The Murderer's Daughter

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Moving woodenly, the shorter woman sat.

  She was about the same age as Azha, thicker-built and plain-faced. Her hair was tied in dual pigtails far too childish for her and her black dress appeared to be of the same light cotton as Azha’s but cut fuller, almost haphazardly, as if the tailor’s attention span had wandered by the time he’d gotten around to her.

  At this distance, her features came across small and flat in a doughy face, her eyes squinty. She was positioned on the other side of the baby but paid no attention to it. Instead, she stared off into the distance. Vacantly, it seemed to Grace. Mike Leiber’s soulmate?

  Second by second, her body sagged lower until she was hunched, limbs settling flaccidly. Grace continued spying as the woman’s mouth dropped open and remained that way. Azha played with the baby but her companion seemed cut off from the fun. Indeed, from all of her surroundings. Grace began to wonder if she was subnormal intellectually.

  Or perhaps, like so many others attracted to cults, she was damaged goods—brain damage due to dope, some other psychoneurological insult.

  Whatever the reason, she continued sitting like a lump and it went on that way for a while, neither Azha Larue nor the baby paying her any mind. Then Azha turned and took hold of the other woman’s chin delicately and guided her face so that they faced each other.

  Manipulating her, the way you would a toy. The shorter woman complied as if made of soft plastic, maintaining eye contact but not responding after Azha said something to her. But when Azha handed her the baby, she accepted it and Azha lay down flat on her back and placed her left arm over her eyes.

  Naptime for Mommy.

  Whatever the other woman’s deficits, Azha trusted her with her child. And she did know how to hold it properly, nestling it close to her, supporting the supple neck.

  The baby was at ease with her, as well. Relaxed, smiling, laughing again when the short woman chucked it under its chin.

  A gesture not unlike Azha’s toward her.

  Azha was dozing now, chest rising and falling rhythmically as her companion did a fine job of babysitting. The infant never wavered from good cheer; lucky kid, blessed with a good temperament.

  How long would that last?

  Suddenly, the shorter woman placed the baby belly-up on the grass. Again, no fuss from Model Tot, as it gazed upward. Now the woman had altered her own position and was hovering above the baby. Looking directly down at it.

  Azha Larue’s chest rose and fell at a slower pace. Her companion watched her for a few seconds then returned her attention to the baby.

  Waving her hands at the infant—some sort of pantomime show, or just weird movement by a weird woman—no, there was purpose to this, the baby knew it, was rapt as fingers flew.

  Rapid movements taking shape. Communicating.

  The baby continued to pay attention as the hands above it shaped air, pointed, circled.

  Comprehending. As pre-verbal babies often did when trained in American Sign Language.

  Could it be?

  Of course it could.

  Lilith had been eight or nine when Grace first saw her, putting her at nearly thirty now—the age of the shorter woman.

  Nothing at odds with the smaller woman’s appearance either: a fair-haired deaf-mute girl grown to a fair-haired deaf-mute woman.

  Not mentally dull, just cut off from Azha Larue because Azha didn’t know—or didn’t care to know—sign language. Manipulating Lily’s face and speaking directly at her.

  Read my lips.

  Azha had also ignored Lily completely until the moment she needed her—Watch the baby so I can catch some Z’s. Not the approach you took with a friend, this was more master–servant.

  Like any cult, Dion Larue’s family embraced a strict line of command: Guru at the top, followed by the guru-ess, then the worker bees.

  Lily with her deafness and her passivity was the perfect serf. What must be crippling passivity in light of Larue’s murder of her parents.

  Had Larue found another woman of approximately the same age and size to substitute as a sacrifice? A hitchhiker or a street girl he’d picked up during the drive from California to Oklahoma? Burning the house down because how better to obliterate physical evidence?

  Maybe one day, she’d look into it…

  First guesses are often right on, maybe because they spring from a deep, intelligent place in the unconscious, and Grace realized hers had been freakishly acute.

