Philanthropist

by Larry Hill

  At 7, Jen awoke and found her bed otherwise empty. She encountered Fred in the kitchen bent over the Chronicle and coffee. She noticed a difference – he was reading Bay Area, not the sports. Bay Area is where one reads about politicians, potholes, and crime. She said nothing about it. They chatted about the day; she was scheduled for volunteer work at Traveler’s Aid at the airport and his calendar was blank, as usual. “I’m gonna take the Lexus in – it’s been shaking, might need wheel balancing.” Fred hadn’t checked out the car, either before or after poker. He feared that there was a dent but didn’t want to know.

  There was nothing in the Chronicle, either Bay Area or the front section. But he knew that his possible little problem had occurred late enough that it likely wouldn’t be in the morning paper. Radio, TV maybe, but he turned nothing on. Probably was right that it was only a minor thing – nobody hurt. He had gotten to his poker game on time, but without the Doritos and dip. He had purposefully not looked at the front of his car, feeling certain that he barely grazed the person. He didn’t even know if it was a man or woman. He hadn’t stopped because he was afraid that the scotch and two sauvignon blancs could have given him a blood level higher than the magical 0.8. He was certain that his driving was unimpaired and that the person, who probably thinks he was the victim, was at fault. Why the hell had he or she gotten out of the car on the driver’s side without looking to see what was coming? I know I should have stopped and helped whoever it was get back into the car, but at my age I can’t risk the DUI. It’d probably kill me. For sure, I’d get raped in jail.

  Klein had told his wife that he’d take the car in – how could he not do it? She’d lambast him as she always did when he failed to do as advertised.

  He went out to the free-standing garage, walking purposely around the back to the driver’s seat; something told him not to look at the front. But he had seen more than a few TV shows in which the cops tracked down criminals by canvassing the body shops. He hesitatingly got out of the front seat to look at the right front fender. The dent was unmistakable – broad and deep – too deep to be explained by a glancing blow. He was reassured by the fact there were no spots of blood or bits of cloth.

  What now, goddamit? Were there options? Sure. Go to the police and fess up. No way would they get him for DUI now – it had been 14 hours. But that would be an admission of hit and run, even if the injuries weren’t anything of consequence. Or, he could talk to Art Schofield, not only his best friend but also his lawyer. Or he could wait until Jen came home and ask for her help. Or, he could hope for the best.

  He chose to do nothing. Surely this would all blow over. The cops in San Francisco were over-worked. They couldn’t spend any meaningful time traveling down a minor hit and run. I’m sure that idiot is walking around just fine. No injury – no investigation.

  Leaving the damaged car in his garage, Klein returned to the house, pulled out the pile of photos from the past half-century that he was in the midst of digitizing; he turned on both the photo scanner and the local talk radio station. Twenty minutes into the photo work, as he was tossing out most of his pictures of cathedrals, waterfalls, and unknown women dressed in black, the hourly news came on. A few seconds about the G-7, a little more about the budget crunch in Sacramento and then the San Francisco bulletin. “A Cow Hollow mother of one is near death in the ICU at San Francisco General Hospital. Twenty-seven-year-old Teresa Spencer was struck by a hit and run driver on California Street at about 7 PM last night. Police are seeking a late model Lexus or Infinity, probably with damage to its right front fender. If you have information regarding this case, call 415… Klein pushed the off button.

  Art Schofield had known Fred Klein for most of both of their lives. They had bonded in school through a mutual love of poker, a lack of athletic skill, and a shared failure to score with girls. Traveling different routes, they ended up in San Francisco around the same time, after the death of Barbara Klein and during the period between Schofield’s third and fourth wife. Each became the primary confidant of the other.

  Klein rarely visited Counselor Schofield in his office. He had had little need for an attorney; he hadn’t bought a house in 31 years and had never run up against the law. He never took a tax write-off that he wasn’t absolutely certain would be OK with the IRS. He had made out a will, no easy matter in view of his three sons’ discomfort with their stepmother who was younger than any of them.

