Jonathan Kellerman - The Murderer's Daughter

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.

Malcolm and Sophie’s funeral was held a week after their deaths, at the Laguna beachfront home of Ransom Gardener. Lovely day on the rim of the Pacific, cobalt skies encroached upon by silky silver clouds floating in from the north.

Laguna was sixty miles south of L.A. Grace realized that each time Gardener had visited, he’d driven over an hour. Dedicated lawyer.

The things you think of.

The things you avoid.

Malcolm and Sophie had left clear instructions for cremation and Gardener had taken care of that. Grace stood, in a white dress, barefoot on the sand as he walked toward her toting dual silver urns. He’d asked if she wanted to toss. She’d shaken her head and that had seemed to please him.

Depositing human ashes into the Pacific undoubtedly violated state, county, and municipal codes. Gardener said “Fuck it” and the dust flew.

He’d been swearing a lot since that terrible night in Grace’s apartment, revealing a whole other side to the temperate lawyer she’d known for years.

Since then, under the guise of comforting her, he’d been imposing himself upon her daily, arriving with food she had no interest in eating, then plopping down on her living room couch and reminiscing nonstop. What else was left when you felt empty? Grace didn’t join in but that didn’t make a difference; Gardener couldn’t stop sharing.

Many of his stories began the same way: his first day at Harvard, a cosseted Upper East Side Manhattan preppie and Groton grad, projecting a veneer of confidence but feeling anything but. Floundering, scared, but all that resolved soon after meeting Malcolm — “the best thing that happened to me during my entire time at Cambridge” — who knew a huge, hulking Jewish guy from Brooklyn would end up a lifelong friend?

“More than a friend, Grace. Words fail me, perhaps there are no words for it, he was...” For the hundredth time, tears beaded at the tops of Gardener’s sunken cheeks and lost the battle with gravity.

“Here’s the thing, Grace, not only was he mentally and physically impressive, he could be relied upon to use both those endowments sparingly. With discretion. With taste. But when you needed him, he was damn there, Grace. Drunken townies thinking they could kick the stuffing out of us, they learned their lesson fast.”

The image of Malcolm duking it out in a Somerset dive would’ve amused Grace, if she’d been capable of feeling anything.

She let Gardener prattle on, pretending to listen.

Professional training coming in handy.

Since learning of the catastrophe, she’d retreated into an insensate fog, as if locked in a sterile glass bubble where her eyes worked mechanically but couldn’t process and her ears were unplugged speakers. When she took a step, she knew she was moving, but she felt as if someone else was pushing the buttons.

Her brain was flat and blank as unused paper.

It was all she could do to sit and stand and walk.

She figured she was faking normal pretty well because no one at the funeral seemed to be regarding her with over-the-top pity.

The guests were faculty and students, Gardener and his wife, a plump woman named Muriel, and the ever-silent Mike Leiber, dressed like a bum and lurking at the rear with that odd, spacey look on his now-gray-bearded face. A brief touching speech by Gardener, who choked up at every other sentence, was followed by overly long bullshit orations delivered by professors from Malcolm’s and Sophie’s departments.

Then: cheese and crackers and bland white wine on the beach as the waves lapped and the sky finally turned charcoal.

As everyone left, one thing struck home: Grace was the only family present. She knew neither Malcolm nor Sophie had living relatives but until then had never thought much about it. Standing alone, watching what remained of them settle to silt on the water, only to be washed away, she realized how alone they’d been before taking her in.

Did that explain it?

Could any act of nobility — or evil — ever be explained fully?

No, there had to be more, she was being pathologically analytic because damn it to hell she felt ready to explode.

Malcolm and Sophie deserved better than dime-store analysis.

Malcolm and Sophie had loved her.

The day after the funeral, she was alone in her apartment and finally able to cry. She did little but cry for a week and when Gardener showed twice during that time, she ignored his knock. For the next two weeks, she stopped taking his calls. Same for calls from patients and referral sources. Leaving a “family emergency” message on her voicemail. Good time for the Haunted to think about someone other than themselves.