John Lescroart - Damage

Farrell let her rave.

And she went on, “I hope one of those judges has a daughter and Ro gets out and finds her and… no. No, I don’t hope that. But Jesus Christ. The guy’s got to stay in jail. What did you tell them? The Curtlees?”

“Nothing, really. I wanted to get your take.”

“My take.” She sat back, closed her eyes briefly. “Keep him in jail. Get him back at trial as soon as you can. This is a no-brainer, Wes. The guy raped at least eight women, beat three of them, and finally succeeded in killing one.”

“Eight?”

“At least eight, Wes. At least. All housekeepers brought up from Guatemala or El Salvador by the company who screened the Curtlee family’s entire workforce. All of them here on a work visa. All who originally said they’d testify, and then six of them got bought off to the tune of like a hundred grand each.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“One hundred percent. They were honest about it. In our lovely state, you know you can’t make a rape victim testify if she doesn’t want to. She can just refuse to get on the stand. And all these women preferred to take the hundred grand. There was nothing we could do.”

“And all these women reported rapes with Ro?”

Jenkins’ mouth closed down to a thin line. “These were women who were raped by Ro, Wes.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Farrell kept his tone nonconfrontational. “But I was asking if any of these women had reported these rapes when they happened.”

No answer.

“Amanda?”

Her eyes flashed. “They were scared to death of Ro, Wes. To say nothing of the Curtlees, who had absolute power over their lives. Plus, they didn’t think anyone would believe them.”

“So I’m taking that as a ‘no.’ Nobody reported. Is that right?”

Jenkins gave Farrell the thousand-yard stare, her face set in stone. “I really hoped we wouldn’t be having this kind of conversation.”

“What kind of conversation?”

“Temporizing over violent crime just because of the political climate.”

This criticism knocked Farrell back in his chair. Shaking his head, adjusting his bearings, he came back at her. “So I ask one question to clarify if these women reported their rapes and suddenly I’m the enemy?”

“I spoke to these women, Wes. I know them. No question they were raped.”

“All right,” Farrell said. “Fine. Let’s all agree on that.”

“Let’s also all agree, since we’re being honest here, that the Curtlees were pretty big fans of yours all through the campaign, and that maybe you feel you might owe them a little… cooperation.”

“That’s just not true, Amanda. I made no promises of any kind to the Curtlees. As far as I know, Ro’s in custody and should stay there until he gets his new trial. Certainly I’m not planning to do anything that’ll let him get back on the street. That’s the truth, Amanda. And regardless of what you might think, I don’t take orders from the Curtlees or anybody else. Except sometimes Sam.” He took a breath to calm himself, shaken at how far this had already gone, and with so little warning. “That’s just not how I operate, all right? I’m a pretty up-front guy, actually.”

She took a long beat, pursing her lips now. “They’ve hated me since I sent their fair-haired little boy off to prison. It’s a miracle I have any kind of a career left after all they’ve tried to do to me.”

“And yet here you are at number two, appointed by the very guy they supported. So who’s the winner in that picture?”

“Number two isn’t number one.”

“True. But it’s not hardly a dead career, either, is it? And you’ve got more years left on the planet than I do, so I wouldn’t give up hope. And if I were you, I certainly wouldn’t get mad at your boss for something he’s not going to do.”

She hung her head for another second. “I didn’t believe you’d be able to resist them, or even want to. I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

“This one time only,” Farrell said, “I’ll forgive you.”

Farrell had a gap in his appointment schedule, providing time for him and his administrative assistant, Treya Glitsky, to unpack more boxes. Treya was a strong, attractive woman of mixed ethnicity-mostly black with a hint somewhere of an Asian blood-line. She was married to the city’s head of homicide, Abe Glitsky, and had three children-Raney off at college and Rachel and Zachary, six and three, at home.

Farrell sat on the edge of his desk, not being particularly helpful on the moving front. “No, I’m serious,” he was saying. “I really shouldn’t be here. I’m not cut out for this job. Maybe I ought to resign before I do too much damage.”

Treya stopped moving books from the packing boxes onto his bookshelf and turned around, looking at her watch. “That could be a record. I think it took Clarence a week before he thought he ought to quit.” She was referring to Farrell’s immediate predecessor and her own previous boss, Clarence Jackman. “And he wound up staying nine years.”

“That’s not me,” Farrell said. “I only ran for this thing to keep the Nazis from taking over, mostly as a favor to Sam and her women friends.”

“And the Latinos, and the gays.”

“Okay, some of them, too. And don’t forget those crucial votes from a hundred straight old white guys. My margin of victory.” Farrell swung his legs, kicked his heels back against the side of his desk. “Is that true? Clarence really wanted to quit, too?”

“At first, every day, for a couple of months. But don’t worry. You still hold the record for least days in office before expressing the famed desire to retire.”

“That’s a relief. But why didn’t he quit, then? Clarence.”

Treya paused. “He got addicted to the naked wielding of power.”

“No, really.”

“You asked me. That’s my answer. Power.”

Farrell chortled. “Well, that’s not me. That couldn’t be further from me.”

“No.” Treya chortled right back at him. “No, of course not.” She leaned over and grabbed another stack of books.

“That ‘of course not’ sounded a little sarcastic.”

“It’s the acoustics in here.” Placing the books on their shelf, she half turned back to him. “So would you like me to go talk to Amanda?”

“No. I think we got it worked out. I’m not going to stab her in the back on this Ro Curtlee thing. Or anything else. That ought to be clear enough.”

“Let’s hope,” Treya said.

OUR TOWN

By Sheila Marrenas

Justice took a big leap forward in San Francisco yesterday when Roland Curtlee, the son of this newspaper’s publishers, was released on bail. Mr. Curtlee, whose conviction had been reviewed and reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, has served nine years in prison for the rape and murder of a housekeeper from his parents’ home, Dolores Sandoval. During the trial, many of the victim’s family members, and their supporters, had appeared daily in the courtroom, sporting large buttons with Sandoval’s smiling face. It was an effective and, as the Court has ruled, illegal technique to elicit sympathy for the victim at the expense of Mr. Curtlee.

During the trial, Mr. Curtlee never denied that he was involved in a relationship with Ms. Sandoval. This explained the DNA evidence taken from Ms. Sandoval’s body after her death. But never explained were allegations that Ms. Sandoval had a large “dance card” of suitors who were never pursued by police.

Although he was legally entitled to his freedom via bail during his last incarceration before his trial nine years ago, Mr. Curtlee had been denied bail by Judge Oscar Thomasino, a conservative judicial activist whose decision was widely decried in legal circles. “Mr. Curtlee,” said one Stanford professor, “was denied due process in the bail proceedings and was subject to a prejudicial review by Judge Thomasino that assumed his guilt and denied his basic civil rights.”