Pete was looking at his iPhone. “People like talking about themselves.”
“Not to strangers.”
“To me.”
It was true. He had a gift. “You should write a book.”
“I don’t want to give away the secrets of my craft.”
“You think she had anything to do with her husband’s death?”
“Doubtful. She wasn’t at the party. She didn’t strike me as somebody who would have arranged her husband’s untimely demise. There wasn’t any life insurance—I checked. And she didn’t need the money, anyway.”
“She doesn’t seem especially broken up about it.”
“She seemed more relieved than angry, Mick.”
True. “You knew about Kaela Joy, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“Yes.”
“Were you planning to mention it to me?”
“In due course.”
I reminded him that he was working for me.
“She asked me not to give you her name until she got Chloe’s permission to talk to you.”
“I’d like to talk to her.”
“I’ll set it up.”
24
“IT WAS A LITTLE MORE COMPLICATED”
The statuesque blonde flashed a Julia Roberts smile as she nibbled a greasy French fry. “Good to see you, Pete.”
“Good to see you, Kaela Joy.”
A week had passed since Pete and I had met with Chloe. The New Year’s champagne corks had popped, the bowl games were over, and the post-holiday sales were in full swing. Meanwhile, Lexy was back at the Glamour Slammer, Grace was on her way back to USC, and Pete and I were on the hunt for information.
At noon on Friday, January fourth, Chloe’s P.I., Kaela Joy Gullion, was sitting across from us at a Formica table in the corner of Red’s Java House, which the Chronicle’s legendary Carl Nolte once described as the “Chartres Cathedral of Cheap Eats.” Housed in a shack on Pier 30 in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, Red’s opened in 1930 as a dive called “Franco’s Lunch,” which catered to longshoremen. In 1955, Tom (“Red”) McGarvey and his brother, Mike, bought it and rechristened it “Red’s Java House.” The longshoremen were a distant memory, and the adjoining neighborhood had gentrified with upscale condos, but you could still get a burger and a beer at Red’s for less than ten bucks.
“How was Cabo?” Pete asked.
“Terrific.” Kaela Joy took a draw from a bottle of Bud. Dressed down in a denim shirt and a Giants’ cap, she still carried herself like a model. She looked out the window at the Bay Bridge, which was hard to see through the drizzle. “How are Donna and Margaret?”
“Fine. Your kids?”
“Grown up.” They exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes before she finally turned to me. “Still busy keeping criminals out of jail, Mike?”
“Trying.” Her dad was a retired cop. “Are you still working for Chloe King?”
“Occasionally. She gave me permission to talk to you. I hope you aren’t going to suggest that she had anything to do with her husband’s death.”
Depends what you tell us. “I’m not.”
“If you want my help, stay off her back.”
“We will.” Well, we’ll try.
“From what I’ve read, your client gave Jeff King a shot of heroin and tried to run.”
That covers it. “It was a little more complicated.”
“I saw the video on TV.”
Well, there’s that. SFPD had released a brief clip showing Lexy administering the injection. “King had a heart condition making him susceptible to an accidental overdose.”
“Then I’m sure you’ll find an expert to convince a jury that it was an accident.”
Hopefully. “Either way, it was consensual. And he provided the heroin.”
“Says your client.”
“He was a billionaire. He could afford his own smack.”
“He was a reckless asshole who cheated on Chloe and did drugs with women he found on a sugar daddy site.”
“Our client didn’t intend to kill him.”
“Why didn’t she call the cops?”
“She panicked. Besides, he was her only source of income.”
“Maybe he threatened to cut her off.”
“We have no evidence that he did.”
“Says your client. Next you’ll say that he loved her.”
“As far as we can tell, their relationship was purely transactional.”
“That’s just sad.”
“It is. There were a dozen people at King’s house. So far, we’ve identified seven people other than our client who went into the bathroom where Lexy found the heroin.”
“Unless she brought it herself.”
“That’s not the way it went down.”
She darted a glance at Pete, as if to say, “You’re kidding, right?” Then she turned back to me. “You’re going to argue that somebody planted some high-end smack?”
“Or King left it there himself. A lot of people disliked him.”
Her voice filled with sarcasm. “That’s not entirely true, Mike. Everybody hated him.”
Notwithstanding the occasional barbs lobbed in my direction, I liked her. “My mistake.”
She was now engaged. “Who else was there?”
I started at the top of the list. “Blackjack Steele.”
“Asshole, but King was worth millions to him. Divorced three times. His kids hate him because he treated their mother like crap. His son works at Facebook. His daughter interned at Y5K and recently graduated from Stanford. Last I heard, she was taking some time off. Must be nice to have rich parents. In the meantime, Steele is having a fling with the head of business development at the company. It isn’t his first.”
“I presume he looked the other way when King was sleeping around?”
“He encouraged it. He’s on Mature Relations, too. Y5K is a cesspool.”
“Gopal Patel was at the party, too.”
“Asshole, but King was worth millions to him, too.”
I’m seeing a pattern.
