The Murderer's Daughter

Chapter 27

Sitting in her room at the Hilton Garden Inn, Grace kept looking at the old photo of the blond boy.

Ty.

Andrew.

Atoner.

Viewing the picture made morphing boy to man easy. He’d darkened his hair as Grace just had, and puberty had firmed up his face. But the features remained the same.

Was the reason for the dye job worry that his naturally fair color would trigger Grace’s memory? Knowing who she’d been and seeking her out not because of the article?

Even if the article had led him to her, had that triggered recall of the girl living at Stagecoach Ranch?

Who’d been there when the bad things happened.

Then she realized that Malcolm had spent time testing the three sibs so perhaps it was him Ty/Andrew had sought. And that had led him to Grace.

Either way, it was Grace he’d ended up with. Intending to strip bare old, malevolent secrets.

About the death of Bobby Canova? A vicious brother with a hungry smile?

That seemed scant motive for murder; try proving anything about deaths ruled as natural over two decades ago. So there had to be more.

Grown-up Sam doing grown-up bad things.

As Grace pondered, another terrible possibility intruded: Grace’s name had triggered Andrew’s memory and he’d pulled up her faculty photo.

Known who she was at the Opus lounge.

No, impossible. If he had, no way would he have gone along with...

Stop; turn the page, move on.

Find the enemy before he finds you.

Fixing the date of the wild-haired children’s arrival at the ranch was simple: two months after Grace’s eleventh birthday.

She logged onto the L.A. Times archives for that day and plugged in sam ty lily. Nothing. Using fourteen additional dates — a week before and after — was no more productive.

Vegans, Sam spouting the Bible, and the homemade clothing suggested a cult or a sect, or at least an odd, isolated upbringing. The trio arriving at night with a two-vehicle police escort — uniforms as well as a detective — suggested serious criminality.

But pairing cult and sect with the fifteen dates was also a dead end and Grace decided she could keyword forever and miss the crucial cue. Better to examine actual coverage of that period and that meant scrolling laboriously through entire issues of the newspaper.

Fortunately, microfilm was also computer-archived and the Times offered free access through 1980, with more recent stories pay-per-view. Grace was about to enter her credit card when she realized she could reach the same destination for free, using her psych department faculty account at the med school library.

Either way, she’d be documenting her search but she couldn’t see any way that could be avoided. Or any possibility of linking herself to Beldrim Benn, even assuming his corpse would be found.

She recalled the sound of the body, thumping and rolling into the abyss.

Went the faculty route.

Making her way through months of microfilm was a slow process that produced nothing for hours.

She scrolled back two-thirds of a year before finding it.

Grace composed a list: arundel roi, wives, victims, selwyn rodrigo, candace miller.

She reread the article to see if she’d missed anything. Rodrigo had cited reports of child abuse but made no mention of specific children.

Scrolling back four additional months, she found the original account of the raid. Candace Miller’s age was listed as forty-nine, making her seventy-three now. References to the cult’s “odd food preferences, survivalist tactics and living off the land” told Grace she was on the right track.

Then the clincher: Roi and his wives had been found wearing “crudely fashioned, homemade black uniforms.”

But still no names other than Roi’s. Because this was L.A. and it was all about the star.

Same old story, she supposed. Charismatically endowed freak attracts brain-dead followers. Sires children, of course, because megalomaniacs crave self-perpetuation.

The original article also came with a photo: a headshot of Arundel Roi, in his early fifties, back when he’d been Correctional Officer Roald Leroy Arundel.

The guru of the Fortress Cult had probably been decent looking as a young man, with a strong, square jaw, the suggestion of broad shoulders, and neatly pinned ears. But middle age had left him bloated and dissolute, with a loose-skinned face and neck, and heavily pouched, down-slanted eyes that glinted with arrogance.

His hair was trimmed in a white no-nonsense cop buzz. A bushy salt-and-pepper mustache completely obscured his mouth.

The whiskers spread in a way that suggested amusement.

