The Big Exit (7 page)

Madden: “Did you tell your husband you spoke to him?”

“Yes. He was concerned. I mean, we’d heard he was getting out. He served his full sentence and then some because he’d had
a tough time the first year or so. He’d been involved in a few altercations. One very serious. He stabbed someone. Or rather,
slashed him badly with a razor. The guy lost a lot of blood. He had a stroke.”

“Hank,” Carolyn says, “I think we can cut to the chase here. Your ten minutes is going to be up pretty quickly. The fact is
Ms. Hill isn’t aware of any explicit threats that Richie Forman may have made to her or her husband since his release from
prison.”

“How about before that? I know there was a lot of resentment. Did he ever express a desire to get back at Mark?”

“He was certainly very bitter,” Beth says. “But I can’t tell you exactly how he felt these last years. I stopped visiting
him about eighteen months after he went to prison. As I said, he had a rough time. He changed. He became very remote. We had
arguments. He accused me of cheating on him, of being unfaithful.”

“And then you were.”

“Look, Hank,” Carolyn interjects again, “we can go over this in more detail tomorrow. Mr. Forman is obviously a person of
interest—”

“Miss Dupuy, don’t tell me how to run my investigation.”

“I’m not, Sergeant,” she says, returning the formality. “I’m just acceding to my client’s wish to keep this short. Her husband
has been murdered. She found his body. She’s distressed. And right now it’s closing in on midnight and I need to discuss some
matters with her before she tries to get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a very difficult day. But I assure you she fully
intends to cooperate. We have the list of staff that you requested and will be putting together a longer list of people we
think you should question.”

Madden looks at Beth Hill to get confirmation of those intentions, but she again seems lost in her own thoughts. He wonders
if she’s trying to sort out for herself whether Forman killed her husband.

“I don’t know whether Richie still hated Mark or not,” she says. “I assume he did. But he could have hated me just as much.
Why wouldn’t he have killed me?”

Good question, Madden thinks.

“You were at the trial, Detective,” she goes on. “It wasn’t as black
and white as you’re trying to make it out to be. Richie was convinced he wasn’t driving that car. Everybody else, including
you, thought he was. So he felt betrayed by a lot of people. It’s easy to say he hated Mark, but it was more complicated than
that. Hate can have its nuances.”

Madden looks at her, a little perplexed by her tone.

“And did you believe Richie?”

“I tried to.”

“You mean you wanted to?”

They all look at Billings, the poser of the question. Usually he was very good with his timing and phrasing. But this question,
delivered just a decibel too loud, a tad too forceful, belly flops. Instead of drawing her out, it shuts her down. Her hands
come up over her face. The curtain closes.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” she says. “I can’t believe I’m talking about this. My God. I thought it was over.”

Carolyn lays a hand gently on her back.

“Who did this?” Beth mutters. Then, her voice growing louder: “Tell me, who could have done such a thing? He didn’t deserve
this.”

Just then they hear a little knock on the door, and Burns, the lone black detective in their crew, pokes his head into the
room. He’s been out canvassing the neighbors, hoping to find a witness who saw something. He motions for Madden to step away.

“Nothing from the neighbors,” he says in a low voice when he approaches. “But they’ve got something just outside the garage
you might want to check out.”

“What?”

“Shoe print. Appears freshly made. Didn’t belong to the deceased.”

Madden nods.

“They size it?”

“About a ten,” he says. “Male.”

“Okay, give us a minute. In the meantime, get SFPD on the horn, and let ’em know what’s up, and that we may be heading their
way shortly.”

“Okay if I stay down here, work this end, Hank?” Burns asks.

Madden looks at him, trying to gauge his motivation for the request. Seeing his consternation, Burns adds, “Got a bit of stomach
bug. Wouldn’t mind staying near a john.”

Madden smiles. “You had me worried there for a second. Thought you wanted to keep out of trouble.”

“That, too,” Burns says.

Madden starts to walk away, but Burns stops him.

“Hank.”

“What?”

“We’re gonna need some help here.”

“I know.”

“Everybody’s going to want a piece.”

“I’m good at sharing.”

“Since when?”

“Since you told me to.”

