by Dete Meserve
I wanted to shout at him. But if he knew he was getting under my skin, he’d take it as a sign of weakness, and that would make him even more confident. “I’m saying you grew up in a world where your mother—Delfina—worked in estates like these. You saw firsthand that these people had everything while you had nothing. You tell a story in your book about how your mother had to pay for breaking an expensive vase and you went without Christmas presents that year.”
He shot me a smug smile. “You know how many people had single mothers and grew up in East LA? They don’t all grow up to be Robin Hood.”
“They don’t grow up to be the CEO and founder of SalesInsight or be worth five billion either. But here’s what makes you different. How did your mother die?”
He pressed his lips in a tight line. “Now you’ve crossed the line.”
“Delfina died after falling down a flight of stairs at the estate where she was cleaning homes. Your mother worked there for twelve years, on that estate worth ten million dollars, and the owner never paid a penny for her funeral or even paid out her back wages. You were left with nothing and had to sue for the back pay.”
He withdrew a black pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, then crossed the room to pick up a box of matches on the carved stone mantel. “What’s the point of telling me my own history?”
I stepped toward the mantel. “Your mother died before you graduated high school. She never got to see you get into USC or become the founder of SalesInsight. She never saw you become a billionaire. She was gone too soon. That’s why Robin Hood gives money to housekeepers making their way from the Beverly Hills bus stop to the homes they’re going to clean. This is your way of making sure no one else’s mother has to toil as yours did.”
For the first time, a smile swept across his face. “I can see why you’re a reporter. You’re a weaver of stories.”
“Your mother grew up in Guatemala, right?”
“Yes, what’s your point?”
“You had the house she grew up in brought here from Guatemala and placed in the orchard. That’s where you ‘summoned the champions,’ where you led the burglaries, speaking to your team via headset and watching their every move from a bank of monitors hooked up to the GoPro cameras they wore.”
He lit the match and pressed it to the cigarette until it glowed red, then inhaled sharply, infusing the air with its pungent smell. He looked at the cigarette. “I named my software after my mother. Surely that’s enough of a dedication to her. You think I’d rob and steal in her name?”
He looked out the window, his eyes distant. For a moment, I felt bad for bringing up his mother. But then I realized there was a reason he was captain of a winning debate team in college. He was good at controlling the discussion. I sensed the gaze out the window was a stall tactic, a way for him to make me feel bad and allow him to gather his thoughts. But it wasn’t going to work.
“The reason why you—why Robin Hood—came forward and did the interview with me was to explain and apologize for injuring the housekeeper during the Palazzo de Bella Vista heist. It must have been hard on you when a housekeeper—someone like your own mother—was seriously injured in your own heist.”
He turned away from the window and looked at me. Anger flickered briefly in his eyes, then disappeared. “You’re grasping at straws.”
“With your mother gone, how did you get to attend USC? You told me an anonymous donor gave you a scholarship. So you already knew firsthand the benefit of receiving anonymous generosity from others. The power it has to lift you up from sheer poverty and loss to becoming one of the world’s great innovators.”
“It is a good story. But it’s a fairy tale with a false ending.”
“I never expected you to confess to being Robin Hood, of course. How could you when it would land you straight in jail?”
He fixed a hard gaze on me. “I’m not the Robin Hood you’re looking for, Kate.”
“Your entire book is about changing the world. You’re telling me that it’s a coincidence that Robin Hood also leads his forces by telling them they’re changing the world?”
“Lots of people want to change the world. They don’t rob the wealthy to do it.” He riffled through the pages of the book and then looked up at me. “You know, as a favor to your father, I went out on a limb and did two interviews with you. And here you are—accusing me of being a criminal.”
His words hit me like a slap across the face. For a moment, I considered apologizing, then realized that’s exactly what he wanted me to do. “You planned our first interview together at the height of the fever about Robin Hood—even placed the interview in this extravagant room—knowing full well that it would make the super wealthy look out of touch and unsympathetic. Anyone else would think that was proof you weren’t Robin Hood. But in my book that’s called ‘strategic losing.’”
His expression remained grim, but I thought I saw something briefly light up in his eyes. “What do you do from here?”
I hadn’t thought that far.
He blew a cloud of smoke. “Air your half-baked theories in a news report? My lawyers will sue for slander before your report finishes airing. Maybe instead, you’ll talk to the police. But who in the police department is going to pursue this theory when there isn’t a shred of evidence?”
“You’ve thought of everything.”
He stood. “You actually hoped I’d confess to your crazy story so you could score the news story of the year. But all you’ve succeeded in doing is wasting my time.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I was still shaking when I drove back to the station from Stephen’s estate. I knew with blinding certainty that Stephen Bening was Robin Hood.
Yet there was no evidence that would prove any of my theory. Zero.
As I inched down the jammed 405, I called Jake on my cell phone. After I spelled everything out, there was a long pause on the line.
