His lips formed a wrinkled smile. “Thought you could avoid me, eh?”
I tried. “How did you know I’d come out the back door?”
“Reporter’s intuition.”
His was still finely tuned. “You didn’t want to hang out with the guys from Fox News and CNN?”
“They’re a bunch of blow-dried bloviators getting background shots before they issue their personal opinions that your client is guilty.”
I had heard the expression “blow-dried bloviators” countless times on his daily TV diatribe on Channel 2. “I gotta get to the office, Jerry.”
He opened his notebook. “You seem to have picked up another high-profile case. Care to comment?”
“The usual. My client is innocent. We’re looking forward to her day in court to disprove these outrageous charges.”
“She killed King with a hot shot of heroin.”
“Ms. Low is a victim. King was a billionaire who exploited her.”
“You’re saying she didn’t do it?”
“She’s an addict who was victimized by a rich tech mogul.”
He stubbed out his cigarette. “King wasn’t a Boy Scout, but neither was your client. I saw her listing on Mature Relations. She’s pretty.”
“She is.”
“What kind of person subjects themselves to something so demeaning?”
A desperate heroin addict. “King took advantage of her.”
“How does she qualify for a P.D.? She works in tech. She must be making a lot of money.”
“She’s unemployed.”
“She blew all of her money on drugs, didn’t she?”
“No comment.”
“What a waste.”
Indeed.
The veteran scribe played with the sleeve of his overcoat. “I’ll just go with the usual line about how she qualifies for a P.D. and that you are confident about her case.”
“She’s a victim, Jerry.”
“Right.” He tucked his notebook inside his coat. “Off the record, she strikes me as a bright young woman whose life went off the rails after she got into the Silicon Valley scene.”
“Something like that.”
“It was drugs, wasn’t it?”
“And King. He was a sexual predator.”
He pulled out his pack of Camels. “I have a granddaughter about her age. How would you feel if your daughter was so desperate that she was paying for drugs by hooking up with a sugar daddy?”
“Not great.”
“Helluva world, Mike.”
“Yes, it is, Jerry.”
* * *
Terrence the Terminator’s shaved dome reflected the light above his workstation in the hallway outside Rosie’s office. “No bail for Lexy,” he said.
I corrected him. “Yes bail. No money. Anybody looking for me?”
“The autopsy report on King will be finished in the next few days. If you ask nicely, our Medical Examiner said that she might be willing to give you the highlights.”
That would help. “Anything else?”
“Inspector Lee left a message. He said that you should meet him up on Billionaires Row tomorrow morning. He’ll show you King’s house.”
16
“DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING”
Inspector Ken Lee’s arms were folded, expression grim. “Don’t touch anything. This is a private residence and crime scene. I’m doing you a favor.”
Yes, you are, but I could do with a little less melodrama. “We appreciate your time.”
A winter wind gusted through the trees on Billionaires Row. At nine-thirty the following morning, Pete and I were standing on the front porch of King’s refurbished Victorian. Except for the rookie cop guarding the door, the police presence was gone. The media horde had moved on, and life had returned to normal on Mount Olympus.
I admired the intricate ornamentation of the graceful Queen Anne painted pale blue with cream trim. The gingerbread details included lacey spindle work and a front-facing gable topped by a turret. King had added a garage beneath the bay window.
“They did a nice job restoring this place,” I observed.
Lee scowled. “The studs are original. Everything else is new. King brought in the carpenters that George Lucas used on Skywalker Ranch.
It must have cost a fortune. “Are you done processing the scene?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going to happen to the house?”
“That’s up to Mrs. King.”
Who was last seen playing tennis and drinking Mimosas.
He opened the door and led us into a two-story foyer highlighted by a polished redwood stairway. “Do exactly as I say.”
Pete and I nodded obediently.
Lee’s cell rang. He held up a finger. Then he turned around and answered it.
While he was on the phone, Pete and I scanned the living room filled with period pieces surrounding a marble fireplace. The house smelled of a cleaning solvent.
Pete used his thumb to gesture. “Did you see the security cameras outside?”
“I saw one above the door.”
“There was one at the gate, another over the garage, a couple on the roof, one in the front window, and one in the gangway.”
“We asked for video.” I turned to Lee, who had ended his call. “Where was the body?”
“Upstairs in the master bedroom. We’ll start down here.”
He acted like a docent at a museum as he led us into the living room and through the formal dining room. The wallpaper was a reproduction of what I surmised was late nineteenth century work. The crown moldings were handcrafted.
“Looks like he tried to keep the look and feel of the original,” I said.
“He did.” He explained that the house had once belonged to Mayor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph, who made a fortune in banking and shipping, spent almost twenty years in the mayor’s office, and later became governor of California. “King wanted it to look the same as it did after the 1906 earthquake—with some modern enhancements.”
