The Murderer's Daughter (26 page)
Read The Murderer's Daughter Online
Authors: Jonathan Kellerman
E
ven before her fingers touched the keyboard, Grace had a good notion of what she'd learn about Howell and Ruthann McCoy of Bell Gardens.
Older couple victimized by a fake accident. Seven or fewer years ago, if some twisted reverse birth-order game was at play.
The prime scion of the Fortress Cult rewarding the people who'd taken in him and his siblings with slaughter for monetary gain.
But as the web kicked back an immediate response, Sophie Muller's cool, erudite voice sounded in Grace's head.
Ass u me.
Not seven years ago, ten.
Not California.
This obituary showed
up in the
Enid
(Oklahoma)
News & Eagle.
The bodies of three people, all believed to be members of a Waukomis family, were discovered this morning in the burned-out wreckage of a house on Reede Road. Preliminary examination indicates that the male and two females who perished were Howell McCoy, 48, his wife, Ruthann, 47, and their only child, a daughter, Samantha, 21. The possible use of an accelerant has led Waukomis PD to call in arson investigators from Enid.
All three victims were found in bed with no signs of a struggle. According to Waukomis investigators, the McCoys and their daughter were deaf, leading to the possibility that they slept through a break-in. The house's location, on a four-acre lot in a secluded section of town, would shield criminal activity from casual view. A missing five-year-old Ford pickup points to robbery as a possible motive.
The McCoys moved to Oklahoma four years ago from California, settling on a property owned for three generations by Ruthann McCoy's family. Neighbors report them as pleasant but loners, possibly due to their hearing impairment, with few social ties to the community. Neither the parents nor the daughter were employed and county records indicate that all three residents received disability benefits.
“This is terrifying,” said a neighbor. “Nothing like this happens here, we never even bother locking our doors.”
A follow-up article two weeks later confirmed the arson, with gasoline as the accelerant. The pickup was located a week after the fire, over six hundred miles away, near Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
Grace pulled up a map. From Waukomis to the park was a fairly straight westward trip, consistent with eventual return to California.
Samaelâor, and Grace had to face it, possibly Samael and Typhonâsetting out on a road trip for their first family slaughter?
County benefit checks put the lie to an inheritance motive. Why travel thousands of miles to immolate a shy, inoffensive
poor
family?
Three deaf people sleeping through a nighttime break-in.
Grace hadn't picked up on Lily's hearing impairment. She hadn't paid much attention to the Roi kids, period.
Looking back, the little girl hadn't uttered a word. But neither had Ty. The same went for lots of new arrivals at the ranch, children numbed by the foster process or stunned by unfamiliar surroundings.
Lily, hearing-impaired. Ty, choosing not to speak? Both driven to mute submission by their older brother?
The same subservience that had led them to keep silent about Bobby Canova?
A remorseless murderer by early adolescence, Samael/Roger had two decades to hone his craft. For whatever reason, Typhon/Andrew had finally decided to do something about it and had ended up stabbed to death.
She searched the Center Street address that Roger Wetter Junior had listed as his home. The building was the subject of a brief squib in a local paper, due to be revamped for a mixture of commercial and government uses funded in great part by federal grants.
An image search revealed a blocky, six-story structure that looked like an old factory. Nothing residential about it. One of those loft situations? Or had Roger simply lied and his home was somewhere else?
She ran another search on him, came up empty.
But
andrew van cortlandt engineer
pulled up five hits, all to Asian bridge and dam projects contracted to Schultz-McKiffen, an international construction firm. In each case, Andrew's name came up as a side detail: He'd been part of a working team of nearly a hundred staffers, one of fourteen structural engineers.
No personal details, no photos. Schultz-McKiffen's headquarters were in Washington, D.C., with satellite offices in London, Düsseldorf, and Singapore. One hit cited Andrew's attendance at a meeting in Germany.
Officially living with his parents but a world traveler.
Grace endured more recall of every moment she'd spent with him. She had trouble recasting the earnest, troubled young man as a cold-blooded murderer, even working under the tutelage of his psychopath brother.
But anyone could be fooled and the facts told her not to trust her instincts: His sister had been burned alive a decade ago but he'd been allowed to live until days ago, suggesting some sort of favored status in his brother's mind. The kind of privilege that came from co-conspiracy.
Using the Tenth Street address of the Van Cortlandts, she tried several real estate sites, found what she was looking for at the third.
The property had been sold for $2.7 million to a family trust representing the interests of William and Bridget Chung. William's name popped up as president of an Internet start-up company in Venice.
Selling the homestead two years after his parents' death, Andrew had cashed in big-time.
No reason for the Chungs to know anything about his motives for selling but maybe theyâor someone in the neighborhoodâwould recall something Grace could use.
Tomorrow: Berkeley. Today: Keep it local.
Torrance to Santa
Monica was a half-hour hop under ideal conditions. Nothing about L.A. was ideal anymore and it took Grace an hour and eighteen minutes to reach the two-story sage-green Craftsman where Andrew Van Cortlandt had spent his privileged adolescence.