  Venom Boy, wanting to relive the glory days of his father’s insanity, moving steadily toward that goal for a decade. Slaughtering the McCoys as they slept silently in their little Oklahoma house but taking Sister Lilith with him first.

  Confident she’d offer no resistance. And if she did, he had ways of handling it, witness Brother Typhon.

  Amy Chan perceived the meeting in the restaurant as a chance encounter but perhaps it had been anything but. Big Brother watching his brother for a while. Learning he was in town and stalking him from behind the wheel of his Prius.

  Watching as Amy and Andrew entered the vegan joint—maybe a place he frequented himself, if he continued to eschew animal products. Announcing to Azha, still and silent in the passenger seat, that he was treating her to dinner out.

  No argument from her. About anything. Ever.

  The “spontaneous” encounter had spelled the beginning of the end for Andrew.

  Your basic spider-fly scenario.

  Because Andrew hadn’t reacted well, none of that Lily-passivity.

  On the contrary, he was repulsed.

  Idiot Typhon had turned moral.

  Thinking about it, Grace was surprised to feel herself shuddering. Flipping a page of the Californian, she scanned a paragraph of self-righteous student journalism. Something about micro-triggers of pre-post-traumatic “discomfort” due to a long list of isms…

  Cries from the lawn snapped her out of that.

  There he was.

  Gilded and straight-backed, handsome face uglied by rage.

  Grace watched, unable to act, as Dion Larue raised his foot and kicked the sandaled sole of a now-awake and wide-eyed Azha. Azha sat up looking panicked and Larue turned his wrath on Lily, now holding the baby. Stabbing an accusing finger at her. Snarling something.

  He began fluttering his own hands as he berated her—a mocking parody of sign language.

  The baby, easygoing until now, wrinkled its face and turned scarlet and wailed. Larue ripped it out of Lily’s hands hard enough to whip its tiny head forward, then back. Too much of that and school would be a challenge when the kid grew up.

  The baby cried louder. Larue looked at it as if it were an insect.

  Contemplating something terrible? Would Grace be forced to act? What a disaster.

  She got ready to spring from behind her arboreal shield. Thankfully, Larue thrust the baby into the shaking hands of its mother. Began attacking her verbally, waving a fist as if it were a cudgel.

  Too distant to make out words but imagined lines of dialogue sailed through Grace’s brain like subtitles.

  You fell asleep? Gave it to her?

  Your job, not hers.

  She was signing at it, you idiot. Since when do we allow that?

  Azha hung her head. Larue clapped his hands on his hips, raised himself taller, and glared down at both women.

  The baby cried louder.

  Larue advanced on it with a fist and Azha placed a hand over its mouth.

  Larue stood there, yet another Crown Prince of an entitled generation.

  Azha Larue managed to roll her child close to her breasts while extending both hands toward him, her head bowed lower.

  Forgive me, for I have sinned.

  Larue watched his wife demean herself then barked something harsh and turned back to Lily and kicked her hard on a bare shin. Azha winced in empathy. Lily didn’t respond.

  Larue’s face began darkening. He rocked on his heels, fingers drumming his hips.

  His kicking foot raised higher.<
br />
  How much could Grace allow? But again, she was saved from action as Lily began aping Azha’s penitent gestures.

  Going through the motions, Grace thought, but not feeling it.

  Larue agreed; he kicked her harder.

  Lily bent nearly double, face in the grass, and that seemed to be the proper response because Larue turned his back on all of them and pranced across Monkey Island Park, creepily effete.

  Heading in the opposite direction from where Grace sat and now she spotted the faint gleam of sunlight on black automotive paint, peeking through foliage in random triangles and rectangles.

  His Prius parked at the periphery. She hadn’t seen him drive up.

  She needed to be more careful.

  Grace watched for two more days, was rewarded with a pattern.

  Both mornings, Walter Sporn and Dion Larue continued the same approximate routine: separate Priuses driving north from Avalina, Sporn first. The first morning, only ten minutes separated their departures and Grace followed Larue, unsurprised to see him head to the construction site on Center and park illegally behind Sporn.

