MD04 - Final Verdict

by Sheldon Siegel

  “She isn’t here, so I have to nag you on her behalf.”

  As usual, she tries to fend it off with a glib parry. “Don’t start,” she says.

  “She and your brother are coming to Grace’s game. If you don’t answer my question, I’m going to tell her you were up all night.”

  “It isn’t cancer, Mike.”

  It’s become her mantra. “I know. I just want to be sure.”

  “So do I.” She tells me she has an appointment next week, then she gives me a softer look and says, “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

  “I’m sorry I asked you a bunch of stupid questions.”

  She gently kisses the tips of my fingers and says, “It won’t be the last time.”

  *****

  Chapter 12

  “One Mistake Can Ruin Your Life”

  “Residents only. All visitors must have an escort. Anyone defacing this property will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

  — Sign at entrance to Alice Griffith Housing Project.

  A half-century ago, the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was one of the largest and busiest facilities of its type in the world. The five-hundred acre parcel sits on a man-made peninsula that juts into the Bay in the southeast corner of the city, directly across South Basin from its more widely-recognizable neighbor, Candlestick Park. The decommissioned base was a cornerstone of the Bayview-Hunters Point community for decades and provided thousands of military and civilian jobs for the adjoining blue collar neighborhood.

  Those days are long gone. After World War II, the Navy put its resources into newer facilities and the mighty shipyard began a steady decline into obsolescence. The adjacent neighborhood suffered a similar fate, and by the time the Navy mothballed the base in 1974, the downward economic spiral of the surrounding area was complete. To further complicate matters, the site was an environmental disaster. For more than a quarter of a century, the shipyard was a rotting testimonial to governmental neglect, and development in the adjoining neighborhood was impossible because nobody wanted to live or work next door to a toxic swamp.

  The economic boom in the late nineties finally led to the first meaningful attempts in decades to breathe new life into the crime- and drug-ridden corner of town. The Navy poniedup millions to clean up the contamination, and developers drew up plans to build a mixed-use community on the former naval site. San Francisco voters passed a referendum to provide funding for a new football stadium and mall in the parking lot at Candlestick, but those plans were put on hold when the Ninersownership changed hands. The final chapters of the story are yet to be written. There are modest signs of hope, but the beleaguered community still has the highest unemployment, crime and teen pregnancy rates in the city. As with Sixth Street, progress in this forgotten area is measured in baby steps.

  The victory celebration for Grace’s championship ended an hour ago and Rosie and I are meeting with Leon’s ex-girlfriend for the first time in a decade in the middle of the Hunters Point morass at one o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Vanessa Sanders is a petite African American woman with an easy smile and a maternal manner. Her sensible, unaccessorizedclothes look as if they came off the rack at the ColmaTarget store and her disarming demeanor contrasts sharply with her immediate surroundings. At first blush, she appears out of place in the Alice Griffith Housing Projects, a series of graffiti-covered low-rise buildings located a stone’s throw from Candlestick and the old shipyard. When I look a little closer, I see a woman who has aged exponentially since I last saw her and whose weary eyes appear much older than the rest of her features. At thirty, she’s been a single mother for a dozen years.

  “Thank you for coming,” she says. “It’s been a long time.”

  Rosie and I are sitting on the worn gray sofa in Vanessa’s tidy living room, which also houses two wooden chairs, a particle board bookcase and a nineteen-inch TV with rabbit ears. The walls are covered with photo montages of Julia. The kitchen is big enough for one person and there is an ancient IBM desktop computer on the table that looks as if it was salvaged from a swap meet. A little natural light is coming through the steel bars that protect the last unbroken window. The rest are covered with plywood.

  I ask her if she’s heard from Leon.

  “They let him call me last night. Among other things, he said you needed some money.”

  “We do.”

  She hands me a check for two thousand dollars made payable to Fernandez, Daley and O’Malley. I give it to Rosie and point to Vanessa’s printed name in the upper left corner.

  Rosie returns it to her and says, “We can’t accept this. Leon said he would pay us with his own money.”

  She hands it back to Rosie and says, “It is his money.”

  “This account is in your name.”

  “But it’s his money. He puts it in the bank, but only I can take it out. It’s for Julia.”

  Rosie says, “I didn’t know that Leon is required to pay child support.”

  “He isn’t. He’s given me what he can for years–no strings attached. We never got married. I wish we had a conventional marriage like yours, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

  Rosie lowers her voice and says, “Mike and I are divorced now.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She hesitates and says, “You still practice law together?”

  “Our relationship is a bit unconventional, too,” Rosie says.

  Vanessa gives us the look we’ve seen countless times from people who are unfamiliar with our situation. It doesn’t seem necessary to provide her with all the details.

