John Lescroart - Damage

“But she says she’s specifically not accusing me of anything,” Durbin said.

“That’s BS, pure BS,” Peter said. “She’s saying you did it, Dad. That you killed Mom.”

“You’re not going to let her get away with that, are you, Dad?” Jon asked. “You don’t go after her hard, you’re basically admitting that she’s right.” The elder son slumped back in his chair with his arms crossed, staring out into nothing with a sullen eighteen-year-old malevolence.

“I agree with Jon, Mike,” Chuck said. “You’ve got to go after her.”

Allie, the thirteen-year-old down the table, barely holding back her tears until now, had been silent all morning, and she finally spoke in a tremulous voice. “You didn’t though, did you?”

Durbin reached out a hand across the table and covered his daughter’s with his own. “No, sweetie. Of course not. I loved your mother and I miss her so much.”

“Me, too. I already miss her so much.” And Allie’s tears broke.

Kathy-her own eyes bloodshot and teary with grief and lack of sleep-swooped in from the kitchen and put her arms around her niece. “Nobody thinks your father did anything wrong at all,” she said. “You just don’t even have to think about that.”

“Marrenas thinks it,” Jon said. “And now maybe half the city. And now Dad’s got to deny it, plain and simple.”

“I don’t have to dignify what she wrote by responding to it. That’s lowering myself to her level and I’m not going to do it.”

“You gotta do it, Dad. You’ve got to say loud and clear you didn’t do it, if you didn’t…”

Michael slapped his palm flat against the table, cutting Jon off. “Of course I didn’t do it, goddamn it! I hope we haven’t gotten to that.”

“No,” Chuck put in, “don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then just deny it,” Jon said. “Come right out with it.”

Michael was shaking his head, his fury building, when one of the twin’s voices came from the kitchen. “Hey! There’s somebody in a TV van pulling into the driveway.”

“Damn.” Chuck stood up, craning to see out the dining room windows. “How’d anybody know you were staying here?”

“Somehow I just bet Marrenas knows,” Michael said. He was getting up, too. “And if she knows, the word is out. Maybe I’d better go see what they want.”

“You know what they want,” Peter said. “You’re right, Dad. I wouldn’t tell them anything.”

“Wrong, Peter,” Jon said. “What have we been talking about here? He’s got to deny it or it sounds like he did it. That’s why Allie’s crying. It sounds like it to her, too. It would to anybody.”

His voice notching up in volume, Durbin whirled on his older son. “What are you saying? Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m just saying…”

And the telephone rang.

“Christ, what a circus,” Chuck said. “You want to get that, Les?”

Leslie, one of the twins, picked it up in the kitchen. “Just a minute,” she said. “Uncle Mike, it’s for you. He says it’s Jeff Elliot from the Chronicle .”

“Jesus,” Peter said.

“I’ll get these clowns out front,” Chuck said.

“I’m not talking to anybody from the Chronicle .”

“They might get it right, Dad,” Jon said.

“There’s nothing to get. I keep telling you.”

“So tell him that if that’s what it is,” Jon said.

“I wouldn’t,” Peter said. “Don’t tell ’em nothing.”

“Jon, wait a minute. Look at me,” Durbin said. “What do you mean, ‘if that’s what it is’? I don’t like your tone or the implication. I didn’t have anything to do with your mother’s death.”

“That’s what you keep saying. So what’s that thing Marrenas said about you getting it on with somebody at work, too? Why’d she say that if there’s nothing there?”

“Jon!” Kathy snapped. “Stop talking like that. Right now. That’s ridiculous!”

“Yeah, sure, right.” The lanky kid suddenly pushed his chair back with an obscenity and stomped out of the room and up the stairs.

“Jon!” Durbin called after him. “Son!”

But the sound of steps continued until a door slammed upstairs.

“What’s his problem?” Peter asked.

And Durbin just shook his head, his hands outstretched in a supplicating gesture.

“Uncle Mike!” Leslie’s voice, calling from the kitchen again. “He’s still waiting.”

“Let him wait. No, tell him I can’t talk to him. No, wait, I’ll tell him.”

“Don’t get roped in, Dad,” Peter said.

“Don’t worry, I won’t. Christ.”

Allie, her face wet and blotched, turned away from her aunt’s embrace. “I don’t want this to be happening anymore,” she sobbed. “I just want my mommy back. I want my mommy.”

Eztli was up early that Thursday morning, too.

Ro had kept up the press on Tiffany from MoMo’s, and by the time Eztli had left on his own at around three thirty, Tiffany had finished her shift and Ro had stood her to a couple of Cuervo shots with-it looked like-a whole lot more to come.

Which was all good as far as Eztli was concerned. The more-than-obvious plainclothes cops parked on the street by the Curtlees, even though they’d lost the trail yesterday, looked like they were going to stick around. So the longer that Ro stayed away from home, the more mobility he’d have, at least until they caught up with him again.

Fortunately, and Eztli didn’t really understand why this should be, they weren’t following him. Maybe it was because yesterday he’d driven off, apparently alone, and then returned all by himself as well. Did they think Ro was still in the house, holed up? Well, whatever, it wasn’t his problem. They weren’t on his tail, and that was the main thing.

By a little before eight, the day clear and chilly, he’d driven the Z4-he loved that car!-down to Haight Street and found a parking space diagonally across from the glass storefront that announced the location of the Rape Crisis Counseling Center. Getting out of the car, he crossed the street and walked by the front of it. A heavy-looking wood-and-metal park bench was chained and padlocked along the front of the building. The Center didn’t officially open for about another half hour, but there was a light on and some movement inside.

The glass front, he thought, presented some promising possibilities. He could come back later tonight, when it was dark, and shoot out the window, but he wasn’t convinced that this would be the kind of unambiguous message that he was trying to deliver to Farrell through his girlfriend, Sam. Anyone could have a grudge with the policies or personnel of the Center and it wouldn’t be as clear a signal as Cliff Curtlee would want to send.

Eztli walked down to the end of the block, then crossed the street and came back the other way, familiarizing himself with the lay of the land. It was typical Haight Street-almost exclusively small business storefronts. When he got back to his car, Eztli checked his watch and saw that the Center would be opening in another twenty minutes. While he was here, he might as well wait. Then he could go in and ask for Sam Duncan, telling her that it was important that Wes Farrell abandon his plan to bring Ro to the grand jury. As it had many times before, he knew that his simple presence could work magic.

But then suddenly a black Town Car turned into the street, pulled up, and stopped directly in front of the Center. After a second or two, the back door opened and Wes Farrell himself stepped out, followed by the yellow Labrador that he’d been walking with the other night out in front of his home. As Eztli watched, the two of them went up to the front door of the Center. Farrell knocked and a dark, attractive woman opened the door, then took the leash. After only a few seconds of conversation-obviously they’d already discussed leaving the dog, and therefore she must be Sam-Farrell walked back to the limo and it drove off.