The Murderer's Daughter

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Sam had given up smiling hungrily at Grace after she kept ignoring him. Now when their eyes met, he yawned and snickered. Ty and Lily continued to have frightened eyes and stick close to each other. Like they were brother and sister but Sam was outside the circle.

  If Sam was Grace’s brother she’d have kept him outside, too.

  When Malcolm entered the kitchen, the room got small.

  Sam said, “Again?” with a whine in his voice.

  “Only if you’re willing,” said Malcolm. “But not now, anyway. I need to confer with Grace.”

  “Confer,” said Sam.

  “It means—”

  Sam laughed. “I know what it means. I just don’t get what you’d confer with her about.”

  Malcolm drew himself up even taller. His lips moved, as if he was trying to figure out an answer. Instead, he turned to Grace. “If you’ve got time, Ms. Blades.”

  “Ms. Blades,” said Sam.

  Lily let out a small whimpering sound. Sam whipped his head toward her. That silenced the little girl. Ty watched, eyes soft and moist, and Grace felt like telling him everything would be okay. Then she told herself, That’s probably a lie, and went back to her eggs.

  Malcolm said, “Grace?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you’ve got time…”

  “Sure,” she snapped and marched out of the kitchen.

  Sam said, “Someone’s got an attitude.” He was the only person laughing.

  —

  When they were settled in the living room, Malcolm said, “They’ll be gone, soon.”

  Grace said, “Who?”

  Malcolm’s smile was faint and not at all happy. “Precisely. Okay, the so-called primitive tribes of Borneo and Sumatra. What did you think of their…”

  For the next hour, Grace listened and commented, told him what she figured he wanted to hear. The jealousy she’d experienced had faded but now she found herself bored with his little speeches, just wanting to be alone.

  Still, she cooperated. He’d done lots of nice things for her and she figured she’d find him interesting again.

  The next morning, she was up extra early at six, spent some time in bed reading before descending to the kitchen. As she passed the door to the room where the new fosters slept, she heard a young voice whining or crying—a girl, obviously Lily—then a deeper voice shushing her to silence.

  She poured herself milk and waited for Ramona. When she was still alone at seven, she began to wonder if Ramona was okay, she’d been looking so tired and seemed to be taking more pills. At seven fifteen, she was considering knocking on Ramona’s door. Against the rules, but still…

  As she contemplated, a terrible noise from the second floor yanked her out of her chair and she shot to her feet.

  More crying. But not Lily.

  —

  The door to Bobby’s room was wide open. Ramona stood at the side of his bed, still in her nightclothes, her mouth sunken looking and different and Grace realized she hadn’t put in her teeth. Ramona’s feet were bare. Reading glasses dangled from a chain across her flat chest. Moaning and tearing at her hair, she kept staring at Bobby, eyes wild and frightened.

  Bobby lay on his back, mouth open wider than ever, his eyes half shut and filmed as if a snail had slithered across them. Shiny stuff streaked his chin. His face was a strange color, gray with green around the edges. Like mossy rock, not human skin.

  Ramona moaned and said, “Oh, no,” and pointed at Bobby. As if Grace needed direction.

  Bobby’s pajama top had been ripped open, revealing a sliver of gray skin. No movement from breathing. From anything.

  The tube that fed him air at night was on the floor at the side of the bed, still hissing. Lately, Bobby had taken to struggling in his sleep, calling out, making noises that could scare you if you didn’t know about him. He’d never dislodged the tube but Ramona worried he might so she’d begun taping the yellowish rubber to his pajama top. Taping it tight, Grace knew, because sometimes she was the one to untape in the morning and that took effort.

  The tape was still attached to the tube as it hissed on the floor, a yellowish snake.

  Grace stood there. Ramona ran past her, down the stairs. Grace heard the kitchen door slam.

  She stayed up there with Bobby for no reason. Looking at him. Looking at death. She’d seen it before but he looked different than the strangers in the red room. No blood, no frenzied twisting of the body, nothing gross, at all.

