The CEO Came DOA

by Heather Haven

  Eastham finally saw me and waved, an anxious look crossing his face. Pushing his way through the throng, he came to my side.

  “Sorry I’m late. I had to finish up feeding the llamas.” He looked around him. “This doesn’t look like a good place to talk.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I said, reluctantly throwing the last half of my burger into a nearby trashcan. “Bad choice. Why don’t we go sit in my car?” I slurped the remaining coke out of the paper cup and threw that in the trashcan, as well.

  A sharp wind cut through my coat as we opened the door and left the restaurant. I was sorry I hadn’t worn a sweater underneath, even though the coat was lined wool. Sometimes a wet cold goes right through anything.

  I beeped the car doors open and we slid inside the warmth of the Chevy. Neither one of us said anything for a full ten seconds. I had a feeling we could sit there all day like that, but I had other things to do.

  I turned in my seat toward the CTO, the leather making a crunching, crackling noise as I moved. Eastham looked mighty uncomfortable. Couldn’t be the car seats; these were special order and as comfy as sitting on your couch in the living room.

  “Why don’t you tell me about your wife and David Collier?” I made my voice as gentle as possible, given the question.

  He scooted up and down in the seat, nervous, antsy, whatever, the leather echoing his movements, as they had mine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh please, Craig. Don’t ever try your hand at acting. You have no talent for it.”

  He sat perfectly still and looked straight ahead. I prodded.

  “You may as well tell me. Even if you don’t think so, people always leave a trail somewhere.”

  He ran a quick, pudgy hand over his face then let out a choked sigh. “How did you know?” He still wouldn’t look in my direction.

  I decided to be honest. Not a first for me and it often lands me in a bucket of trouble. But there you are.

  “I didn’t, not really, until now. I suspected it this morning, but I wanted to make sure.”

  “You tricked me.” He let out a sound half way between a laugh and a snort.

  “Sorry, but it might be important to the case. Tell me about the affair. It if means nothing we’ll never mention it again, I promise.”

  Beads of sweat appeared above his mouth. He swiped at them with a jerking motion before speaking.

  “My wife, Carol, is a good woman, a good wife and mother to our two boys. They’re eleven and sixteen. I work long, impossible hours. Always have. But it seemed to be all right. We’ve always been…” He broke off and shrugged, thinking of the right word. “Comfortable. That’s the word, comfortable. And then things started happening; maybe a couple of years ago.”

  He turned and looked at me for the first time.

  “Carol is bipolar, did you know that?”

  I shook my head.

  “It started with the online gambling. Thousands and thousands of dollars every week. Even our eldest boy got hooked. Then a few months ago she changed her hair color. Dyed it blonde, and bought some new clothes. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Women have a right to change their looks, right?”

  He turned to me for agreement. I didn’t say anything, so he faced front again and went on.

  “Anyway, shortly after that I found her in the bathtub, wrists slit, blood everywhere.”

  His voice cracked and he fought back tears. It broke my heart and I reached out and touched him on the shoulder. I don’t think he was aware of the gesture. Suddenly he burst out in a near shout.

  “That son of a bitch, David Collier! He could have any woman in the world. He did have any woman in the world. Why did he have to go after Carol? She nearly died. It was horrible.” The last words were hardly more than a broken whisper.

  “When was that, Craig?”

  “Three months ago. Three long, long months ago.”

  “Did Collier know about Carol’s attempted suicide?”

  Craig shook his head. “No, we kept it very quiet. Even the boys don’t know. We told them she was in the hospital because she needed an adjustment to her meds; it’s happened before. Fortunately, I found her in time. She was in the hospital only two nights, but she’s still in therapy. I guess you could say something good has come out of it. It’s helping with her gambling problem. My son’s, too.”

  He stared straight ahead then buried his face in his hands, sobbing for a solid minute. I was silent and let him cry it out. When he was done, he took out Kleenex from his pocket and wiped his eyes. I reached out and gave him another, one I pulled from my stash. For the first time, he smiled at me.

  “I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “Sorry about this.”

  “Don’t be. I’m sorry I had to put you through it again.”

  “Should I tell you the truth? I’m glad David’s dead, that miserable egomaniac. She told me he pursued her for months only to drop her after two weeks. She was so guilt-ridden, not just for me, but for the boys, that she tried to kill herself.”

  He wiped at his nose before going on.

  “And you know why he did it?” He turned to me, eyes burning into mine.

  “Because he could.” I didn’t even need to think about the answer.

  “That’s exactly the kind of sick son of a bitch he was. Another notch on his belt. Never mind our friendship, our business relationship, that she was a married woman. Oh, hell.” He turned to me again. “But I didn’t kill him. If I had, I would have run him through with a saber, face to face.”

  I thought for a moment. “I believe that’s your style, Craig. Defending a woman’s honor.”

  “I’ll bet you’re wondering why I’m still at Read-Out after I found out, after he nearly killed my wife. Well, it’s simple. We need the money. We are flat broke. And the business is as much mine as it is his…was his. If this IPO doesn’t go through and soon, I’ll probably have to declare bankruptcy.”

