The Murderer's Daughter (38 page)

Finally something Grace could respond to. “Is Eli a patient here, as well?”

“Oh, no, he's not a vet, Dr. Blades. Anything but. He's…for two years he's had what I guess you people would call issues? Intense fears? Anxiety disorders? Also compulsive behavior that's getting worse and worse, to the point where—not that I can blame him, Doctor, sometimes I'm a basket case, myself. Because of what happened.”

The woman sniffed back tears.

Grace said, “What happened?”

And that changed everything.

Eli's parents, both
CPAs, had been victims of a home invasion that left Eli's father stabbed to death and his mother severely beaten. Eli had come home to find the massacre, called 911, and ended up as a prime suspect subjected to days of intense, borderline-abusive grilling by the police. The cops' suspicion continued until three gang members attempting a similar break-in were identified as the savages in question.

By then, the damage was done: Eli, always a “sensitive boy,” had retreated to mute isolation in his room, adopting a growing array of odd tics and habits: pacing and retracing, curtain-pulling, hand-scouring with harsh powdered soap, skin-picking, near-constant eyeblinks.

For twenty-two months, attempts at treatment by a psychiatrist, then a psychologist, had brought no success; neither doctor was willing to make house calls and Eli's attendance at their offices deteriorated from spotty to never as his condition worsened.

Janet said, “I'm at my wit's end. I know what you've done for Brad. He says everyone talks about you. Money's no object, I promise you that, Dr. Blades. If you could see your way to at least meeting Eli.”

“In your home.”

“He refuses to go out.”

“But he is open to a therapist coming to him.”

“You'd do that?” said Janet. Her face fell. “Honestly, I don't know, Doctor, I'm grasping at straws.”

“You haven't discussed this with Eli.”

“Eli won't let me discuss anything with him, Doctor, he's made himself a prisoner. I leave food in the hallway and he waits till I'm gone to retrieve it. But even if it doesn't work out, I'll be happy to pay you for your time. Including your driving time. With money up front, cash if you so desire—”

“We'll work out the details,” said Grace. “Where do you live?”

Four months later,
Eli, quirky since childhood and never destined for gregariousness or a conventional life, was able to leave his home, stop torturing his skin, and abandon his other tics. A month after that he was holding down a home job as a billing clerk for an online vintage clothing site.

Two months later, shambling through a nearby park, he met a girl as shy as he. Soon after, the two of them were having ice cream together a couple of times a week. That hadn't lasted but Eli now saw himself as “datable” and was girding himself to try online sites.

“I know that can be a risk, but it's a start!” exclaimed Janet. “You've done miracles for him, Dr. Blades.”

“Appreciate your saying that,” Grace told her. “But Eli's done all the hard work.”

Three weeks after terminating with Eli, her second private referral came in. A woman Janet had met in a crime victims' group.

No need for house calls on this one but Grace had no office for private patients. She asked her immediate supervisor about the ethics of using her V.A. office after hours. Knowing he did the same thing himself, to the tune of doubling his income.

He said, “Well, it's…we're in a gray area.” Lowering his voice: “If you don't overdo it and your regular work gets done…”

By the end of her first year as an attending psychologist, Grace had amassed a private patient load that forced her to make a change: reducing her hours at the V.A. to fifteen a week and giving up all benefits. She rented an office in a medical building on Wilshire near Fairfax, walking distance from her apartment.

Her income doubled, then trebled, then doubled again. Her patients got better.

Free enterprise. It fit her beautifully.

Shortly after her
twenty-seventh birthday, during one of the Hancock Park brunches with Malcolm and Sophie, which she'd continued to attend without fail, Malcolm chewed and finally swallowed a chunk of bagel layered with glistening gravlax and asked if she'd be interested in teaching part-time at USC.

That threw her; she figured the university was happy to be rid of her and the boundary issues she'd raised. On top of that, her relationship with the people she'd come to view as her parents had evolved in an interesting manner.

She and Sophie were sharing more purely social girlie stuff but distance had interposed itself between her and Malcolm.

Perhaps some of that resulted from a young woman and an old man having little in common. But Grace wondered if part of it stemmed from Malcolm's disappointment at her decision to bypass academia for private practice.

If so, he disguised any chagrin with compliments that could be taken as double-edged:

You were such a brilliant researcher. But of course the core of our discipline is helping others.

Grace thought:
Blame yourself. It might've started out as a project for you, 'Enry 'Iggins. But your kindness and humanity took over and molded the hell out of me.

