A Mystery in Silicon Valley

“When she was found, there was a quarter of a large watermelon in her refrigerator. We tracked down the source and it appeared to have been purchased at the Wednesday Farmer’s Market.”

“Only a quarter? Those melons are huge. There is no way that she ate 3 quarters of one of those things within 24 hours.”

“I don’t know, some people really like watermelon.”

“We’ll have her stomach contents checked out during the autopsy.”

“Did they find the murder weapon?”

“It was a pair of socks wrapped tightly around her neck. A high-end brand from the Nordstroms at the Stanford Shopping Center. She was found in the bathtub covered with wet towels. A 15 page love letter was sitting on the toilet, alongside a 5 page break up letter. They appeared to have been written on the same day by her downstairs neighbor.”

“If the neighbor had been the murderer, he would’ve taken the letters with him. He said that he hadn’t heard anything because he had been blaring classical music all day and he looked really shocked and upset when he found out about what had happened. He was believable. Kind of a nut, though.”

“Her upstairs neighbor — the one with the long blonde hair told us that the victim had been seen with a man who lives in the next building. We checked him out and he appears to be running a high-class escort service for Silicon Valley tech executives.”

“I’ve heard about their cuddle puddle parties. Sounds pretty decadent.”

“We’ve confiscated his phone and we found her picture on it. It had been mailed to one Ricky Green, a venture capitalist with an office on Sand Hill Road. He is married to Sandra Pied of Lookbook.”

“We should check out her alibi in case this was a case of jealousy gone wild.”

“Do we have a list of the victim’s co-workers?”

“Not yet, but we have the list of guys she went out with through a dating service. A Russian programmer she met at a salsa club, a lawyer from Santa Cruz who took her to see Mama Mia, and an unemployed mathematician who has a website documenting his transformation into a triathlete. It looks like he has a ways to go.”

“Looks like we are going to be busy.”

…

“Hey, boss. We just got a recording from her recent telephone activity, I think we’ll be able to wrap this up easily.”

…

“Mom?”

“Sweetie!”

“How are you?”

“Great! Bob is mowing the yard today and I’m cleaning the leaves off of the pool deck. What are you up to?”

“Oh, you know, work, sleep, more work.”

“Have you met any nice guys?”

“No one new. Sarah signed me up for that dating website, but the dates felt like job interviews and the guys were nothing like their pictures.

“Ahh, modern romance.”

“I went for a walk with my downstairs neighbor. It was just spontaneous, you know, out of the blue. We bought a watermelon from the farmers’ market and I didn’t think it was a big deal, but shortly afterwards, he gave me a 15 page letter in meticulous handwriting. I’d never spoken with him before we went out to buy the watermelon.”

“Oh, 15 pages.”

“I wrote back that I wasn’t interested in a relationship and he responded with a 5 page letter describing how he now had to move out of the building because I had rejected him.”

“Ouch.”

“His apartment is right underneath mine and he has been blaring classical music ever since.”

“That sounds scary.”

“Yeah, and I have night shifts and it is hard to sleep because of the noise and the heat. There is a heat wave and I’ve been trying to sleep in my bathtub while covered with wet towels.”

“Try Ambien.”

“So that I won’t notice when my neighbor comes upstairs to strangle me with some smelly socks? Good idea.”

“You are so negative. You sound depressed,” she said disapprovingly. “I’m sure you will find a way to make this work. Don’t you have any happy neighbors?”

“There is a family across the street and I can see into their living room. I call them the Ikea family. They have a two year old and the wife puts all of the chairs on top of the table every day when she cleans the floor.”

“That sounds nice. Who else do you know?”

“The lady in the apartment above mine is a gorgeous medical student with long blonde hair and some guy with a fancy car comes over once every few weeks and they have really loud sex. We’ve never spoken.”

“Lovely.”

“I met another neighbor in a nearby coffee house and I went out with him a couple times and thought he was nice. But in retrospect I think he was actually a pimp.”

“Why would you think that?”

“When I first met him, he was sitting at the coffee house with a bunch of women who were much more attractive than him and when I went out with him, he kept introducing me to various ‘friends’ of his and telling me that they were really nice guys. He would tell me about how they were married, but their wives were awful. Pretty women would crash at his apartment on a regular basis.”

“How can you be sure he was a pimp?”

“When I went out to meet him, he immediately took my picture and sent it to his ‘friend’. His ‘friend’ then came over. I got the sense that he was deciding if I would be his ‘type’. I excused myself and walked home.”

“Oh, Bob is coming in and we’re going to have lunch. Can we talk later?”

“Sure, mom.”

“Bye, love you”

click.