She took a bite of her cheeseburger. “Patel looks dignified, but he can’t keep his hands to himself, either. Married twice. About to get divorced again. For the last few months, he’s been having a roll with his associate, Christina Chu.”
Who will make millions when she files the inevitable lawsuit. “She was at the party.”
“I’m not surprised. In addition to churning out cash flow projections, she was tasked with finding women to attend King’s parties.”
“She did this voluntarily?”
“If she wanted to keep her job. Welcome to Silicon Valley. It’s equally appalling that many of these women are first-rate programmers, engineers, and managers. Yet they still think they have to attend make-out parties with the bros to make connections.”
“Was Chu sleeping with King, too?”
“Not as far as I can tell.”
“Is Patel on a sugar daddy website, too?”
“Yes.”
I seem to be the only one who isn’t. “How did he get along with King?”
“They detested each other, but King needed Patel’s money, and Patel needed King’s company to hit it big to make up for a string of misses.”
I asked her about Tristan Moore, the sales guy.
“Tall. Handsome. Smooth. He can sell anything to anyone.”
At least you didn’t describe him as an “asshole.”
She was still talking. “He was with a different woman every time I saw him. They all looked like super-models.”
The only woman I ever dated who looked like a super-model was Rosie. “Was he on Mature Relations?”
“He’s too young. Besides, he didn’t need it. He had more action than he could handle. King tolerated Moore as long as he hit his sales quotas. Moore tolerated King because he had stock options. They had a falling out six months ago when they discovered that they were sleeping with the sa
me woman.”
“Awkward.”
“Indeed. The scuttlebutt is that King gave the clap to the woman and, indirectly, Moore.”
“They kept working together.”
“Seems financial interdependence trumps an STD.”
“And Alejandro Sanchez?”
“World-class programmer. Single. Smart. Interested in three things: code, women, and money. He felt underpaid and underappreciated. Otherwise, he and King barely communicated.”
“The security guy, Yoav Ben-Shalom, was there.”
“He went wherever King did. If you’re looking for somebody who’s actually killed someone, he’s your guy. He took out a dozen Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon twenty years ago.”
A smart prosecutor like Harper would never let me introduce that information into evidence. “How did he get along with King?”
“He did his job. He protected King, and the company paid him handsomely.”
Until the night King died. “Drew Pitt?”
This elicited a throaty laugh. “The ‘Guy from Rye.’ The luckiest man on Planet Earth. His father runs a hedge fund. His mother is a partner at a New York law firm. They bought his way into Harvard. He lived down the street from King. Pitt has tagged along to every company that King started, and he’s made a fortune.”
“What does he do at the company?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Kaela Joy.”
“I’m serious, Mike. He has a nebulous title like ‘Director of Quality and Development.’ In reality, he played video games all day and partied with King all night.”
This was consistent with Pete’s information. “He gets paid for this?”
“Millions. Plus stock options. And he wanted a raise, too. Notwithstanding the self-righteous hyperbole of the tech community, Silicon Valley isn’t always a meritocracy. Pitt is the poster child for the hangers-on who’ve made obscene amounts of money by latching onto others who hit it big. And he’s also on Mature Relations.”
No surprise. “I feel for Chloe. She has plenty of money, but she’s been through a lot.”
“Yes, she has, but she knew what she was getting into.”
Her tone was sharper than I had anticipated.
Kaela Joy scowled. “She was the HR director at King’s previous startup. She broke up his second marriage. She knew that he had hit on dozens of women at the company. She should have known that he would cheat on her, too.”
“She said they tried counseling and even did the open-marriage thing.”
“It was never going to work. And it was a little more complicated. Are you familiar with the term, ‘polyfidelity’?”
“Poly-what?”
“Polyfidelity.”
“Uh, no.”
Pete started to laugh. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” Kaela Joy grinned. “Ever seen it?”
“A couple of times.”
I tossed my brown paper napkin into the trash. “What’s ‘polyfidelity’?”
Kaela Joy’s smiled broadened. “A loving exclusive relationship with multiple partners.”
“Swinging? Threesomes? Foursomes? More-somes?”
“Not exactly. People who practice polyfidelity believe love is infinite, and you can have feelings for more than one person at the same time.”
Pete interjected, “Sometimes it’s referred to as ‘committed non-monogamy.’ It’s all consensual, and everybody in the group agrees to the ground rules.”
Glad I’m no longer a priest. “Am I the only one who finds this unusual?”
Kaela Joy responded with a bemused expression. “It isn’t my thing, but it’s more common that you might think.”
“So the fact that King was sleeping with other women didn’t technically qualify as cheating because he and Chloe were in a polyfidelitous relationship?”
“No, it was still cheating.”
Huh? “You just said it was okay to have multiple partners.”
“It is, but you’re supposed to be exclusive with only those people. If you sleep with anybody else, it’s cheating.”
Thanks for the clarification. “How long was this going on?”
“About three months.”
“Was King the father of Chloe’s baby?”
