Damage (44 page)

“Then you can at least slow him down.”

Another hesitation, then Glitsky heard, “And what’s he doing again?”

“I think he’s threatening or harming one of the witnesses who’s going to testify against him.”

“Who’s that?”

“Gloria Gonzalvez, although that might not be her name anymore. She might have gotten married or just changed it.”

“All right. So Gloria somebody.”

“Right.”

“And where does the GPS put him?”

Glitsky had written down this information, and now he consulted his notepad and said, “It looks like the nine hundred block of Dennis Drive, between Burnham and Agnes.”

“Okay. What’s the address they’re in front of?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“License number of the car?”

Glitsky gave it to him.

“Okay. And where the woman lives? Her address?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

A slight hesitation on the other end, perhaps a sigh of impatience.

Glitsky’s blood pounded from his temples to the center of his forehead. “Look, the guy is serious as a heart attack and he’s down there now. He’s probably stalking this Gloria woman. You need to just send some units down and check it out. Be a presence. You see a guy who looks like he doesn’t belong, get his ID. If it’s Curtlee, hold him or if the indictment’s come down, take him in.”

“You suggest we go door to door?”

“Yeah. Absolutely. If you have to.”

“Can I get the spelling of your name again?”

“Sure.” Glitsky blew out heavily to release some of his own frustration, then spelled it out for him. “I’m head of San Francisco homicide.”

“All right. I hear you. I’ll send a unit over.”

“More than one would be better.”

Another hesitation. “I’ll see what I can do.”

On the way down to Sunnyvale, and although it was illegal even for a cop like Glitsky to use his cell phone while he was driving, he checked in again with Sergeant Bransen. He had sent a couple of squad cars over to Dennis Drive, but there had been nothing suspicious going on there. His officers had not seen fit to go door to door.

Glitsky placed another call back to Southern Station at the Hall and talked to SFPD’s own Sergeant Bornhorst again, manning the GPS feed since the morning. From Bornhorst he learned that Ro’s car had moved on from its Sunnyvale location and was now on the 280 Freeway going north, back up toward the city. There were no units, Highway Patrol or local, in any kind of pursuit, but Bornhorst assured Glitsky that as soon as word of the indictment came down, if it did, police could pull the car over and pick up Ro—it would take some coordination with mobile units, but they could get it done.

Glitsky was sure she was right. But because of his own history with Ro, as well as the new chief of police’s need to avoid the appearance of anything personal sullying the arrest, Lapeer had rather pointedly taken Glitsky out of the decision-making process on her strategy to serve Ro with the indictment and get him back into custody. The chief was assembling a special team for the takedown, and from what Glitsky had heard, it was going to be near or at Ro’s house, where he could be expected—eventually—to turn up.

Assuming, of course, that the grand jury could make up its mind on indictment for the first two murders before the end of the day.

By this time, Glitsky was two-thirds of the way down to Sunnyvale. He could still be useful. He had his own reasons for finding Gloria Gonzalvez.

During his drive down the peninsula, the clouds had bunched up and condensed and now a stiff cold rain pelted his windshield as he turned into Dennis Drive. Cruising the length of the street, fortunately only one block long, there was still just barely enough light to assure himself that, sure enough, neither of Ro’s two probable vehicles were parked at the curb.

Finding a space more or less at random, he parallel parked into it and sat for a moment hoping for a break in the rain, since he realized to his chagrin that he only had his regular Mountain Hardwear jacket—he’d loaned his raincoat to Amanda Jenkins for their walk up in the city and she no doubt still had it. Finally giving up as the rain kept falling, he got out and jogged from his car to the nearest house that showed a light, got under the front door overhang, and rang the doorbell.

After a moment, the inside door behind the screen opened a crack and a female voice said, “Yes?”

Glitsky, a large black man with a fierce countenance and a long scar up and down across his mouth, almost never encountered less than a severely reserved welcome from his unexpected appearance at someone’s door, if not one of actual fear. And this woman was proving to be about typical. So he had his badge out and introduced himself, then continued: “I’m looking for a woman whose first name is Gloria who lives on this street. Her last name used to be and maybe still is Gonzalvez. I believe she may be in danger and I’d like to talk to her.”

The woman didn’t open the door any farther, simply said, “Sorry,” and closed it.

Glitsky didn’t waste any time hoping to alter her worldview about how to act if policemen came to her door requesting information. Instead, reasoning that she would probably at least know the name of her next-door neighbors, he skipped the next house, and the one after that, jogging through the rain, and a few houses down another house had lights showing and he turned in and tried again. This time the resident was a middle-aged African American man and he opened his door and actually gave Glitsky a smile. “Wet enough for you out there?” he said.

“Just about.” Glitsky held up his badge and gave him his pitch.

The man didn’t have to think about it. “That’d be Gloria Serrano.” He actually came out and stood next to Glitsky on the small porch, pointing to be helpful. “She’s four houses down on the other side, the blue shutters. Is she all right?”

“I hope so,” Glitsky said. “Thank you.”

“You need any help?”

“No. You’ve been one. Thanks.”

