The Big Exit (9 page)

Richie lets out a little laugh. “Right,” he says half under his breath.

Madden: “We want to rule you out. So just help us out so we can do that.”

“Well, I’d like to, fellas, ’cause as much as I disliked Mark, I sure as shit didn’t kill him. But that’s all I gotta say.”

“So you got someone who can vouch for your whereabouts the last several hours?” Madden prods gently. “That’s all we need.”

Richie doesn’t answer. He stares down at his drink, silent. It’s hard to tell what’s going through his head, but Madden sees
him clench his jaw, so he suspects that despite the cool exterior, he’s under significant duress. The longer he doesn’t answer,
the more they’ll consider him a suspect. He has to know that. Yet he’s also eminently familiar with the criminal justice system
to be well aware of the hazards of speaking with the police, particularly if he has anything to do with the crime.

A good ten seconds pass. Then Richie finally says: “What time was he killed?”

Madden looks over at Billings, who already knows what he’s thinking. The door has opened. A crack. And in the next moment,
depending on their response, it can shut or they can bust it wide open. Billings, as cocky and quirky as he can be, recognizes
the moment and knows to defer to Madden, who instinctively does exactly what he’s supposed to do in just such a situation:
he lies.

“Well, the coroner’s investigator showed up at ten,” he answers quickly and smoothly. “Says the guy was dead less than two
hours. The 911 call came in at around eight twenty-five and the body was still warm when we got there. So that puts us at
around eight, give or take twenty minutes.”

Richie nods. “I was on a Caltrain at that time. Or, actually just getting into the station here in SF. I took the six forty-five.
Got into the city at quarter to eight.”

“Where were you coming from?” Billings asks.

“Menlo Park,” he says without emotion.

Madden blinks. “Menlo Park?”

“Yeah. My ticket doesn’t have a time stamp but I’m sure there’s a camera on the platform that can verify I was on that train.”

Madden is stupefied. “The six-forty-five?”

“Yeah.”

Another glance at Billings, who appears to be running the same calculations in his own mind. The 911 call came in around six
thirty. The CSU unit showed at just before eight. Rodriguez, the coroner’s investigator, had said they were looking at the
guy being dead somewhere between two to three hours. Eight minus two was six. Six-forty-five was well within the window.

Madden didn’t tell him that, however. “What were you doing there?” he asks instead.

Richie reaches into his left coat pocket and produces a small, light blue velvet pouch. It has the Tiffany logo on it. He
opens the pouch and turns it upside down, letting the contents roll out onto the table. It’s a ring, a very distinct-looking
one, with a big stone and a ring of pavé diamonds around the setting. It seems familiar to Madden. And then he remembers the
finger he’d seen it on once upon a time.

“I went to get this,” he says.

They all stare at the ring on the table for a moment. It’s Beth Hill’s engagement ring. Then Richie says something odd.

“The broad said I’m pragmatic. Do you think I’m pragmatic, Detective?”

C
AROLYN’S CELL PHONE STARTS RINGING AT SEVEN IN THE MORNING
. The first call is from Steve Clark, her colleague and partner at the firm. She’d spoken to him briefly the night before,
told him there’d been a murder in Menlo Park and that the victim’s wife had retained her as an attorney.

“I’m at the scene now,” she said. “I’m calling you as a courtesy because you’re going to be hearing a lot about it. We’ll
talk in the morning.”

She hung up as he was in the middle of asking her who the victim was. Both Clark and her other partner, Bill Kirshner, called
her later in the evening once the news broke on Twitter. She’d ignored them. However, in the morning, Clark’s voice mails
had a greater urgency; he seemed genuinely panicked. After the police revealed that Carolyn was representing the deceased’s
wife, the press had started bombarding Clark, Kirshner, and Dupuy with both voice messages and email. It didn’t help matters
that her office voice-mail greeting directed callers that she was on leave and to contact her partners in her absence.

“Damn it, Carolyn,” Clark texted her, “I don’t know what the hell to tell anybody.”

He’s one of those quixotic guys who, if something doesn’t go his way, huffs, puffs, shouts, and has a general tizzy, then
apologizes almost immediately afterwards. She senses that he’s in full combustion mode but is doing everything in his power
to restrain himself, fearing she might try to cut them out of a lucrative payday. The thought has crossed her mind, but she
knows it’s not worth the trouble. Besides,
at heart she’s a loyal person. That’s why she was so hurt in the first place when Clark went all corporate on her.

After his third call in less than ten minutes she calls him back and apologizes for not getting back to him sooner but she’s
been in the shower.

“What’s going on, Carolyn?” he asks. “What am I supposed to be telling people?”

“Give them my email,” she says. “I’ve prepared a statement. I’ll respond through email. I took the out-of-office reply off.”

“Carolyn, we need to discuss strategy,” he pleads.

“The strategy’s set. She’s my client. I’m in charge. The firm will get its cut as it usually does. I’ll let you know when
I need your help.”

“But—”

“Look, if she’s charged, it wouldn’t surprise me if she goes with someone higher profile. She can afford it.”

“You’re an employee of this firm,” Clark says.

