Tuesday. Thirty-five hours in the dark.
I slept poorly and woke up coughing.
I groped on the nightstand for my phone. The battery had dwindled to seven percent.
No missed calls. No texts.
The air quality index had worsened overnight. Maroon splotched the map, as if the northern third of the state had suffered a vicious beating.
I settled against the rank pillow, breathing stale, pungent smoke.
Luke hadn’t told me about their fertility problems. I had no idea if this round of treatment was their first or tenth. I did know that even a single round was expensive and that insurance rarely covered it. Selling the Camaro might lessen their financial strain.
If Rory Vandervelde wanted the car, the deal could’ve closed easy and quick. Andrea had narrowed the delivery window, yes, but it was possible that Luke had brought the car to Vandervelde’s house on Sunday, shaken hands with the new owner, and left him healthy as a horse.
Left and gone where, though?
Where was the Camaro’s key?
Andrea claimed not to know about any sale. That, too, had an explanation: My brother was constantly wheeling and dealing. The paint cans attested to that. Cars were his thing, not hers. She was too preoccupied—or too apathetic—to keep up. Or maybe he was worried she’d try to talk him out of it. She loved him and he loved that car.
The very fact that he loved it so much made it all the more likely he’d sold under duress. Had he wrestled with the decision? Was that why’d he’d texted me the day after brunch?
R u around
Can we talk
Maybe I was reading too much into Andrea’s evasiveness. I’d shown up unannounced, at night. She was high-strung by nature. Add in supersized doses of hormones and she had to be jumping out of her skin.
The embarrassment of having her secrets revealed.
The indignity of having to ask for help. From me, of all people.
She’d never liked me and the feeling was mutual.
She said it herself: She was Luke’s wife. She knew him better than I did, better than I ever had. A twenty-four-hour radio silence would have been inconceivable for Amy and me. But who was I to judge?
Look at where Luke and Andrea lived. How they lived. They thrived on solitude.
You could live that way without kids. BC—Before Charlotte—Amy and I had spent much of our free time together. But not all of it. We’d talked and texted, but not like we did now, the never-ending flow of questions, reminders, photos, videos; the banal urgency of parenthood.
Maybe Luke was traveling for work. A last-minute thing, for Scott.
Maybe he’d taken off on a vision quest, selling his car first, hours before the murder.
Ugly coincidence. It happened.
I wielded these thoughts, trying to beat back the uglier alternatives.
Failed.
I told a cold shower. I breakfasted on protein bars and tap water and Advil.
Flakes of burnt paper stuck to the sides of the kitchen sink. I rinsed them down the drain with the vegetable sprayer.
A fine layer of ash covered my car. I ran the wiper fluid, sluicing runnels of gray sludge.
At my desk twenty minutes early, I plugged in my cellphone to finish charging and stashed it at the back of the desk drawer, behind Rory Vandervelde’s house keys. The cord poked out, creating a quarter-inch gap, and my mind overlaid a nauseating image of the garage hangar door, stuck open.
I stapled my attention to paperwork.
Day shift trickled in. Night shift clocked out.
The sun came up, just.
By nine a.m. I couldn’t stand it any longer and reached into the drawer for the phone.
One text from Amy. The beach it was. She’d try me later. She loved me.
Another text from the reporter. Did I want to comment yet? I did not.
My former teammate hadn’t followed up and neither had Billy Watts, the Berkeley detective. I texted my teammate that I was hanging in there and called Watts. His line went to voicemail. I told him to give me a ring whenever.
Nothing from Luke.
Dread resurfacing, stronger, sharper.
I texted Andrea.
Hey hope you’re feeling well. Please lmk if you hear from Luke
My desk phone rang. I put the cell away and pressed SPEAKERPHONE. “Coroner’s Bureau.”
A curt male voice said, “Sean Vandervelde for Clay Edison.”
“This is Deputy Edison. Thanks for getting back to me, Mr. Vandervelde.”
“Yeah, so, I’m at work and I have two people standing outside my office, saying my dad’s dead, except that they won’t tell me a thing about it because they’re saying I have to speak to you. So maybe you can tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“I can, yes. I’m sorry to tell you that your father has passed away. My condolences.”
“I know that part. They told me that part. What I don’t know is anything else, so I’d appreciate it if you’d stick to that: the parts I don’t fucking know.”
“Right now we’re not able to say exactly what happened, but—”
“Why not?”
“It appears your father was the victim of a crime.”
Silence.