  “Hey, Fred,” Art said, picking up the phone, “What’s up? Still pissed off about losing with the full house?”

  “Art, did you hear about that young woman who got hit by a car on California last night.” Schofield had heard it on NPR on his drive to work.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I’m afraid that I’m the guy who hit her.” Neither lawyer nor client said anything for what felt like minutes.

  “You gotta come over to the office right now, Fred.”

  “I can’t take the car out of the garage – the cops are looking for a dented Lexus.”

  “Forget that. Just get your ass over here, now.”

  Klein arrived at Schofield’s 8th floor office in half an hour. He was upset enough not to care when he found that storing his car was even more expensive than it had been at the doctor’s office.

  A lawyer’s waiting room bears no resemblance to a doctor’s. There are hardly ever any other clients waiting and the reading material tends to be The Economist or a recent Wall Street Journal. Plus, you hardly ever are in the waiting room long enough to read anything, especially if you are well known to your attorney as a close friend, a high-roller, and an alleged felon. Klein was barely able to fall into the five thousand dollar waiting room sofa when the strikingly gorgeous Asian secretary asked him to enter Schofield’s office. On the wall, next to the NYU Law and Rutgers undergraduate certificates, were photos of Schofield with JFK, LBJ, Reagan, The Clintons, and Barbra Streisand. Schofield was a full six inches shorter than his friend, a six-footer. Having been almost completely bald since his late twenties, he had been shaving the little remaining daily since the death by aneurysm of his last wife.

  “You’re looking a bit anxious, Fred.”

  “Cut the shit, Art. Of course I’m nervous. I’m on the radio because I hit somebody who’s dying at the General.”

  “Sit down and tell me the story.”

  Klein relayed the events as he remembered them. He mentioned the whiskey and two wines, but didn’t tell him about his anger over the food.

  “I had to stop at the 7-Eleven to pick up Doritos and dip but my mind was occupied, so I drove two blocks past it. I realized what I had done so I made a U. A block later I felt a bump. I didn’t hear or see a thing. It was real dark and she must have been wearing something dark. You know how these streets are in the City – no lights that do any good. My first thought was about the drinks and what my blood alcohol might have been. I wasn’t drunk. I was in full control. You saw me when I got to the poker game. Did I look drunk? Huh?”

  “You were a little, shall we say, out of sorts.”

  “What d’ya mean?”

  “You know, Fred. Usually, you are a bundle of laughs when you walk in. Last night, you barely said a thing, even when you lost a hand. We talked about you when you went to the bathroom – what’s wrong with Fred? I mentioned our conversation about your doctor visit and figured you were still pissed off.”

  “So you thought I was drunk?”

  “I didn’t say that – in fact, nobody brought it up. It certainly didn’t occur to me. Just thought you were distracted.

  “Shit, Art, what am I going to do? I may have killed that lady.”

  “Yes, you might have. That’s the fact of the matter and we’ve got to do something about it.”

  “Why? Can’t we leave it up to the cops to find me and maybe, just maybe, they won’t? There are loads of Lexuses in the Bay Area. They don’t have a license number or they would have come after me already.”

  “Come on Fred, you’re smarter than
that. You’re not a hardened criminal trying to get away with your crime. You’ve gotta face the music and turn yourself in.”

  “Turn myself in? That’s for murderers and bank robbers.”

  “Yeah, it is, but your crime could land you in jail for as long as one of them. Only by your cooperating is anybody going to even consider leniency. By the way, I’m no criminal attorney. We got to find you a specialist.”

  “Jesus, I’m 75. I’ll spend the rest of my life in prison, won’t I?”

  Schofield ignored the question, buzzed his secretary and asked her to get Irving Greenberg on the line. Klein had heard the name before, in conjunction with a famous recent husband-killing-wife case in Burlingame. He sort of remembered that the husband may have gotten off with manslaughter.