  Sporn waited for the boss before getting out and unbolting the padlock on the chain link. Both of them passed through and then, as before, Sporn relocked. Walking around the right side of the gutted structure, the two men didn’t show themselves until twenty-four minutes later. During that time a Berkeley parking nazi gave tickets to a couple of other cars but let the Priuses be.

  The prince was connected.

  Larue emerged first, jaunty as always, walking ahead of Sporn who carried a cheap-looking briefcase. They separated, Larue heading back in the direction of Avalina, Sporn east. Grace made a quick decision and followed Sporn.

  He didn’t drive far, just a few blocks into a neighborhood of shabby apartments. Idling by the curb, he got on his phone. Moments later, a kid who might’ve been a student or just one of those campus hangers-on appeared from a three-story blue stucco dump with a sign out front advertising weekly, monthly, and yearly rates.

  Early twenties, Caucasian, with dreadlocks ranging from bronze to black, the new arrival wore red skater shorts, a baggy green Free Palestine T-shirt, and sockless black high-tops. Nervous dude, looking both ways three times before crossing a street devoid of traffic. Scratching himself, jumpy eyes darting randomly.

  Grace, half a block up, watched as Sporn handed Dreadlocks the briefcase. Words were exchanged. Dread slipped something into Sporn’s meaty palm.

  Well, well, alternative financing for Larue’s wheels and deals. The long-delayed construction site a perfect place to stash controlled substances. Or weapons. Or both.

  Not only had Larue boondoggled the geniuses who ran the city with the sale of the property and subsequent contract to rebuild, he’d snagged himself free storage.

  Having his minion do a dope deal in full daylight. Talk about confidence.

  Sporn drove away, leaving Dread to pick at his face, bounce on his toes, and scratch his scalp as he held the briefcase the way Azha and Lily had held the baby. Finally, he ran across the street and back into the blue building.

  Tweaker by habit, dealer by necessity. Maybe some of the meth would reach his clients.

  —

  The second morning, Grace remained parked in the Escape with an oblique view of Avalina as the Priuses did their thing, this time fifteen minutes apart.

  From what she’d seen so far, no one else lived in the big brick house—Larue’s cult still in its formative stages?—but she couldn’t be sure.

  If she hadn’t observed the scene at Monkey Island Park, she’d never have learned about the women and the baby, so theoretically, Larue could have a harem stashed in there. But a full day of observation convinced her it was probably just him, Sporn, Azha, and Lily.

  And the poor little kid.

  The men came and went but since Larue’s tantrum in the park, the women hadn’t shown themselves.

  Grace found herself thinking about the baby more than she could afford. How quickly Larue’s presence had transformed it from cheerful to terrified. What lay in store for…no sense speculating, there was work to be done.

  —

  That night, she watched the house while on foot. Same minimal illumination from the top-floor window.

  No movement at all from Sporn but Larue drove away just before ten p.m. and Grace followed with her headlights off until he hit Claremont Boulevard, where she could interpose a couple of vehicles between them.

  Larue continued toward the Claremont Hotel and crossed the border between Berkeley and Oakland. Sailing through the initially stylish streets of the other Bay city, he kept going until the symptoms of a neighborhood gone bad grew flagrant: busted streetlamps, trash on the sidewalks, neon blink of all-night liquor stores, check-cashing outlets, bail bonders, pawnshops. The few pedestrians in sight were obvious night-crawlers, including plodding women in halters, shorts not much more than belts, and five-inch heels.

  Larue stopped just shy of all that, pulling to the curb on a block of now-dark thrift shops. The Prius’s lights blinked and switched off and one of the streetwalkers headed its way. Younger than the others, petite and shapely, she wore white lace that could’ve been underwear and hot-pink patent-leather shoes. Despite her youth, her gait was stiff and painful. Maybe the shoes but Grace suspected there was more: She’d lived too quickly, turned her bones brittle and old.

  The hooker arrived at the Prius’s passenger door. No conversation, she just got in. She remained inside for just short of ten minutes, tottered out wiping her mouth with her bare arm.