I said, “I realize that hearing that can be—”
“Fucking bitch. Hang on.” He spoke to someone else: “You can leave, please. And tell them to leave. Goodbye. Thank you. Goodbye.”
He came back on. “Do you have a suspect?”
“That’s a question for the detective. I’m with the county coro—”
“Who’s the detective?”
I gave him Cesar Rigo’s contact information.
“I don’t fucking believe this. Oakland? It has to be them?”
“That’s where the crime took place.”
“Yeah, I understand that, I’m saying the reason you have murders in Oakland is because your police department is a grade-A shitshow run by a dickless prancing clown crew with a single-digit solve rate, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t sound psyched at the prospect of them sleuthing. How do you know he was murdered?”
“It appears he was shot. We—”
“The fuck is that, ‘appears’? Was he shot or not?”
“The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow. Once that’s complete, we’ll have a better sense—”
“No autopsy, I do not consent.”
“Respectfully, sir, the law requires us—”
“I want him out of there. I want it done in a private facility.”
“If you’d like him reexamined—”
“No. You do nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing. I will get a court order.”
“Mr. Vandervelde, I appreciate that you’re upset—”
“What time tomorrow?”
I started to check the calendar. Instinct kicked in. “Just so you know, sir, the procedure is closed to the—”
“Get fucked,” he said and hung up.
Dani Botero leaned out. “No chill.”
I got up to refill my coffee and came back to find my drawer buzzing.
Pictures from Amy. They were at the Santa Monica Pier. Charlotte, ear-deep in a cloud of cotton candy. I texted them to have fun and put the phone away.
I looked up OPD’s homicide clearance rate.
It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t in the single digits. Getting better every year.
I looked up Sean Vandervelde’s LinkedIn profile.
He was the young man from the graduation photo on Rory Vandervelde’s desk. Since his college days he’d lost hair and gained weight. He was an attorney at a multinational firm. Their L.A. office was on Wilshire Boulevard, not far from where Amy and Charlotte were having a delightful beach day. He specialized in entertainment law.
Midmorning Nikki Kennedy and I responded to a call from Oakland Fire at the Ace Hardware on MacArthur Boulevard. Earlier that day the store’s assistant manager, whose name was Russell Andrews, had arrived for work. The store wouldn’t open for ten minutes but people were lining up along the sidewalk.
Andrews entered the store through the rear and went to his locker to put on his red vest. He and a co-worker discussed the crowd out front. Same as yesterday. Andrews shook his head. Somehow, these folks had managed to disregard dozens of emails and text alerts from the utility urging them to stock up on batteries and flashlights. Now they needed batteries and flashlights.
He fought his way into the vest. It didn’t fit right, they never did. Russell Andrews was a big guy. He sweated a lot and kept extra vests in his locker so he could change during lunch.
Laughing, he told the co-worker he didn’t know if he was going to make it that long. The forecast called for a scorcher.
Might be a three-vest day.
The first few hours kept him busy. Without power, the registers were inoperable. They had to write up receipts by hand, count out change. By eight thirty a.m. they’d run out of lanterns. By nine the paper towels were gone. Signs limited customers to one pack of batteries apiece. Nobody obeyed. They’d stuff four under each arm, waddle up to the customer service desk, and plead their case. Likewise all the other rationed items: masks, TP, generators, portable light sources. Everyone had a reason for why they, more than anyone else, needed multiples. Life-and-death-type excuses that got them nowhere.
By ten thirty supplies were dangerously low, tempers brittle. Russell Andrews phoned the distribution center to see if he could get an ETA for restock. The distribution center put him on hold. Andrews flagged down a woman from the paint department who was passing by. He asked her to listen on the line while he ran and swapped out his vest real quick.
He hadn’t donned the new one when a cashier burst through the swinging doors: fight on register three.
The cashier would explain to me that he’d come looking for Andrews because he was the supervisor. Plus, when you needed someone to break up a fight, Russell Andrews—six foot two, two hundred ninety pounds, erstwhile offensive lineman for De Anza High School—seemed like the right dude for the job.
Andrews lumbered out to the floor.
Two women were rolling around on the linoleum, scrapping over the last unsold twenty-four-pack of Energizer D-cells. They had toppled an endcap display of ChapStick. A crowd of shoppers and employees had gathered. Several people, including the store security guard, were filming.
Like King Solomon in Timberlands, Russell Andrews waded into the fray, patient, confident in his size. He instructed the women to simmer down. That didn’t have the desired effect, so he lunged for the batteries. Now all three of them were grabbing and shoving and cussing. Not since senior-year two-a-days had he had performed such strenuous physical activity.