  Just the opposite, really. He looked…peaceful.

  Except for the weird skin color that seemed to be getting greener and greener.

  She went back downstairs, passed the room where the three new fosters slept and heard more shushing.

  Then: laughter.

  —

  Ramona wasn’t in the house and it took a while to find her but Grace did: outside, standing at the far end of the green pool, still tearing at her hair, pacing back and forth.

  Grace approached her slowly. When people got their nerves all excited you never knew what could happen.

  When Ramona saw her, she began shaking her head. Violently, as if trying to dislodge something painful that had stuck itself in her brain.

  Grace stopped.

  Ramona barked, “Go!”

  Grace didn’t move.

  Ramona screamed, “Didn’t you hear me? Go inside!”

  Grace turned to leave. Before she completed the arc, movement caught her eye and she swiveled quickly.

  Just in time to see Ramona’s face scrunched up in pain, now her color was bad, really pale, and she was clutching her chest and her toothless mouth was an O of pain and fear as she lost balance and stumbled forward.

  Eyes rolling back, she fell into the green, murky water.

  Grace hurtled toward her.

  Ramona was sinking fast but Grace managed to get hold of one of her hands and started pulling. Slime coated both of them and she lost her grip and Ramona began to sink. Throwing herself belly-down on the cement pool deck, Grace regained her hold, added her other hand, yanked hard. Sharp pain cut through her back and her shoulders and her neck.

  No matter what, she would not let go.

  Panting and growling, she managed to pull Ramona up high enough to draw the old woman’s face out of the water.

  The moment she saw Ramona, algae-streaked, mouth wide open, eyes unseeing, just like Bobby’s, she knew she was wasting her time, this was her second look at death in one morning. But she held on to Ramona and managed to raise herself to a crouch and draw Ramona a few more inches out of the pool. After that, things got easier because the parts of Ramona still in the water were floating, her lifeless body cooperating as Grace, still crouching, scuttling awkwardly like a crab, dragged her all the way around the pool to the shallow end where her body floated above the steps and Grace was able to pull her out completely.

  Grace stood there, soaked, out of breath. Ramona’s death looked worse than Bobby’s. Her face was twisted, like she’d died upset about something.

  But still not as bad as the red room…

  Touching Ramona’s chest, then making sure by touching Ramona’s green-slimed neck, Grace knew for sure.

  Gone.

  Leaving Ramona on the pool deck, an old, tired dead thing soaking up bright morning desert sun, Grace ran to the house and got on the phone.

  The 911 operator asked her to stay on the line. While she was waiting, the three new fosters came down the stairs, this time Ty first, then Lily, Sam backing them up.

  Ty’s eyes met Grace’s. He shook his head and frowned, as if terribly disappointed. Lily knuckled her eyes and cried silently. Sam had no expression on his face.

  But when he turned away to look out the kitchen window, with a clear view of Ramona’s body, Grace saw the beginnings of a smile curving his too-pretty lips.

  —

  An ambulance came first and Grace directed the fire department men to Ramona. Moments later, three police cars arrived, then a green car lik
e the one that had been there when the new fosters arrived. Followed by a blue car and a black car. Four men and two women, all wearing badges, looked at Ramona, talked to the fire department men, finally headed for Grace.

  She told them, “There’s another dead person, upstairs.”

  All four fosters were corralled in the kitchen, under the eye of one of the uniformed policewomen, who stood with her arms folded across her chest.

  Soon after, the two woman detectives and two male detectives came in and divided up the children. One detective to a kid.

  Grace got a small, thin man who introduced himself as Ray but his badge said R. G. Ballance. He took her to the small butler’s pantry off the kitchen. He was the oldest of the four detectives, with white hair and wrinkles. Grace’s clothes were still damp with spots and shreds of green slime attached.

