Not to mention a complete lack of legal authority.
The two people I loved most were hundreds of miles away.
I had never been so alone in my life.
Too keyed up to sleep, I opened the browser on my phone and searched for Luke’s victims. I knew next to nothing about them. Despite my mother’s pleading I hadn’t attended the trial, believing I could exempt myself from the nightmare.
An article from the archives of the Contra Costa Times discussed the crash and included photographs of both victims. Lucy Vernon’s friends had put up a virtual memorial on Myspace. No one had ever taken it down so it persisted, ghost-like. She had dimple piercings and wore dark purple lip liner. She would never be forgotten. Rosa Arias’s obituary called her a beloved wife and mother. She was survived by her husband Ivan and three young children, unnamed.
That was as much as I could find with the resources at hand, though I looked for a while longer. Rosa and Lucy had died right before social media erupted and made everyone’s private lives a matter of public record.
I tried logging into Luke’s Gmail account using the passwords Andrea had given me. None of them worked. Maybe she’d forgotten it. Maybe he’d forgotten it and been forced to change it.
I composed an email to my father. I had a question for him. House-related, I called it. I thought that was the best way to pique his interest while minimizing the chance he’d mention it to my mom. Otherwise she’d insist on getting on the phone.
At four a.m. I used the last two percent of my battery to google Patrick Starks. He’d declared for the NBA draft but was not selected and spent years bouncing around leagues in Italy, China, Australia, and Israel, winding up as head coach of the Division III Susquehanna River Hawks. These days he went by Pat.
Wednesday. Sixty-one hours in the dark.
A new fire had broken out in Napa County, on the western side of Lake Berryessa. Air quality was expected to worsen. Everyone, not just sensitive groups, was urged to remain indoors. To avoid exposure to unhealthy wildfire smoke, a “clean room” should be established. The public safety power outage remained in effect.
I pulled into the bureau beneath a sky peeling like old varnish.
Rory Vandervelde’s autopsy was scheduled for eight a.m. At ten to, the booth officer called the squad room to notify Jed Harkless that Detective Rigo had arrived.
It was all I could do not to jump up. I was desperate for an update. I watched Harkless pour two cups of coffee and disappear down the hall. His keycard beeped.
Fifteen minutes later he returned.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Hm?”
“He have anything interesting to say?”
“Who?”
“Rigo.”
Harkless shrugged. The criminal investigation was no business of his or mine. But he knew my reputation: I was a meddler. “We didn’t really get into it.”
I nodded and he sat behind the cubicle wall.
I decided to give it a few minutes, then saunter downstairs myself. Just to say hi.
I glanced over my shoulder.
Carmen Woolsey was staring at her screen.
Lydia Januchak, staring at hers.
Dani Botero’s chair was unoccupied. She was in the morgue, assisting with the autopsy.
I opened Accurint and typed in Ivan Arias’s name.
The system returned several individuals. The Ivan Arias I wanted was fifty-one years old, with a current address in Concord. He was the property’s sole owner. He owned no watercraft and had no criminal record. Associates included Rosa Arias, deceased; Maxwell Arias, twenty-four; Stephanie Arias, twenty-two; Christian Michael Arias, nineteen.
Either of the sons would seem to qualify as a young man.
I wondered if either of them had a beard or owned a white truck.
My desk phone rang.
“There’s a Sean Vandervelde here for you,” the booth officer said. “Seems kinda mad.”
“Don’t let him in.” I closed the search window. “I’m coming down.”
Through the lobby glass I recognized Sean from his LinkedIn page. He wore a grape-colored polo shirt and jeans and was stalking the narrow landing that connected the building to the visitor lot. Dragging a Rollaboard, as if he’d come straight from the airport.
I came outside. “Mr. Vandervelde. Deputy Edison. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”
“What time are we getting started?”
“Started with what?”
“The autopsy.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, sir, but as I informed you, it isn’t open to the public.”
“I’m not the public.”
The booth officer startled and reached for her radio.
I motioned for her to wait. “I understand that this is stressful, sir, and I want to help.”
“Sure you do.”
“But you need to calm down. Otherwise you’re going to have to leave the premises. Okay?”
The vast majority of bereaved people are polite. If anything, they go out of their way to express their gratitude. Tiny kindnesses feel like saintly acts when we’re at our lowest.
The angry minority — the bellowers, saber-rattlers, danglers of lawsuits — do their worst over the phone. Get them face-to-face and they almost always fold.
Almost always. We still wear bulletproof vests.
Sean Vandervelde glanced at the booth. The guard was waiting on a sign from me.
“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”
“Thank you. How about we discuss this in private.”
He nodded, and the guard buzzed us through.
I showed him to the small room reserved for next of kin. The walls are beige. There’s a potted ficus and copies of Real Simple magazine; a bland sofa and matching chairs and a coffee table set with a box of Kleenex. The wastebasket is emptied out after each visit.
Vandervelde dropped his bag and dropped onto the sofa, one knee jogging. He grabbed a tissue and began twisting it into a rope.
I offered him water or coffee. He didn’t answer. I took a chair. “When did you get in?”
“What... ? An hour ago.”
“Are you alone?”
He stopped torturing the tissue and stared at me. “What are we doing? What is this?”
“It’s part of my remit to ensure that next of kin are taken care of.”
“You want to take care of something, take care of her.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think? That fucking parasite bitch.”
“I take it you mean Nancy Yap,” I said. “Have you been in touch with her?”
“I don’t want to talk to her.”
“I understand she and your father were in a long-term relationship.”
“She was my mom’s oncologist. That tells you what you need to know.”
He slumped, resting his head against the wall, atop a faint grease stain left by thousands of other weary heads. “You can’t let her take his body.”
“I assure you, sir, nothing’s happening until we’ve completed our investigation.”
“She’s going to try. She had his lawyer call and threaten me.”
“With what?”
“She’s the executor. Allegedly.”
“Are you in possession of a copy of his will?”
“There’s no will.”
“Then—”
“I don’t care if she has a piece of paper with his signature on it,” Sean said. “It doesn’t mean a thing if he’s not in his right mind.”
He jackknifed, hurling the shredded tissue at the wastebasket. It missed. “You see what’s happening here, don’t you? It’s his lawyer. Now he’s representing her? That’s not a conflict of interest? Senile old shitbag, I should have him disbarred. A buck gets ten she’s sucking his dick, too.”