The Murderer's Daughter (28 page)

The research award at twenty-seven. A doctorate in engineering.

But once financially independent, Andrew had decided to work on the other side of the world; you couldn't move much farther from hearth and home.

So perhaps his affection for his new parents hadn't run deep.

Get what you want from them, move on.

Years later: Collaborate to have them tossed over a cliff?

Grace shifted back to Roger Wetter Junior. No evidence, so far, of academic accomplishment on his part. But no need to get A's in the Wetter household. Other qualities were prized higher.

The very qualities Venom Boy possessed in spades before he met the Wetters.

Senior takes Junior into the family business, tutors him in the fine points. Then Senior announces his retirement, he and Mom move to L.A.—pulling the rug out from under Junior?

Now you're on your own, son.

Soon after, Mom and Dad experience the cold blue kiss of the ocean.

Head swimming, Grace pulled off at the next exit.

Sad little intersection housing two gas stations, an Arby's, and a Pizza Hut. Nothing with WiFi. She drove farther east, spotted an even shabbier commercial block featuring mostly boarded-up storefronts but also a Wild Bill's Motor Hotel decked out with a poorly painted sign of said lawman on a bucking bronco and smaller placards claiming satellite TV, massage beds, and Internet hookup.

She paid cash for a forty-three-dollar room, scrawled something illegible in the register, ignored the oh-sure smirk of the moron behind the desk.

Parking in front of the unit, she took her bag and her laptop to a room reeking of Lysol and hard-boiled eggs. Opening the drapes on a flyspecked window in order to keep the Escape in view, she sat on a mattress that felt stuffed with mixed nuts, tried to log on, failed, repeated, failed again.

On her fourth attempt, the Data Monster announced itself with an insipid chorus of beeps.

roger agnes wetter theodore jane van cortlandt
rewarded her with three immediate hits.

Correction: one hit, reiterated twice.

Both couples had lent their names to the steering committee of a political fund-raiser. Big bash, nearly fifteen years ago, the Biltmore Hotel, downtown, championing the reelection of State Senator Selene McKinney. Old news cached on the site of the party-planning outfit that had set it up.

McKinney served the affluent Westside, including the Van Cortlandts' upscale slice of Santa Monica. Her district didn't include the Wetters' abode in Encino but back then, the couple had lived in Northern California so there had to be more than constituency at play.

You didn't need to be a constituent to benefit from a politician's good graces.

Grace googled McKinney and got a Wikipedia bio. The legislator known as Ms. Moderate had won that election but eighteen months later, she was dead, victim of a heart attack.

Born to big money, McKinney's decades of public service had earned her seniority and the plum positions that went along with it. At the time of her death she'd long chaired the Senate Standing Committee on Insurance. Which put her in charge of “indemnity, surety, and warranty agreements.”

A woman well worth supporting, if you were Roger Wetter Senior. She'd also served on the dental health licensing committee, which might have put her in contact with Dr. Van Cortlandt.

Grace continued to search, switching between her keyboard and eyeballing the rented SUV through the window. One time, she had to step out of the room, as two boys, fifteen or so, began slinking around, walking expensive ten-speed bikes up to the Escape and eyeing the rear hatch.

Cheap motel, low-rent district, but these two were well dressed, well fed, nicely tended. Couple of rich kids biking down from one of the horsey estates that rose above the tree line to the east?

A quick stare-down from Grace caused them to hightail. Softies. Grace returned to her laptop, pairing
selene mckinney
with
roger wetter, alice wetter, alamo adjustments, insurance scam.
When that brought up nothing, she plugged in a stream of additional bad deeds:
bribery, extortion, con, deception, fraud.

Still, nothing.

She phoned Wayne Knutsen.

His voicemail message
was curt, almost dismissive, you'd never associate it with the man who'd come through for her twice.

“It's me. Did Selene McKinney have a daughter?”

She'd packed up when movement outside her room's window caught her eye. The pair of adolescent reprobates had returned and one boy was leaning insolently against the SUV's right-side headlight.

As if he owned the damn thing.

Grace flung her door open, strode to the driver's door, tossed in her belongings, started up, revved hard, and peeled out in reverse, knocking the kid off balance and causing him to cry out.

She drove off the motel lot, glancing at her rearview mirror. The kid had remained on his feet but looked shaken, mouth agape, holding his hands up as if questioning the gods.

Unwilling to believe anyone could
do
that.

Shocked that not everyone
cared
about him.

Get used to reality, you spoiled little bastard.

T
welve-year-old Grace lived with two strangers in a big, beautiful house in Hancock Park.

Nice while it lasted. It wouldn't, of course, she understood reality. A few years in one place, a few in another, you never knew what the next day would bring.

