The Burning

Chapter 17

I opened Andrea’s Facebook page and clicked SEE MORE.

A close-up of Luke’s face, setting indeterminate.

A wider shot, Luke shirtless, hoeing on their plot, his hard-earned musculature round and slick as river rocks, the tattoo visible.

Comments expressed concern, offered help and/or support, promised to pass along the news or put up flyers. Some wondered if she’d called the police. She hadn’t answered them, and she’d had enough common sense not to mention Rory Vandervelde by name. But a user named G M Duggan asked another important question.

I opened her response.

Facebook posts did not show up in ordinary searches. The effect of her going public was not yet apparent. Where the information might travel next, I had no idea.

The fuse was burning that much faster.

It was ten p.m. Official inquiries would have to wait for morning.

Unofficially, the night was young.

I called Edmond Valdez, the property clerk.

“Clay?” Sleep muddied his voice. “What time is it?”

“Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“S’okay. I was watching TV, musta passed out. What’s going on?”

“We had a removal in Fremont today. The guy on the bike?”

“... oh yeah.”

“So I just got a call from his girlfriend. At the time of the accident he was carrying some of her stuff in his backpack. I didn’t realize when I checked it in. Any way I can go grab it for her?”

“Now?”

“She’s leaving the hospital and she’s gonna be locked out of her apartment.”

It was a plausible story. Similar things happened every so often. That they’d never happened to me added to the plausibility.

Edmond snuffled tiredly and gave me his locker combination. “Don’t forget to update the tag.”

“Right on. Appreciate it, man. Good night.”

I showered and put on my last clean uniform. Tomorrow was my day off. The routine included taking Charlotte to the dry cleaner to collect whatever Amy had dropped off on Monday.

The dry cleaner was closed.

My family was in another world.

I filled a backpack with items I thought I might need and drove to the bureau.

A CCTV camera goosenecked over the entrance. I didn’t look at it. Nor did I look away. I kept my gaze level, like a person who belonged there.

I swiped my keycard, leaving a record of my entry, and walked deserted corridors under more cameras. The health lab was closed. The crime lab was closed. Only a skeleton crew of coroners was on site to cope with the victims of the night. The whole week had been slow. People sheltering. Less street crime. Fewer traffic accidents. Death never quits, but it had lifted its thumb off the scale, temporarily.

That night the deputy coroners on duty were Kat Davenport and Stevie Dixon. The sergeant was John Gruenhut. I knew all of them. I knew everyone, in every room, on every floor, day or night. They were my colleagues and my friends.

Outside the men’s locker room I listened for running water. Heard nothing and went in and opened Edmond’s locker.

Spare shirt. Spare towel. Deodorant. Bag of Sour Patch Kids.

The purple key carabiner.

I took it up to the second floor, let myself into his office, and unlocked the safe, using his computer to locate the keys to Rory Vandervelde’s lockers. I stole them. I didn’t bother with Fletcher Kohn’s keys. I needed cover, not a ruined bike or a split helmet.

A camera hung over the property room door. I swiped my keycard.

Rory Vandervelde’s belongings filled four lockers, a glittering assortment of small goods, individually bagged. Cuff links. Tie clips. Nancy Yap’s pearls, her colossal diamond studs. Meds. The watches occupied two entire lockers.

Jed Harkless and Lindsey Bagoyo hadn’t taken any of the other collections for safekeeping. A choice that might seem odd, but I understood. Once they started down that road, there was no end. If they took the antique knives, did they have to take the baseball cards? If they took the cards, did they have to take the footballs? Jerseys? Art? Car keys? They couldn’t take everything.

The problem was that Vandervelde owned everything. Not a problem we often faced. Rich people tend not to get shot or shoot themselves or perish from exposure in alleyways. They die as they live: on their own terms.

In the bottom locker I found the house keys, five of them on an engraved silver fob. RWV.

I stole them and exited through the intake bay to the vehicle lot, passing beneath a red neon CORONER’S BUREAU sign, the sole surviving relic of the old morgue building, where for the better part of a century it hung over the sidewalk, burning luridly.

