John Lescroart - Damage

“That’s what I said, too. It doesn’t mean Ro didn’t shoot it. But you know what it does mean? It means it wasn’t definitely Ro. It might have been the other guy, the butler.”

Bracco snapped his fingers. “That’s why he offered to take a polygraph. The son of a bitch would’ve passed it, too.” He broke a sudden grin. “But here’s the good news. Fourteen years a cop and I finally get to say ‘the butler did it.’ How cool is that?”

“I don’t want it to have been the butler, so not very cool at all.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Abe. It probably was Ro. What does it matter anyway? Anybody it matters to is dead.”

“Not true. It matters to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I was completely and absolutely certain that Ro had killed Matt Lewis. I mean, he had motive. He had opportunity. He had the means. No question, he did it. Now there is doubt. Maybe not a lot of it, but real honest-to-God doubt. He might not have done it.”

“But again, Abe, so what? Why does it matter now?”

“It matters now because now I’m starting to have doubts about the other case I was equally certain about. Janice Durbin.”

“No,” Bracco said. “There’s no doubt there. With the shoes and the fire and then the paintings getting slashed. That was definitely Ro.”

“Right,” Glitsky said. “Except if he wasn’t there.”

“But he was.”

“Well, remember your talk with him at Denardi’s office, where he essentially admitted to killing Matt Lewis, when it turns out maybe not after all?”

“Sure. But I still think he pulled that trigger.”

“Well, think it all you want, but he also in that same interview gave us an alibi for the morning of Janice Durbin’s murder. You remember that?”

“Of course. His parents, the butler, and the maid.”

“The maid,” Glitsky said. “That would be Linda Salcedo, wouldn’t it?”

Bracco sat all the way back in his chair; his eyes had closed. “This was the thing you didn’t want to ask me.”

“ ‘Didn’t want’ isn’t strong enough.”

“Then I’ll say it again. Don’t.”

“I’ve got to. She’s the last person in the world who’d want to give Ro an alibi for anything. She hasn’t been to court yet and doesn’t have a lawyer. I want you to go over to the jail and see if she’ll talk to you. Ask her if she remembers any time Ro went out early in the last couple of weeks. She’s already told us he’s a late sleeper. If she corroborates his alibi… if he really couldn’t have been there…”

“He was there, Abe, at Durbin’s. He had to have been there.”

“Yeah, I know. But it would be better if we made sure. Way better.”

Jon Durbin got called out of his English class at eleven fifteen and was asked to report to the principal’s office. When he got there and gave his name, the secretary instructed Jon to go to one of the counseling rooms down a short hallway off the main lobby. His stomach doing cartwheels and his head light- what else could have happened now?- he got down to the third doorway on his right and knocked once.

The door opened away from him and he stepped inside, not seeing his father until the door was nearly closed behind him. Jon looked from side to side in anger and frustration, trapped. “I don’t have to stay here. Let me out.”

Michael Durbin stood his ground, holding the door closed behind him. “I wanted to have a few words with you,” he said, “after which you’re free to go.”

“I’m free to go now. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“Well, that makes one of us. I’ve got something to say to you, short and sweet. I did not kill your mother. I don’t know where you got that idea…”

“You don’t? You don’t think we all heard you fighting all the time?”

“It wasn’t all the time. We were having some issues. That’s what parents do sometimes. I did not kill her. We were trying to work things out so we could stay together. We got a little vocal from time to time.”

“Ha. A little?”

“So what, Jon? Really, so what? The issues were serious. Okay?”

“I know what the issues were. Or rather, the main issue.”

“You do? Maybe you could tell me, then.”

“You and Liza, that’s what. How’s that?”

“Well, that’s just completely wrong, is how that is.” Michael’s arms were crossed over his chest-protecting the door, protecting himself-and now he dropped them to his sides. “You think we could sit down a minute?”

The room held a table and four chairs. Jon hesitated, then finally sidestepped over to the nearest chair and lowered himself into it. His father pulled another chair from where it sat against the wall over to him. He wasn’t going to leave an open shot at the door to his son. Now, though, seated in front of it, he came forward with his elbows on his knees and raised his eyes directly to Jon’s. “I don’t know how I’m going to convince you of this, but Liza is a friend of mine and that’s all she is. That’s all she has ever been.”

“Yeah, right. You went over there the night after Mom’s service. Are you gonna deny that, too?”

“No. I went there. I was in pain, Jon. I’m still in pain. I needed to talk to somebody and felt I’d dumped enough on Chuck and Kathy. I knew Liza would listen. Why is that so hard for you to understand? I’d think that you, of all people, would get it. You know who I am. You’ve always known who I am.”

Michael’s even tone was puncturing Jon’s bubble of hostility. He sat back in his chair, hands folded in his lap, studying the floor. Finally he looked up. “Well, then, what was all the fighting about? With you and Mom?”

“I don’t know which fights you’re talking about exactly, but some of them were probably about money. Your mother wanted a bigger house, like Chuck and Kathy’s. She wanted me to open another store if I could. I didn’t want to do that. If anything, I wanted to work less and maybe get back to my painting. And that’s the other thing; do you really believe I cut up my paintings?”

“I don’t know. If it was the only way to get the cops off you.”

“Jesus.” Michael dropped his head and wagged it from side to side. “I don’t know how I’ve failed you so badly that you could think I’d do any of this. I didn’t, I swear to you. No Liza, no slashed paintings, no hurting your mother in any way.”

“Then why couldn’t you even say where you were that morning?”

“I was driving to work, thinking about work, about making more money, worried about your mother and me, and about Ro Curtlee being out of jail. I wasn’t paying any attention to the drive, or the delays. Do you remember all the details about coming in to school today?”

“So who killed her, then?”

“Ro Curtlee killed her, Jon. I was the main reason he did all that time in prison, and he killed her and slashed my paintings to punish me. Why doesn’t this make sense to you?”

“Because, Dad, he had a goddamn broken arm. How about that? It was all in the papers about the police breaking his arm when they arrested him. You don’t strangle somebody if you’ve got a broken arm, not somebody like Mom anyway. She was strong, you know? She could still beat Peter at arm wrestling. So it just couldn’t happen. And then who’s that leave?” He slammed his palm flat against the surface of the table next to him, eyes filled with rage and confusion. “You don’t think I haven’t thought enough about this? You think I want to believe that my father… that he’d do this and so fuck up all our lives? So if it’s not Ro Curtlee, who’s that leave, huh? Especially when you can’t remember what you did that morning…”