  Less than a minute later, the buzzer buzzed on the massive desk. “Morning, Irv. How about those Giants?” The local ball club was on a six game winning streak.

  “Good stuff, but they need some hitters. What’s up?”

  “You know Fred Klein, from the Symphony?” Greenberg was a big-time supporter of classical music and Klein had served two five-year terms on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Symphony, the last two years as Secretary/Treasurer. Since retirement, he had been the consummate volunteer boardsman, not only with the Symphony but also the Mayor’s Cultural Commission, the Cancer Society, and a local hospice.

  Klein couldn’t tell if Greenberg knew of him. He was a bit surprised that Art had not put the phone on speaker.

  “Yeah…good guy. He’s sitting here with me right now. I’ve known him for a long, long time. Really good friend of mine. Never in any trouble – on the contrary, a real pillar of the community…He’s in a bit of a stew now however. Did you hear about the lady who was hit and run down by a guy in a Lexus on California last night?”

  After a pause which Klein took as evidence that not only Lawyer Greenberg, but all of the Bay Area knew of his crime, Lawyer Schofield spoke up, “My client thinks he did it. He was in the neighborhood and knocked into somebody getting out of a car – says he didn’t see her – didn’t know if it was a man or a woman. Says he had had a couple glasses of wine and a scotch in the two hours before – was on his way to a poker game. Says he thought that he only brushed whoever it was and that he left because he feared the cops would find booze in his blood.”

  Greenberg asked Schofield to put the call on speaker. “Mr. Klein – you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I think we may have met before – maybe at a Bar Mitzvah?”

  “Yeah, probably so. I go to a lot of them.”

  “Me to. I hear you’ve got a spot of trouble?”

  “I guess I do. I was hoping that maybe they wouldn’t find me.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Klein; there’s not a chance that they aren’t going to find you. As many Lexuses as there are, they will check all of them in your neighborhood and probably by tomorrow, you’ll hear a knock on your door. Uh, can I call you Fred?

  “That’s fine. So, if they are going to find me, maybe I ought to find them before they do?”

  “Goddam right you ought to. A hit and runner who keeps running is treated a lot worse than one who sees the error of his ways and goes to the police station groveling on his knees in apology. With your go-ahead, I’m going to call a friend at the DA’s office and arrange to have you turn yourself in.”

  “Can’t it wait ’til tomorrow? I’ve got to present the annual report to the Symphony Board tonight. We have a big shortfall and nobody else knows a thing about what the numbers mean.”

  “Fred, Fred. You’re talking shortfalls when you’re on the lam for hit and run and the victim probably will soon show up in the obits? Just picture yourself in the Chronicle when the cops come into your committee meeting at the Hall and put you in cuffs. We really want to limit the photo shoots to as few as possible.”

  “So you want me to do this today, huh? OK…..OK. But give me an hour to go home and tell Jennifer – that’s my wife - and call the kids. I don’t want any family member hearing this on the radio or TV.”

  “You’re taking a chance, but I guess the odds are pretty good they won’t find you in the next hour. Then, I am going to want you to meet me downtown. It’s 8:45 now. We’ve got to be at the Central police station on Vallejo before noon. I’ve got another client down there right now. Meet me there at 11:45, and please, Mr. Klein, sorry, Fred, don’t be late!”

  On his way home, Klein looked in the eyes of oncoming drivers to try to detect if any of them was looking at his right front fender. Seeing none, he pulled up into his driveway, punched the automatic opener and started to go in. He stopped just before the grille crossed the threshold. Maybe I should hit the right side of the garage so that this damage is self-inflicted? He sat immobilized for a minute until it came to him that he’d already decided to turn himself on the mercies of the legal system; he fronted in, adding no further damage to his car.

  The Kleins lived in one of the grand mansions in Pacific Heights. Fred had purchased the place for $600,000 when he moved up from LA several years before. He figured he’d done OK as houses not as nice as his in the neighborhood, were bringing up to ten million.