But she had to admit being taken in by Malcolm and Sophie was by far her best turn of luck. And she was determined to learn as much as she could until they got tired of her.

Apart from the
house being big and beautiful and always smelling clean and fresh, apart from the room they let her use as her bedroom being huge and comforting and now, furnished graciously, Malcolm and Sophie were nicer than anyone she'd ever met.

They made it easy for Grace to hold on to herself and not be swallowed up by what they preferred. Maybe that was because Malcolm was a psychologist, an expert on kids. Even though he'd never had any.

Or maybe it was more than that; after a month or so, Grace couldn't help thinking he and Sophie seemed to really care about her comfort, nutrition, and general state of happiness. But they never pretended they were her parents, never asked to be called Mom and Dad. Grace wasn't sure how she'd feel if they had. She'd never called anyone Mom or Dad.

She thought about it and decided to go along with whatever they wanted that didn't actually hurt her.

Anything to stay in this heaven.

A few months
later, she was still calling them Malcolm and Sophie, and Sophie had taken to routinely calling her “dear.” Malcolm usually never called her anything except once in a while, Grace. Mostly he just talked to her without a label. As if there was always a conversation going on between them and no one needed to get formal.

Grace began to think of them as a pair of new friends. Or maybe “acquaintances”—she liked that word—it sounded exotic and French. Same for “compatriots.” “Associates,” too, though that was more official than exotic.

So now, she had
acquaintances
who were much older and smarter and had a lot to teach her. And rich, as well.

One day, Malcolm asked if she'd ever thought about going to school.

It made her afraid and a bit angry, as if he'd finally had enough and was thinking about sending her somewhere and when she said, “Never,” some of that anger came out in her voice. She had to hold on to her hands so they didn't shake.

Malcolm just nodded, and rubbed his big chin the way he did when he was thinking about something puzzling. “Makes sense, be hard to find a peer group for you—for anyone as brilliant as you. Okay, fine, we'll continue with home study. I must confess, I like it myself—finding material for you is a serious challenge. Just wanted to make sure you weren't getting lonely.”

I'm my own best friend. I don't know what lonely is.

She said, “I'm ready for the next lesson.”

Grace's nearly thirteen
years on the planet had told her trust didn't mean much, except for trusting herself. But the funny thing was, Malcolm and Sophie seemed to trust
her.
Never forcing food on her that she didn't like, never telling her when to go to bed or when to get up. Though to be honest, they didn't have to, Grace rose before they did and read in bed, and when she was tired she told them so and returned to her room to read herself to sleep. After she first moved in, Sophie asked if she wanted to be tucked in.

Ramona had only asked the one time, after that she'd just done it, and Sophie asking probably meant she didn't want to do it but was being polite.

So rather than make Sophie put out a special effort, Grace said, “No, thank you, I'm fine.” And she was. Enjoying the quiet of the magnificent room they were letting her stay in. Though once in a while, she wouldn't have minded a tuck-in.

Sophie said, “As you wish, dear,” and Grace put herself to bed.

As far as
she could tell, being a professor was easy; Malcolm would drive to the university but not really early, and sometimes he'd come home when it was still light outside. Some days, he never left at all, working in his wood-paneled study, reading and writing.

Grace thought:
I'd like this job.

Sophie was a professor, too, but she never went to work, just puttered around the house, cooking for herself and Grace, supervising Adelina, the nice but not-speaking-English cleaning woman who came in twice a week and worked hard and silently.

Sophie also went on shopping “excursions,” which could mean anything from buying groceries to coming home with boxes and bags of clothing for herself and for Grace.

She was probably doing
some
kind of work because she had her own study—a small room off her and Malcolm's bedroom with no paneling, just a desk and a computer. Other than pictures of flowers on white walls, nothing fancy. When she did go in there, she kept the door open but she'd remain at the desk for hours, reading and writing, usually with classical music playing softly in the background. When mail came to her it was addressed Prof. Sophia Muller or Sophia Muller, Ph.D.

Reading and writing was what Grace was already doing, what kind of deal was this professor stuff? Grace started to think she should
really
learn to be one.

Three months after Grace's arrival, Sophie cleared up the mystery. “You probably wonder why I'm here all the time.”

Grace shrugged.

“Next year, I'll be back on campus like Malcolm—teaching, supervising grad students. But this year I'm on something called a sabbatical, it's kind of a racket for professors, once we get tenure—once the university figures it wants to keep us around—we get a year off every seven years.”

“Like Sabbath,” said Grace.

“Pardon?”

“Work six days, rest on the seventh.”

Sophie smiled. “Yes, exactly, that's the concept. Not that I'm supposed to be loafing, the understanding is I'm to do independent research. This is my second sabbatical. During the first, Malcolm and I traipsed around Europe and I churned out papers that no one read. But I'm older now, prefer to basically be a homebody and get paid for it. You won't tell on me, will you, dear?”