When we moved to the new building — ten years on, everyone still called it that — the decision was made to mount the sign out back, away from the gaze of anyone who might deem it in poor taste. It was supposed to evoke a sense of continuity, a romantic past.

Tonight, to save electricity, the sign had been switched off.

I still thought of myself as new, too. But that was fantasy. I’d spent most of my adult life here.

Seven vehicles lined the wall: three body vans, three Explorers, and the hulking mobile command center. A collection not quite worthy of Rory William Vandervelde.

I opened the middle van’s rear doors, releasing a cloud of disinfectant fumes.

Gurneys. Sheets. Body bags. Shrink-wrapped disposable coveralls. Tool kit. Smaller miscellany: nitrile gloves, N95s, spare camera batteries, baby wipes.

Still Life, with Death.

I stole what I needed.

Seven minutes later I was easing over the speed bump on Kilmarnock Court, past the sign forbidding entrance to anyone other than members of the Chabot Park Summit Homeowners’ Association or their guests. The paving smoothed out and I coasted between the trees.

Rory Vandervelde’s driveway gates were shut. I parked around the bend, put on a mask, and doubled back on foot. Behind hedges and walls the estate homes brooded. With their hollow windows and high flat faces they resembled the lopped-off heads of giants.

I pulled on a crumpled pair of gloves and jumped the fence to Vandervelde’s property, landing in a clump of sword ferns. I climbed from the planting bed and started up the driveway.

Even that much modest effort had my lungs on fire. I coughed and pounded as though I could jar loose the obstruction. But the obstruction was the air itself.

To my left, to my right, security cameras laid their blind stare on me.

I imagined the power surging on, exposing me — wouldn’t that be opportune?

Streetlights, stoplights, neon, chandeliers, sconces, desk lamps, table lamps, floor lamps; microwaves chirping and printers booting up and idiotic oven clocks flashing twelve; an army of zombie devices resuming assigned tasks as though no time had passed.

Children jarred from their dreams, crying out.

And me, hiking up the hill to a dead man’s house.

Beneath filthy scudding clouds, the empty motor court looked immense. I hurried over it and took the front steps two at a time, preparing to commit my fourth crime of the evening. Or fifth, or sixth. Who could keep track?

A sticker joined the door to the jamb. Another covered the lock.

Both seals were signed by Harkless, dated Tuesday, with a time of 1617.

Both were broken.

Jagged edges. Someone pushing through impatiently.

Neither lock nor frame showed sign of forced entry.

I drew my gun, clicked on my flashlight, and, pointing it down, let myself in.

The foyer was humid, overhung with a gamy odor. Absent the yellow evidence markers, the living room resembled the aftermath of a kegger.

I let my backpack down to the marble and paused to listen.

Feeble scratching, from deep in the house.

I crept after it, into the hallway, following the blood trail.

The sound got louder and more frenetic. The smell redoubled.

I reached the fork that led to the kill zone, paused again.

Close now.

I dared to extend my head.

A section of baseboard had been sawn away to allow retrieval of the slug. The pool of blood had shrunk down to black enamel, shot through with cracks, like the inside of a saucepan accidentally left on the fire. Constellation of spatter. Drag marks into the office.

The scratching noise was coming from there.

Frantic, staticky, animal.

I edged up and pivoted into the doorway, sweeping the beam, trigger at the ready.

The desk had been ransacked. Papers littered the floor. The Rolodex was in place but the silver-framed snapshots were knocked over. The desk window was thrown open to the night.

Wind gusted in, flapping a plastic shopping bag on the blotter.

I lowered the sash. The air went limp, the bag drooped, the scratching sound died.

I played the flashlight over the display cases. The bathroom door was shut.

In the bag were a pair of baseballs, the ’89 World Series commemorative autographed by Eck and another with what looked like Ken Griffey, Jr.’s signature. There was a Nolan Ryan rookie card in a hard protective case. The makings of a nice little shopping spree.

I started forward to check the bathroom.

A faint cough wheeled me around.

I moved back into the hall, toward the next door, the next, drawn by a living presence. We know when others are near. We crave them and fear them and sometimes we destroy them.

I came to a door. The parlor. Where the knives were kept.

The emanation changed. It listened back. It felt me, too.