  He pointed to a chair and said, “Sit down, dear,” but remained on his feet. When Grace complied, he went on: “Can I get you some water”—checking his notepad—“Grace?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Need a sweater? You know, maybe you should change into dry clothes first.”

  “I’m okay, sir.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “It’s drying fast.”

  “Hmm…all right, then, I don’t want to ask you to do anything that’s hard for you, Grace. But if you could tell me what you saw—if you saw anything—that would be helpful.”

  Grace told him.

  About Bobby in his bed, the air tube on the floor, Ramona standing there, really upset, then fleeing downstairs.

  About Grace waiting, wanting to give her time to calm down. Finally looking for her.

  Ramona yelling at her to go inside, which wasn’t like her, she never yelled.

  About Grace starting to obey but then Ramona touched her chest and fell.

  When she got to the part about grabbing Ramona’s hand and holding on and finally managing to draw her to the shallow end, she told R. G. Ballance a short version.

  He said, “Wow, you’re to be commended—that means you did something good.”

  “It didn’t work.”

  “It…yeah, I guess so, afraid not. But still, you tried your best. How old are you?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Almost twelve?”

  “My birthday was a month ago.” We had angel food cake and chocolate mint ice cream for the third time and there won’t be a fourth time.

  “Just eleven,” said Ray. “Wow. Well, now, this is a terrible thing for a little girl to see. But you did your best and that’s what matters, Grace.”

  Grace’s brain filled with lightning-like starbursts and thunder-like noise. A voice inside shrieked: Liar liar liar! That’s not what matters! Everything will change!

  She said, “Thank you, sir.”

  “Well,” he said, “that probably wraps it up—my guess is Mrs. Stage had a heart attack. Sounds like shock brought it on, seeing that boy in his bed.”

  “Bobby,” said Grace. “Robert Canova.”

  “Robert Canova…what’s his story?”

  “He was born with problems.”

  “Looks like it…” R. G. Ballance closed his pad. “Okay, you’re probably wondering what’s going to happen. Obviously, you can’t stay here but we’ll make sure you’re okay, don’t you worry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Pleasure, Grace. Is there anything else you feel like telling me?”

  Grace thought of three things she could tell him:

  1. Bobby’s air tube, taped tightly every night, really tight, loose on the floor, hissing like a yellow snake. That made no sense.

  2. The look on Ty’s face when he came down into the kitchen: sad—more like disappointed. But not surprised. Like he’d expected something bad to happen and that had come true.

  3. The smile forming on Sam’s lips as he looked out at Ramona’s body.

  She said, “No, sir, that’s everything.”

  —

  An hour later, the three new fosters had been trundled off in the blue car and Grace was in back of the black car.

  At the wheel was one of the woman detectives, brown-haired and freckle-faced. Unlike R. G. Ballance, she didn’t introduce herself and as she gunned the engine she chewed gum really fast.

  After she’d been driving for a while, she said, “I’m Nancy and I’m a detective, okay? I’m taking you to a place that might seem a little scary. It’s called juvenile hall and it’s mostly for kids who’ve gotten into trouble. But there’s also a section for kids like you who need to wait until their situation gets clear. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Like I said, it could seem a little—almost like a jail. Okay? But I’ll make sure to put you in a safe part. But still, it’s not the prettiest situation…anyway, before you know it, you’ll be out of there. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Really,” said Nancy. “Everything’s going to work out okay.”

  Sitting in her room at the Hilton Garden Inn, Grace kept looking at the old photo of the blond boy.

  Ty.

  Andrew.

  Atoner.

  Viewing the picture made morphing boy to man easy. He’d darkened his hair as Grace just had, and puberty had firmed up his face. But the features remained the same.

  Was the reason for the dye job worry that his naturally fair color would trigger Grace’s memory? Knowing who she’d been and seeking her out not because of the article?

  Even if the article had led him to her, had that triggered recall of the girl living at Stagecoach Ranch?

  Who’d been there when the bad things happened.

