John Lescroart - Damage

“But she wasn’t.”

“Not enough, anyway. He called her up to his room under the pretext of her cleaning up something last night…”

“Last night? He pulled this shit just last night? When he knew we’re all over him?”

A brisk nod. “He thought he had us beat. Killing Farrell’s dog. Cutting our balls off. Squeezing Lapeer with the mayor. Time to go back and check out the home turf.”

“What an asshole. So she was warned about it and still went up?”

Glitsky shrugged. “He’d been home almost a month and never did anything. Last night he called and needed something cleaned up, so she goes to his room and he’s naked in bed with a gun on her.”

“So she…?”

“She wanted to stay alive.”

Jenkins shook her head in disgust. “I’d like to kill him again.”

“I hear you.”

“What about the shoes?”

“Evidently not an issue this time. I know she didn’t mention anything to Darrel.”

“Okay, so how’d she get the gun?”

Glitsky’s lips turned up slightly. “This is my favorite part,” he said. “He just left it in his drawer next to his bed in his room. Loaded. So he goes out with his man, Ez, today and doesn’t take it with him. Probably figures that Linda liked it-the sex, not the gun, or the sex with the gun. So today she comes up, makes sure the gun is still there, and waits for her opportunity, which doesn’t take long coming.”

“But why kill the others? Why isn’t she just waiting in his room for him when he comes home?”

“I asked Darrel to ask her that myself. She said it was self-defense. Where she’s from, you kill a member of a powerful family, they kill your whole family. She knew if she was going to kill Ro, she had to kill them all.”

Jenkins thought about this for a minute. “Knowing the Curtlees, she just might have been right.”

“Maybe. Anyway, she knew Ez carried a gun, and so he had to go first. And then she figured Cliff and Theresa, they knew what Ro was doing and had been doing all along and they enabled him. Not her word. So they were part of it, what he was doing, and so the heck with them, too.”

“Jesus Christ, though,” Amanda said. “I didn’t think anybody was that good with a pistol. She killed all four of them?”

“God was on her side.”

Amanda sat back, looked up at the ceiling, and closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m going to want to run ballistics on the gun tonight, the murder weapon, to see if it matches the one that killed Matt.”

Glitsky nodded. “Probably a good idea.”

“And Ez’s, too, while I’m at it.”

“Whatever you can find,” Glitsky said. “I don’t think a search warrant is going to be a problem this time around.”

At the Novio house, the muted jubilation over news of the death of Ro Curtlee was even more restrained than it otherwise might have been because by midnight, Jon Durbin still had not come home. He had not answered his cell phone or responded to text messages, either, even when Michael had Jon’s little sister, Allie, text from her phone and beg him to just tell her he was okay.

Now finally all three of the girls were asleep and Peter lay on a couch covered by one of Kathy’s comforters, sleeping with the TV on in the family room. The three adults sat in the living room, Chuck and Michael on either end of the couch, Kathy in a lounger, all of them obviously wrecked by the recent and continuing events.

Finally Michael sat up straighter and slapped at his arm of the couch. “That’s it,” he said, starting to get up, “I’m going to call the police.”

Chuck looked over. “And say what?”

“That my son’s missing. See if they can go on some kind of lookout for him.”

“But he’s really not missing,” Kathy said softly. “Not any more than he was last night, Michael. He’s just confused, trying to sort things out.”

“And the police won’t be able to find him anyway. Or-check that-they won’t look for him,” Chuck added. “He’s too old and it hasn’t been long enough. I don’t think they even consider an adult missing anymore unless no one’s heard from them in three days.”

“Well, that sure gives whoever it is enough time to hide out pretty good, doesn’t it?” He slumped back into the cushions. “I just want to talk to him, that’s all. I can answer any questions he’s got for me. Any of them. I promise.”

“Of course you can.” Kathy let out an exhausted sigh. “Maybe this news tonight will make a difference to him. They said on the news that the police are closing the Ro Curtlee cases, and that’s got to include Janice, wouldn’t you think?”

“You would think,” Michael said, “but maybe not. Not the way Glitsky’s been looking at it. He obviously still thinks it was Ro, but keeps talking about things that don’t fit. Which still doesn’t mean it was me. I mean, as far as I know, he hasn’t done a thing about even looking at her clients.”

“I don’t know if he can do that,” Kathy said. “Isn’t there some kind of privilege or something? And besides, why would he want to talk to her clients? Do you know something that points to any of them?”

“Only that she was-” He stopped abruptly.

“What?” Kathy asked. “You were going to say something.”

“No.” Mike brought his hand up and squeezed at his temples. “Only that I’m so tired. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

But Kathy persisted. “Was there something you know about one of her patients? Michael? That could be real.”

“I don’t want anything to be real, Kathy,” he said. “I’m sure it was Ro Curtlee. It’s just this other stuff muddying the waters for Glitsky.”

“But what other stuff?” she persisted.

Chuck finally spoke up. “Mike thinks she was having an affair.”

“What? Janice? No way, Mike.”

Durbin shrugged. “Yeah, Kathy, I think there was a way.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Well.” A brittle little laugh. “That’s kind of personal, if you know…”

“Did you talk about it?”

“No.”

“Did she say she was going to be leaving you or anything like that?”

“No.” He hesitated, looked to each of them in turn, then spoke to Kathy. “We hadn’t had the most intimate last couple of months.”

And now she laughed her own brittle laugh. “Ha! If that’s it, I think they must be putting something in the water.”

Chuck’s head came up in a quick spurt of anger. “Kathy!”

She looked right back at him. “What? What if it’s the truth?” Then she turned to Durbin. “Like that’s a sign you’re having an affair? Even happy couples go through some ups and downs like that. It’s part of the package.” Then, back to her husband, “Isn’t that right, Chuck? It doesn’t mean your marriage is in trouble. At least, I hope it doesn’t.”

“She’s right, Mike,” Chuck said. “She’s absolutely right. But going back to the original question, I’d like to know what Glitsky’s reservations are,” he said. “I mean, it’s obvious enough to all of us that Janice was killed by Ro Curtlee and now Ro Curtlee’s dead and that ought to be the end of it. Is there something none of us are seeing?”

“Well, this affair, if there was one,” Kathy said.

“But even if there was one,” Chuck said, “there’s nothing that eliminates Ro Curtlee. He had a reason, he slashed the paintings for the same reason, Mike. He wanted to get at you. Even if Janice was having an affair, why would the guy slash your paintings? That had to be Ro. Which means the fire had to be Ro, too. Why don’t you tell that to Glitsky next time he asks?”

But all this emotion and discussion, along with the worry over his son, were finally taking their toll. Durbin bowed his head and shook it slowly back and forth. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t,” he said. “Doesn’t think he’s got a reason to ask. Now, if you guys don’t mind, I’m going up to bed.”