  Larue swung a quick U and drove off before she had a chance to leave.

  —

  Once parked in front of his big brick house, Larue bypassed the front door and walked around the left side of the massive, darkened structure.

  Grace waited until all was still and silent and shadowed his path. The front drive widened as it girded the house—cracked asphalt now broad enough for a car and a half, leading to a generous backyard that appeared overwhelmed by foliage. The rear of the house, as dark as the front, first impression would’ve been no one home.

  But weak light fluttered and flickered through the heavy branches of conifers and sycamores and unruly shrubs.

  Coming from the rear of the property. A second structure back there.

  Larue’s permit application to redo the Krauss House flashed in Grace’s head.

  …replacement of drainage gutters blah blah blah on the carriage house addition.

  A building once used to house vehicles would explain the width of the drive but now access was completely blocked by vegetation.

  Still, that light…Grace froze as, above her, a window began cranking open on the house’s second story.

  New sound: a man scolding a woman.

  He goes out and gets head from a hooker, comes home and finds fault with her?

  Another sound: the sharp report of skin on skin. Then: male laughter. Followed by a protracted, theatrical yawn.

  I’m so bored with you.

  Crank crank; the window opened wider.

  His nibs liked fresh air.

  Grace, still motionless, holding her breath, wondered why lights had been left on in the carriage house when Larue, en famille, was ensconced in the manse.

  Nothing happened for a long time.

  Then: snoring through the open window.

  She got the hell out of there.

  The following night, she was prepared.

  Black cotton tee, black stretch jeans, black silent walking shoes, the jacket with ample storage.

  In one upper pocket, Grace placed latex gloves purchased at a pharmacy on Telegraph, in another the eyeholed black ski mask. The lower pockets were already doing their bit.

  Driving through silent Berkeley streets, she parked four blocks away. That distance came with a risk: Getting away would be prolonged. But keeping her SUV out of view from immediate neighbors tipped the balance.

  Receding into the shadow
s when she could, she proceeded toward Avalina, encountering no one, not even a stray cat, and continued to the end of the cul-de-sac where she waited and watched.

  Both Priuses in the drive. The same window lit, the same low-voltage hodgepodge.

  When nothing happened for half an hour, she put on the mask and the gloves and entered the property. Stopping again to assess, then continuing. Repeating the process.

  Just as before, getting around to the back of the house was simple. The window Larue had cranked remained shut.

  The same light blinked from the rear. Provided just enough illumination for her to make out vestiges of former grandeur.

  Tamped-down dirt remained where lawns had once flourished, vacant flower beds were sectioned into hexagons and circles by fractured brick edging, arms of boxwood lacked entire chunks, dead trees turned to thatch gave way to bullying by thriving competitors—mostly cedars whose branches dragged in the dirt.

  She pushed forward, maintaining the same walk, stop, turn, watch routine. Slow going but no need to rush. Finally she got close enough to the carriage house to see that the branches stretching diagonally across its front were flimsy, allowing a filtered view of the overall structure.

  The size of a double garage, the building sported a too-heavy slate roof and a girdle of brick running along its lower half. The top section was leaded-glass panes. More of a conservatory than a coach house. The interior fit horticultural usage, too: rows of ceramic pots long emptied of plants lined sagging wooden shelves. Shards and fragments littered a buckling cement floor.

  Most of the windowpanes were flyspecked, pigeon-streaked, or just filmy from poor maintenance. But those of the door had been cleaned and it was through them that Grace saw it.

  Lily lying on her stomach, stretched out on a green-painted potting table, facing the door.

  Shapeless black dress pushed above her waist. Both hands dangling over the table rim.

  Her lips were turned down but the rest of her face remained expressionless.

  Looming from behind, Walter Sporn pumped himself in and out of her.

  From the angle of entry, clearly not vaginal sex. Sporn wore a black T-shirt but was otherwise naked, his skin the consistency and color of cold tallow, pants and shoes and socks gathered in a heap in a corner.