Death in the Haight

by Ronald Tierney

  There may have been a note with new instructions in with the new ticket.

  Lang went to the walkway that was lined with food concessions to get to the side of the field where Vanderveer sat. He called Rose on the way.

  “Do you know where Vanderveer bought his beer?”

  “The Anchor Steam just above his section.”

  When he got to the top of Vanderveer’s section, he met Rose.

  “I was just thinking,” Rose said, “Vanderveer took off his jacket and put it on his chair. I thought it was to save his spot, but that doesn’t really make sense because the ticket says you own the seat. Maybe it was too hot. He put it back on when he got back. There’s a little chill in the shade.”

  “You see anyone move near his jacket?” Lang asked.

  “I was watching Vanderveer, like you said, but I had one of my men stay near the coat. Nobody saw anything.”

  Lang shook his head. “You know, this makes no sense. Maybe they won and we’ll never know how.”

  The crowd roared. Lang looked up at the nearby TV screen, one of hundreds in the stadium, mounted in the walkway. One of San Francisco’s players was rounding the bases.

  He had Rose call those watching the exits, and he called his little group. Look for someone suspicious who was leaving early in the game. It wasn’t likely, but if they had somehow gotten what they came for, they might get impatient, just want to get out of there. But Lang didn’t expect the perpetrators to leave when leaving would call attention to themselves. They had used a sold-out game for a reason—to get lost in the crowd. And he really didn’t expect that they, as smart as they’d been so far, would look suspicious. It was a foolish request. But just in case . . .

  Lang went back to his seat, used the binoculars to keep an eye on Vanderveer, who sat rigidly and wasn’t drinking his beer.

  Lang lowered his binoculars. Nothing to see. Vanderveer in the same place, doing nothing. It was going to be a long and likely unproductive afternoon, after which there would probably be little else to do but declare defeat.

  “What do you think has happened? Anything?” Brinkman asked.

  “I don’t know. The kidnapper—or kidnappers—has feinted before. Or could be that’s what he wants us to think.”

  All the while Lang was answering questions about what appeared to be true, he doubted any of it was.

  Lang sent Thanh back to the office to do some quick research. Using the phone and the computer were two of many things the shape-shifter was good at.

  The game was spirited. The lead changed several times, and the hours were punctuated with cheers and groans and music designed to lift the spirits and continue rallies. Extra innings. All this and Mr. Vanderveer remained seated, still as stone. A couple of times Lang wondered if the man were dead, but he would move his head slightly from time to time, looking left and right cautiously and down in despair or weariness.

  In the bottom of the eleventh a double and a single ended the tie, and people shouted, hooted, hugged, and milled about. Lang’s view of Vanderveer was blocked for a few minutes. When Lang again found him in the crowd, he was still seated. When most of the crowd had cleared, he got up, moved slowly up the steps toward the walkway and down back steps toward the street.

  Just in case, Lang and his friends let him return to the hotel on his own. That was where they would find him.

  * * *

  Lang arrived in the hotel lobby after Vanderveer. Vanderveer was probably in his room. Stern and Rose were probably with him.

  Lang called the office. Thanh had a couple of calls yet to make.

  Upstairs, in the suite’s center room, Mr. Vanderveer sat in a single chair, Mrs. Vanderveer and her son James on the sofa. Rose stood at one of the windows, looking out. Stern pulled the wicker chair from the desk, straddled it so that he peered over the back. Lang found a spot in the doorway to one of the bedrooms.

  “Big bust, Lang,” Stern said.

  “I just followed instructions,” Vanderveer said. He appeared angry—but, more than angry, tired.

  “Somebody got played here, don’t you think?” Stern said to the room in general. “They got the bonds, Lang. Vanderveer got an envelope full of paper.” Nobody responded. “First and foremost,” he continued, “it was you, Lang. This was your party. You planned it. You and the Vanderveers didn’t want the police to do anything, and you went around us. At the last minute you asked for our help in your little plan, and it blew up in your face.” He was quiet for a few moments. No one filled the silence. “Now where are we? We don’t have the kid. We don’t have the money. And we have not one fucking—I’m sorry, Mrs. Vanderveer—we don’t have one frigging clue to follow. We don’t even know if it’s a needle in a haystack because we don’t even have a fucking haystack.”

  More silence. Was it shame? Or just the feeling of powerlessness? Stern continued to deal out the punishment. “Mr. Vanderveer, do you have any ideas?” Vanderveer shook his head no. When Mrs. Vanderveer was asked, she also shook her head silently. “You, Lang? What have you got to say for yourself?” Lang didn’t answer Stern. Instead he answered his cell.

  “Rose?” Stern interrupted Rose’s attempt at invisibility.

  “Not a clue, Inspector Stern,” Rose said, not turning back.

  “It’s unanimous,” Stern said, standing up, acting as if all this meant he won.

  “Not yet. It’s not unanimous,” Lang said, hanging up. “We haven’t heard from James.”

