At 7:12 on a Saturday morning, a cracked ceramic sink tipped sideways in the driveway and shattered with a sound that sent a pair of doves flapping off the telephone wire. Elena Ruiz froze, broom in hand. Behind her, the old bungalow on her Laurel Canyon block was almost unrecognizable: a wall of plaster had come down, the kitchen cabinets were stacked beneath a jacaranda tree, and a rented dumpster sat full to its steel rim.