  He leaned back into the cushions, seemingly spent. He didn’t look in my direction. He opened his mouth to say something, but paused first, maybe thinking it through. Finally he looked at me, his voice filled with resignation.

  “So what now? Are you turning me in to the police? Is this going to be in the papers? I’m thinking of my boys.”

  “No. It’ll be like we never spoke. I just needed to know. No one’s going to learn of this from me or anyone at D. I. unless it’s pertinent to the case. One thing, what happens to Collier’s share of stocks now that he’s dead?” I watched his reaction carefully.

  “Well, I hope they come to me,” he said with a shrug. “We each signed a Right of Survivorship agreement and there’s supposed to be a clause to that effect in each of our wills, put there for the sake of expedience. There’s a clause in my will, and I’ll have to change that now. But being who we’re dealing with, maybe David left them to some stripper in Las Vegas. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  His bitterness was almost palpable, but I didn’t allay his fears about what I’d read in Collier’s will. Not my place.

  “Why don’t you go home, Craig, before it starts to rain again? And unless something else comes to light, our conversation will never be mentioned again. You have my word on it. Thanks for coming.”

  He took a deep, almost cleansing breath, nodded to me, opened the car door, and stepped out.

  Silicon Valley has evolved a critical mass of engineers

  and venture capitalists and all the support structure –

  the law firms, the real estate, all that - that are all actually

  geared toward being accepting of startups.

  Elon Musk

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I’d turned off 280 South and onto Sand Hill Road, where I pulled over to the side of the road and made a call. I let the car idle, not environmentally correct, but sometimes it’s just the right thing to do. With a sigh, I pressed the speed dial again and put the phone to my ear. If the amount of phone calls I’d been making kept up, I w
ould soon have a cauliflower ear. But that’s just me griping.

  My brother took his sweet time about answering. I hate that. Whoops. Still griping.

  “Richard, what’s the address you have for Sharise’s manager?”

  “Ty Deavers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me a minute.” I did. “Found it. 1543 San Carlos Drive, Palo Alto.”

  I looked into my phone at one of the addresses Skye messaged. “That’s what I thought. Same address. I think the prototype is there, Richard. And maybe the rest of the booty, too.”

  “You don’t use words like ‘booty’ around Lila, do you? I mean, she’s hard enough to handle as it is.”

  I ignored my brother’s comment about our illustrious leader, and recounted my conversation with Skye in detail. I have a form of memory retention that allows me to remember and repeat conversations verbatim, at least for a time. I chose to hit only the salient points about Eastham. Richard was impressed.

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “I have.”

  “What’s on the agenda now, Lee? Sounds like you have a plan.”

  “Well, for one thing, I’m skipping our three pm meeting. I’ve got yet another stop to make.”

  “I hope it’s not going to Ty Deavers’ place to try to get the prototype back by yourself. Our Lady will not be happy. Neither will I.”

  “I promise not to break in, but I already called Frank and he’s meeting me there with a search warrant. He thinks he can get one with probable cause, based on Collier’s locator chip pinging in Ty Deavers’ house. It has no reason to be there other than theft. But I promise not to do any B and E…at the moment.”

  “That makes me feel so much better.”

  Richard had a sarcastic edge to his voice. In fact, the whole conversation had been strained. I struggled to understand why. I said I wasn’t going to break into Sharise’s manager’s house by myself and I meant it…sort of. But brothers, who can explain them; who can tell you why.

  “By the way, Richard, Skye sent me a list of all the plants and animals contained in the rainforest, which I forwarded on to Frank. A borrachero tree is not on it, but I’m sure Frank is going to look at the rainforest with a magnifying glass. Do you have any updates for me?”

  I pulled out onto Sand Hill Road again only to be stopped by a red light. Shoving the Bluetooth in my ear, I listened to my brother’s findings.

  “All the high rollers you think of as being loaded aren’t. Sharise has spent more than she’s made for the last two years. I had no idea what it costs to mount a touring rock concert, especially one as jazzy as hers. After seeing her expenditures, she could use twelve million dollars a year.”

  “Too bad she was in Germany, Richard.”

  “Hired an assassin?”

  “Too vindictive for a professional; they would have just shot him.”

  “Okay. Craig Eastham. His finances are major shocking. His wife is a closet gambler and a bad one, at that. She spends a lot of her time online losing tens of thousands every week. Their eldest son has the same problem. Between the two of them, they’ve gone through millions.”

  “So he told me, but I’m glad to have it confirmed. Craig also told me Collier dumped his wife shortly after he bedded her. That’s why she tried to commit suicide.”

  “Sounds like a good motive to me.” Richard cleared his throat. “Katie Hall. She and Collier had a thing about three years ago. Then he moved on. Rumor has it she didn’t take it well. Katie kept nosing around in his love life, writing nasty notes to women he was dating and stuff like that.”

  “Really?”

  “Collier threatened to fire her if she didn’t stop. The only reason he hadn’t up ‘til then was Skye liked her so much. I guess hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

  “I wish people would stop saying that. It’s so sexist. Women aren’t any more scornful about being dumped than men, Richard.”

