I got out of the car and approached Officer Joe Sorbera, who had been the first on the scene. He took out his notebook and said to me, “I got here at seven ten, spoke to Janet Worley, the caretaker, through the intercom. There’s the box next to the gate. She said she was not in any danger and that the victims, two of them, were dead. Definitely dead were her exact words.”

The uniformed cop continued. “Lieutenant Brady told me to cordon off a perimeter and to wait for you, Sergeant. He told me not to go into the house.”

“Has the ME been called?”

“Yes, ma’am. And CSU is on the way. I took some photos of the crowd.”

“Good job, Sorbera.”

I looked at the mob, saw it was thickening. Cars were backed up on Vallejo and were being detoured around Divisadero. Because of the traffic, and a million Tweets and YouTube posts by tourists, the scene would be red-flagged by the press.

Death plus celebrity was a heady news combination. The media was going to train its brights on this house, and any law enforcement errors would be documented for posterity.

I told Sorbera to set up a media liaison and a command post on Pierce, then I went to where Conklin was examining the front gate to the compound.

The wrought-iron gate was set into a ten-foot-high ivy-clad brick wall that gave the house total privacy from the street. The metalwork looked old enough to be original, and the lock had recently been forced. I saw fresh cuts in old iron.

“It was pried open with a metal tool, not a bolt cutter,” Conklin said.

Joe Sorbera said there were two victims, definitely dead. Who were they? Was Harry Chandler involved?

Brady had assigned us to do the preliminary workup, meaning we had to determine where law enforcement and forensics could walk on the scene without destroying evidence. We were charged with taking pictures, making sketches, and forming an opinion.