“As far as I know.”
“Do you know the names of the people with whom King and Chloe were involved in a polyfidelitous relationship?”
“Yes. Patel and his wife. More accurately, Patel and his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Mrs. Patel was fine sleeping with King and Chloe because they were included in their polyfidelitous group. She wasn’t okay with her husband sleeping with Christina Chu or the women he met on Mature Relations, which constituted cheating. And, of course, she was unhappy that King was sleeping with women he met on Mature Relations for the same reason.”
If King was cheating on Patel under the terms of their polyfidelitous arrangement, Patel was probably unhappy about it. Then again, it sounded as if Patel hadn’t been faithful to this convoluted agreement, either. Either way, it was tempting to bring it up at trial. Juries don’t like cheaters.
Kaela Joy’s face rearranged itself into a bemused expression. “This would make for great material on a Netflix series, but I don’t see how it helps your client.”
Neither do I. “Any chance Chloe was involved in her husband’s death?”
“Nope. For one, she didn’t need the money. For two, I was with her in Palo Alto on the night that he died. She hired me to provide security.”
And perhaps an alibi.
* * *
Pete looked like one of the longshoremen who had worked on the docks eighty years earlier as he stared at the Bay Bridge from the deck behind Red’s. “How do you think Rosie would react if you asked her if she was interested in a polyfidelitous relationship?”
“It would be a very short conversation.”
“Same with Donna. We live in a strange world, Mick.”
“We do. Do you think Chloe had anything to do with King’s death?”
“Doubtful.”
“Where are you off to now?”
“Palo Alto. You?”
“The Glamour Slammer. I want to talk to our client.”
25
“THE SHAKES FINALLY STOPPED”
“You look better,” I said.
Lexy nodded. “The shakes finally stopped.”
It was the best news we’d had in a couple of weeks. Later the same afternoon, we were sitting in a consultation room in the women’s wing of the Glamour Slammer. Although her complexion was pale and her eyes were red, Lexy did, in fact, look healthier than she did at San Francisco General a week earlier.
I asked if they had begun tapering her Methadone.
“They may start in a few weeks.”
Or you may be on a full dosage for the rest of your life. Methadone is an effective, albeit imperfect treatment that comes with its own risks, including addiction to the Methadone itself. Unlike other drugs, it doesn’t harm the body’s organs, but the psychological effects are often long-lasting. In addition to drug cravings, recovering addicts suffer from depression, hypertension, rapid heart rate, and muscle spasms. Long-term success is defined modestly as living a reasonably healthy life while continuing to take maintenance dosages to reduce the possibility of relapse. Odds of success increase if you go through the process at a treatment center. That wasn’t an option for Lexy, who would ride out her demons at the Glamour Slammer.
“Are you eating?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Has anybody come to see you?”
“Just you and Nady.”
How sad. “Anybody we might call?”
Her eyes turned down. “No.”
I told her about our conversation with Kaela Joy. “Did you know that King and his wife were involved in relationships with multiple partners?”
“Yes.”
“Did that bother you?”
“No. They all got tested for AIDS, and he always wore a condom with me.”
Her relationship with King sounded depressingly business-like.
She changed the subject. “Can you get me out of here?”
Not likely. “Our motion for reconsideration of bail was denied. We’ll ask again at the prelim, where we can make our case to a different judge.”
“That isn’t until Tuesday. “I’m going to be here forever.”
“We need you to stay strong.”
“Seems I have no choice.”
* * *
“Ever heard the term, ‘polyfidelity?’” I asked.
“Yes.” Rosie was sitting at her desk at eight-thirty on Friday night. “Don’t get any ideas, Mike. I sleep with only one man at a time.”
“Kaela Joy told us that King and his wife were in a polyfidelitous relationship with Gopal Patel and his wife.”
Rosie couldn’t stop a smile. “Seems Patel was providing more than venture capital.”
“Know anybody who’s tried it?”
“Yes.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Maybe.”
“Care to reveal any names?”
“No.”
“Did they like it?”
“Let’s just say that it was very complicated.” Rosie looked at Nady. “How about you?”
“Max and I are also very traditional. A couple of my law school classmates tried it for a short time. It didn’t end well.” She handed us copies of the final autopsy report. “Dr. Siu confirmed her original conclusion that King died of a heroin overdose. No evidence of poison or any foreign substances in the heroin.”
Rosie studied the report. “On page two, it confirms that King had an irregular heartbeat. It opens up the possibility that the heroin set off a bad reaction that killed him.”
“It might be enough to get us to reasonable doubt on a murder charge at trial,” I said.
“It doesn’t rule out the possibility of a conviction for manslaughter, and it isn’t enough to get the charges dropped at the prelim.”
Always the voice of cold, hard reality.
She eyed me. “Did Pete get anything on the people at the party?”
“Working on it. He’ll find some dirt.”
“There’s a difference between dirt and exculpatory evidence.”
True. “It’ll give us ammunition to muddy the waters at trial.”
“That’s the whole idea, right?”
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