  “I haven’t anything to say,” James said. He stood up. “I’m going to go out and get some air.”

  “No, no, James,” Lang said, moving toward the door. “Wait a little bit. This involves the whole family. It’s a family thing. We need you here. But I need a quick talk with a lawyer.”

  * * *

  Lang met Chastain in the hotel hallway and walked him back down the hall, toward the elevators, where they couldn’t be heard by the Vanderveers.

  “I was waiting on Thanh to check some flight and bus connections,” Lang said.

  Chastain looked worried. “Yes, and why is that? Are you going somewhere?”

  “It hit me at the ballpark,” Lang said. “There’s only one way this could have gone down.”

  “And you know what that is?”

  “And who did it. Unfortunately that is a big problem for both of us.”

  Chastain closed his eyes for an awkward length of time.

  “What makes you think so?” Chastain asked. It was clear he didn’t want what Lang thought to be true.

  “Rose said he had his eye on Vanderveer the whole time, and he swears no one messed with the jacket.”

  “Yes,” Chastain said, implying that wasn’t enough.

  “There’s only one person left. And that’s what I’m checking now.”

  “Oh dear,” Chastain finally said. “Oh, what a fine mess.” He shook his head. Lang knew it was complicated—ethically and legally. The two were not necessarily connected. This time they were. It was a tough one.

  Lang leaned back against the wall. It was up to Chastain. He knew what he wanted to do, but he worked for the man now pondering a most difficult decision.

  “Mr. Vanderveer is my client,” Chastain said. “I have to let him weigh in on this. You have to be sure.”

  “There’s really only one way to find out. That’s to go ahead as if we are sure,” Lang said.

  Chastain grinned, but it was the kind that acknowledged the universe as nothing more than a practical joke.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t let you do it,” Chastain said.

  “I promised to get to the truth. I promised Vanderveer.”

  “But is it the truth?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  “Kind of like Salem, isn’t it, drowning a woman to find out if she’s a witch? If sh
e drowns, she’s innocent. If she lives, she’s a witch and is hanged.”

  “I don’t know what else to do. We can start it, play it by ear . . .”

  “It can get out of hand real quick. You believe that much in the system?” Chastain asked.

  “No, I don’t. But what else have we got?”

  Lang waited in the hallway to call Thanh while Chastain returned to the room to talk with the Vanderveers. Thanh’s findings could make things a whole lot easier.

  * * *

  A bedroom door swung open, bounced on its hinges. Vanderveer appeared, pale and horrified. Behind him was Chastain, calm, shrugging his shoulders. They had talked. And Lang believed it had not gone well.

  “They say you killed him,” Vanderveer attempted to shout at his son, but emotion made his voice shaky.

  James, who had moved to the window, had already begun to perspire. He stood, frozen. His eyes didn’t blink. He wasn’t thinking.

  “This is your doing,” Vanderveer said to Lang. “Tell me the story. Make me believe.”

  Rose, who had sidled up to Stern for conversation, put his hand to his mouth, kept it there as if trying to prevent himself from speaking. Stern was alert, looking around, confused, glancing at each person in the room, no doubt to find out if he was the only one who didn’t know what was going on.

  Mrs. Vanderveer looked at her son. Clearly, she was in pain. Was she hurt by the accusation, or was she feeling the agony of believing? Lang had no way of knowing what members of the family knew or felt about each other. And it was just as unclear where Mr. Vanderveer’s anger originated. Was he angry with his son for doing it, or did he not believe it and was angry that someone dared to accuse him?

  Lang looked at Chastain, who shook his head in a manner that said it was all now out of his control. Lang was to do as he chose. Lang had wanted there to be a discussion before the police had an inkling of what had actually happened to young Michael.

  “James?” Lang asked. James turned, but his expression, or lack of it, had not changed. “You care to explain?”

  James said nothing. Instead, he turned back to the window.

  “Chop, chop,” Stern said. “Somebody start talkin’.”

  “You didn’t mean to kill him, did you, James?” Lang asked.

  James didn’t answer.

  “Get to it,” Stern said.

  “That murder is out of your jurisdiction, Stern. Michael never made it to San Francisco. His body is somewhere in the woods, probably near or on the Vanderveer estate. Maybe in the lake,” Lang said. “Which is it?”

  “How could you possibly know this?” Mrs. Vanderveer said, turning in her seat away from James and toward Lang.

  “What would prompt a young gay kid to come to San Francisco to kill a female prostitute?”

  “That wasn’t proven either,” Mr. Vanderveer said.

  “This is an inside job—all accomplished by one person. If James hadn’t been a little horny that day, it might very well have been a perfect crime. He would have gotten away with a murder and a handsome sum of money. You might want to spend more time with your lawyer, Mr. Vanderveer.”

  “James, I think you need to remain silent,” Chastain said.

  “No,” Vanderveer said. “I don’t want him to remain silent.”