A hungry smile the likes of which Grace had seen before.

She pictured Roi swaggering past the cells of female prisoners, drunk on power and personality disorder and testosterone.

Fox, henhouse.

Several more hours looking for anything she could find on the Fortress Cult exhausted the resources of three wire services and four additional newspapers.

All that energy expended for zero insight; journalism apparently consisted of rephrasing someone else’s copy. Though in this case she supposed reporters could be forgiven their thin gruel: The authorities had let out precious little by way of facts.

She searched a year forward. No additional stories on the forensics, not a single word about wives, homeless victims, the impact upon children of being raised on filth and lunacy.

Looking for personal data on the reporter, Selwyn Rodrigo, she found a six-year-old death notice in the Times. The reporter had succumbed at age sixty-eight to a “long illness.”

The obit outlined Rodrigo’s career. Shortly after the Fortress piece, he’d switched to financial and business writing in Washington, D.C., and had stuck with that. A promotion, no doubt, but Grace wondered if Rodrigo had craved escape, switching from bourbon to weak tea.

His survivors were listed as a wife, Maryanne, and a daughter, Ingrid. The former had passed away three years after her husband. No data on Ingrid and no reason to think her father had confided in her.

Turning her attention to the wounded social worker, Candace Miller, she found lots of women with that name but none that matched age-wise.

Now what?

Focus on the kids.

But if information on the cult progeny existed, it would be buried in the inaccessible bowels of social services. She seriously considered tapping Delaware’s police connections to see if any other official reports existed, dismissed that quickly: She’d killed a man, the last thing she needed was police scrutiny.

So what to do... once upon a time, faced with tough questions, her reflex had been Ask Malcolm. At some point — soon after entering adolescence — she’d decided that growing up meant pulling away from Malcolm, sometimes to the point of avoiding him. Still, the knowledge of his presence had been a balm.

Now... her nerves were thrumming in all sorts of discordant keys.

Crossing to the mini-bar, she took out a mini-bottle of vodka and considered a mini-drink. Thought better of it and returned the booze to its resting place.

What would Malcolm do?

His voice, in finest low-volume bass register, coated her brain: When everything’s a mess, Grace, it can sometimes help to start at the beginning.

Grace deep-breathed and relaxed her muscles and concentrated on dredging up long-avoided details about the three children in black. That failed to produce anything new and frustration led to a loose, maddening free association.

Her own life at the ranch.

The night she’d been driven there, her fear as the car hurtled through desolate terrain. Past signs indicating the place where the red room had... surrounded her.

So different from previous foster-treks, apathetic drivers showing up unannounced, curt orders to pack her paltry belongings. Dumping her with no explanation and often no introduction.

The worker who’d taken her to the ranch had been different.

Wayne Knutsen. Portly, ponytailed, would-be lawyer. During their final conversation, he’d handed Grace his card. Which she’d promptly tossed. Snotty little kid.

Like Candace Miller he’d be at least seventy. Not a healthy-looking guy at the time so vital old age seemed unlikely.

Not expecting much, she returned to Google.

Surprise, surprise.

Substantial downtown enterprise on South Flower Street, Wayne J. Knutsen the founder and senior partner, presiding over two dozen other attorneys.

A former welfare worker spending his days with “contracts, estates and business litigation”? Could it be?

Grace linked to KDBL Professional Staff, found photos and bios of all the lawyers in the firm.

The senior partner was elderly and beyond well fed, completely bald with a tiny white goatee that filmed the first of two and a half chins. He’d posed in navy pinstripes, a snowy pin-collar shirt, and a large-knotted bright-blue tie of gleaming silk.

His smile radiated self-satisfaction. No more rattling compact for Attorney Knutsen, Grace figured him in a big Mercedes.

He’d complained about attending an unaccredited law school but had graduated from UC Hastings, followed up with specialty certificates in tax and real estate law, earned himself numerous seats on bar committees.

If you ever need anything.

Time to test his sincerity.