The ambiance changed dramatically as we walked through the butler’s pantry into the kitchen, which had been completely redone with white cabinets, polished quartz countertops, a restaurant-quality Viking range, and two mega-sized Sub-Zero refrigerators.
“The appliances cost more than my college and law school educations,” I said.
Lee nodded. “The wine cellar is bigger than my house.”
I stood next to the custom-built kitchen table and admired the expansive family room with picture windows overlooking a multi-level deck. We took in the panorama extending from the Golden Gate Bridge to downtown.
“This view is worth twenty million,” Lee said. “This kitchen and the family room were part of an addition that King had built onto the back of the original house.” He pointed at the terraced yard extending down the hill. The second level had an infinity pool and in-law unit. “Do you have any idea how much it cost to build a pool into the side of a hill? The grading and retaining wall probably cost five million.”
“Mayor Rolph would have been impressed.”
“Mayor Rolph would have thought that King was out of his mind.”
Pete finally made his presence felt. “King could have bought the biggest house in Pacific Heights and donated the rest to cancer research. These Silicon Valley guys talk about changing the world. At the end of the day, it’s about buying expensive toys.”
He had a way of putting things into perspective.
Pete reverted to his cop-voice. “The party was here on the first floor?”
Lee pointed at the windows. “And out on the deck.”
“People were allowed upstairs?”
“Yes. There’s only one bathroom down here.”
Pete didn’t say it aloud, but this was important. Everybody at the party had access to the bathroom where Lexy said she found the heroin.
Pete kept talking to Lee. “Everybody left before King died?”
“Except the security guy and your client.
”
“You’ll provide a list of everybody who was here along with security videos?”
“In due course.”
“When might ‘due course’ be?”
“Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Soon,” Lee repeated.
We retraced our steps and went upstairs, where we found three bedrooms and a bathroom in the original house. The new construction in the back included a media room, a gym overlooking the Bay, a master bath, and a master bedroom bigger than the conference room at my old downtown law firm.
Lee escorted us into the master bedroom, which showed no sign that it had been a crime scene four days earlier. The king-size bed was fitted with high-end sheets and a navy comforter. A sixty-inch flat-screen was mounted above the fireplace. There was a hand-carved chest of drawers beneath the TV. A Plexiglass desk with a leather chair was next to the window. If Mayor Rolph came back today, he would have liked what he saw.
I looked around for security cameras, but they were well-hidden. “He died on the bed?”
“On the floor,” Lee said.
“And you claim that our client injected him?”
“We know that she did. We have it on video.”
“Where’s the camera?”
“Embedded in the crown molding above the TV.”
“You can see her cook the heroin?”
“And inject him. King went limp. Then he collapsed.” His tone turned pointed. “Instead of trying to help him, your client grabbed her belongings and ran.”
“She went to get help.”
“She tried to flee. She would have made it if the security guy hadn’t stopped her.”
“She panicked.”
“She grabbed an envelope full of cash from King and ran. Either way, she gave him the hot shot that killed him.”
“Why would she have killed her patron?” I didn’t want to use the term “sugar daddy.”
“She needed the money.”
“She would have gotten a lot more if he was still alive.”
“Maybe they had a falling out. You’ll need to ask your client.”
Pete spoke up again. “Where did she prepare the injection?”
“On the dresser.”
“You’re saying that she brought the smack with her?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know that King didn’t provide it?”
“We know.”
“A billionaire got his heroin from a woman he met online?”
“I’ve seen stranger things.”
“Would you accept smack from somebody you met on a hookup site?”
“I wouldn’t accept it from anybody.”
“Where was the heroin?”
“She brought it in from the bathroom.”
“Is there a camera in there?”
“No.”
I looked into the master bath, which had two doors: one leading into the master bedroom, and the other leading into the hallway. “Did anybody else come upstairs?”
“Yes.” He said that there was a security camera in the hallway. “You’ll be able to see everybody.”
“King could have left the heroin in the master bath a week ago. Or somebody else could have planted it on the night that he died. Or somebody could have tampered with it.”
Lee wasn’t buying. “That’s the best you’ve got?”
At the moment. “A lot of people disliked King.”
“Everybody had a huge financial interest in the IPO.”
“Maybe it was personal.”
“Good luck selling it to a jury.”
* * *
I inhaled the cool air as Pete and I walked down Twenty-First. “They have something,” I said. “Definitely video. Maybe more.”
He didn’t look at me as he kept walking. “You have options.”
I waited.
“First, you can argue that King left the heroin in the bathroom sometime before Sunday night. You won’t be able to prove it, but there’s no way for them to disprove it.”
“True.”
“Second, if I was a billionaire, I would buy heroin from a reputable dealer, not from somebody I met on a hookup site—no matter how upscale it purports to be. It’s hard to believe that Sexy Lexy was providing him with smack, unless he was reckless.”
