The Big Exit

by David Carnoy

  “If you don’t mind, Dr. and Mrs. Yeagher, I need to talk to Ms. Hill alone for a few minutes.”

  She makes the request in her polite voice, but it must still come out sounding abrupt because both husband and wife react as if she’s insulted them. When Harry Yeagher reluctantly gets up from the couch, Carolyn realizes he’s taller than she thought, over six feet. “I’ll get you that sedative,” he says to Beth. “In case you need it later.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you both.”

  After they’re gone, Carolyn sits down in a club chair across from Beth, leans forward, and starts talking in a quiet but firm voice.

  “Here’s how it’s going to go, Beth. The detectives are going to come back in here in a few minutes. They want to take you into the station house. It’s purely procedural. They want to interview you in a clean environment. They want to be able to videotape your answers and they have to follow certain rules when they’re investigating a case. I just saw my old boss, Dick Crowley, the DA, outside talking to the police. He’s making sure that they dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.”

  “I don’t want to go to the station house.”

  “Well, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

  “They think I have something to do with this,” she says. “Every time I answered a question, I could see it in their eyes.”

  “Whose eyes?”

  “The detective, the older guy. He knew me. He knew Mark.”

  “Madden?”

  “Yeah, Madden. I remember him from the trial.”

  “But he gave you my number?”

  “Yes. I said I wanted to speak to an attorney. Mark has a guy for contracts and stuff. But you were the only criminal attorney I knew. He had your cell number.”

  She thought of telling Beth that one of the reasons the detectives might have developed a suspicious gaze was that whenever someone close to a victim lawyers up quickly investigators tend to peg that as a sign that something wasn’t kosher. Her natural instinct is to concur, but she’s also willing to chalk up Beth’s paranoid behavior to other factors, most of which involve the shock of discovering her husband violently murdered. But she’s also sure that there’s more to the story—perhaps a lot more—that Beth isn’t willing to share yet.

  “Well, I know Hank Madden very well. I was involved in a case with him a few years ago.”

  “Your boyfriend, the doctor?”

  “Well, at the time he was my ex. Now he is again. Anyway, Hank’s a solid guy,” she says, wanting to change the subject. “Maybe you’re reading a little too much into his questions. He just wants to catch whoever did this.”

  Carolyn explains that she’s under no pressure to go to the station now, but she can’t stay in her house tonight. The most important thing to do is to give them any information she thinks may help them identify her husband’s killer. They’ll need the names and phones numbers of all the people who work in their home for them. Housekeepers, gardeners, chefs, personal trainers, anybody who’s regularly on the premises or has access to the house. Time is of the essence. But if she doesn’t feel up to it—or if there are extenuating circumstances—they should proceed very cautiously.

  She’s hoping the “extenuating circumstances” comment might elicit a reaction, but Beth just looks at her and without much emotion and says, “No, it’s okay, I want to help.”

  Carolyn decides to be a little more direct.

  “Now I don’t know the exact situation with your husband. But I’ll say this as politely as possible—I heard, well, there was some talk at the club, you know how people talk, about some possible problems. I don’t know how serious they were …”

  She lets her voice trail off, hoping Beth will pick up where she left off. But Beth doesn’t respond right away. She stares down at the carpet.

  “They were serious,” she says after a moment, lifting her head. “Some of the things I didn’t know. Mark seemed to be having some problems with his business. Or I should say businesses.”

  “And that put a strain on your relationship?”

  “Sure. He was working late. He was working all the time. A couple years ago he ended up in the hospital with chest pains. Spent the night there.”

  “But it wasn’t a heart attack?”

  “No, it turned out to be acid reflux. But he complained of having anxiety attacks. He’d smoke some pot sometimes, but then he got paranoid someone might find out and make him submit to a drug test.”

  “I thought he owned the company.”

  “He did. But in many ways you’re at the mercy of your investors.”

  “And how long was this going on?”

  “What?”

  “The acid reflux, stress, and whatnot.”

  “I don’t know. A couple of years. A while.”

  “What kind of business was he doing?”

  “Well, he had lots of stuff. You know, holdings and investments. But the bigger thing was this start-up. He was pretty secretive about it. Partially on purpose, you know, to create buzz.”

  “What type of start-up?”

  “It’s a new platform for geo-location mobile advertising.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a variation on the whole instant coupon thing where you walk past a store or a restaurant and deals pop up on your phone. A lot of people have been trying to do it for a while. But it’s very difficult to do without being intrusive. The messaging part is a challenge.”

  She grows more focused and energized as she speaks. She clearly enjoys showing her knowledge and appears to have spent some time thinking about the topic. Carolyn wonders whether she’s ever done any formal presentations for the company.

  “Mark was working on something that made it more of a game,” she goes on. “You know, more incentive-based and social. He had something called ‘deal docents.’ He was essentially bringing multilevel marketing to geo-location advertising. You know what multilevel marketing is, right?”

  “Yeah, Amway. Pyramid stuff.”