Laughing.

Grace crossed her heart. “It's a secret…you do read and write.”

“I'm writing a book. Allegedly.”

“What on?”

“Nothing that's going to hit the bestseller lists, dear. How's this for a catchy title:
Patterns of Group Interaction and Employment Fluctuation in Emerging Adult Women.
”

Grace thought that sounded like a foreign language, she'd never pick up a book like that. She said, “It's pretty long.”

“Way too long. Maybe I should call it something like
Chicks and Gigs.
”

Grace's turn to laugh.

Sophie said, “The title's the least of my concerns. It's excruciating for me, dear, I'm not a natural writer like Malcolm—so what would you like for dinner?”

Malcolm kept bringing
Grace harder and harder lessons. When she hit pre-calculus she needed some help and he was able to explain things clearly and she thought,
His students are lucky.

Most of the other stuff was easy, floating into her brain like iron to a magnet.

Life at the
big beautiful house was mostly quiet and peaceful, everyone reading, writing, eating, sleeping. Malcolm and Sophie never had guests over, nor did they go out and leave Grace alone. Once in a while a thin white-haired man in a suit would stop by and sit at the kitchen table with them, going over paperwork.

“Our lawyer,” Malcolm explained. “His name is Ransom Gardener. The only things he grows are fees.”

Every so often, Gardener showed up with a younger man named Mike Leiber. Unlike the lawyer, who always wore a suit and looked serious, Leiber had long stringy hair and a beard, arrived in jeans and untucked shirts, and never said much. But when he spoke at the kitchen table, everyone listened to him.

Malcolm and Sophie never explained who he was but after his visits they were a strange combination of seriousness and relaxation. As if they'd just taken a hard exam and had done well.

Twice a month
or so, Malcolm and Sophie took Grace to nice restaurants and Grace wore clothes Sophie bought for her that she'd never have chosen.

She stretched to try new foods when Malcolm and Sophie offered them to her. Even if something looked unappealing, she didn't complain, just the opposite, she smiled and said, “Yes, please. Thank you.”

Same for the clothes. They came wrapped in tissue paper and bore the labels of stores that sounded expensive, some with French names, and she could tell Sophie had taken a lot of time finding them.

Grace thought of them as costumes. Dressing up for the part of Good Girl. She began to wonder when the play would end but got bad stomachaches when she thought too much about that. Chasing those thoughts out of her brain, she concentrated on the good things happening right now. Sometimes concentration gave her a headache.

As part of fitting in and being easy to live with, she began brushing her hair a lot, until it shined like Sophie's and one day Sophie gave her a brush from England that she informed Grace was made from “boar bristles” and guess what, it made Grace's hair even shinier so she resolved to pay special attention to what Sophie said.

Being clean and smelling good was important as well, so she showered every morning and sometimes a second time before she went to bed. Flossed her teeth and brushed twice a day, the way she'd seen Sophie do. When a few hairs sprouted in her armpits and she detected faint odor coming from them, she looked in her medicine cabinet and found a brand-new container of roll-on deodorant and began to use it regularly.

Somehow, someone—no doubt, Sophie—had known what to do.

Shortly after she
began living with them, they brought her to a woman pediatrician who examined her and gave her shots and pronounced her “fit as an Amati.”

Same for an extremely old dentist who cleaned her teeth and told her she was doing “an excellent job with your oral hygiene, most kids don't.”

When her shoes grew tight, Sophie took her to a store on a street called Larchmont where the salesman treated her like a grown-up and asked her what style she preferred.

She said, “Anything.”

“That's a switch, usually kids are demanding.” This remark aimed more at Sophie than Grace.

Sophie said, “She's an easy girl,” and hearing that, Grace filled with warm, sweet feelings. She'd passed her
own
test.

When the three of them were together, she made sure to look into their eyes when they spoke, pretended to be interested in what they talked about when she wasn't. Mostly she
was
interested. In their discussions of history and economics, of how people behaved alone and in groups. Usually they began including Grace in the conversation, but soon they were talking past her, allowing her to just listen, and she didn't mind that one bit.

They talked about art and music. About how bad certain governments were—Nazism, communism, Malcolm pronouncing that any kind of “collectivism is simply a way to control others.” They discussed what kinds of societies produced what kinds of artists and musicians and scientists and how there wasn't enough “synthesis between art and science.”

Every discussion sent Grace running to her dictionary and she figured she was learning more just being with them than from the homeschool curriculum.

When they asked her opinion, if she had one she offered it briefly and quietly. When she had no idea, she said so and more than once Malcolm nodded approvingly, saying, “If only my students knew enough to admit that.”

Sophie: “If only everyone did. Starting with pundits.”