“I’m on leave.”

“You can’t be on leave if you’re working.”

“Sure I can. Watch me.”

Next, she gets a call from a reporter, the
Chronicle’s
Gary Newbart, a heavyset guy with a boyish face who’d unfortunately saved her cell phone number after she’d given it to him
a few years earlier when she was desperately trying to get some publicity for a client.

He fires off several questions in rapid succession. To each she responds, “You know I can’t answer that, Gary.”

“Come on, Carolyn, you gotta give me something,” he implores. “Even off the record.”

“If I had anything to give you, Gary, I’d give it to you. You know how much I like and respect your work.”

Hanging up, she thinks how much she misses being able to talk in riddles and doublespeak. It always amazes her how much you
can say without saying anything. Of course, depending on how things play out, she may have to change her tune. She may soon
be looking at a serious pivot and spin move if they have anything on her client, which is why she threw Newbart the compliment.
She didn’t want any ill will.

A few minutes after she hangs up with Newbart her cell phone rings again. She thinks of letting the call go to voice mail,
but at the
last second she decides to pick up because the caller ID shows a local 650 number. Turns out it’s a guy named Tom Bender from
some tech blog. The way he announces himself, he expects her to know him and his blog and seems incredulous that she doesn’t.

“We cover start-ups,” he says, impatiently explaining his background. “We’ve profiled Mark McGregor in the past. Had him on
our video podcast,
The Hot Seat
. You sure you don’t know us?”

“Maybe,” she replies. “How’d you get my number?”

“I know people,” he says. “Most of the time, I can make three calls or less and get anybody’s number I want. Fact.”

“Do you mind telling me who gave you my cell phone number?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Wrong answer.”

“Look, I can’t tell you that. Live with it. I just need you to verify a couple of things.”

“You do, huh?”

“My sources are telling me that the crime scene may have been contaminated.”

“Who are your sources?”

“I can’t divulge that.”

“Well, I don’t have a comment at this time,” she says. “And please don’t use anything I say. Nothing I say is for quotation
except what I just said. No comment.”

“Look, I’d think it would help your client if word got out that the police bungled this thing. It works in your favor. By
you saying ‘no comment’ you’re essentially validating my source.”

“No. I’m saying ‘no comment.’”

“I’m just stating a fact, Ms. Dupuy. That’s what people will think when they read my piece.”

“Since when do you cover crime?”

“When it happens to one of our own—and in our backyard.”

She almost laughs. He sounds like a Marine talking about a fellow Marine.

“I literally live two blocks away from where this happened,” he adds. “I was there last night.”

“So, what’s your angle?”

“I’m going to blow the lid off this thing.”

“By saying stuff that isn’t true?”

“Don’t belittle me. My source said the word ‘Hack’ was written next to the body. In the victim’s blood.”

“Is that a fact?”

“The word has a lot of connotations. I don’t know if you know that. Look, work with me, I can help you. Don’t, I can make
things difficult for you.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, it’s a friendly suggestion. So let me ask you again: Are you aware of the crime scene being contaminated in any way?
My understanding is that this Detective Madden allowed people into the house that shouldn’t have been there.”

“Look, whatever your name is—”

“Tom. Bender.”

“Okay, asshole. Here’s the deal. I don’t know how you got my number or what you want but we’re going to pretend this conversation
never happened. Because if anything I say ends up on the Internet, I’ll have your ass.”

He laughs. “How do you plan on doing that? You going to sue me? People sue me every other week. My key investor’s my lawyer.
Works cheap. Litigation’s just a form of advertising for us, Ms. Dupuy. We bake it into the budget. So, I’ll rephrase. How
the fuck do you plan on doing that?”

“I’ll tell you how. I actually remember why your name rings a bell. You know why I remember?”

“No, why?”

“I have a girlfriend. She’s works in PR for a tech firm that shall remain nameless. And I now remember that she had sex with
some guy named Tom Bender who runs some sort of tech blog he thinks is influential.”

“I don’t think it,” he says. “Others think it for me.”

“Whatever. You know what she said about Tom Bender?”

“What?”

“She said for some guy who’s so full of himself he sure has a small penis. And we’re not talking small as in average. We’re
talking comically small. Humiliatingly small.”

Bender doesn’t respond right away.

“Who’s your friend?” he finally asks. “What company does she work for?”

Carloyn gives a brief pause. “She doesn’t,” she says. “I made her up. But your silence speaks volumes, needledick.”

Another silence, this one slightly shorter. She expects him to explode in rage. But he doesn’t.

“Well played,” he says. “I like you, Ms. Dupuy.”

“Go fuck yourself,” she says, and hangs up.

She barely has time to take a breath, let alone calm her rage when the doorbell rings.
Shit
. Her first thought is that the press has shown up and she hasn’t showered or dressed yet. She isn’t ready. But when she peeks
out the kitchen window, it’s just Dr. Ted Cogan, her ex-boyfriend twice removed. He’s standing there in his clogs, wearing
green scrub pants and a lightweight navy-blue Patagonia jacket that she bought for him as a birthday present almost two years
ago. He must have just gotten off his shift at the hospital.

