Kate looked at him.
With some asperity, Max said “Well, pardon me all to hell for expressing an appreciation for one of the finer things in life.”
Kate rubbed her forehead. “Could we just concentrate for a minute here, Max? I’ve two dead and one injured, and it all seems to be related to an arson murder that happened thirty-one years ago.”
“Victoria did it,” Max said.
“She might have killed her son,” Kate said, “but her alibi for her daughter and her ex is kind of solid. Look, could we—”
“What?”
“For the sake of argument, could we imagine for a moment that Victoria didn’t do it? And that if she didn’t, who had the next best motive?”
She watched him take a mouthful of martini and swirl it around. The man had to have a cast-iron stomach, not to mention a worm in his gut that sucked up all the alcohol he downed and got drunk for him. She waited, patient and not entirely without hope.
In her experience, retired cops were less cynical than cops on the job because people hadn’t been lying to them on a daily basis lately and they were once again willing to allow doubt into their lives. If she could get Max to speculate, maybe it would open up a line or two she could follow.
In the meantime, Max had made a decision. “Okay,” Max said, “maybe it wasn’t meant to be murder. Maybe it was only meant to be a warning.”
“To Victoria?”
“Maybe. Maybe to Erland, or the old man. Did you see the old man at that party you went to?”
“The old man? You mean Jasper, Erland’s and Victoria’s father? I thought he was dead.”
“Not yet, although he must be even older than me by now.”
“No, I didn’t see him. Why?”
The stubble on Max’s chin rasped beneath his fingers. “Jasper had him a reputation. You ever hear the story about Richie Constantine?”
Kate shook her head.
“Before your time. You know about Jasper’s wife, Erland’s and Victoria’s mother.” Kate shook her head, and Max snorted. “They teaching you newbies anything these days? Jasper had a mistress. Her name was Ruby Jo, Ruby Jo Lawson. Rumor had it she was working the back rooms at the Mustang Club when they met, and he took her out of there and set her up in her own little house in Spenard, where he visited regularly. About that same time, another local businessman, Calvin Esterhaus, was going up against Jasper in some financial deal or other, had to do with oil leases somewheres, or that was the rumor. He told Jasper to back off, Jasper wouldn’t, and Calvin hired Richie Constantine to make Jasper see the light.
“Richie Constantine was a small-time thug who had the single virtue of loyalty. Some people say he had some kind of a thing with Calvin.” Max shrugged and looked uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t know. Alls I know is that Calvin was one of the sicker sons a bitches to walk the streets of any town, anywhere, and Anchorage was unlucky enough for him to call it home. Richie was his button man, his bag man, his enforcer, you name it. Calvin said jump and Richie said how high.
“Calvin told him to put a scare into Jasper, and Richie watched and waited until Jasper was away from home, and he went inside and raped and killed Ruby Jo.”
Max brooded for a bit. “We knew right away, of course. We arrested Richie within twenty-four hours. We even had ourselves something of a case—physical evidence linking him to the scene, not a half-bad description from an eyewitness, who even picked his photo out of a book of head shots.” He looked at Kate. “So we let him go.”
Kate stared at him. “What?”
“We let him go,” Max repeated, and waved over another martini. When it came and Max had appreciated the waitress’s walk enough, he said, “It was a different time, Kate. The word came down to turn Richie loose.” He smiled, and it wasn’t a nice smile. “He didn’t want to go. At one point, we had to pry his hands loose of the bars. But we tossed him out on his ear.”
Kate was beginning to understand. “When did you find him?”
“We didn’t.” He paused, enjoying Kate’s expression for a moment. “We found Calvin, though. Next morning, floating facedown in McHugh Creek. His dick was cut off and stuffed in his mouth.”
“Jesus,” she said.
Max nodded. “Yeah.”
“And Richie?”
“Richie?” Max’s mouth twisted up at one corner. “Richie was next found on the payroll of Jasper Bannister.”
“Tell me you’re kidding.”
