The Murderer's Daughter (41 page)

G
race 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.

T
he 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 shadows 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.

The light Grace had seen issued from a six-bulb fixture missing three bulbs.

Eyes squeezed shut, piggy face contorted in what looked like rage, Sporn thrust. The table rocked. Lily's face remained still as that of an inflatable sex toy.

Sporn began smacking Lily's ass hard enough to turn it magenta, switched to grabbing her hair and yanking her head upward. Every movement was harsh, rapid, punishing. Nothing altered the frown on Lily's lips, the blankness everywhere else.

Resigned.

As Grace thought through her next move, Sporn released Lily's hair and shoved her head hard, causing it to flop on the table. The enormous hand he'd freed reached around and ringed Lily's throat and now something changed in her listless eyes.

Wider, brighter. The incandescence of fear.

Then again: nothing.

Surrender.

Grace sucked in breath and reached into her right-hand lower jacket pocket just as Sporn's other hand began flailing Lily's butt hard enough for the sound to filter through glass.

She pushed the door, felt it give, sprang forward, her silent entry aided by Sporn's still-clenched eyelids and his raspy laughter as he smacked and throttled Lily.

Lily saw Grace. Her eyes widened. Her mouth formed an oval of surprise.

A willing participant? God, Grace hoped not.

No. The poor thing was nodding at her. Encouraging her. That reverted to terror as Sporn's paw tightened around her neck. Her tongue flopped. Her lips swelled and her eyes rolled backward.

Grace ran forward, Glock in hand. Sporn, still lost in sadistic ecstasy, didn't notice. Then Grace's toe kicked something on the floor—a piece of terra-cotta that began rattling on the cement, insistent as a snare drum.

Sporn's eyes opened. Rage reddened his irises. His lips drew back in a snarl.

Not just a swine, a wild boar, feral and crafty.

Gleeful
fury as he saw that his assailant was female and wispy. The leer of a wrestling favorite entering the ring, prepared to demolish.

He let go of Lily and rushed at Grace, lips curling higher, revealing nasty-looking peg teeth. Below the hem of his T-shirt, a jelly-filled sack of belly flopped up and down. Tree-trunk thighs, on the other hand, were firm. His penis, shiny with lube and ruddy at the tip, was shrinking comically above shrunken steroid balls.

Shooting him in the groin was tempting but no sense substituting symbolism for common sense.

Grace stepped back as if afraid of his attack, waited until Sporn was well away from the table where Lily remained prone and inert, then aimed three bullets at his open mouth.

Two found their mark, the third shattered the space between Sporn's nose and upper lip. Surprised—abashed—his eyes widened and he kept coming at her, a felled redwood.

Then he stopped. Stared at Grace's black-masked face. Said, “Huh,” and now it was his eyes that were rolling back. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground and he toppled over, face-first.

Blood leaked onto the ground as he twitched a few times before growing still.

Just for good measure, Grace shot him a fourth time in the back of the head. Straight trajectory to the medulla oblongata, where a bullet was certain to snuff out basic respiration. Who knew her grad school neuropsych would come in so handy?

She turned to Lily, who still hadn't moved.

Had she, indeed, been a willing partner in a long-standing B-and-D game rather than a victim? Grace didn't want to have to deal with an unplanned foe.

Holding the Glock at her side, she approached the table but stood well back as she tried to engage Lily's eyes.

Lily did nothing. Then she mouthed something.

Thank you.

Grace nodded and pointed at Lily's pushed-up dress. Lily, suddenly embarrassed, rolled onto her side and moved her shoulders, trying to raise her arms to pull it down.

A mere shrug resulted. Arms refusing to cooperate.

Paralyzed? Had Sporn's abuse of her neck injured her cervical spine?

But then Lily's right hand quivered and she was able to shake it. Then the left. Awakening after going numb from the pressure.

She began covering herself but not before Grace took notice of buttocks splotched raw and littered with tiny bleeding crescents—nail marks. Similar marks were scabbed. Where the skin hadn't been clawed it was black-and-blue.

Blood oozed from some of the fresher wounds and a separate trail of crimson ran from between the cheek crack down the left thigh.

Lily tried to lift herself, couldn't. Grace prepared to help her.

Lily's face changed.

Animated by horror as her lips worked and her eyes blinked faster than Grace thought possible.

Lily arched her neck. Pointed.

A warning.

Something behind Grace.

Too late.