With that, Madden turns around and walks back into the den, where he notices Billings scribbling something in his notebook.
Beth is quietly weeping, her face still buried in her hands. Madden wishes they could get her down to the station house. Moments
like these are what you want to get on video, not only to retain a record of her emotions but also to capture something for
experts—and maybe a jury—to look at and analyze down the road.

“Thank you for your help, Ms. Hill,” he says. “Again, we know how difficult this is. One last thing: Can you remember what
size shoe Richie wore?”

Beth looks up, suddenly more alert—and seeming more alarmed.

“I’m not sure. Not huge but not small. Why?”

“Just curious.”

O
N THE
M
ONDAY THAT MARKED THE END OF HIS TWO-WEEK VOL
unteer period, Lourdes Hinojosa called Richie into her office.

“I said I’d talk to you at the end of two weeks,” she said.

Actually, she hadn’t—he’d been the one to suggest the two-week time frame in their initial meeting, but nothing had been said
about it since he started. But he didn’t contradict her. He just nodded, sensing from the tone of her voice and body language
that the news wasn’t good.

“You’ve done an excellent job, Rick. You’re hard working, courteous, insightful, in short, everything you said you’d be.”

She paused, a foreboding, overly sympathetic look coming into her eyes. She took a deep breath, and he noticed the reading
glasses hanging from her neck, mingling with a small gold cross, rise a little with her bosom.

“But …” he prompted her, trying to make her job a little easier.

“Some issues have arisen concerning your time behind bars.”

“You don’t say.”

“We’ve hired ex-cons in the past, but they tend to be folks who’ve been exonerated of their crimes or are recovering drug
addicts. So-called nonviolent offenders. And truthfully, I’d like to hire you but my superiors at the national office in New
York who have final approval have raised some concerns.”

“Let me guess. They’re not so worried about what initially landed me in prison, but what happened there, what cost me three
years.”

She nodded, almost embarrassed. “The violent nature of the incident raised a red flag.”

It was the third time she’d said “raised”—or some derivative of it—and he wished she’d find another word. He asked her whether
her superiors in New York were aware that there were bad people in prison and that some of them might want to do bad things
to you.

“We’re quite cognizant of that, Rick. And the truth is we’re generally very liberal in our thinking, but legally we need to
protect ourselves.”

Oh yes, he forgot, they were a law firm.

“Look, I’m working on a compromise,” she said.

She explained there was now some question whether they had enough money to fully fund the position. They’d budgeted for it,
but sentiments had changed. The foundation relied on donations and grants, and while it had enough funds to meet its current
budget, questions had arisen (
again, that word
, he thought) about how generous some backers would be in the coming year.

“A few days ago they froze the position,” she said optimistically.

Last he checked his labor vernacular, freeze had a negative connotation. So why’d she seem pumped? Because it turned out her
superiors were amenable to opening the kitty for some part-time help. However, even as she outlined her plan to employ him
in some capacity, he thought he detected a hint of reticence in her voice.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

“No catch. It’s just, well, we’ve asked the people in the office to sign a waiver declaring they’re aware of your background
and that they’re okay with it—and you.”

“Indemnification,” he said.

“Something like that. But I just wanted to give you a heads-up and let you know what’s going on. I understand you had some
trouble over the weekend.”

“Who told you that?” he asked, knowing damn well who told her.

“Ashley said you had a little run-in.”

“Did she?”

“Did you call the police?”

“To report what?”

“That you’d been attacked.”

“I wasn’t attacked.”

“It sure sounded that way.”

“Well, Ashley might have exaggerated the situation.”

“You should file a report.”

“As you might imagine, I’m not too keen on interacting with the police.”

“Take the day off, Rick,” she said.

“Look, I hope that nothing Ashley said factored into your decision regarding my potential employment here. She really shouldn’t
have said anything to you.”

“Oh no,” she said a little too defensively. “As I said, this has been in the works the last few days. That said, I’d prefer
it if you didn’t place her in harm’s way.”

“The woman’s at San Quentin every few weeks. I think she can handle herself just fine. It was nothing. Believe me.”

“I hope so.”

“Look, tell me what the limit is in terms of how much I can work. Whatever it is, I don’t have a problem giving you a little
extra, you know, pro-bono.”

“I haven’t told you how much I’m going to pay you.”