“Are you okay, Kate? You don’t sound so good…”
“I confronted him, Jake. I told Stephen my theory that he was Robin Hood. It didn’t go over well.”
“No doubt,” he said drily. “You just accused him of grand larceny.”
“Most billionaires didn’t get where they are by following the rules.”
“I see where you’re going with this, but—how can I say this?—we’ve got nothing solid to go on.”
“But you could question him, right?”
“Maybe,” he said, drawing the word out. “We can’t just accuse a robbery victim of perpetrating the crime, especially a deep pockets one with a very high profile who’s already suing the police department over our botched handling of the evidence at the crime scene.”
“But you’ll do it, right? You’ll question him?”
His voice sounded small on the car speakers. “I can’t. My hearing to get off suspension isn’t for a few more weeks. But I can talk to another detective in the department who might take it on.”
I honked my horn at the Lexus driver who cut in front of me. “You’re not convinced. Are you?”
“I am, but…”
“I hear it in your voice, Jake. Give it to me straight.”
“I think your theory is interesting but it could take months, maybe years, to prove it. The public isn’t demanding that we find Robin Hood, so there’s no pressure on police to go out on a limb to accuse anyone. In fact, I think the public would be fine if we just let Robin Hood keep on doing what he’s doing. Meanwhile, there’s nothing but a story—a good one, though—that links Bening to these crimes. Plus, from what you said, he just pledged twenty million to help the poor. Who’s going to want to go after him?”
“No one wants to catch or convict Robin Hood, because he’s doing so much good in the world,” I said flatly.
“And the mastermind you think is behind it all is not only one of the victims but also someone who has a reputation as a stellar CEO who wants to change the world. Who’s going to accuse hi
m of being Robin Hood when there isn’t any evidence to link him to it?”
I exited the freeway and found a place to park on a side street so I could think. “Robin Hood takes the proceeds from these heists and helps the poor, which makes everybody love him and creates a backlash against the billionaire victims. Then Robin Hood—Stephen Bening—convinces the billionaire victims that the only way to salvage their image is to give tens of millions to the poor.”
“Everyone wins.”
I sat in the car, lit only by the glow of the dashboard, realizing the magnitude of what Robin Hood had done. “Millions of dollars stolen but no real victims. No evidence. No one wants to find the criminal. The suspect is not only a robbery victim but also a high-profile entrepreneur without an obvious motive. It is the perfect crime.”
My dad was waiting in the conference room when I returned to the station. The receptionist said he’d arrived fifteen minutes earlier and she’d ushered him into the conference room instead of asking him to wait in the lobby. She was concerned that other visitors and station employees might insist on taking photos with him or buttonhole him about some issue they wanted him to address. I was more worried about my father’s reason for being there.
My breath was high in my throat as I headed to the conference room. Stephen must have called him and told him about my accusation. I knew my dad would be furious at me for putting one of his major donors through that. The fact that he had come to the station, instead of calling me, told me that what he had to say wasn’t going to be easy to hear.
I stood outside the conference room, my hand resting on the smooth metal handle, slowing my ragged breathing and fighting the urge to flee. I closed my eyes, trying to drum up a strategy to deal with my dad’s anger and defend my theory about Robin Hood, but any ideas I might have had were extinguished by my rising anxiety.
When I opened the door, my dad was sitting at the long conference table holding a bouquet of flowers. Not the kind you pick up at a grocery store, but an extravagant explosion of yellow, pink, and red flowers.
“Congratulations,” he said, rising and embracing me in a hug.
My dad rarely hugs for more than a moment or two, and this hug must’ve gone on for at least three seconds. “What for?”
“Stephen called me,” he said, handing me the flowers.
I took the flowers from him, breathed in the sweet scent of hyacinth and honeysuckle. Still, my pulse raced.
“He was very happy with the interview,” he continued, taking a seat in the conference chair at the head of the table “You asked some tough questions—as he expected—but he and the others thought it went very well.”
I stared at him. “That’s all he said?”
“You look pale, Kate. Why don’t you sit for a moment?” I sank in the swivel chair next to his. “Your interview is a great way to go out at Channel Eleven and begin your new career at ANC.”
Nausea rose in my throat. “That’s all Stephen said about the interview?”
He shot me a look of concern. “Yes. Weren’t you happy with it?”
I nodded because I knew the words would come out weak.
“Andrew Wright says you’re starting at ANC in two weeks. Are you ready for the move?”
I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying, because I couldn’t believe Stephen called him and didn’t say a word about my accusations.
“I signed the contract but I want out of it,” I said quietly.
His face reddened. “Whatever for?”
“I know what I’m good at, Dad. I’m good at covering train derailments, car wrecks. Disaster. Los Angeles. This is where I belong.”
He was silent for a long moment, then placed his hand on mine. “Katie,” he said quietly. “Ever since you saw all the reports about your mother’s accident in high school, you’ve wanted to be the reporter who investigates from the scene, uncovering what happened, who did it, and why. But you’re not going to find your mother by continuing to report on car wrecks and tragedy. You’re not going to understand her better.”
