John Lescroart - Damage

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.”

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?