Rory Vandervelde’s DOB was 02/05/1951. He stood five foot eight, weighed two hundred ten pounds, and was an organ donor.
I clicked on my flashlight and went to inspect the closets and bathrooms.
Two of each, his and hers.
Vandervelde favored luxe, neutral casual wear purchased in quantity. One shelf contained nothing but gray cashmere sweaters, all Versace, a few with tags attached. Its neighbor contained more sweaters, same brand, in black. I ran the beam over shoes and boots and loafers and slippers in every color from black to brown.
In the center of the closet stood a marble-topped island that merited its own census tract.
I combed through socks and underwear.
Burled maple boxes stacked on the floor. Wristwatch storage. Vandervelde owned at least a hundred. Three times as many pairs of cuff links.
You don’t know the half of it.
The overabundance gave a whiff of anxiety. Stock up while you can; might be gone tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d grown up poor.
Now it was all gone, forever.
I went into his bathroom.
Like basically every American over forty, Vandervelde took statins. Viagra, antacids, ibuprofen. That just about covered it. A man his age had aches and pains, but most days two fingers of single malt did the trick, thank you very much.
What sounds like voyeurism had a purpose. The physical environment we create for ourselves often speaks truths we prefer not to acknowledge.
Recreational drugs pose as prescriptions. A lack of hygiene can reflect mental decline. Regardless of how self-evident a cause of death seems, you never know what autopsy will reveal or what might acquire relevance.
So we open every drawer, every cabinet. Inevitably a picture of the person takes shape.
Rory Vandervelde’s private quarters drew the portrait of a robust, vain, compulsive, fun-loving, clean-living individual.
I crossed over to Miss Nancy’s territory.
A few couture sweat suits. Sneakers. Embroidered bathrobe. Built-ins meant for showing off handbags and shoes sat empty. Her island was close to bare, save half a dozen pieces of jewelry, each of which was dazzling. The warmth brought out remnants of perfume.
Her claim on the medicine cabinet felt equally tenuous: contact lens solution and a handful of cosmetics. The perfume was Chanel No. 19. Large bottle, mostly full.
Bringing luggage during stayovers? Valuing her independence? Or he didn’t like having her clutter around.
Or a relationship teetering, commitment ambiguous.
A spiral staircase in the corner of the bedroom led up to a roof deck. Vandervelde had reserved the best views for himself, restricting the deck’s footprint to a relatively compact twenty-by-twenty square. Enough for a hot tub, another wet bar, lounge chairs, and a vintage coin-op telescope aimed at what would have been San Francisco if the gods weren’t angry.
The blurred sun hovered at its apex, unsure of whether to press on or retreat.
I stood by the railing to take in the property’s full scope. Generous lawn, L-shaped swimming pool, pool house with its façade of French doors. The guesthouse, while smaller than its older brother, was enormous in absolute terms — what most people would consider a dream home. There was a putting green, a sunken garden with a pond, and steps descending to a lower-terrace tennis court.
Harkless came trudging over the grass toward the pool house to interview Davina Santos.
My eyes had begun to itch.
Back on the first floor I went room-to-room. Gym. Twelve-seat high-def home theater. Multiple eating areas, stocked kitchen with butler’s pantry and regular pantry and a windowless wine gallery. I started running out of terms for “a place to sit and relax.” Library. Conservatory. Parlor. Den. You could exhaust yourself, trying to sit and relax in all of them.
Every surface was dust-free. Credit Davina Santos.
Vandervelde’s other collections included electric guitars, Americana, and antique pocketknives. Nothing looked to be missing, no busted locks or glaring blank spots.
If robbery was the motive, the killer hadn’t done a very good job.
Or he’d done an incredible job, locating a single item of interest and leaving without succumbing to the urge to grab handfuls of plunder on the way out.
I still hadn’t found a cellphone.
My final stop was the office. I’d bypassed it, saving the sports memorabilia for last. Amid the pens and paper clips in the desk I found an iPhone charger cord. But no phone.
Maybe that was the killer’s object.
In the bottom left desk drawer was an estate planning portfolio, green pleather binder, four inches thick, gold embossing.
I set it aside, drew out the keyboard tray, tapped the space bar to revive the computer screen.
It stayed dark. No power.
I’d forgotten, just as I’d stopped feeling the heat or hearing the buzzing of the flies.
The Rolodex’s plastic frame was riddled with hairline fissures and discolored by sun. I spun the dial to the V section. The absence of Vanderveldes puzzled me till I realized the cards were alphabetized by first name.
I dialed to N.
One Nancy listed.
Nancy Yap
Phone number with a 415 area code.
No sense wasting time hunting for the decedent’s son: I didn’t know his name. He’d be in the estate documents or we could locate him through Accurint.
An average scene, with an average amount of stuff to sort through, takes an hour or less. In my decade-plus as a coroner I’d never worked a private residence this large or this lavish. Two hours in I still wasn’t done.
I wandered the display cases, taking photos of the signed jerseys, the signed shoes, the stubs; quietly thrilled by the icons of my childhood, where and when rendered in sweat and leather.
Montana and Rice. McGwire and Canseco. Run TMC.
Memories, resurrected.
The heat of my brother’s body against mine. On the floor, in front of the TV; elbow-jousting, stop, idiot, jumping up to embrace and scream victory.
On the court, in front of a crowd.
We watched anytime, played anywhere, loved everything, but basketball best of all.
Whatever else came between Luke and me, we always had The Game.
Yellow and blue are Warriors colors. They’re also the colors of my alma mater, the University of California, Berkeley. Cal’s reputation rests on academics, not athletics. The Golden Bears last won the NCAA tournament in 1960 and have since undergone something of a dry spell. There have been a few exceptions: the mid-eighties under Kevin Johnson, the mid-nineties under Jason Kidd, and then again a few years later, when I was the point guard and we clawed our way into the Final Four before I tore my knee ligaments into fettuccine.
Rory Vandervelde had my face on his wall.
It was a roster photo from the top of my sophomore season. A magical moment, pregnant with possibility. I knelt in the front row, balancing a ball on my thigh. I looked giddy. So did my teammates. We knew what we were capable of.
Our team made countless public appearances. For the boosters; for sick kids. I could never remember signing one particular photo. Yet the proof was in the margins, in black Sharpie.
CLAY EDISON #7
Neater than it would be today.
In time, everything breaks down.
“Pardon me, Deputy.”
Rigo leaned in the doorway. I had no idea how long I’d been standing there or how long he’d been watching me.
“Your partner is looking for you,” he said.
I nodded thanks. “I see what you meant.”
“What’s that?”
“This not being the half of it.”
He smiled his small, odd smile. “There’s more.”