Damage (40 page)

Parking in the Novios’ driveway, he checked the time on the dash before he turned off the engine: 1:21. He got out of the car and went back and opened the trunk. There was the shotgun, still, and the box of twelve-gauge ammunition that went with it, so he picked them both up and carried them around to the kitchen door. No point having a weapon, he thought, if you couldn’t get to it in an emergency.

In the living room, one light burned. Michael came through the kitchen, and Chuck looked up from where he sat in his reading chair, one stack of papers lying on his lap, another on the floor next to him.

“You’re still up?” Michael said.

“Couldn’t sleep.” He pointed vaguely. “What are you doing with that thing?”

“Keeping it handy.”

“Is it loaded? I don’t think I’m comfortable with a loaded gun in the house.”

For an answer, Michael broke open the barrel and looked down through it. “Both barrels empty.” Then he held up the small cardboard box. “Ammunition over here.”

“Where are you going to keep it?”

“Near me. Did Kathy tell you the latest?”

“I didn’t see her. She was asleep when I got in. What’s the latest?”

Michael sat down, the shotgun on the coffee table between them, and told him about the slashed paintings.

“All of them?” Chuck now sat all the way forward in his chair.

“Every one.”

“Son of a bitch,” Chuck said. “Why did he do that?”

“Why did he kill Janice? Same reason. To get at me.”

Chuck sat back as though exhausted. He glanced down at the shotgun, up at his brother-in-law. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I can see where you’d be tempted.”

“I’m a lot more than tempted, Chuck. If it wasn’t for the kids ...” He broke off, his train of thought derailed. “Speaking of which, have you seen Jon tonight?”

“No, but I didn’t look in on any of them. Why?”

“He wasn’t home by the time I left tonight. He texted Kathy and told her he’d be late. I’d better go look.” And with that, he was up and out of the room.

Chuck came forward in his chair again, reached out and picked up the shotgun, broke it open over his knee, and checked the barrels again. Then closed it up.

Michael appeared back in the doorway. “He’s still not here. Shit.”

“He’s a big boy, Mike. He’ll be all right.”

“I hate this. I hate all of it.” He took a step into the room. “What are you doing with the gun?”

“Making sure it isn’t loaded. You shouldn’t be walking around with a loaded gun, Mike. Jon comes home late, you might shoot him by mistake.”

“I doubt that. Where is he?”

“Staying with friends, I’m sure. Text him, tell him you’re worried.”

Durbin, back at the sofa, sat down heavily. “You’re right. You’re right.”

“And you might think about getting some sleep.”

“You, too.” He paused. “I think Kathy’s been missing you.”

Chuck looked up sharply, a frown etched in place. “Why do you say that?”

“She mentioned a little something about it.”

“That’s none of anybody else’s business.”

“I didn’t say it was. I’m just passing along the information for what it’s worth. From a guy who’s just lost his wife to a guy who’s still got one.”

Chuck stared at Michael with what seemed like true malevolence for a long few seconds, then finally let out a heavy breath. Looking down at the pile of papers on the floor, the smaller stack on his lap, he managed a weak smile. “Sorry, Mike. I think we’re probably both done in. Maybe we ought to call it a day.”

Glitsky, at his kitchen table, nodded in a kind of grateful relief as he read these last words. As usual, Jeff Elliot had gotten it right, his tone reasonable. Maybe this, he thought, sipping his tea, would help to lower the temperature a little around all this madness and he could get back to just doing his job.

He folded up the
Chronicle
and was rinsing out his mug, getting ready to leave the duplex and go to work early, when the telephone rang. It was just after six o’clock, which gave the trained investigator in him a clue as to who it possibly was, he hoped. He took the two steps across the kitchen and picked up before the second ring.

“Hello.”

“Hey.”

“Hey. Everybody okay?”

“Everybody’s fine, except I miss you.”

“You do?”

“I do. Of course I do.”

“I thought you were furious at me.”

“Mad, not furious. Frustrated. Now I’m over it and just miss you.”

“I miss you, too. I can fly down this weekend if you’re going to stay.”

“If I’m going to stay.”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided. It seems so stupid and melodramatic to be down here, but up there it felt real and scary. I just don’t know what he’ll do, Abe.”