  “Right. Well, what a lot of people don’t realize is that social networking is built on a multilevel marketing foundation. For a lot of people that’s a dirty word. But if you stop and think about it, that’s what a lot of this is about—the psychological underpinnings anyway. There’s all this talk of building a network, then leveraging the network. Well, what do you think Amway is about? Network marketing folks were talking like that before there was the Internet. The Internet just accelerated the concept.”

  “And how far along was the company?”

  “Well, they were in trials in the Bay Area. They had an app that was in private beta. It was taking longer than they’d hoped to get to the public beta stage but they were planning on extending it to Seattle and LA.”

  “What was it called?”

  “The app was called Francis,” Beth explains. “The bigger platform had a code name but no real name yet. That was part of the hype.”

  “What was the code name?”

  “Sinatra.”

  “Like the singer?”

  “Yeah. But they couldn’t use that name for commercial purposes.”

  “Okay. So, whatever he was doing wasn’t going well, as far as you could tell?”

  “My sense was that it was going well but it wasn’t, if that makes any sense. They had an issue with another company offering a similar service. Mark had to buy the company out. But it burned a lot of their capital, so he had to go back to his investors.”

  “And did they give it to him?”

  “They gave him some but naturally it cost him a piece of the company. He used to say that the best time to raise money was when you didn’t need to.”

  “Did you talk about divorce?”

  Beth starts to shake her head then changes her mind. “He would bring it up sometimes, but it would always be on me. You want to divorce me, don’t you? He’d always put it on me. And I’d say, no, I don’t want to get divorced. But he wouldn’t see a marriage counselo
r. He didn’t like talking to anybody about his problems. He saw it as a weakness.”

  Her face changes as a wave of emotion overcomes her. Her lips start to quiver a little and she clasps her hands tightly together and puts them up to her mouth, as if to pray.

  “Who would do this?” she murmurs, quietly beginning to sob.

  Carolyn can’t help considering the answer. Mark McGregor, charismatic and wealthy, had always struck her as a very sharp guy who wasn’t quite as brilliant as he thought was. He was someone who believed he could charm or bully his way through any predicament. No matter how hairy things got, he thought he’d come through unscathed, maybe even better off. But not today.

  “Beth,” she says. “I need to know something.”

  She looks up.

  “Beth, have you spoken to Richie Forman? Do you know where Richie is?”

  6/ ODDJOB

  RICHIE WAS STARING OUT THE WINDOW OF HIS APARTMENT. HE couldn’t remember the exact moment the car really registered, but he looked out his blinds that morning, the Saturday before McGregor was killed, and thought he’d seen it before. It was a boxy Ford SUV, the Flex, silver bottom, black top, parked on the south side of Brannan. He might not have thought all that much about it except he saw a guy sitting in it. From his vantage point on the second floor, he couldn’t get a clear view into the car, but the window was cracked enough to see a beefy arm and shoulder and an occasional flash of the side of the guy’s face.

  Before the guy could see him standing at his window, gazing down upon him, Richie retreated a few steps back and sat down on the couch and turned on his TV. The studio apartment was only about five hundred square feet, with a counter separating the kitchen from the living area and a bathroom and large walk-in closet off to the right of the kitchen. His furniture was minimal: a futon couch, coffee table, two bar stools, and a 32-inch LCD TV that sat atop a simple black IKEA media stand with a cable box and PlayStation 3 inside its two shelves. With the shades drawn, he could still catch enough of the street to keep an eye on the car.

  About ten minutes went by and he noticed a second guy came back to the car with a couple of coffees in a tray along with some food. It was probably from Crossroads, a café around the corner, a neighborhood mainstay. Richie only caught a glimpse of the second guy, but it was enough to see that he wasn’t white or black but something in between. Hispanic or maybe Pacific Islander. Not tall but thick, with a tree trunk for a neck.

  They didn’t leave once the coffee arrived. Watching the car sitting there got Richie’s heart going a little faster. At one point he was sure the guy in the passenger seat was looking up at his window. It was hard to say for sure, because as soon as the guy looked, Richie turned his eyes back to the TV and pretended to watch.

  Finally, he got up and went to the kitchen to make a bowl of cereal. He tried to convince himself he was being paranoid; there were plenty of reasons two guys in a Ford Flex would be parked outside his apartment building. He decided to take a shower. If the car was still there after he got dressed, he’d plot his next move.

  Fifteen minutes later he found himself on the phone to Howard Kantor, an unemployed programmer who looked just enough like Dean Martin to impersonate him. Kantor’s Dino didn’t get nearly as many gigs as Richie’s Frank. For starters, he wasn’t good (he couldn’t sing worth shit), but more often than not, to keep costs down, a company preferred to hire one person—Sinatra—not the whole Rat Pack.

  Even though he was unemployed, Kantor, who was originally from outside Boston, had cobbled together a living through a combination of odd jobs that included focus groups in which he had no right to participate (“Dude, do you know where I can get my hands on an owner’s manual for a BMW? Need to bring one Tuesday night”). He also managed a building in Pacific Heights, in return for which he paid a reduced rent for a ground-floor apartment in the building. A disciple of the radio host Tom Leykis, who was famous for preaching how to get laid as cheaply and effortlessly as possible, he’d been mourning the loss of the Tom Leykis Show, which had ended a few years ago. Lately, however, rumors that the show was being resurrected had Kantor’s spirits up.