  Rosie is still holding the check when she says, “Maybe you could tell us a little bit about your relationship with Leon.”

  Her story takes only a moment. They met at Mission High. He was good at English and she was good at math. They loved basketball, books and kids and graduated near the top of their class. She says, “Leon had scholarship offers to play at Duke, Kentucky, UCLA and USF.”

  USF won national championships in the fifties and has had good teams over the years, but it’s no longer a national powerhouse. The president of the university disbanded the team in the eighties after a recruiting scandal. The program was resurrected a few years later on a more modest scale. It seems curious that he didn’t take one of the more glamorous options.

  I ask, “Why did he decide to go to USF?”

  “He wanted to stay close to home so his mother could watch him play.” She gets a faraway look and adds, “And so that we could be together. I got pregnant during my senior year of high school.”

  I glance at a photo that’s hanging in a brass frame. “That would be Julia?” I say.

  “Yes.” She casts a loving look at the picture and says, “Leon and I were too young to be parents, but we were in love and we were planning to get married. It’s been difficult, but with a little luck and some financial aid, she’ll go to City College. There are things that I would have done differently, but Julia will always be my baby.” She says that Julia was born shortly after her graduation from high school. She and Leon found an apartment on Fulton, just south of campus. Leon went to school and worked part-time job at a boys’ club and Vanessa took classes at City College. “We didn’t have much money and our place was tiny,” she says, “but we were young and we had a beautiful daughter.”

  I say, “And then Leon got arrested.”

  “And everything fell apart.” She takes a deep breath and says, “One mistake can ruin your life. Leon and Frankie went to the Warriors’ game and I stayed home with the baby. I started to get worried around midnight and I was a basket case when Leon called at two. I knew it was bad as soon as I heard his voice.

  “You know the rest of it. The charges were dropped and Frankie was killed two weeks later. They took away Leon’s scholarship. He tried to transfer, but nobody wanted him and the pros wouldn’t give him a tryout. We ran out of money and he had to drop out of school. Then he started drinking. He had a series of jobs, but he kept getting fired because
he’d show up late or drunk. I dealt with it for a year, but then I had to leave him. Julia was only sixteen months old when we moved here. She hasn’t seen her father since then.”

  Rosie leans forward and asks, “Does Julia know that Leon is her father?”

  Vanessa’s voice is barely a whisper when she says, “Yes.” She adds, “She understands that she isn’t allowed to see him.”

  It’s a heavy burden for a twelve year-old.

  Rosie takes her hand. “And you’ve been supporting yourself since then?”

  “Yes. My parents are dead. I worked at the laundry around the corner until it closed and I’ve cleaned house. Julia has had some physical problems, so it’s been hard to make ends meet.” Her tired eyes reflect the harsh realities of her situation. “I’ve never loved anybody as much as Leon. He never wanted anything for himself and he still tries to make me happy. He gives me every penny he earns, begs or steals to help take care of Julia.”

  We sit in silence for a long moment. Finally, Rosie says, “We can’t take your money.”

  “It’s Leon’s.”

  Rosie hands her the check and repeats, “We can’t take your money, Vanessa.” She glances at the photo of Julia and says, “You can use it for her.”

  “That’s very generous, but I can’t accept your charity.”

  “It isn’t charity,” Rosie says. “It’s an investment in your daughter’s future.”

  Vanessa takes a deep breath and says, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Thank you is enough.”

  “I’m more grateful than you can imagine.” She’s about to add something, but stops.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  Vanessa darts another look at her daughter’s photo and says, “She’s a bright, beautiful and loving girl.” She hesitates and adds, “And she’s sick. She has juvenile diabetes that’s led to other problems, including an irregular heartbeat. Her doctor thinks it may be getting worse.”

  “Did you have her tested?” Rosie asks.

  “Yes, but there’s a problem.”

  I can see what’s coming. “Do you have insurance?” I ask.

  “Just MediCal.”

  The state-sponsored safety net is fairly comprehensive if your doctor knows how to work the system, but like all managed care programs, it works much better if you don’t get sick.

  “It isn’t the Mayo Clinic,” she says, “but it takes care of the basics. Unfortunately, the most reliable tests are considered elective and aren’t covered. The tests cost about five thousand dollars and I’ve been trying to raise the money.”

  It’s possible that Leon was, too. We now have a motive for robbery.

  *****

  Chapter 13

  “He Was a Good Husband and Father”

  “GRAYSON, JOHN TOWER, Jr., died June 3, at age 48. Beloved husband of Deborah, father of John Tower Grayson III and Judith Grayson. Respected founder of the venture capital firm of Paradigm Partners. Private memorial.”

  — San Francisco Chronicle. Saturday, June 4.