“Agreed.”
“Third, the video from the surveillance camera in the upstairs hallway should identify everybody who used the master bath. Anybody on the tape could have planted the heroin or tampered with it. That sets up your potential SODDI defense.”
“I’ll feel better if we had something more definitive.”
“So would I, but you take your evidence as it comes. Fourth, we should talk to everybody in the video. They probably won’t confess, but we’ll find out if they’ll be convincing in court. You’ll want to try to pin this on somebody who will make a crappy witness.”
Exactly. “I’d like to start with the security guy.”
Pete smirked. “He gets paid not to talk to guys like us.”
“I need you to work your magic.”
“It may not work so well with a retired Israeli commando, but I’ll see what I can do.” He tugged at his sleeve. “I’m going down to Palo Alto to check on King’s widow. Then I want to see what’s going on over at Y5K. What about you, Mick?”
I glanced at my watch. “I have an appointment with our Medical Examiner.”
17
“HE STOPPED BREATHING”
The Chief Medical Examiner of the City and County of San Francisco extended a hand and invoked a professional tone. “Good to see you again, Mr. Daley.”
“Thanks for making the time, Dr. Siu.”
Dr. Joy Siu and I had met at least a dozen times, but we’d never gotten comfortable using first names.
At one-thirty on Thursday afternoon, she was sitting in an ergonomic leather chair behind a glass-topped table covered with meticulously labeled folders in orderly piles. From her pressed white lab coat to her carefully applied makeup to her coiffed jet-black hair, she exuded precision. Now in her mid-forties, the Princeton and Johns-Hopkins alum and one-time research scientist at UCSF had succeeded the legendary Dr. Roderick Beckert three years earlier. Building upon her reputation as a world-class academic and expert in anatomic pathology, the former Olympic figure skating hopeful was one of the most respected medical examiners in the U.S.
Her office was on the second floor of a sixty-five-million-dollar warehouse-like building on Newhall Street in the industrial India Basin neighborhood, about halfway between downtown and Hunters Point. The new facility opened in 2017, and it was a vast upgrade over the old Medical Examiner’s bunker in the basement of the Hall of Justice. The state-of-the-art examination facilities and expanded morgue made up for her less-than-stellar view of bulldozers at the recycling center across the street on Pier 96.
“Rod Beckert would have loved your new digs,” I said. “Too bad it took so long.”
“Things take time. It took twenty years to build the new police headquarters.”
Every cop in town wanted to work in the half-billion-dollar complex between the ballpark and the new UCSF medical campus. “They still haven’t found a home for Homicide. I’ll bet you a cup of coffee that it won’t happen before I retire.”
“You’re on.” Her eyes locked onto mine. “I take it that you aren’t here just to admire my new office or discuss the City’s infrastructure projects?”
Here we go. “I understand that you did the autopsy on Jeff King.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Christmas Day.”
She was one of San Francisco’s hardest-working public servants. “Do you have results?”
“Very preliminary. I will issue a final report after we get full toxicology.”
This case was on a fast track. Ordinarily, autopsy results take weeks or months. “Do you have a preliminary conclusion?”
“Mr. King died of a lethal overdose of heroin.”
>
“Could you explain how you came to that conclusion?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Ever tried heroin?”
“Uh, no.”
“Neither have I. But you understand how it works, right?”
Yes, I do, but I want to hear you explain it. “It’s a downer.”
“Yes, it is.” Her tone turned clinical. “When heroin reaches the brain, it breaks down into morphine. That excites the opioid receptors, which causes dopamine to flood the brain. This gives rise to euphoria. Over time, it can impair natural dopamine regulation, which can lead to physical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms.” She said that it calms people for short periods. “Then they become desperate to maintain their high. Addicts will do almost anything to find another hit. If you’re a regular user, you develop a tolerance, so you crave bigger doses. People get irritable and angry. They act irrationally. It’s horrible stuff.”
She would be terrific explaining it to a jury.
She was still talking. “It’s highly addictive, and the side effects are horrible.” She rattled off a list: warm flushing on the skin, dry mouth, leaden feeling in the arms and legs, severe itching, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, clouded mental health capacities, depressed heart rate, low blood pressure, and slowed breathing. “This can lead to brain damage, coma, or death.”
“What happened to King?”
“He stopped breathing.”
That will kill you every time. “How much heroin does it take to kill you?”
“Depends on your weight, health, and the amount and purity of the heroin. Seventy-five milligrams could have killed a man of King’s size. He ingested about two hundred milligrams. It was enough to kill an antelope.”
Yikes. “How did you determine how much he took?”
“A security video caught your client loading two syringes.”
“And the purity?”
She glanced at her computer. “We found traces in the syringes and in a baggie in your client’s purse. It was potent stuff. High-end white. Ninety-seven percent pure.”
Higher Law Boxset, Volume 3 Page 58