Max shook his head. “Oh no. Jasper appreciated loyalty and efficiency in an employee, especially when he needed somebody to get at those hard-to-reach areas.” Max paused, clearly enjoying the expression on Kate’s face, and added, “Of course, there was that whole disappearing thing Richie did during the pipeline days—oh, say a year before oil in. Richie just flat disappeared. You know that rumor that kept floating around, about somebody finding a body in the pipeline when they walked the first pig in front of the oil from Prudhoe to Valdez? I always thought that must have been Richie.”
In spite of herself, Kate couldn’t repress a shiver. Seeing it, Max nodded. “Calvin was an amateur compared to Jasper.” He saw her expression. “What?”
“I had a case this summer. A guy got killed in the Park. Turned out he was a baby raper, on the run from the law. We had the hell of time identifying him. He didn’t have a driver’s license or a pilot’s license or a fishing license or a hunting license. He didn’t have a social security number. There was a screwup with the fingerprints, and we didn’t know until way late in the game that he’d done time, let alone been in the army. Hell, he never even applied for a permanent fund dividend check. By then, I knew we had a vic who didn’t want to be found. I never did know who he didn’t want to be found by.”
“So?”
She met his eyes and said softly, “One of his victims was a Bannister girl.”
Max pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. “Yeah,” he said finally, “I’d have run, too.”
Kate digested all this new information for a moment. “Like father like son, you think?”
“Erland?” It was Max’s turn to think. “I don’t know. I never heard so, but I never heard different, either.”
“He could be riding on his father’s reputation.”
“It would be enough for a while,” Max said, “but not forever. Sooner or later, he’d have to make his own bones.” He drained his glass. “You said Victoria was fighting with him and her father back then, in public, something to do with the family business.”
“They were laying off union employees and replacing them with contract hires. Victoria thought that sucked and said so, right out in front of God and everybody.”
“Reason enough to get you killed, in Jasper’s book,” Max said.
“But his own grandson?”
Max looked exasperated. “Are you deaf, girl? Have you been listening at all to what I been telling you?” He fixed Kate with a stern look. “Two things. One, Victoria could have threatened to expose whatever shenanigans were going on over to the family firm, and her house could have been burned down as a warning, and the boy’s death would’ve been collateral damage. After all, Victoria and Charlotte were gone, the arsonist could have thought the house was empty.”
Kate nodded.
“Two, the arson could have been either an attempt on or a warning to Eugene, not Victoria. He might have been gone, but his kids were still living there, weren’t they?”
Kate’s mouth opened and closed once or twice. Max regarded her, not without satisfaction. “Didn’t think of that, did you now, missie?”
Kate rubbed her forehead. “Puck,” she said, and saw Max wince. Like he said, he came from another time, when women didn’t use those words. “Sorry, Max,” she said, and then she swore again. “Sorry, Max, I almost forgot,” she said, pulling out the photograph of the young woman she’d found in Eugene Muravieff’s cabin. “Do you know who this is?”
Max picked up the photo and smacked his lips. “Oh my yes,” he
said, “I surely do. There wasn’t a red-blooded all-American boy in Anchorage at that time who didn’t. Talk about a honey pot. Mmmm, mmmm.”
“Does the honey pot have a name?” Kate said.
“Sure,” Max said. “Wanda Gajewski.”
“Wanda Gajewski,” Kate said. She took the picture back and looked at it. “Wanda Gajewski, Ernie Gajewski’s sister?”
“That’s the one. She went to high school with Victoria’s kids. Was a classmate of William’s, I think.”
“Okay,” Kate said, “what we have here in policespeak is a clue. Ernie Gajewski is the guy who bought Eugene Muravieff’s set-net permit.”
“Really,” Max said. “That’s interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because Ernie Gajewski drowned off Augustine Island when he was just a boy, swimming from the shore to his dad’s seiner.”
Kate stared at him. After a moment, she said, “And this case just keeps on getting more and more fun. Why would Eugene have a picture of Wanda, his oldest son’s teenage classmate?”