  “Maybe more creative?”

  “Not even. But Collier’s codicil does make her a rich woman, so she’s on the short list. What about Patel?”

  Richard’s voice became slow and thoughtful. “There’s something. But it happened when he was underage, so it’s locked up in his juvie record.”

  “He has a juvenile record?”

  “Yeah, and I can’t get into those, no matter what I do. Even I have my limitations.”

  “I never thought I’d hear those words, brother mine.”

  “You’re hearing them now.” He paused. “Although….” His voice tapered off.

  “Although?”

  “I have a friend in Barstow. And he has a friend with a research job at City Hall. Let me see what I can do.”

  “Keep working your magic, Richard. Meanwhile, I should be in Palo Alto in a few minutes.”

  “Before you hang up, Mom told me to remind you of your four o’clock fitting, something about your wedding dress.”

  “Yikes! It’s the last fitting, too. I’d better show up.”

  “If you know what’s good for you. And Jake’s funeral is tomorrow. The Coroner’s Office has released the body. As you know, Jewish tradition is to bury people within forty-eight hours. He has a plot in Colma. We’re supposed to be there for the service at nine AM in the morning.”

  I felt the tightness in my throat again. “Sure thing. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “In your spare time? I don’t think so. Patti is making most of the arrangements. His car and all his belongings are being donated to the International Rhino Foundation. He stipulated that in his will.”

  “Too many readings of wills right now, Richard. I don’t like any of it.”

  “No.”

  We were silent for a moment then I cleared my throat and changed the subject. I hoped my voice came out sounding anything like normal.

  “Where’s Mom right now?”

  “She’s with Vicki and the baby now --”

  “Ahhhh. I need to swing by for some baby time. How is everyone doing?”

  “Fine, but be on the alert. When Lila finds out where you’ll be instead of at the meeting today, she’ll be livid. You know what she’s like then.”

  “Howling at the moon, splitting logs with her bare teeth, setting fires in a single glance? She don’t scare me none.”

  “Oh yeah? Try having her drive to Ty Deavers’ and creating a scene in front of Frank. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  “Dios Mio! Don’t give her the address, Richard.”

  “Too late.”

  “Okay, tell Mom I’ll be at the fitting for sure. But let her know I’m trying to find and return the tester and chips to Read-Out, so we don’t lose D. I. in a lawsuit. That’s the only reason I’m not going to be at the meeting.”

  “Hold on. I’ve got a call coming in. Well, what do you know? It’s Mom.” His voice took a gleeful turn. I, on the other hand, was terrified.

  “Goodbye; I’m hanging up.”

  I did so and threw the phone in the back seat. I arrived at the address in Palo Alto, slowing down to a crawl to assess the layout.

  The house was a stucco mini-MacMansion, showing the standard 1980’s tan color in places where it wasn’t covered with green ivy. Pretty, but ivy can so destroy stucco it surprises me when people let it take over.

  Frank’s squad car was already there, as well as backup. He was outside on the well-manicured lawn having an intense conversation with one of his lackeys. I gave a short toot of the horn, waved, drove down the street and parked, figuring I would wait for Frank to hike over to me with an update. Seconds later a coroner’s wagon showed up followed by another police car, lights flashing but no sirens.

  I was in Bangalore, India, the Silicon Valley of India,

  when I realized that the world was flat.

  Thomas Friedman

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I didn’t like this turn of events at all, so I hopped out of the car and walked back to the stucco house. If Ty Deavers was needing a coroner’s wagon
, there went one of my suspects.

  The rain had stopped and the sun peeked out from a few passing clouds raising the temperature to a tolerable degree. A gust of wind, cold and damp, showed us who was boss, though. Winter was amongst us, and I drew the scarf tighter around my neck. Passing one of the officers, I waved a greeting. He recognized me and let me through. Frank was pacing in the driveway, deep in thought.

  “What’s going on, Frank?” He didn’t answer right away, but grabbed one of my arms and pushed me back in the direction of my car.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t do anything stupid. If you had been inside, I might have had to arrest you. Or it might have been worse.”

  It was more of a growl than words. I pulled my arm out of his grasp, but didn’t move.

  “What’s happened?”

  “A woman is dead. Lying on the floor of the living room. We saw her through the window when we came up to the place with the search warrant. We didn’t know she was dead at the time, but it gave us probably cause to break down the door.”

  I drew in a breath of air, but said nothing. Neither did Frank. We stared at each other. I was the first to break the silence.

  “Devil’s Breath?”

  “She has the same look as those two boys in Fremont, so I wouldn’t rule it out. We won’t know for sure until the autopsy, but that could take some time.”

  “Is Ty Deavers in there?”

  He shook his head. “No, but his van is in the garage. We don’t know where he is yet. His plane landed hours ago. We’ve got an APB out on him.”

  “Who’s the dead woman?”

  “Don’t know that either. But we’ll do the usual things. We’ll find out.”

  “Does she have long red hair?”

  “No.”

  “Wearing a blue cowgirl outfit?”

  “No. You think this might be your lady in blue from Redding?”