  He loved the house. It had enough bedrooms for a family reunion for his three sons and 5 grandkids sharing. The furniture was mainly comfortable classic New England, including a couple of very valuable 18th century pieces. The rugs were expensive Isfahans and Turkish kilims. Whenever he entered through the kitchen, he recognized that it was retro, needing an upgrade as it had nothing stainless, no island, and an old white GE refrigerator with only one door. They had solicited bids – the lowest came in above eighty thousand, so refurbishment, stove, etc., went on the back burner even though they could well afford to do the work.

  “Hey Jennifer!” Anyone coming in on the ground floor had to speak up to be heard as most of the day to day activity occurred on the third floor. When Fred was home and Jennifer was returning, even a shout didn’t do it – Fred avoided hearing aids; his father’s embarrassed Fred, even after he had made a name for himself.

  “Yeah!”

  “You’ve gotta come down here. We’ve got to talk.”

  “Give me a minute. I’m polishing my toe nails.”

  “Now, Jen. The nails can wait.”

  The creaky old wooden, uncarpeted steps and floors allowed him to count each stride of her descent. She descended with all deliberate speed.

  “What’s up dear? You look like you saw your mother’s ghost.”

  “It’s worse……Did you hear about the young woman who was hit and run into last night over on California?”

  “No – what woman and why do you ask?” One thing that Fred found a bit irritating about his young second wife was that she had little interest in the news. She’d not be able to name her own congressperson, even though that person was Speaker of the House.

  “It’s not important who she is. I ran into her. Then I drove away to the poker game. I was afraid that I’d get arrested for DUI even though I know that I wasn’t drunk. I just had that whiskey and a couple of glasses of wine.”

  “Jesus, Fred. What are you going to do about it? You’ve gotta turn yourself in don’t you?” Jennifer had grown up a good Methodist; it wasn’t every day she started a comment with the name of the Savior.

  “You’re right. I’ve already made that decision. I went to see Artie this morning and he got me in touch with a guy named Greenberg, a criminal lawyer. I’m meeting him at the police station at 11:45 this morning.”

  “Should I go with you?”

  Before he could answer, the doorbell rang. Figuring that it was UPS delivering her online sweater purchase, Jennifer sauntered over. Two men in ill-fitting brown suits were at the entry. “Is this the home of Mr. Fred Klein?” asked the tall one. The short one, at least a decade younger than his colleague, nodded as if he agreed with the question.”

  “Yes it is. What do you want?”

  Fred had made his w
ay to the door, having heard the question and knew full well what this was about. “I’m Fred Klein. What do you want?” he parroted.

  “We are from the San Francisco Police Department. We have a warrant for your arrest for vehicular manslaughter in the death of Teresa Spencer.”

  “Death! But she’s in the hospital. I just heard it on the radio.”

  “I’m sorry sir, that’s old news. She died about two hours ago.” The short young one again nodded.

  “My God…Why me? What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”

  “All we can tell you, Mr. Klein, is that somebody got your plate number and called the cops, late last night. The description of the vehicle matches your Lexus.”

  The short cop began to read from his Miranda card. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do…”

  “That’s enough,” said an irritated Fred. You don’t think I know all that?”

  “Sorry, Sir. I must read the entire thing. Anything you say or do will be held against you in a court of law. If you cannot afford an attorney…”

  “Just look around you. You don’t think I can afford an attorney? Matter of fact, I’ve already hired Irving Greenberg.” He figured that dropping the name of a major player in local criminal law might impress. The two cops seemed to have no idea who Greenberg was, or at least didn’t care. The short one finished his recitation.

  “There’s no reason for me to come with you. I’m meeting my lawyer at the station at 11:30. You can call over there; he’s got it all set up with your people.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Klein but we’ll be taking you. You can talk to your lawyer once you are booked. I’m also sorry to tell you that we are going to have to handcuff you.”

  “What the hell for? Look at me – I’m a sick old man. You think I’m going to run away? I couldn’t run out of the house if it was burning down. I don’t need handcuffs.”