The Murderer's Daughter (37 page)

Venom Boy had scored a coup. Especially when you figured in four million for the dump on Center, which had to be top-market, and scoring a no-bid contract to demolish and remodel for government offices.

Backroom dealing was the milk of politics but Dion Larue appeared to own a herd of dairy cows.

Multiple murderer acquiring the patina of an eco-conscious, diversity-minded, local-renewable businessman.

Riding the crest of new-age politics through a combination of slickness and connections.

She finished her pho, returned to the Olds, and redigested the terrible story Wayne had unearthed: a child rejected twice. Three times—arriving at Selene McKinney's, sons in tow, seeking shelter only to be turned away.

Twenty-five years ago, Ty had been nine, Sam, eleven. More than old enough to know what had happened.

Sitting by their mother in the kitchen, docile and silent. Not long after, she and her co-wives and the devil who'd ruled them were dead, leaving three children to the mercies of the system.

Tragic; could you blame a boy for going bad?

You sure could.

Turning the tale over and over, Grace found herself growing steely. She knew all about rejection and loss, deep wounds of the soul that required psychic excavation and cauterization, the acid wash of self-examination.

Life could be a horror.

No excuse.

T
wenty-one-year-old Grace lived in a studio apartment on Formosa Avenue in L.A.'s Wilshire district.

She'd raised the issue of independence three weeks after returning to L.A. from Harvard. Grad school would begin in a month and she wanted as much settled as possible.

She waited for the right time to bring up the topic with Malcolm and Sophie; at the end of a pleasant, quiet Sunday brunch at home, expecting surprise, maybe barely concealed hurt feelings, even gentle debate.

She'd prepared her tactful rebuttals, drawing upon her own flood of gratitude and their desire, of course, to do what was best for her.

Malcolm and Sophie showed not a trace of surprise. Nodding in unison, they assured her they'd pay rent for anything reasonable.

Three and a half years in Boston and they haven't missed me?

Or, to put a benign slant on it, like so many older couples, perhaps they, too, craved a bit of freedom.

Still—idiotically—Grace felt a bit…empty at the lack of debate. Then she saw that Sophie's beautiful blue eyes had grown damp and that Malcolm was avoiding looking at her and his jaw was knotted.

Leaning across the kitchen table, she touched both their hands. “I'll probably be here all the time, anyway. Mooching food, schlepping laundry, not to mention all the contact you and I will have day-to-day, Malcolm.”

“True,” he said, fidgeting.

Sophie said, “Any laundry you schlep will be welcome. Though you should probably look for a building with on-site machines. For your own convenience.”

“Get a place with top-notch facilities,” said Malcolm. “That's of the utmost.”

Sophie said, “And of course you'll need a car.” She laughed. “No new clothes, though. Your current wardrobe is far too elegant for your future peers.”

Malcolm said, “Oh, the students aren't that bad, Soph.”

“Oh, they're dreary,” said Sophie, laughing again, a smidge too loudly. Using the moment to sneak a swipe at her eyes. “I refer to my department as well as yours, Mal. No matter what their circumstances, our young scholars pride themselves upon coming across as starving martyrs.” She turned to Grace. “So, alas, no cashmere, dear. The Tenth Commandment, and all that.”

Grace said, “You bet.”

No one spoke. Grace found herself fidgeting and now Sophie was engaging her with a solemn stare and Grace realized she'd been talking about more than attire.

Thou Shalt Not Covet.
Reminding Grace she'd be entering grad school laden with baggage.

Of all the schools, Professor Bluestone had to bring her here?

Adopted or not, she's still his family, it's corrupt.

Her acceptance means someone else fully qualified was rejected. If she's as smart as they say, she could've gotten in at plenty of other places, why hog a space here?

On top of that wouldn't some distance be healthy for both of them?

On top of
that,
they say she'll be working directly
with
him. Talk about lack of boundaries.

Now Malcolm was also regarding her oh-so-gravely.

The same unspoken warning from both of them: Be smart and keep a low profile.

Sage advice, to be sure. Grace had figured it out a long time ago.

Resentment was understandable.
Clinical psych programs at accredited universities were limited to students for whom grant funding was available, leading to tiny classes—USC accepted five first-years out of a hundred as many applications.

The program was rigorous and laid out clearly: three years of coursework in assessment, psychotherapy, research design, statistics, cognitive science, plus a minor concentration in a nonclinical field of psychology.

In addition, students assisted faculty with research and saw patients under supervision in the department's campus clinic, leading to six twelve-hour days each week, sometimes more. Off-site externships for which SC students competed with applicants from all over the country were mandatory, as well. By the fourth year, a faculty doctoral committee needed to be in place, comprehensive exams passed, research proposals approved.

Then came the crucial final chapter, the step that could end in disaster: conceptualizing and conducting significant, original research and writing it up as a dissertation. Only once that was under way were candidates allowed to apply for a full-time internship at a facility approved by the American Psychological Association.

Grace figured she could do it all quicker, without much sweat.

Her plan of
attack was simple, replicating her experiences at Harvard: be polite and pleasant to everyone but avoid emotional entanglements of any kind. Especially now; entering under a cloud, she couldn't let interpersonal crap get to her.

But her classmates, all women, three with Ivy League B.A.'s, turned out to be a pleasant bunch, exhibiting not a trace of resentment. So either she'd earned their acceptance quickly or everyone had worried for nothing.

Faculty were another matter, a definite chill wafted toward her from some quarters. No problem; compliance and subtle flattery went a long way with academicians.