With a heave from Andrews the batteries flew free, arcing over his head and tumbling along aisle five, Small Kitchen Appliances. He flopped back.
The women flopped back. They recovered and went scrambling after the batteries.
The crowd shifted to watch them.
Russell Andrews stayed down, flattened by sudden cardiac arrest.
A customer noticed him, ran over, felt his neck, and shouted for help. A cashier ran for a defibrillator. The customer began chest compressions. She was a graphic designer, untrained in CPR. She only knew what she’d seen on TV. Afraid of hurting Andrews, she didn’t push nearly hard enough to goad the circulatory system of a man more than twice her weight.
Starved of oxygen, Russell Andrews’s brain began to die.
Nobody had called an ambulance. The graphic designer told me she thought the cashier had done it. The cashier had the opposite impression. The security guard had moved up with his phone to get a better view of the brawl. The woman from the paint department was still on hold.
Russell Andrews died at register three.
In advance of our arrival, EMTs had sent the rubberneckers packing and herded the employees, teary-eyed, into the break room. We took pictures, took statements, examined the body. Turning him was a bit of an adventure, Kennedy and me squatting and grunting, her ruddy cheeks gone raspberry red to match her hair.
She began the dorsal exam. I went to the van for the gurney. The sidewalk was deserted, customers having dispersed in search of batteries and flashlights.
My phone buzzed. Jed Harkless.
“Am I right in thinking you got the keys for Vandervelde?” he asked.
“In my desk. What’s up?”
“Oakland called. They’re finished. Me and Bagoyo are gonna head up there to seal.”
I pulled out the gurney. The legs unfolded and it clattered upright in the gutter. “I can come with you. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Not sure we can wait that long.”
The gurney had started to roll down the street. I grabbed a rail. “What’s the rush? There’s a uniform on site.”
“Not anymore, there isn’t. The detective said they can’t spare the bodies. They already left this morning. All that stuff, I want to get up there soon as I can to safeguard.”
The very rationale I’d given Cesar Rigo: big house, full of expensive things to steal.
An old FBI agent once told me he’d never met a cop who asked for more work. I couldn’t demand to accompany Harkless without coming off like a major try-hard, and the desire not to call attention to myself outweighed the desire to revisit the scene and have a look around.
“Whatever you want,” I said. “Just trying to spare you the smell.”
I thought Yak-Yak might jump at the chance to bow out. Instead I triggered a defensive reaction. “Naw, bro. I’m good. Keys?”
“Top left.”
“Thanks.”
I pushed the gurney to the hardware store entrance. A man on Rollerblades was tugging on the locked door. The EMTs hadn’t turned over the hours-of-operation sign. It still read OPEN—PLEASE COME IN!
“They’re closed,” I said.
“But I need batteries,” the man said, his feet sliding.
I braked the gurney and knocked. “Pretty sure they’re sold out.”
“Are you going inside?” the man asked. “Can you ask?”
An EMT unbolted the door for me.
“Godspeed,” I said, flipping the sign to CLOSED—SEE YOU SOON!
Nikki Kennedy knelt by the wrapped body. She took the feet. I took the shoulders.
“You want a hand?” the EMT said. He smiled gallantly at Kennedy. “Don’t want you to hurt your back.”
She shot him a look that would burn toast.
I counted down from three, and we lifted what used to be Russell Andrews, two hundred ninety pounds of never again, onto the gurney.
The pads squeaked. The frame shuddered and settled without further complaint.
Kennedy did not injure her back.
Near the freeway, I saw the man on Rollerblades testing the door of an unlit 7-Eleven.
At four thirty Harkless returned from sealing the house.
“Holy Moses,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me about the garage?”
The Camaro flashed through my mind, its bright colors dulled down to something sickly.
I saw my hand, racing across the paint, removing marks, destroying evidence.
Of what? Luke was on a work trip.
I said, “I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Oh, it was.”
Lindsey Bagoyo entered, unstrapping her vest. “We didn’t know where to start. We ran out of bags.”
Triumph in their voices, as though they’d returned from a successful hunt.
I opened my desk drawer. Rory Vandervelde’s house keys were no longer there but were in a storage locker with his watches and cuff links and jewelry and everything else Harkless and Bagoyo had managed to gather. The key for the locker, in turn, was upstairs with Edmond, the property clerk.
I reached to the back of the drawer for my phone.
Twenty-seven hours since I’d written to Luke.