  Then she realized that Malcolm had spent time testing the three sibs so perhaps it was him Ty/Andrew had sought. And that had led him to Grace.

  Either way, it was Grace he’d ended up with. Intending to strip bare old, malevolent secrets.

  About the death of Bobby Canova? A vicious brother with a hungry smile?

  That seemed scant motive for murder; try proving anything about deaths ruled as natural over two decades ago. So there had to be more.

  Grown-up Sam doing grown-up bad things.

  As Grace pondered, another terrible possibility intruded: Grace’s name had triggered Andrew’s memory and he’d pulled up her faculty photo.

  Known who she was at the Opus lounge.

  No, impossible. If he had, no way would he have gone along with…

  Stop; turn the page, move on.

  Find the enemy before he finds you.

  —

  Fixing the date of the wild-haired children’s arrival at the ranch was simple: two months after Grace’s eleventh birthday.

  She logged onto the L.A. Times archives for that day and plugged in sam ty lily. Nothing. Using fourteen additional dates—a week before and after—was no more productive.

  Vegans, Sam spouting the Bible, and the homemade clothing suggested a cult or a sect, or at least an odd, isolated upbringing. The trio arriving at night with a two-vehicle police escort—uniforms as well as a detective—suggested serious criminality.

  But pairing cult and sect with the fifteen dates was also a dead end and Grace decided she could keyword forever and miss the crucial cue. Better to examine actual coverage of that period and that meant scrolling laboriously through entire issues of the newspaper.

  Fortunately, microfilm was also computer-archived and the Times offered free access through 1980, with more recent stories pay-per-view. Grace was about to enter her credit card when she realized she could reach the same destination for free, using her psych department faculty account at the med school library.

  Either way, she’d be documenting her search but she couldn’t see any way that could be avoided. Or any possibility of linking herself to Beldrim Benn, even assuming his corpse would be found.

  She recalled the sound of the body, thumping and rolling into the abyss.

  Went the facult
y route.

  —

  Making her way through months of microfilm was a slow process that produced nothing for hours.

  She scrolled back two-thirds of a year before finding it.

  Cult Compound in the Desert Offers Up Grisly Clues

  Leader, shot by police, may have been a multiple murderer

  By Selwyn Rodrigo

  Times Staff Writer

  Forensic examination of the remains of the Fortress Cult, so called because its leader constructed a walled enclosure of abandoned motor homes and dug out caves at a remote Mojave Desert location, has produced evidence of past killings at the site.

  Four months ago, self-appointed “Grand Chieftain” Arundel Roi, born Roald Leroy Arundel, died in a shootout with county sheriffs after reports of child abuse led social service workers to the squalid site that housed what authorities say was a one-man apocalyptic cult based on biblical prophecy, racist “identity religion” and witchcraft.

  That visit proved fatal to social worker Bradley Gainsborough, who was shot without warning shortly after entering the encampment. A second investigator, Candace Miller, was also wounded but managed to escape and phone authorities. The pitched battle that ensued saw Arundel Roi perish, along with all three of his common-law wives.

  The women, each of whom had a criminal record, were thought to be recruited by Roi, 67, during his time as a prison guard at the Sybil Brand women’s jail. All four cultists were found clutching high-powered rifles and, in the case of one woman, a live hand grenade.

  Inspection of the grounds revealed a bunker stocked with additional explosives and firearms and another piled high with an assortment of machetes, cleavers and other knives, as well as hate literature and pornography. The appearance of what appeared to be blood, tissue and hair on some of the cutting weapons sparked a coroner’s analysis, the results of which have just been released.

  Though most of the organic material on the blades remains unidentified, DNA matches to three missing persons have been obtained. The victims were homeless men whose names have not been divulged. All were seen in the company of Arundel Roi or one of his wives at a bar in Saugus. Monetary gain appears to have been the motive, as welfare checks in the names of the deceased were mailed to a post office box rented by Roi.