She didn't lack for a social life, what with casual lunches with her classmates during which she listened a lot and said little, and the customary Sunday brunches with Sophie and Malcolm, plus dinners out at white-tablecloth eateries twice a month.

Toss in the occasional off-campus lunch with Sophie, sometimes followed by shopping trips for “appropriately casual garments,” and her plate was full.

Her relationship with Malcolm changed, as their contact increasingly centered on research and personal chitchat eroded. That ended up suiting both of them. She'd never seen Malcolm so animated.

Solo jaunts to campus movies and museums—LACMA was walking distance from her apartment—supplied all the extracurricular culture she needed.

Of course, sex played a role during those years, as she stuck with the familiar but lowered the frequency because it took less to satisfy her. Pulling out the cashmere and the silk, heels, and all the other good stuff, she had no problem snagging well-dressed attractive men in upscale cocktail lounges and hotels.

Many of her targets turned out to be traveling from other cities, which was optimal. Others were escaping marriages gone stale or simply tired of domestic obligation.

To Grace they were all temporary playmates, and for the most part, everyone walked away happy.

With drama neatly sidestepped, she was free to ace every course and treat twice as many patients as anyone else at the campus clinic. The same went for research projects, and by the end of her second year, she'd co-published three articles with Malcolm on resilience and three of her own on the aftereffects of trauma, one of which saw light in the
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

Simultaneously, she was analyzing the best places to extern, with an eye toward making contacts where she might want to intern. The choice quickly became obvious: the Veterans Administration hospital in Westwood, for all the problems with the system, one of the premier training facilities in adult psychology.

More important, a V.A. placement would give her experience in the treatment of terrible things. Because neurotic angst—dilettantes and sluggards trying “to figure it out” or pay for friendship—bored and annoyed her.

She craved the red meat of real psychotherapy.

After a year
as a student therapist, she'd gotten to know everyone who mattered at the V.A., was perceived as the best and the brightest, her internship application a formality.

Four years after enrolling in grad school, she had her Ph.D., presented to her personally by Malcolm, Harvard-robed and beaming, at the doctoral ceremony in Town and Gown Hall. She'd also been accepted for a postdoctoral fellowship at the same V.A. If it ain't broken don't fix it.

By age twenty-seven, she was still living frugally in her single on Formosa and investing ten percent of her stipend in a conservative stock fund. After passing national and state licensing exams, she was asked to stay on at the V.A. as clinical faculty, an invitation she gladly accepted. The position was exactly what she craved: continuing education about people whose lives had been blown to bits, sometimes literally.

The V.A. had changed since Malcolm's grad school days, when the typical patient was often cruelly libeled as an elderly chronic alcoholic for whom little could be done.

GOMERs, snotty medical residents called them.
G
et
O
ut
o
f
M
y
E
mergency
R
oom.

The V.A. that Grace encountered was a high-intensity facility where the evils of war manifested by the hour. Beautiful young American men and women, maimed and mutilated in hot, sandy places by fanatics and ingrates they thought they'd been sent to liberate. The physical wounds were profound. The emotional aftereffects could be as bad or worse.

The patients Grace saw struggled to adjust to missing body parts, permanent brain damage, blindness, deafness, paralysis. Phantom limb pain was an issue, as were depression, rage disorders, suicidal risk, drug addiction.

Which wasn't to say every vet was damaged goods—a libel that raised Grace's ire because she respected those who'd served at such a high level. Nor was post-traumatic stress disorder the default. That was a bum rap created by craven Hollywood types exploiting the misery of others for the sake of a screenplay. But even when the damage was subtle, it could impact daily living at a profound level.

Grace never presumed that her own childhood was even a close match for what her patients were going through. But she knew it gave her an edge.

Right from the start, she felt
at home
with them.

They sensed it, too, and soon, following her pattern, she was treating twice, then three times as many patients as anyone else at the hospital.

More important, she was getting results, with patients and families increasingly requesting her as their therapist. The V.A. staff took notice, happy to have someone carry the elephant's load.

That didn't stop some of her colleagues from viewing her as a spooky workaholic who cropped up on the wards at all hours, seemingly immune to fatigue. Was she, they wondered, bipolar? One of those adult ADHD types?

And why didn't she ever hang out with anyone?

But the smart ones kept their mouths shut, enjoying how much easier she made their lives.

One night-shift RN began calling her “the Victim Whisperer.” A fellow postdoc, himself a Vietnam vet who'd gone back to school in middle age, led a support group for paraplegics with her, expecting to teach “the young cute chick” all about suffering.

Soon he was terming her “Healer of the Haunted.”

That one, Grace liked.

One evening, leaving
the hospital and walking to the used BMW 3 that Sophie and Malcolm had “picked up for a song,” she spotted a middle-aged woman waving at her.

Stout, blond, nicely dressed. Working hard at pasting a smile on her face.

“Dr. Blades? Sorry, do you have a second?”

“What can I do for you?”

“I'm sorry to bother you—you probably don't remember me, you're treating my nephew?”

Confidentiality precluded an answer, even if Grace had known who the woman was talking about.

“Oh, of course, sorry,” the woman said. “My nephew is Bradley Dunham.”

Sweet boy, originally from Stockton, frontal lobe damage that had scrambled his emotional life. But still gentle, so much so that Grace wondered what led him to the marines. On their sixth session, he'd told her.

I graduated high school and there was nothing else I could think of.

Grace smiled at his aunt and the woman apologized again. “This isn't about Brad. It's about my own son, Eli. I'm Janet.”