  “What’s up?” Kantor said when Richie called.

  “I need you to do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “I need you to drive over here and park over on Brannan and keep your engine running.”

  His plan was pretty simple. Get a picture of the license plate, email the photo to himself, then confront the guys. He wanted Kantor there in case he needed to make a quick getaway—or just be a witness.

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, now. I’ll pay you to drive over.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m with this nice young lady here.”

  She must have been right next to him because his voice became muffled as he either moved his mouth away from the phone or covered it with his hand. “What’s your name?” Richie heard him say. Then a beat later: “I’m kidding. Here, talk to my friend Frank Sinatra.”

  A woman’s voice on the phone: “Hey, Frank.”

  She sounded drunk but probably wasn’t.

  “Hey. How ’bout you and the douche bag you’re in bed with take a quick ride for me.”

  “I heard that,” Kantor said, grabbing the phone back.

  “How many parties have I gotten you into?”

  “How many rides have I given you to get to those parties?”

  He had a point. Their relationship was somewhat symbiotic, as were most of his relationships these days. His small social circle was comprised of friends, if they could even be defined as such, who tended to serve some sort of purpose.

  “Howie, I need a favor.”

  “Dude, you need to grasp the situation at hand. I’m with a woman. She’s seen my place in the light and hasn’t left yet. I’m telling you, she’s at least an eight.” Richie heard a slapping sound with a little thud mixed in. It sounded like the eight had hit him in the chest. “Sorry, I meant nine,” Kantor said.

  He wasn’t budging. So Richie went to plan B. He texted Ashley. He knew she didn’t always answer her phone, but she responded quickly to texts. He wrote, “Need some help. You around?”

  A minute later he got a response: “What kind of help? You okay?”

  “Car parked outside. Maybe being paranoid, maybe not. Need a little backup.”

  A few seconds later his phone rang. It was Ashley wanting more details. Over the last two weeks of working together they hadn’t exactly become friends, but they’d established enough of a rapport to grab something from the gourmet street taco truck downstairs and eat lunch together a few times in a public outdoor space near the Moscone Center.

  “Chances are it’s nothing,” he said, then explained to her what was going on and what he wanted her to do. She promptly replied that she was on her way with her boyfriend, Jason, who had a Canon digital SLR camera that captured both video and still images.

  “You think it’s someone from prison?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But one of them looks a little like Oddjob from Goldfinger, except he’s not wearing the bowler hat and a tux.”

  “Who?”

  He almost said ask your boyfriend, but then he remembered the one time he’d met Jason he didn’t seem like the Bond type. Pale, with longish sideburns and thick-framed black glasses, he thought the guy looked like a slimmer, healthier version of Roy Orbison. Apparently, he worked as a video editor for a production company that specialized in creating viral video campaigns for companies, but he also did freelance projects on the side, including some work for the Exoneration Foundation.

  “Never mind. Just call me when you’re close.”

  Thirteen minutes later Ashley called him back. They lived in the Mission, which wasn’t too far away. She said they’d cabbed it to within a safe distance and were now on foot.

  “They still there?” she asked.

  They were. The Ford SUV hadn’t moved and judging from the
driver’s upward glances at his window, Richie was becoming increasingly convinced they were there for him.

  His father had a saying, “Go to trouble.” As a kid growing up in Bergen County, New Jersey, Richie remembered him always doling out that advice to his clients and later to him. What he meant by that was that if something was bothering you, stressing you out, you had to confront it, not shy away from it. His father, who’d been an estate attorney back in Jersey before his death four years ago from a stroke, had a reputation as a straight shooter. People were drawn to his honesty as well as his easy sense of humor and they went to him for advice much like they would a rabbi. “Go to trouble” was his father’s way of saying “Deal with it,” only more macho. He made people feel like they had some control over their fate.

  But was it, Richie often wondered, the best advice? Didn’t people sometimes bring trouble upon themselves—imagine or create trouble —only to end up in a mess that could have been avoided if they’d done nothing? Still, he kept hearing his father’s voice urging him on, telling him he didn’t need to be looking over his shoulder, worried a couple of bouncer-type assholes were trailing him. Either they were, or they weren’t.

  “The car’s parked in the middle of the block,” he told Ashley. “Silver Ford Flex with a black top. I just need you to text me when you think you’re at a good vantage point. I need you to get a shot of the plate and then stand by. You don’t need to get that close.”

  He debated whether or not to take a weapon. When he had insomnia and went for a walk late at night, he wore a scuba diver’s knife strapped to his ankle under his pants. He’d go out to the Embarcadero and walk the path that ran along the water. In some strange way, part of him missed the tension of prison. When he was in high school, he ran track, the four hundred meters. He’d throw up before almost every race, he was so nervous. Even though he was good, he hated racing, but after he’d stopped for a few years he missed it; he actually missed throwing up.