“Nobody does. That’s what makes him so scary.”

“I mean, what are the odds he’d really try anything with any of us?”

“If there’re any odds, they’re too great.”

“Now you sound like me.”

“Good. You’re obviously the smart one.” He paused. “You know, on second thought, maybe you ought to think about staying down there a few more days. I can fly down, make it a vacation for the weekend. How’s Sixto holding up with the kids?”

“My brother? Are you kidding? He wants to keep them forever.”

“Maybe we could do a little negotiation. Get a night away.”

“I could do that.”

Glitsky took a breath. “I wasn’t sure we were okay. We’re okay?”

“We’re different, but okay. I don’t do the risk thing so well.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“You shouldn’t, either.”

“Well, then I should change jobs.”

“Which you don’t want to do.”

“No. I don’t. Somebody’s got to hang in there and do it, and I’m temperamentally suited. It’s a curse but it’s who I am.”

“I know. And I don’t want you to change. I love who you are.”

A sudden surge of emotion made his head go light. He put his hand up to steady himself against the wall. “I’ll call when I know what time I’ll get in at Burbank,” he said.

Lou the Greek’s opened for business at six o’clock in the morning every day but Sunday. The bar/restaurant occupied a semi-hygienic, semi-subterranean space directly across the street from the Hall of Justice, and this location made it a favorite for cops and jurors and lawyers. At lunchtime, it tended to be packed with humanity, the tiny tables and six-person booths equally hard or impossible to come by, and this in spite of the fact that the only item on the menu was the special, a mostly edible, sometimes not, sometimes delicious combination of flavors and textures drawn from the rather disparate culinary cultures of both Greece and China. Only Greece and China. Lou’s wife, Chiu, upon whom the
Chronicle
had a few years before bestowed the sobriquet “Most Creative Chef in the City,” had an undeniable knack, no doubt about it—souvlaki char siu bao, barbecue red pork moussaka, hot and sour and lemon curd dolma stew, crispy duck pita pockets, and the ever-popular and mysterious yeanling clay bowl.

But before lunchtime, and especially in the early morning, Lou’s was a haven for serious drinkers, not so much the indigent or homeless alcoholics as one might suspect, but in general a well-dressed and bleary-eyed clientele of men and a few women who often were in line down the steps to the front door by the time Lou opened up at the crack of dawn. The stools at the bar, which had closed four hours earlier, were usually filled up before Lou could ring up the first sale.

On this Friday morning, though, the main action wasn’t at the bar, but in the booth farthest from it along the right-hand wall. And nobody was drinking anything alcoholic. A galvanized Farrell, positively dapper in Armani, had made some important decisions and in fact had already sprung into action during the night, and finally he’d contacted the principals who would need to be involved in his plan and told them that he needed them at Lou’s by seven A.M.

So he was sitting against the wall next to Amanda Jenkins and looking across the table at Glitsky and an uncomfortable Vi Lapeer. Everybody had already expressed their condolences and outrage about Wes’s dog, Gert, then said nice things to Abe about the morning’s “CityTalk” column, and after that vein had played itself out, Farrell drank some of his coffee, cleared his throat, and spoke in a voice that though firm was so quiet that it could have been a stage whisper.

“This is the most off-the-record conversation any of you will ever have with me. I would vastly prefer it if not one word of it got out to anyone beyond the four of us. Is that acceptable to all of you?”

Eyebrows went up in surprise all around the table, but no one objected, and within a few seconds all nodded their assent.

“All right, then,” Farrell went on, “I’ve asked you all here this morning because after all he and his family have put us all through the last couple of weeks, I’ve decided that enough is enough. It’s my intention to get Ro Curtlee back behind bars by tonight.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Jenkins said, pumping her fist. “
Yes!
”

Although he nodded again in apparent agreement, Glitsky’s brows came together in his default frown while Chief Lapeer, sitting across from Farrell against the wall, squinted in consternation, threw a quick glance at Glitsky, then came back to Wes. “How are you planning to do that?”

“The short answer is that I’m going to indict him.” He spent a few moments bringing everyone up to speed on the grand jury, explaining the relatively newly hatched strategy of tying via motive Ro’s earlier conviction to the current crimes he was suspected of committing, thus creating the special circumstances Farrell would need to outright deny him bail.