Half a minute later, Glitsky rang her doorbell. It was apparent that several people were inside. There was a bit of commotion—children’s exclamations and then an authoritative man’s voice. When the door opened, Glitsky was holding his badge out again and looking at an obviously angry, worried Hispanic male of about thirty-five. He was holding a fireplace poker in his right hand and looked ready to use it at the slightest provocation.

“Abe Glitsky, San Francisco homicide,” he said.
“Homocidio
.
Comprendo?”

Behind the man, the small living room was well lit. Two young boys stole glances at Glitsky around their father’s legs. Glitsky caught a glimpse of a woman sitting on the couch who appeared to be holding a toddler on her lap, and now hearing Glitsky’s name, she stood up and came into the light. “Roberto. It’s all right,” she said. “I know him. Let him in.”

She offered Glitsky a small bath towel to dry his head and his face and hung his soaking-wet jacket on the back of a chair over a heating duct. The house was pin neat, bare bones, and warm, the windows cloudy with condensation. Glitsky sat down across from her, sideways to Roberto, at the Formica table just off the living room. She had the toddler back on her lap, while the father ordered the young boys to sit quietly on the couch, which they did without a word of resistance. To Glitsky, there seemed to be enough tension in the room to spontaneously combust.

“I’m so glad I found you,” Glitsky began.

She forced a polite smile. “It’s good to see you, too. Is there a problem?”

“Well.” Glitsky’s relief at seeing her alive and unharmed was substantial. “There may be. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Ro Curtlee has been released from prison.”

She glanced—a warning?—at her husband, then pulled the toddler in closer to her, her arms encircling her, bouncing her on her knee. She shook her head no. “How did that happen?”

“He appealed the guilty verdict and they’re going to give him a retrial. In the meanwhile, they let him out on bail.”

“Why did they do that?”

“There’s no good answer to that. The point is, they did. So you haven’t heard from him?”

“No. Why would I have heard from him?”

“He might want to talk you out of testifying against him again. Because if he has a new trial, we’re going to need you to give your testimony again.”

“But I have already done that, last time.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Doesn’t that count anymore? What I said?”

“Yes. But it will be more persuasive if you tell it to a jury again.”

“I am sorry,” she said. “But I do not think I can do that another time.”

Glitsky, of course, never thought this was going to be easy. “I can understand how you feel that way,” he said. “But it’s come to the point now where you are the most important witness from the last trial if we are going to hope to put him back in prison.”

Gloria looked again at her husband, whose eyes had never left Glitsky, and who hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d sat down. “How has it come to that point? What about the other witnesses? What about Felicia?”

Glitsky took in a quick breath and came out with it. “Felicia is dead.”

Gloria crossed herself, her lip quivering.

“She was in a fire,” Glitsky said.

“Since Ro got out of prison?”

A hesitation, then a nod. “Yes.”

“He killed her.”

“Maybe. That’s not impossible.”

Suddenly Roberto spoke up. “She cannot do this again,” he said. “That is all.”

“Well, I’m afraid that’s not all, sir. I’ve been trying to locate Gloria for almost a month. Now that I’ve found her, all of you, I’d like to put her—and now your family—into a witness protection program until the trial.”

“No. We cannot do that,” Gloria said. “I did that last time when I was alone, but now we have jobs, a life, as you see. I can’t just disappear again.”

“It would only be until you testified, like last time.”

“And when would that be?”

“August, at least. Maybe later.”

She almost broke a smile at the absurdity of the request. “No,” she said. “I am no threat to him, and he is no danger to me if I don’t testify. So I will not. It is simple.”

Glitsky all at once felt a chill settle on him, and he shivered against it. He did not want to bring undue pressure to bear on this woman, but she had to realize the danger of her situation. “Do you know how I found you here?” he asked her, and when she shook her head no, he went on, “We put a tracking device—a GPS unit—on Ro’s car. He drove down to this street today and stayed here nearly two hours.”

Roberto and she shared another blink of a look. “I was not here,” she said.

“You didn’t see him? He didn’t talk to you?”

This time Gloria’s glance at her husband conveyed a true message: Don’t say a word. “No,” she said. “I will simply call his parents and tell them I won’t testify. He will not come back.”

Glitsky held his hands clasped tightly on the table in front of him. He became aware of the tension in them and consciously willed them to relax. He didn’t want to snap or become argumentative, positions from which there’d be no extrication. He met Gloria’s eyes, tried to soften what he knew was the harsh set of his features. “He came by here this afternoon and threatened your children, didn’t he?” he said in an even tone. “Isn’t that what really happened?”

She was not even remotely skilled as a liar. After her eyes went wide, she looked over to her husband for help, who couldn’t manage much more than a what-can-you-do shrug. Finally she shook her head several times, much too quickly. “I just told you.”

“Yes, you did. You told me he didn’t do anything like that.” Glitsky leaned in toward her. “Was that the truth?”

Again, she silently begged her husband to step in, but either he couldn’t read the signal or he didn’t know what to do with it. Her eyes went across the room to the two boys sitting on the sofa. She wrapped her arms more protectively about the toddler on her lap. At last, she shook her head again. “I did not see him,” she said. “I don’t know why he was parked here.”