"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."
Glitsky lowered his voice to an all-but-inaudible whisper. "I don't want to alarm your children, Gloria, but I think he came down here to kill you just like he killed Felicia Nunez. And then when he saw you had children, he had a better idea."
She just stared at him.
"He needs to be back in prison," Glitsky said, "so that he won't be able to hurt anyone else."
"He will not hurt my children if I don't testify," she said. "There would be no reason."
"How do you know that?" Glitsky asked. "How can you be sure of that?"
"Please. It is no use." She lifted her chin and met his eyes. "I just know."
35
Driving back up to the city on the Bayshore Freeway, the car's heater blasting away and his windshield wipers swishing at top speed, Glitsky tried to console himself with the fact that at least now he had a name and address for Gloria Serrano and that other, more persuasive souls in the DA's office might convince her that she needed to testify again against Ro. That might still happen, he thought, especially once they got him back into jail and he was no longer a direct threat to her children.
His mind kept returning to the question of how Ro had located Gloria so quickly, and again it returned to the old familiar theme of the city's stupid police budget. He was sure that Ro's success was a function of his ability to hire private investigators who could use private and in some case downright illegal methods to locate missing persons, or persons who wanted to be missing. He was working himself up into a fine lather about it as his cell phone chirped on the seat next to him.
Seeing the name Wes Farrell on the screen, he dispensed with the preliminaries. "Tell me we got the indictment."
"Better late than never. We got the indictment. Fifteen minutes ago."
"Hallelujah!"
"That's what I said, too. Sorry I didn't call you sooner, but I thought Vi needed to know first."
"True enough. She got her teams in place?"
"Not yet. I only just called her. Last she heard from her GPS people, he was already back in town from somewhere down the Peninsula."
"Sunnyvale," Glitsky said. "He found Gloria Gonzalvez."
"God, shit, no." Farrell's voice went hollow. "You're not telling me…"
"No. He just threatened her kids because it was so much more fun. Now she's saying she won't testify against him. It might be a hard sell getting her back on board."
"Well, maybe when she finds out he's back in jail…"
"That's what I was hoping, too. So did the chief say how long it would be before they could move?"
"She said she had to gather the troops. Some of 'em evidently have already gone home, though they're all on call. Then she first wanted to make sure where Ro was going. Next place he stops, which her guess is his house."
"Her guess?"
"He's in the city on Nineteenth Avenue heading that way. You got a better idea?"
"No. I suppose not."
"But?"
"Nothing." Glitsky wasn't going to criticize the chief who'd mostly stood up for him under serious and unrelenting pressure. But inwardly his guts churned that she had not chosen to put someone on Ro's car's tail from the minute he'd come into town, and maybe even before. But like Glitsky and maybe more so, Lapeer was probably dealing with budget issues. "I just want to see him off the street."
"Probably won't be more than a couple of hours," Farrell said.
"Less would be better."
"You want to call Vi and tell her that?"
"No," Glitsky said. "I don't think that would be productive." Jon Durbin had just been getting home late last night when he saw his father pulling out of his uncle and aunt's driveway. Not really having any idea of where his father could be going late on a Thursday night, he had followed him up through Golden Gate Park, then right on Geary down to Laguna, and finally north to Chestnut, where he parked at the curb.
Pulling over a half block away, Jon had watched his father get out of the car and walk to the entrance of the large apartment building that anchored the southwest corner. After ringing outside and then opening the lobby door, he had disappeared inside.
Jon followed a minute later and stood looking at the bank of inhabitants' names on the mailboxes. When he saw the name Sato, he almost couldn't believe it, and then he totally believed it, and his hand went to his stomach as it turned over on him.
His father and Liza.
How sickening, how gross, how fucking obvious.
Did his dad really think he could get away with this? Did he think they were all complete gullible morons?
After that, he hadn't been able to face going home at all. He stayed with his best friend, Rich, and had gone on to school in yesterday's clothes with almost no sleep.
Today he had seethed all day, a blackness growing within him minute by minute, and after school ended he had first gone back to Rich's, and then decided that he had to deal with this somehow, bring it out in the open. So he had come back to the Novios' at around quarter to five, about when the rain had unleashed.
He still wasn't sure what he was going to do. But something.
He had made it back to the house without having to explain much to Aunt Kathy, who was still wrecked-as they all were except his goddamn father-by the plain fact of his mother's murder. He went upstairs to the bedroom he was sharing with Peter, took a shower, and changed into some other clothes, then lay down on the bed, closing his eyes.
When Peter came in a half hour later, he opened them. "Hey."
"Where have you been?"
"Rich's. Just hanging out. Except earlier last night. You know what I did last night?"
"Who cares?"
"You will. I followed Dad."
"When?"
"When he went out. You didn't know he went out?"