Max drained his martini with the air of a man who knew that was all he was going to get, and grinned his evil grin at the woman sitting across from him. “Because Wanda Gajewski was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She was the reason Victoria divorced Eugene.”
Kate called Brendan and in five minutes had an address to go with Wanda’s name. “She’s got a phone number,” Brendan told her, “but it’s unlisted.” He gave her that, too. “Anything you want to tell me, Kate?”
“I’m wading through a pit of snakes and they all bite.”
“Okay, not loving the visual,” Brendan said.
“Not loving the reality, either,” Kate said, and hung up.
Wanda’s house was in Windermere, the split-level four-bedroom, two-bathroom floor plan so dear to the hearts of developers during the sixties and seventies. Kate pulled into the driveway and knocked on the door. No answer.
She went next door, same floor plan, different paint job. No answer. Same thing with the house on the other side. It was a sad day when the women had to go to work outside the home and not be there when Kate needed answers to questions.
She went across the street to a third house, this one with the biggest Winnebago Kate had ever seen parked in the driveway, and struck gold. The door opened at the first knock. A plump woman with thick white hair cut short stood there, dressed in brightly flowered polyester trimmed with plaid braid in rainbow hues. Kate blinked involuntarily, and the woman chuckled. “Pretty, aren’t I? ‘Dayglo Diane,’ that’s what my friends call me. But we need something to brighten up these long, dreary arctic winters, don’t you think?”
It was only August, but Dayglo Diane wasn’t really wanting an answer. “Come in, come in,” she said, sweeping Kate irresistibly inside, “you, too, little doggy,” and she patted Mutt on the head. Mutt didn’t quite know how to take that and looked at Kate with a quizzical eye.
“I saw you knocking at Wanda’s house. Are you looking for her? She’s probably at work you know. Would you like some iced tea? I always think there’s nothing like iced tea on a hot day, with lashings of lemon and of course simply packed with ice, don’t you?”
Kate found herself ensconced on a wide couch in front of an entertainment center bristling with electronics. There were four remotes on the coffee table. Where was Bobby Clark when she needed him? Mutt was sitting next to her, one ear cocked toward the kitchen, as if to say, She’s still in there. There’s still time to get out of here.
But then their hostess bustled in, carrying a large and extremely well-laden tray and set it down on the coffee table. “Sugar? No? Not even phony sugar? Imagine that. Here’s a nice biscuit for you, doggy.” Mutt took the treat gingerly in her teeth, lips drawn back as far as they would go so as not to be contaminated. A snack for Mutt meant something with fur or feathers, something usually going in the opposite direction as fast as possible, something requiring pursuit. Except for Bernie’s beef jerky, Mutt didn’t hold with processed pasteurized anything, especially if it contained the hair and bones and hooves of any animal she had not caught and killed herself. She probably wanted Kate’s case solved even more than Kate did, because when it was solved, they could both head back to the Park, where nobody yelled at you for chasing the geese or harassing the moose. She held the biscuit in her teeth, looking pained, until Kate took pity and told her hostess, who had yet to introduce herself by her full name, that Mutt was allergic to dog biscuits.