Bracing for the early-morning chill, she zips up the lavender-colored fleece she’s wearing over her pajamas and opens the
door. The temperature will hit the low sixties later in the day but it’s in the mid-forties now.

“What do you want, Ted?” she says. “What are you doing here? This is really not a good time.”

She notices him trying to look past her to see if there’s someone else in the house. “No, I’m not with anybody, if that’s
what you’re wondering.”

“I heard,” he says.

“Really? On the radio? Was it on the morning news?”

“No.”

“Well, it was all over Twitter and Facebook,” she says, “so I guess everybody’s heard by now.”

“You’re shitting me. You put it on Facebook?”

“No, not me.”

She stares at him, a little surprised by his aggressive tone. A thoracic surgeon who also does trauma work, he isn’t one to
fluster easily. Yet he appears genuinely agitated, even a little disheveled, like a drug addict in search of a fix. His hair’s
standing up on one side but not the other, and it looks like he’s been running his hands through it, even
pulling at it a bit. He has a day or two of Brett Favre stubble that’s the same salt-and-pepper color of his hair, and his
blue eyes, penetrating as ever, seem more bloodshot than usual. Despite all that, she can’t get over how good he looks.

“Well, who the fuck did?” he demands.

Squinting, she flashes a quizzical look. It suddenly dawns on her that they’re talking about two different things.

“What are you talking about, Ted?”

“I’m talking about you having a baby on your own.”

“Oh.”

“What are
you
talking about?” he asks.

“You know Mark McGregor? From the club?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, someone killed him last night.”

Now it’s his turn to say, “Oh.” After absorbing the news, he says: “Christ. How?”

“He got hacked. Literally.”

“Where?”

“At his home. It’s in Menlo Park, right off Valparaiso.”

“Hacked? Like with a machete?”

“I can’t talk about the details, but it was apparently pretty messy.” She says that after the police showed up last night,
McGregor’s wife called her, requesting she come over.

“You know her from the club, too, don’t you?” she asks. “Beth Hill?”

“Did she do it?”

“I don’t know. But she didn’t like the questions Madden was asking. She thinks he thinks she killed him.”

“He probably does.”

After making the comment, Cogan goes silent, staring at the ground. He’s intimately familiar with Detective Hank Madden. A
few years ago he’d been accused of raping and causing the death of a former patient, a teenager named Kristen Kroiter, who’d
tragically hanged herself at home. Madden had been in charge of the investigation. If the nature of the alleged crime wasn’t
disturbing enough, complicating matters was the fact that, when Madden was a child, his pediatrician had molested him (the
revelation of his ordeal had come
out in a newspaper profile years earlier). Needless to say, a few people, including Carolyn, felt the detective harbored some
resentment toward doctors, and that he’d let that resentment influence how he approached the case.

She wonders whether Cogan is thinking about all that. Then, for a brief, horrifying moment she has a vision of him on top
of Beth Hill, passionately screwing her. She has no reason to believe he’s slept with her, yet there she is, suddenly thinking
he has, incensed.

“Man, I played tennis with that guy last summer,” he mutters. “Rinehart and I had drinks with him and his friend afterwards.
Interesting cat. Real talker. I couldn’t tell whether he was full of shit or not, which I liked. He tried to get us to invest
in his company.”

She takes a breath, relieved. His assessment reminds her of a great line from
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
that she’s always liked. In the party scene in the middle of the movie, the actor Marty Balsam says, “She’s a phony, but
she’s a real phony.” The line seems somehow apropos of Mark McGregor. He was charismatic and seemed to make friends easily,
but he also made a strong first impression that not everybody bought into.

She says, “Well, Beth Hill married the guy after he testified against her fiancé in court, so he must have something going
for him.”

“I forgot about that.” Cogan smiles, a memory returning. “Rinehart actually asked him how he’d pulled it off.”

Maybe because he’s used to having frank and open discussions with his patients about their perceived physical flaws, Cogan’s
plastic-surgeon friend, Rinehart, God bless him, is never one to shy away from asking blunt, personal questions. His nickname’s
the Rhino because he has short, thick legs and a big gut and he once charged the net to get to an opponent’s drop shot and
ended up plowing through it, snapping the net off its moorings without injuring himself.

“Really? What’d he say?”

“He said he was a good listener. That was the way to a woman’s heart. That and a lot of money and a big dick.”

“For real?”

“His very words. I swear.”

“Well, he was right about the money and the big dick,” she says. “Any schmuck can listen. Doing anything about what you’re
hearing
is the hard part.”

“Ouch,” he says. “It just got a little colder out here. Can I come in for a minute?”

Discipline, Dupuy
, she thinks. She’d promised herself that if he ever showed up or called, she’d keep her cool—and her distance. It would be
tempting to fall back into the old routine. When they were dating, he’d come over some mornings, walk into her house (he used
to have a key) and get in bed with her. “How many?” she’d always ask. And he’d report the number of trauma victims who’d come
into the hospital. More than half of the time, he’d say, “Slow night.” But usually he had a story or two to recount, which
she loved hearing.