Another throat clear. “A bit of peeking and eavesdropping ensued. Selene was in the kitchen, full regalia, smoking like a chimney and having words with a young woman dressed in black. Not chic black, shabby duds. My source couldn’t hear what was being said but the hostility was obvious. And flanking the young woman were two boys clad the same way, not tykes — not small boys, ten, eleven. Both sat silently, looking ‘stricken’ as their mother and Selene went at each other. Finally, Selene picked up her phone and summoned security staff but before the guards could arrive, the young woman yanked the boys away and ran out through the back door. Upon which Selene muttered something to the effect of ‘good riddance to bad rubbish.’ ”
“Not very grandmotherly,” said Grace.
“Not very human,” said Wayne, with sudden fury in his voice. “You’re the one with the Ph.D., Grace. Tell me: Why doesn’t evolution select against human monsters?”
A host of answers flooded Grace’s head. Including: Where else would we get our politicians?
She said, “Good question. Twenty-five years ago is about one year before the shoot-out at the Fortress Cult.”
“Exactly, Grace, exactly. Perhaps Yalta, whatever her name was, realized something bad was brewing and came to Selene for help. What she received was anything but.”
“And soon after, everyone at the compound perished except for three kids.”
“Yes, three. So where was the daughter that day? I don’t know, Grace, but my source is certain: two boys, only.”
“Maybe Lily wasn’t Yalta’s, Wayne. The account said Roi had three wives. That could be why she wasn’t adopted by a wealthy family. Selene had nothing to do with her.”
It could also explain why she hadn’t been spared. Half sibs didn’t count.
Wayne said, “You could be right. In any event, we have motivation for Selene finding homes for the boys. Not guilt over turning them away, anyone who acted the way she did is far too callous for remorse, no?”
“Agreed,” said Grace.
“On the other hand, having the boys at the mercy of the system raised the risk of Selene’s rejection coming to light. So she called in markers from people who owed her. A pair of couples who were childless and would accept older children with baggage.”
“Especially if the offer was sweetened with some cash.”
“Hmm,” said Wayne. “Selene certainly wasn’t lacking funds. Yes, that makes perfect sense — now, what does all this mean for you, Grace?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Do you really need to pursue this further?”
Grace didn’t answer.
Wayne said, “You say you’ll be careful with such confidence. I wish I could be sure you weren’t humoring me.”
“I’m not,” she assured the kind, moral man who’d done so much for her.
Lying without a trace of regret.
Third Internet café, this one a casual Vietnamese eatery around the corner from the Olds. What netted her access to the electronic universe was a bowl of pho that she actually had an appetite for.
She spooned the broth into her mouth, enjoying the bite of hot peppers not quite tempered by coconut milk. Pork, shrimp; glassy rice noodles that slid down her gullet.
Everything crystallizing. She could feel it.
She plugged in the address of the big brick house on Avalina and pulled up a City of Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission staff report, dated three years earlier.
Structural Alteration Permit Application (LM#5600000231) for rehabilitation of City Landmark, The Krauss House; including in-kind replacement of (historic and non-historic) window sashes and (non-historic) doors on the main house and replacement of (non-historic) drainage gutters, composite/slate/shingle roof and skylight on the carriage house addition. Prepared by...
Five city employees claimed authorship of that golden prose. Next came small-print paragraphs of something called a CEQA determination that had deemed the proposed project
categorically exempt pursuant to Section 15331 (Historical Restoration Rehabilitation) of the CEQA guidelines.
Property Owner: DRL-Earthmove.
Paging through the rest of the document, Grace put together the house’s history. Built in 1917 for a metals dealer named Innes Skelton, it had served as a private residence until 1945, when an art history professor and collector of Asian ceramics named Ignatz Krauss purchased it for use as a private museum.
From what Grace could tell, Krauss had set up one of those arrangements with the university in which he got tax write-offs for his collection and could enjoy them at will but would bequeath the collection and the building to UC Berkeley upon his death.
Krauss had passed away in 1967 and the pottery was auctioned off shortly after. The structure remained in the university’s possession for eight more years, designated as housing for distinguished visiting faculty, after which it was swapped to the city of Berkeley for a commercial building downtown that the university wished to use for administrative facilities.
What the city did with the place was unclear, but four years ago it had sold the property to DRL after buying the building on Center Street from Larue for four million dollars. The only stipulation: “timely application for landmark preservation” of the house on Avalina.
The following year, Dion Larue had apparently complied, filing the necessary papers and pledging to do exactly what the city dictated.
Playing good boy?
When Grace saw how much he’d paid, she understood why.
Eight hundred grand. She was no expert on Berkeley real estate but that had to be way below market. Looking up sales of other houses on the block, she quickly confirmed her suspicion. Comps ranged from $1.6 to $3.2 million.
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.
Chapter 45
Twenty-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.