He was working himself up again. I said to him the same thing I’ve said to countless others in his position, to refocus them on what matters: “Tell me about your father.”
Sean frowned. “Tell you what?”
“What do you remember about him best?”
“I don’t... ” He faltered. “He was my father.”
I nodded.
“He wasn’t a bad father. Don’t think that’s what I’m saying.”
“Not at all.”
“He was involved, he could be a lot of fun. I have good memories. All right? Is that... Have I said whatever it is you want me to say?”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
Silence.
“I was at his house,” I said. “It seems like he had a wide variety of interests.”
Sean snorted. “No shit.”
“Did you share any of that with him?” I paused. “Cars?”
“When I was six, maybe. But come on. Grow up.”
He leaned back again. “People look at him, ‘Oh, here’s this guy, he’s a master of the universe, he must be some sort of genius.’ But the fact of the matter is he was incredibly gullible. He was like a child. He’d be the first to admit that. His own father walked out, his mother was an alcoholic. He was basically dyslexic. Nobody ever set boundaries, nobody told him you couldn’t do certain things. You give a person like that too much money, it’s like giving a gun to a toddler. I graduated law school and he bought me a Maserati. For the life of him, he couldn’t get why that was inappropriate. ‘Why don’t you ever want to enjoy yourself?’ I told him, ‘I can’t show up to work in a car nicer than the partners’.’ The one person he listened to was my mother. She spoiled him, but at least she kept him grounded. She goes and next thing you know, that cunt’s moving in and I’m getting lectured about it’s his life, he gets to decide.”
Easy narrative. Victim; villain. “Sounds tough.”
“It’s not tough, it’s disgusting. They didn’t even wait till my mom was dead. And now this bitch has the balls to sit there and tell me what I’m entitled to? Fuck you. Listen, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I didn’t fly up here in the middle of the workweek to explore my feelings. I need to speak to someone who can move the needle. When’s the detective coming?”
I glanced at the clock. The autopsy was well under way. “Did you call him?”
“He wasn’t interested in what I had to say.”
“Detective Rigo is a thorough investigator,” I said, though I didn’t know that and on some level hoped it wasn’t true.
“He’s shitty at returning phone calls.”
“You can share your concerns with me, and I can relay them to him.”
“My concerns are that she murdered him. That’s my concern. Relay that.”
“You believe Dr. Yap—”
“Don’t call her that. She should lose her license. Don’t call her that.”
“You believe she killed your father.”
“Not on her own. Does she seem like the kind of person to get her hands dirty?”
“I haven’t met her.”
“Trust me. She hired someone to do it. With his money.”
“Do you have cause to suspect that?”
“Are you deaf? She got him to put her in charge of his estate.”
“I’m asking if she’s made threats against him in the past, or if their relationship was violent.”
“How the fuck do I know? I don’t live with them.”
“Besides Ms. Yap can you think of anyone else who might want to hurt your father?”
Sean Vandervelde smiled bitterly. “Besides me, you mean.”
“I mean in general.”
“No. Is the detective coming or not?”
“Hard to say. They don’t always.”
He crossed his arms. “I’ll wait.”
“What time’s your flight home?”
“I don’t have one. I’m not leaving till I’ve sorted this mess out.”
“Do you have a place to stay tonight?”
“Are we friends?”
“I just want to make sure you’re set up. A lot of hotels are closed because of the outage.”
“I’m in the city. Okay?”
“Okay.” I stood. “Anything else I can do for you, sir?”
He shut his eyes. “I’ll take that coffee.”
I brought it to him in a paper cup and went to the morgue viewing station. Cesar Rigo was there observing the autopsy on the flat-screen.
At table four, on the far side of the morgue, Dani Botero was assisting the pathologist, Mahalia Millsap. Rory Vandervelde’s abdominal cavity was butterflied, his organs removed and sampled. His stomach had been opened and its contents decanted into a basin for analysis.
Rigo had on a royal-blue suit, same slim cut, purple tie tightly knotted.
I felt my own throat constrict. “Morning.”
“Good morning, Deputy. I didn’t expect to see you.”
Dani Botero saluted me through the window. I saluted back. Dr. Millsap kept her eyes on the body, narrating over the intercom as she traced the path of the bullets.
“Sean Vandervelde is here,” I said to Rigo.
“Is he?”
“He has a theory he’d like to share with you. He flew in from LA.”
“Is he aware that I am here?”
“No. I have him in a room. I told him you might not come but he seems intent on waiting.”
“What is the theory?”
“Nancy Yap had his father killed.”
“Fascinating. When I spoke to her, she advanced a similar claim about Sean.”
“The will cuts him out and puts her in charge. Either side, there’s motive. She stands to benefit and he’s on the warpath.”
“Thank you, Deputy. I will take it under advisement.”
The shot to Rory Vandervelde’s trapezius was a clean through-and-through. The shot to his neck had chipped the left transverse process of the C5 vertebra. The fatal shot, number three, was an unlucky fluke. The bullet had sneaked between the third and fourth ribs, missing the scapula but tearing open the descending thoracic aorta and causing rapid internal hemorrhage, Vandervelde’s own heart pumping his trunk full of blood.
I spoke into the intercom. “TOD?”
“Late Sunday to early Monday morning,” Dr. Millsap said.
“After the power went out.”
“Probably, although don’t hold me to that.”
“Did you get into his computer?” I asked Rigo. “Anything from the security system?”
“The footage terminates with the outage. The neighbors cannot recall a vehicle entering or exiting the property. One assumes they were preoccupied with their own problems.”
On the screen, Dr. Millsap tweezed out a warped, bloody slug. She held it up to the camera. “Small-to-medium caliber.” She dropped it into a metal pan with a clack.
I asked Rigo if ballistics had recovered intact rounds.
“One. Nine millimeter.”
Same as the Walther PPS.
“Any luck finding the murder weapon?” I asked.
Rigo shook his head. “I informed your colleague that we were able to locate the victim’s phone. A neighbor discovered it while walking her dog. It had been smashed and thrown to the side of the road. Forensics is attempting to recover the data.”
If my brother had a legitimate reason to be at Rory Vandervelde’s house, they had likely communicated prior to the appointment. The fact that the phone was damaged didn’t change much. What was true of Luke’s laptop was true of any connected device: You didn’t need the physical object to access its activity. I assumed Rigo had submitted a subpoena for cellphone records. Landline, too. It’s what I would have done. Depending on Vandervelde’s carrier and the detective’s pushiness, it could take anywhere from a couple of days to weeks for the request to trickle through the layers of compliance.