Damage (48 page)

“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.”

“I think we should, too.” Kathy pushed herself up and looked down at her husband. “Chuck?”

He brought his head up and smiled at her. “Right behind you,” he said.

“You said call anytime.”

“I did,” Treya said, “but I’m not sure I meant one o’clock. You’re never out until one o’clock.”

“Occasionally I am, as you can see. But I can hang up now and call you in the morning.”

“Or you can just tell me what time you’re getting down here, and then I can go back to sleep and wake up in time to greet you warmly.”

“Well, on that ... I thought you and the kids might want to consider coming back up here, get back to normal life.”

She paused for a long beat. “You got your indictment and arrested Ro.”

“No. Close, but better.”

“What could be better?”

“If one of the maids he raped shot him.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Not even a little.”

“He’s dead?”

“Completely.”

He heard her exhale. “I know I shouldn’t be too happy about somebody dying, but ...”

“There are cases it’s warranted. This would be one of them. So, do you want to come home?”

She paused again. “What’s the weather like?”

“Beautiful. Forty-five and pouring. What could be nicer?”

“Seventy-eight and sunny, for starters.”

“Seventy-eight?”

“Scout’s honor. Sixto told the kids we’d take them to the beach tomorrow. Do you realize we’ve never taken either of them to the beach?”

“I’m not surprised. Why would we?” It was Abe’s turn to hesitate. “It’s really going to be seventy-eight?”

“If not eighty.”

A last pause, and then Glitsky said, “I’m on Southwest, landing in Burbank at eleven fifteen. Maybe you could pick me up?”

“Not impossible,” Treya said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Farrell crossed the threshold from the hallway inside to his outer office and stopped in his tracks. He broke a genuine smile, his hands outstretched with more than a bit of theatricality. “The sun shines, my secretary returns, Ro Curtlee is off to that big appellate court in the sky. Could life get any better?”

At her desk, Treya rose out of her chair. “There are a couple of bear claws on your table,” she said. “Would that do?”

“It’s a good start, anyway. Very nice. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. They’re by way of an apology. I’m sorry about the absences, just taking off like I did. I didn’t mean to leave you in the lurch, but . . .”

He waved that off. “No explanation necessary, Treya.” His expression sobered. “I should have taken it more seriously myself. Maybe sent Gert down to be with you.”

“I’m so sorry about that.”

“Me, too.” His smile didn’t quite take. “I try to console myself that she was some kind of a martyr to the cause. Cliff, that son of a bitch, killed her to try to scare me off, and it almost worked. Instead, much to my own surprise, it kicked me in the ass and got me moving. Although in the end, I guess, it didn’t matter one way or the other.”

“No. It mattered. Either way, it was going to end Friday night. You just provided the insurance.”

“Maybe. That’s another nice spin on it. But if somebody told me I could trade Gert’s life for Ro’s, I’m not sure I would have done it. Even though she was just an animal . . .”

“So was he.”

“Well, there you go.” Changing gears, he pointed toward his office. “Anything else I should know about in there, besides the bear claws?”

Treya glanced down at the book she kept next to her computer. “Vi Lapeer wanted to have a talk with you when you got in. Also Mr. Crawford.”

“Himself?”

“In person. After that,” Treya continued, “nothing else till ten, when you swear in the two new ADAs. Their names are in your folder. Then at noon, lunch with the Odd Fellows and a few words on disaster preparedness.”

Farrell chortled. “My specialty.”

“Don’t worry. I got the talking points from the IO.” This was the information office. “Again, it’s all in the folder. Just don’t forget the folder and you’re golden. You want a cup of coffee?”

“A cup of coffee would be wonderful. And, Treya?”

“Sir?”

“Good to have you back.”

Glitsky said, “I think I’ve got a vitamin D overdose, or hangover, or whatever you’d call it.”

Dismas Hardy had a court appointment on this Monday morning, but things were dragging downstairs in the departments, and his hearing wasn’t going to be called anytime soon. So he dropped in at Glitsky’s office to share some peanuts and abuse with his friend. “You can’t get a vitamin D overdose. And in my extensive research into hangovers, I haven’t run across that one. What’s it feel like?”

“Weird. It’s like I’m almost, I don’t know, happy, I guess.”

“Wow.” Hardy cracked a peanut. “That
would
be weird. And it’s neat how you qualified the living shit out of it. Almost, you guess, you don’t know. Bar the door, Katie, Glitsky’s on a roll.”

Glitsky ignored the derision. “I think it was the beach. All that sunshine.”

“Hey, the sun is shining here, too.”

Glitsky, with a dour look, glanced up and over at the high windows in his office. “Yeah, but here it’s only fifty-two degrees. Down there it was eighty-two. That’s thirty degrees difference.”

“He excels at math, too. But it’s a rare treat to see you even almost happy, I must say. You think it might also have something to do with the Curtlees?”

Glitsky chewed his own peanut. “I’m not ruling that out.”

“So how many cases did that clear for you?”

“Well, not including the retrial, at least Felicia Nuñez and Matt Lewis and Janice Durbin. To say nothing of Gert, Wes’s dog. Plus the damage Ro will never get a chance to do to Gloria Gonzalvez or her kids or my kids or anybody else.”

Hardy hesitated for a minute. “Not to pick nits,” he said, “but last time we talked, you had a small problem with Janice Durbin.”

“Not really.” Glitsky shook his head. “Mostly logistical. If we couldn’t prove it to the grand jury. And now there’s no need.”

“Okay,” Hardy said.

“Okay what?”

“Nothing.” Another peanut. “I don’t want to be the proximate cause of you lapsing back into your traditional funk.”

“No chance. Right now I’m too high on life, too hooked on a feelin’.”

Hardy sat back, grinning. “If you break into song, I swear to God I’m calling the paramedics.”

“B. J. Thomas,” Glitsky said.

“I know who it was. ‘Raindrops,’ ‘Good Time Charlie.’ I know every song the guy’s ever sung.”

“Of course you do. With your eidetic memory, I’d expect nothing less.”

“Okay, then. With my eidetic memory, I need to tell you that I remember Ro Curtlee had apparent alibis both for Janice and Matt. That’s not logistical, as you put it. That’s factual.”

“Well, then we’ll never know for absolute sure, because his parents were it for Durbin, and his butler was it for Lewis. All three of them being dead, I choose to believe both alibis would fall apart under questioning. Sometimes you just take a free gift from the Almighty, bow your head, and say ‘Thank you, Lord.’ These cases are done, Diz, all closed up. And more power to ’em. That’s what I’m sayin’, know what I’m sayin’?”

“I’m not arguing,” Hardy said. “You know best.” He broke another grin. “As the great bass player Ray Brown once said: ‘I just came to town to help with the fuckin’.’ ”