“Oh my, how simply dreadful, I’ve never heard of such a thing, well, what can I get her, let me just—”
“She’s fine,” Kate said, staying her hostess with one hand on her arm. “I—”
“—get you some cookies, I just got back from driving the Alcan up from Grand Junction, that’s in Colorado you know, and whenever I come through Canada I lay in supplies, you know you can’t get Dare cookies in this country and they are just the absolute best cookies there are, try one of these Maple Leafs, you’re just going to love them—”
“—was wondering—”
“—and then of course I have to lay in a supply of two-two-two’s—you know those marvelous aspirin they have there that that silly old FDA won’t let us have in this country, the Canadians are so much saner about drugs than we are, I’ve thought about immigrating, really I have, did you know that the Yukon is actively soliciting immigrants, I’ve half a mind to fill out an application, the reason I know about this I came back by way of Dawson City and there were advertisements in all the papers asking for qualified people to become Canadians, and I’m sure I’d qualify, after all Mr. Hockness left me quite well off, dear man, and of course I came home by way of the Top of the World Highway, have you ever driven that road my dear, well you ought to. There is nothing between you and the sky—”
“—if you know—”
“—and though you wouldn’t think to look at it my Winnebago can handle some pretty rough road, so we just turned right at the Y and went up to Eagle, what a charming little town, if you’ve never been you should really go, although I couldn’t believe it when I saw the Holland America bus in front of me, my dear, the road, there are places when I swear if you went off it you’d fall five hundred feet before you fell into the Fortymile River—”
“—Wanda Gajewski,” Kate said loudly, because it seemed the only way to be heard.
“Of course I know Wanda, dear, I told you, I saw you knocking on Wanda’s door, and then of course I saw you knocking on Genevieve’s door and then Margaret’s door but of course they both work during the day, all three of them do, they’re never home hardly ever at night either, sometimes I wonder why they own houses at all, but Margaret owns her own flower shop and makes a good living from it, too, and you’ll never guess but Genevieve is a police officer, can you imagine, how adventurous of her! And Wanda certainly is old enough to retire why she’s as old as I am, although you’d never know it to look at her, she’s been dyeing her hair for the last thirty years, even if she stopped dating after the trial although I must say she’s kept her figure marvelously well—”
“After the trial,” Kate, desperate and her mouth full of Dare Maple Leaf Cream, said thickly. “After the trial, she stopped dyeing her hair?”
“Oh, you know about the trial, my, what a dreadful thing, Wanda’s parents were good friends of mine and they were so mortified, all those reporters all over the place and people taking your picture”—the sparkle in her hostess’s eye told Kate that she hadn’t minded the attention—“of course they all wanted to know all about Wanda and I couldn’t lie, could I, no, certainly not, I was raised to tell the strict truth or my mother would know the reason why and my father would get out the belt, ours was a very traditional home, my dear, you look Native, are you Native, you must be with that beautiful black hair, it just shines like coal in the sun, it was the first thing I noticed when I looked out the window and saw you on Wanda’s doorstep, but why don’t you let it grow, dearie, her hair is a woman’s cr
owning glory you know, it used to be we’d keep it up during the day and then let it down at night when only our husbands would see it, that’s the way it should be but you young girls nowadays have your own ideas about things and I suppose—”
“Wanda has a job?” Kate said. It was rude, but there really wasn’t any other choice. She wasn’t eating any more cookies, either, she didn’t care if this woman stocked every one that Dare made.
“Of course she does, and a good one, too, with the state, you know, down at the new courthouse, in fact I think she might be clerking for a judge now, if I understood her—wait, where are you going, but you haven’t finished your tea!”
Wanda Gajewski was sitting behind a large desk in a plush foyer. “Yes?” she said pleasantly when Kate came in.
“Wanda Gajewski?” Kate said.
“Yes. May I help you?”
“My name is Kate Shugak. I’m a private investigator, hired by Charlotte Muravieff to look into the death of her brother William.”
“But he was—”
“Killed thirty-one years ago,” Kate said, “yes, I know.”
“And Charlotte is dead; she was killed by a hit-and-run driver—”
“Day before yesterday, yes, I know that, too.”
“And Charlotte’s mother was convicted of setting the fire that killed her son,” Wanda said, her fine-skinned broad brow wrinkled.
Dayglo Diane was right, Wanda Gajewski had kept her figure marvelously well. Kate now understood completely the reverence in Max’s tone when he’d spoken of her. Her spectacular breasts were displayed to advantage in a blue twin-sweater set, and her equally spectacular long legs in a pencil-slim black calf-length skirt. Their length was enhanced by the three-inch heels she wore. It made Kate’s feet hurt just to look at them.
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