened your children, didn’t he?” he said in an even tone. “Isn’t that what really happened?”