“I’m not looking for my mother.” My voice sounded strange to me, as though it was not even my own. “I’m looking for the good. For the silver lining. For the glimmer of hope in all the tragedy.”
“I know,” he said softly. “Don’t you see, those were all the things we looked for after her accident too? Reporters talked endlessly about the three anonymous Good Samaritans who came to her rescue and pulled her out of the blazing wreckage.”
I’d never considered that my search for good stemmed in any way from my mother’s death. But for weeks after her death, police and journalists searched for the identities of the people who had rescued my mother. None of them ever came forward. Instead of basking in the nationwide admiration that would have been showered upon them if they’d taken credit for their good deeds, these three rescuers remained quietly anonymous.
“Then there was endless coverage on the two firefighters who gave her CPR for over half an hour,” my dad said.
I’d read about the firefighters too. Their photos were plastered throughout numerous newspaper stories and they were interviewed on TV. One was a young firefighter who had just finished his year as a “probie,” a firefighter in training. The other was an experienced firefighter who had recently won the Medal of Valor for rescuing a two-year-old boy from a three-alarm fire.
“I know you memorized every detail of that night from the reporters’ stories. But you’re not going to find her in stories if you keep reporting on car wrecks and tragedy. She’s already in you. The way you think. The way you see the world.”
Tears clouded my eyes and my body began to shake. I couldn’t answer for a long while. I’d never had such an intimate conversation with my father, and my emotions were still raw from the confrontation with Stephen. “Do you think so?”
His tone lightened, and then I heard a soft joy ring out in his voice that I hadn’t heard in a long time. “Truth is, she’d love your Robin Hood story as much as you do.”
Another swell of tears came and I felt them roll down my cheeks. I hadn’t considered how I might be similar to my mother in any way. How could that be when she died before I was old enough to have formed any memories of her?
“She’d be proud of you, Kate.”
The next morning James Russell was on ANC, yelling “Police conspiracy! Are Los Angeles police officers behind the Robin Hood heists? Is that why they withheld key evidence at the crime scene?”
Meanwhile nearly every news channel was still chewing over the billionaires’ announcement about the Mayday Foundation, whose purse had already expanded to over $170 million. “It’s self-serving,” one of the pundits on our network said in the morning news magazine. “In order for there to be a global market that will further enrich these billionaires, the rest of the population must at least be able to afford housing and food. Otherwise, if no one can buy, there’s nothing to sell. The super wealthy want all the accolades for helping the poor—but it’s something that ultimately benefits them in the end.”
While wall-to-wall coverage of the latest development in the Robin Hood story flashed on every monitor in the newsroom, I tried to get hold of Stephen Bening. I left a message on his cell phone, called his assistant every hour, and e-mailed him. No response. I wanted to ask why he didn’t tell my father I’d accused him of being Robin Hood. And after a night’s sleep, I had more questions, things I hadn’t been able to cover.
By lunchtime I was frustrated and Stephen’s assistant knew it. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do,” she said. “But he’s probably not going to call you back.”
“Did he say that?”
She hesitated. “Not exactly. But I can say that you’re wasting your time if you keep calling.”
She hung up.
“You look like you could use this.” I turned to find Eric standing behind me, dressed in his short-sleeved navy blue firefighter uniform. He handed me a cup of coffee.
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“How did you get in here?”
“Security guard waved me through.”
I smiled. “Shondra in security won’t let anyone back here except employees. Or, I guess, firefighters in uniform.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Can we talk?”
I glanced around the newsroom and saw several reporters watching us. Even Hannah had stopped what she was doing and set her headphones aside to get a closer look. Non-news personnel were seldom allowed in the newsroom. A firefighter in uniform was even rarer.
“Let’s go in here,” I said, leading him into a small conference room.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, dark circles beneath his eyes. “I stopped by your house last night. After your interviews with the billionaires aired.”
I drew a shaky breath. Seeing him again was making my heart race. We were standing close enough that I could’ve kissed him. I didn’t. But I wanted to.
He looked down at his hands. “Seeing you in that interview got me thinking…”
He was silent for a long moment, and then he looked up at me. “Thinking that I’m a complete idiot for letting you go.” I saw the question in his eyes before he asked it. “You are still going?”
“I signed the contracts.” But the next words out of my mouth caught me off guard, as though someone else was doing the talking. “For a long time, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave you. But I was also afraid that I would also be leaving stories of hope behind. I’ve covered the Bummer Beat so long that I thought that without the most devastating train accident or tragic car wreck as a backdrop, I couldn’t seek out good in the world. Somehow I got the stuck on the idea that showcasing a daring rescue was only compelling when set against a house consumed by arson. Or that showing the Good Samaritans rushing to help a victim only had value if there was a devastating car wreck or natural disaster involved. But I’m ready to leave the Bummer Beat behind. I want to tell stories that make a difference. Stories that change the world.”