When Malcolm looked wistful, Grace made a point of kissing his cheek and smelling his bay rum aftershave. It had taken a long time to manage snippets of physical affection for both him and Sophie but she'd worked on it and now she felt comfortable.

She told herself she loved them but didn't spend much time figuring out what that meant.

The key, after all, wasn't words. It was how she treated them and that she knew she'd aced, making sure she was unfailingly cheerful, courteous, agreeable.

Sixteen years had passed since Malcolm had plucked her from juvenile hall and in all that time, nary a cross word had ever been exchanged, and how many families could make that boast.

When Malcolm offered
her the teaching position that Sunday morning, she smiled and kept her voice even and squeezed his now liver-spotted hand. “I'm flattered. Undergrad?”

“No, graduate classes only. Clinical One, maybe some neuropsych testing if you've stayed current with that.”

“I have,” she said. “Wow.”

“Of course I think you're overqualified, if it was up to me the offer would've come the moment you got your license. But you know…anyway, the idea originated with the rest of the clinical faculty, I'm simply the designated messenger.”

He ate more bagel and cured salmon. “You may meet up with other alums. There's a new attempt to exploit the abilities and the experience of our more gifted students.” He blushed. “Also, there are fiscal issues.”

Grace chuckled. “They think I'll work cheap?”

Sophie said, “Cheaper than a full-time tenure-track person.”

Malcolm said, “Yes, yes, but that's really not it, in terms of you, specifically. You're their first pick. You've acquired a reputation.”

“For…”

“Effectiveness.”

“Hmm,” said Grace. “What exactly would this entail?”

Malcolm's big shoulders dropped. Relieved. “I was hoping you'd say that.”

By twenty-eight, Grace
was making a serious six-figure income in private practice and enjoying her one day on campus as a clinical assistant professor of psychology.

The secondhand BMW functioned smoothly, her single on Formosa continued to suit her, and her stock fund was growing safely and steadily.

Cocktail lounge trysts continued around L.A. and extended abroad, as she began treating herself to high-end, bi-yearly vacations. She toured European and Asian cities, returned home with selected bits of couture and erotic memories that fueled her solitary hours.

Life was coasting along just fine. Grace figured she could do this for a while.

Fool that she was.

Shortly before her twenty-ninth birthday, she was yanked out of sleep by pounding on her front door.

Forcing herself alert, she threw on sweats, selected a butcher knife from the block in the kitchen, and approached the noise warily.

“Grace!” hissed a voice on the other side. Someone stage-whispering. Trying not to wake the neighbors?

Someone who knew her name…

Keeping the knife ready, she unlatched the door an inch but kept the chain-lock in place.

Ransom Gardener stood in the hallway, looking ancient and unkempt, white hair flying, eyes red and raw, lips trembling.

Grace let him in.

He hugged her fiercely and broke down in sobs.

When he finally pulled away, Grace said, “Which one of them?”

Gardener howled: “Dear God, both, Grace, both of them! Sophie's…T-Bird.”

Grace's mouth dropped open. She stumbled back as Gardener stood in her living room and his body was racked with heaving moans.

She felt frozen. Enveloped by a hard shell—an insect's chitin.

Visualizing the small black convertible speeding somewhere.

Exploding into bits.

She tried to speak. Her larynx and lips and tongue had apparently fled her body. She was certain that her trachea had departed as well because it didn't feel as if she was breathing but somehow she was…existing.

Respiring through her pores?

Ransom Gardener continued to sway and sob. Grace felt herself grow dizzy and gripped the wall for support. She managed to totter into her kitchen, groped wildly for a chair. Sat.

Now Gardener had followed her in, why had he done that, she wanted him
gone.

He said, “Fucking drunk driver. He was killed, too. Fuck him to hell.”

Suddenly, Grace wanted to ask where, when, how, but nothing south of her brain was working. And even that—the electrical jelly in her head—felt wrong. Fuzzy, soggy…impaired.

Now she was one of her patients.

For what seemed
like forever, Gardener hugged himself and cried as Grace sat there, inert, plagued by insight:

Empathy was the biggest lie of all.

N
eeding to turn herself cold, cruel, collected, Grace lay on the sagging bed in the Olds Hotel and dredged up just enough pain and rage and sorrow to light the spark.

Primed, she drove out of Berkeley, south to Emeryville. At an independent sporting goods store she paid cash for beach sandals, insect repellent, black rubber-soled walking shoes, a black ski mask with eyeholes. The mask and shoes were the relevant purchases, the others an attempt to bury them within a larger context.

Returning to the hotel, she dined on jerky and trail mix, drank water, peed, drank some more, drained her bladder again, then did some stretching and push-ups and took a nap.