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” I say to J.T. Grayson. “It must be terribly difficult for you.”

  Tower Grayson’s son takes a sip of water from a Styrofoam cup and says, “Thank you, Mr. Daley. It is.”

  We’re sitting in a consultation room down the corridor from the homicide division on the fourth floor of the Hall at two-fifteen on Saturday afternoon. Roosevelt Johnson used all of his persuasive power to convince young Grayson to act as family spokesman. His mother returned to Atherton. We’ll approach her as soon as we can.

  J.T. is in his mid-twenties and is a younger version of his father, with wavy blond hair and clear blue eyes. An entrepreneur-in-training, he recently got his MBA from Stanford and joined the Palo Alto office of one of the big investment banks. My khakis came off the rack at Macy’s. His are custom-made.

  Johnson and Banks are here to provide adult supervision. I start slowly by asking J.T. if he’s had a chance to begin making funeral arrangements.

  The question elicits a circumspect look. “Why do you ask?”

  Because I’d like to see who shows up. I feign nonchalance. “Just wondering.”

  “There isn’t going to be a funeral. My father hated them.”

  We aren’t getting off to good start.

  Rosie interjects another voice. “Were you close to your father, Mr. Grayson?”

  “It’s J.T., Ms. Fernandez, and our family is very close. My sister is expecting a baby this fall. My dad was very excited about it.”

  He’s warming up and Rosie launches another probe. “Were your parents doing well?”

  An emphatic nod. “They met in high school and were like newlyweds. They had their ups and downs and they didn’t always see eye-to-eye on everything. Even so, they were always on the same page on the important stuff. They were a team and they looked out for each other.”

  He may have set a record for the most clichés in a five-second period. Rosie gives me a quick nod. Time for me to play bad cop.

  I ask, “Did your mother and father ever have any serious disagreements?”

  “Never.”

  Right. “And they never took separate vacations or talked about taking a break?”

  “Of course not.” He gives me an indignant look. “Why are you asking these questions?”

  I’m on a fishing expedition and I’m going to have him on my line for a few more minutes. If he can spew clichés, I can spout bullshit. “I don’t mean to offend you. We’re just trying to find out as much as we can about your father. It will give us a better picture of the case and make it less likely that we’ll overlook something important.”

  “Fine,” he says a little too forcefully. “If you’re asking whether my parents ever talked about splitting up, the answer is an emphatic no.”

  Time to move on. “Did you and your father talk about business?”

  “All the time.” His tone fills with self-importance as he explains that he’s an analyst at a firm that specializes in taking high tech businesses public. “My dad funded start-ups,” he says, “and I took them to the next level.”

  He thinks he’s running the operation. “How was your dad’s business doing?”

  “Fine,” he answers too quickly. I don’t respond right away. Some people are uncomfortable with dead air and feel compelled to fill it. My patience is rewarded when he says, “The last couple of years have been tough on the venture capital firms.”

  I remain quiet. Let him keep talking.

  The corner of his mouth ticks up when he says, “Fortunately, my dad was very meticulous. It goes back to his days as a CPA. He was always looking at the bottom line and cash flow.” He nods with authority and assures himself that Paradigm was doing well.

  I try not to sound too patronizing when I say, “That’s great.” I ask in an offhand tone, “Did you invest any of yourmoney in Paradigm?”

  He tries to decide how much he should reveal. Finally, he says, “A little.”

  The can of worms is now open for business. “Are you happy with your investment?”

  He answers too quickly. “Of course.”

  “And so are the other investors?”

  The first telltale sign of irritation. “Absolutely, Mr. Daley. The fund is doing well.”

  I glance at Rosie and she picks up the cue. “I read something about your father’s firm in the Chronicle,” she says. “Did your dad have a partner named Chamberlain?”

  He hesitates before he says, “Yes.”

  Rosie holds up her index finger in a manner that suggests she’s just made one of the great discoveries of modern civilization. She plays her role with thespian splendor. “I don’t recall the details,” she lies, “but I believe the article said that Paradigm was having some problems.”

  Grayson feigns ignorance.

  “In fact,” she continues, “it suggested that some of the investors were unhappy.” She lays it on thicker when she adds, “I believe Mr. Chamberlain was quoted as say
ing that some of the investors were thinking about asking for their money back.”

  The good cop just turned bad.

  J.T. points an emphatic finger at Rosie and starts to lecture. “That reporter knew nothing about venture capital,” he says. “It’s a risky business. That’s why only wealthy and highly sophisticated investors are allowed to play. The biggest investors are huge pension plans, and they put in just a tiny percentage of their assets. In recent years, most venture funds have been providing modest returns. I have no idea why they singled out my father.”