  “It’s ingenious,” Lang said. “Isn’t it, James? You almost got away with the girl’s murder too. The accident, the cover-up, and then the opportunity.”

  James looked at Lang. It was a cold look. “This is all ridiculous,” he said. “Let’s go home. Can we?” He looked at his mother and father.

  “I think so,” Mr. Vanderveer said.

  “You never had the bearer bonds, Mr. Vanderveer,” Lang said. “They were never taken from you at the ballpark because you never had them at the ballpark. James had already made the switch. That’s why we didn’t see it. You and the jacket were never out of sight. You had an envelope full of paper from the beginning. There were no kidnappers to catch in the act. No one was kidnapped. There were no kidnappers.”

  “There was a murder,” Stern said.

  “All conjecture,” Vanderveer said. “All hypothetical. And not very good at that. There’s a record of Michael flying to San Francisco, right?” He looked at Stern. Stern nodded.

  “James manufactured Michael’s presence here. He booked the flight here under Michael’s name, using Michael’s cash card and Michael’s computer. He had all of Michael’s IDs. They’re not twins, but they look enough alike to get a plane ticket. He came here as Michael and went home as James after taking a series of short bus rides and indirect flights. Hard to trace, but not hard enough.”

  “Ridiculous,” Vanderveer said.

  “We have James flying from Reno to Denver to Chicago the day after the murder.” Lang walked closer to James, who turned away. “My guess is he hopped a bus from San Francisco to Reno, flew to Chicago, and grabbed another bus to Grand Rapids. Thanh has verified most of that route, and it won’t take much to complete the check.”

  “And the bonds?” Rose asked.

  “I don’t know. Safe-deposit box, hidden somewhere—ready when James needs a cool million. Future investment. His mom says he’s good in finance. Turns what is probably a tragic accident or an argument that got out of hand into a million dollars plus the whole inheritance from his parents. Seems like a very clever boy, just as you said he was, Mrs. Vanderveer.”

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” Stern asked James.

  “He’s saying nothing,” Chastain said. He turned to Vanderveer. “You demanded the truth from Lang. Twice. You got it. I suggest you get a new attorney, maybe two, one here and one in Michigan, Mr. Vanderveer, and . . .”

  “And what, Mr. West?”

  “Be careful what you ask for.”

  “What we’ll be asking for,” Stern said, “are some dogs in your woods and some divers in your lake.” Stern looked at Lang, shook his head.

  The room went silent and still for a few moments. Stern broke the pall by pulling out his handcuffs and advancing on James and, in his odd way, explaining that the boy had the right to remain—as he indeed had until now—silent.

  James looked at his mother.

  “I didn’t mean to kill Michael. I need you to believe that. He was embarrassing me with my friends. We were down by the stable. He told me . . . he said he was going to come all the way out. If I was embarrassed now, just wait, he told me. He acted like a girl . . . he was making fun of me. I meant to hurt him. I didn’t mean to kill him.” The cuffs clicked into place. “I couldn’t face you. I figured if he just ran away, it would be less hurtful. I didn’t know it would turn out like this.”

  “And the girl,” Stern asked, “the prostitute at the hotel?”

  James didn’t answer right away.

  “I suppose you didn’t mean to kill her either,” Stern continued.

  “I didn’t plan on it.”

  “You accidentally strangled her? Happens all the time.” Stern smiled.

  “She wanted more money. She took the cash cards, both Michael’s and mine. She wouldn’t give them back. She was tough and everything got ugly and out of control. She wasn’t supposed to figure in this at all.”

  “Killed a sissy and a girl,” Stern said. “What are your friends going to think now?”

  “Let’s go,” Rose said to Stern. “You’re late for your sensitivity class.”

  * * *

  Lang was exhausted when he got back to his place in the Western Addition. Not physically but mentally. Trying to absorb the impact of the Vanderveer case was a struggle. Buddha was at the door to welcome him, as usual.

  “Tell me, O wise one, how is it that the truth is so unfulfilling?”

  Buddha, keeping in character, was wisely quiet, walking back into the room with the non
chalance of someone who had done what he was supposed to have done and now, that completed, had no further obligation.

  “Want a drink?” Lang asked Buddha.

  Still nothing. Buddha seemed as if he understood the world was unfolding as it should. Maybe Lang’s life would be simpler if he could accept that. But he couldn’t.

  He thought he’d walk over to Haight Street. There were a couple of new restaurants there he hadn’t tried. And the neighborhood was still crazy after all these years.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks as usual to my brothers Richard and Ryan, and to the talent and insight of Jovanne Reilly. Special appreciation goes to my friend Bryan Ribbens, for sharing his knowledge of Grand Rapids and the Christian Reformed Church.

  Ronald Tierney was editor of a San Francisco monthly and founding editor of an alternative weekly. Born in Indianapolis, Tierney attended Indiana University in Bloomington. He lives in San Francisco now, where he is working on several fiction projects.