No need to set an alarm. She wouldn't be going out until after dark.

By seven p.m.
she was up, energized, alert. Thirty-eight minutes later, she'd parked the Escape three blocks from the house on Avalina and was walking. The new shoes squeaked, so she turned in the opposite direction and worked them silent.

Cool night, which made the jacket with the four pockets visually and functionally appropriate. Her wigs were back at the Olds. Her clipped hair felt tight and right under the knit cap she'd bought at the surplus store.

Green contact lenses this time. Like a cat.

She began prowling.

No sounds issued
from the big homes atop their slopes. Most were dark and that made sense, if what Grace had observed in L.A. held true here: the larger the mansion the less likely it was to be used full-time, rich folk traveling or enjoying satellite homes.

Malcolm and Sophie had lived in one big house and had rarely ventured far. They'd reminisced about foreign travel but hadn't used their passports since taking in Grace.

A case of been-there-done-that? Or wanting to be there for her?

Grace's eyes began to ache and she scolded herself; distraction was the enemy. As the big brick house neared, she slowed her pace.

When she got there, she took a position slightly past the hedge that arched over the driveway. The house was lit scantily, haphazardly, randomly placed low-voltage bulbs creating a crazy quilt of illumination and black patches.

Only one window in the mansion was backlit: top floor, right of center. Someone home or a security play. No other obvious signs of self-protection—alarm sign, camera, trespassing warnings, motion detectors.

Confident fellow, Dion Larue.

Only one black Prius in the driveway tonight. Same license plate as Walter Sporn's ride. Did Sporn live here? That fit a cult situation. If so, Larue was deviating from his daddy; Arundel Roi had limited his acolytes to women and the children he sired with them. Then again, this was the age of equal rights…or maybe Grace was getting overimaginative and Sporn was nothing more than in-house security during the boss's absence.

Or a babysitter; talk about a gruesome contingency.

Did Larue and his wife even have kids?

God, I hope not.

The fact that Grace had no idea—knew so little about Larue—drove home how much needed to be accomplished.

She walked to the dead end, receded into the shelter afforded by an unlit berm, and studied the street from a new perspective. Convinced she hadn't been spotted, she returned to the Escape, locked the doors, and waited.

Forty-eight minutes later her patience was rewarded when another black Prius rounded the corner. As it neared the big brick house, Grace got out and jogged after it.

She arrived just in time to see the second vehicle pull in behind Sporn's.

Head- and taillights died. A man got out at the driver's side. The inconsistent lighting made gleaning details difficult, the figure flickering in and out of her visual field in strobe-flash fragments.

Like watching a light show; with each freeze-frame, data accumulated.

Tall.

Long-haired.

And there was the beard, fuller and longer than the stubble he'd sported in the fund-raiser photo, Grace could see an outer rim of hair haloed by freckles of light.

Flowing garments—a knee-length tunic. Over what appeared to be tights.

Slim legs. Slim overall build. Head held high—and there was his profile again, the beard-tip aiming forward like a lance ready for battle.

He began walking toward the house, his carriage suggesting nothing but confidence.

No doubt about it, this was him, and Grace watched as he strode up the long drive toward his front door.

When he was halfway there, the Prius's passenger door swung open and a woman got out. Nearly as tall as Larue. A dress hanging just below her knees.

But less confidence here—stooped posture, rounded back.

Grace prayed for her to illuminate herself and finally she did, showing her profile.

Unmistakable flash of uncannily sculpted cheekbone.

The wife, what was her name…

Azha.

She began trailing Larue's approach to the house, shoes crunching on gravel. Dion Larue didn't turn or acknowledge her, just the opposite, he picked up his pace.

The woman followed at a widening distance, as if that was her custom.

Was well away from the door when Larue closed it.

Locking her out? Tense night for the golden couple?

Azha Larue continued trudging, as if being shut out of her own home was business as usual, and when she reached the door, she opened it with a mere twist of her hand.

Larue had left it unlocked. Delivering some sort of message? Or simply asserting his authority by making her go through the effort?

Whatever the motive, the few moments Grace had just observed reeked of arrogance and hostility on Larue's part.

Subservience on Azha's, which could prove relevant.

Grace copied down the plate number of the second Prius then crept forward and dared a look inside the vehicle using whatever ambient light was available. As luck would have it, a bulb wired to a tree shone directly onto the front seat.

As luck would have it, nothing but seats and dashboard.

Retreating to the shadows, Grace watched the brick house for another quarter hour, spent an additional hour in her SUV, making sure no one came and went, finally returned to her hotel.

No more sleep. Calculation.