“Can’t be worse than what I’m making now.”

“True.” She paused briefly, looked at him and then said, “You were in sales before.”

“Marketing,” he corrected her.

“Close cousins.”

“What’s that have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know. It just shows sometimes. You’re convincing.”

“I was a framer, Ms. Hinojosa. A packager of concepts and ideas that others took out and sold, sometimes to lucrative effect.”

“A framer who got framed. How paradoxical.”

He had a flashback to a cartoon a friend had drawn for their high-school newspaper: Two docks sitting side-by-side in a watery
expanse of ocean. The caption read, “A paradox.” He’d forgotten a lot of other things from high school, but for some reason
that image had stayed with him.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said, smiling at the memory of the cartoon.
“If it’s any consolation, I kind of laugh every time I say the name of this place.”

“Why?”

“The Exoneration Foundation,” he said with the touch of an English accent. “It just sounds so lofty. So highfalutin. And here
we are dealing with a lot of folks who don’t even know what the word means. Some of these guys can barely write English.”

“This isn’t about what they understand,” she said imposingly. “This is about making other people understand.”

“I know.”

“It’s a powerful word,” she said. “It’s one thing to be released from prison for a legal technicality. But to be exonerated
is another thing altogether. It’s on a different plane. We do lofty things here, Rick. We right God’s wrongs through science.”

“I’m aware of that.”

She rolled her eyes. Not a major roll, but definitely detectable. He realized he’d made a mistake. Sure, she tolerated a certain
amount a cynicism during the course of a workday—and had even exhibited a dry wit—but the brand was the brand, and no one
messed with it. Someone, maybe Marty, had ingrained her with that notion, and she’d stuck to it. That was good. He could understand
that. But fuck her, she didn’t really understand.

“Look,” he said. “People assume that because you experience an injustice you want revenge. But the fact is, the thing you’re
most preoccupied with is removing the tag you’ve been stuck with. You don’t know what it’s like to have a victim’s parents
look at you like you’re the scum of the earth for killing their daughter. For days on end. You don’t know. It’s like a stink
you just can’t wash off and no amount of cologne can mask. It doesn’t go away.”

“It’ll diminish. You’ll see. You were part of an unfortunate incident but you’re not a monster. You keep your head up—and
your heart in the right place—you’ll smell fine. You’re doing okay, Rick. Trust me.”

“Maybe. But I watched that video of Joaquin Cruz after he got out of prison. You know, the thing Ashley’s boyfriend put together
for you guys. He had the big crowd, the press conference—”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I gotta admit, watching it, I got a twang of envy. For a second
there I wished I was still in prison … you know, that I had a more serious charge that might have made my case more worthwhile
for folks like you to pursue. I actually asked myself whether I would have traded another six years to walk out like that.”

“What was the answer?”

He shook his head. “Nah. Prison blows. Sure, there were some interesting characters, but the thing that people sometimes forget
is that the people who are locked up are the ones who got caught. The majority range from not too bright to downright dolts.
That’s what makes it so tiresome.”

“That moment you saw in the video is just a moment,” she said. “It’s something we work toward every day and it’s incredibly
gratifying to achieve it. But the crowd goes away pretty quickly. And yeah, Joaquin Cruz sued and got some money for his troubles.
But he still has to figure out a way to live the rest of his life and come to terms with what’s been taken away from him.
And he didn’t have the wherewithal to learn to sing Sinatra like you did.”

“I still want that moment.”

“I know you do. And I know that’s part of the reason you’re here even though you say it isn’t. And that’s okay.”

He looked at her, wondering how she’d come up with that. He’d never said anything to her about why he was interested in the
job beyond what he’d told her in his initial interview.

“I didn’t ask Ashley to look into my case if that’s what you’re talking about. I told her it was pointless.”

“I never said you did.”

He paused a moment, reflecting on their conversation. He hated that she pretended to be one step ahead of him, knew him better
than he knew himself. Couldn’t she just take him at face value and leave it at that? Why was everybody trying to fucking psychoanalyze
him all the time?

“Lofty things, huh?” he said. “You correct God’s wrongs through science?”

She smiled. “We do.”

“That seems rather paradoxical. I thought God is never wrong.”

“Exactly,” she said.