John Lescroart - Damage

“I’m sure it is.” Glitsky, surprised by this call, scratched at a spot on his desk.

“Lieutenant?”

“I’m here.”

“We didn’t talk about it much when you came by on Saturday, but over the weekend I realized maybe I should have… What I’m trying to say is that I felt in the aftermath of Ro’s trial that we had developed something of a personal relationship.”

Glitsky considered his words before he spoke. “We had a couple of cups of coffee together afterward. I remember that.”

“As I recall, Lieutenant, you drank tea.”

“That’s right. Still do.”

“Well, I felt then that we had a certain simpatico between us, both being hassled by the Curtlees as we were. I thought maybe we could kind of have a little off-the-record talk now like we did then.”

“About your wife’s case?” Glitsky pulled his yellow pad up in front of him.

“In a way, yes. I got the impression-I should have mentioned it at the time, I know-that you thought I was some kind of suspect.”

The thought that Michael Durbin was any kind of a real suspect had never really entered Glitsky’s mind, and for an instant he felt a degree of satisfaction that he’d sold his objectivity so convincingly. But he didn’t want to confide that, or anything else, to the man he was talking to. “Mr. Durbin,” he said, “I’ve just begun my investigation. I’ve got any number of people who could conceivably be suspects and probably…”

“But wait. No, no, no. You can’t have me as one of those people, because I’m not in it. I can’t be a suspect, Lieutenant. You know that.”

“How do I know that?”

“Because you knew who I was back after Ro’s trial, and I haven’t changed. You know that I’m no killer. I couldn’t kill a fly. I didn’t kill my wife or light the fire.”

“We don’t even know if the fire killed her yet, sir, or if somebody else killed her and then set the fire. We’re hoping to get some lab and autopsy reports soon, and then we’ll have more of an idea of what we’re even looking at.”

“Okay, fine, but whatever that is, my wife’s dead, and the investigation into her death can’t include the possibility that I had anything at all to do with it. Which is what I keep feeling you must be considering. And especially when I think you and me must already know for a fact who did this anyway.”

“We do?”

“Oh, come on, Lieutenant. Think about it.”

“I’ve been doing little else.”

“And Ro Curtlee hasn’t occurred to you?”

Glitsky said nothing.

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.”