Attractive, well-maintained structure, with a full-width front porch, a neat square lawn flanked by a pair of mature magnolias, precise beds of flowers rimming the grass. Generous but proportional to the narrow lot and dwarfed by the newer look-at-me Spanish and Mediterranean stucco heaps that replaced several older structures.
A silver Volvo station with a
Save the Bay
bumper sticker sat in the driveway. Grace parked six houses south and turned off her engine. Eight minutes later a slim, ponytailed, thirtyish blonde wearing a shoulder-baring blue cashmere sweater over white skinny jeans teetered on three-inch heels as she toted an almond-eyed, doll-like infant and a diaper bag into the Volvo.
The woman-likely-to-be-Bridget-Chung spent a considerable amount of time offering Tenth Street a view of her enchanting glutes as she settled the baby into a rear restraint-seat. Far too little attention was paid to cross-traffic as she backed out of the driveway at full speed.
The Volvo narrowly missed colliding with a white Lexus barreling from the north. Horn honks were followed by window-glass-muted outrage from the older woman behind the wheel of the Lexus.
No reaction from Lithe Mom Bridget. As she drove away, her hand and eyes were fixed on her phone.
Smiling and texting.
Grace remained in her Escape for ten additional minutes. Several more cars drove by, all luxury models. A two-minute lull broke when a slim, middle-aged woman who could've been Bridget Chung's mother stepped out of the neighboring Spanishâone of the older, original houses, a smallish one-storyâand began watering potted plants near her front door.
Grace got out, walked to the green Craftsman, and studied its façade.
The woman stopped watering. “May I help you?”
Squinting, tight-lipped. One of those Neighborhood Watch stares.
All the better.
Grace smiled and approached her.
The woman remained wary, hands tight around the handle of her watering can. Her lips moved as she read the fake business card Grace held out.
“Commercial and Industrial Security. Like alarm systems?”
“We consult to individuals and corporations contemplating real-estate transactions.”
“Consult about what?”
“Residential patterns, upkeep, environmental and civic issues that might come up.”
“Come up when?”
“In the event of a transaction.” Grace cocked a head at the Craftsman.
“They're selling? To a company?”
“That I can't say, ma'am. I get a list of addresses, come out and record the data.”
“Well, you need to know that this is a first-class neighborhood.”
“No doubt about that, Msâ¦. ”
“
Mrs.
Dena Kroft.” She glanced at the green house. “If it was up to me, they'd be out tomorrow.”
“Problem neighbors?”
“Loud,” said Dena Kroft. “Parties all the time, yelling around the pool, what sounds like heavy drinking. He's some kind of computer nerd, Asian, more money than God. She's an airhead.”
Loathing was fertile grounds for rapport. Grace said, “That's obvious from her driving. Just as I got here, she zoomed out of her driveway, nearly T-boned another car. With her baby inside.”
“Exactly,” said Dena Kroft. She handed the card back. “We've been on the block for thirty-two years. It was a perfect neighborhood until the N.R.'s started moving in.”
“N.R.'s?”
“Nouveau riches,” said Dena Kroft. “Asian, Persian, or they can be anything, whatever. They tear down lovely houses, get variances through their connections, and build monstrosities on every inch of lot. If you want all interior space and no greenery, why not just get a condo?”
“Indeed,” said Grace.
“Before
them,
the block was mostly doctors, top-notch people on the staff at Saint John's. My husband's a radiologist there. Peter Kroft.”
As if Grace was supposed to recognize the name. “Great hospital.”
“Best in the city,” said Dena Kroft. “I was hoping
he'd
keep the house. The son of the people who lived here.”
“He's a doctor?”
“Some kind of engineer.” Kroft leaned in, lowered her voice. “Adopted, but you'd never know. They actually got him into Harvard-Westlake.” Peering at Grace. “Did you go to Buckley? You look like a girl in my daughter's class.”
“No, ma'am, sorry. You'd never know he was adopted becauseâ”
“It's like going to the pound and picking out a mutt, you never know what you're going to end up with. But Teddy and Jane were fortunate with Andy. A very well-behaved boy, quiet, no shenanigans.”
Grace said, “Sounds like the perfect neighbor.”
“The perfect neighbors would be a quiet
family,
” said Kroft. “But certainly, a quiet young man would be better than the likes of
them.
It's a lovely house, though a bit dark. I must admit I'm a bit peeved that Andy wasn't more sentimental. He was never here, anyway. Ended up selling.”
“Maybe he thought it was too much house for one person.”
“One adapts,” said Dena Kroft. “But he was away all the time. In the Orient, that's where he spends a lot of time. He was there when Teddy and Jane had their accidentâthey fell off a mountain hiking. They were always hiking, big physical fitness buffs, you know.”
“Must've been hard on him,” said Grace. “Being away.”
“Andy? I'm sure. He showed up two days later. I remember him being dropped off by a cab, carrying his bags, looking terrible, just crestfallen. I suppose he can't be faulted for not wanting to be tied down with the property but I sure wish he'd done his civic duty and sold to somebody decent. So tell me the truth, young lady. You're one of those credit checkers, right?” She hooked a thumb at the green house. “They're in trouble, all that computer money is smoke and mirrors and they're going to lose the place.”
