A Taint in the Blood

by Dana Stabenow

  “Axenia,” Kate said. “I need a favor.”

  Inside, the house boasted tastefully chosen and perfectly matched furniture ensembles, a hardwood floor polished to a painful shine, and paint that was never allowed to become smudged. Plastic toys in primary colors were carefully corralled in a toy box in one corner, a pile of glossy magazines was neatly stacked on a teak coffee table, and there were no books to be seen, but that was okay, because there were no reading lamps, either, only wrought-iron torchères in all four corners, whose job appeared to be to light the ceiling above them. While waiting for the water to boil for coffee, Axenia and the toddler took Kate on a tour of the College Gate split-level house, which included four bedrooms, three baths, a wooden deck that took up most of the backyard, and a room converted into a theater that seated twenty. “A lot of Lew’s clients are pretty labor-intensive,” Axenia said. “We entertain a great deal, cocktail parties, dinners.”

  Kate managed to restrain a shudder. “Where is Lew?”

  “In D.C., doing some lobbying for UCo.”

  Axenia put the baby down for a nap and served Kate coffee and Oreos on the beveled-glass table in the kitchen. “You look good, Axenia,” Kate said.

  Axenia, less defensive and more self-assured than Kate had ever seen her, inclined her head in acknowledgment. Her hair was styled in the latest do and her clothes were the latest in casual chic, no doubt fresh off the rack at Nordstrom, and this would be Nordstrom in Seattle, where Axenia would fly to do her shopping, probably half a dozen times a year. “You look well, too,” she said. “Have you been in town for long?”

  “A few days. I’m working on a case.”

  “Really? What kind?”

  “A murder,” Kate said, “thirty-one years ago.”

  Axenia raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t they catch him?”

  “Her,” Kate said, “they caught her, and she’s in jail, but there seem to be some unanswered questions. I was wondering if you knew anybody in the Muravieff family. They’re sort of connected to this case.”

  “Of course,” Axenia said, “Nadine and I are good friends.”

  “Nadine.” Kate passed in review a mental flip chart of what she knew of the Muravieff family tree. “Would that be Celia’s daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  Celia was Eugene’s sister. Nadine was Eugene’s niece. “Could you ask Nadine to introduce me to her mother?”

  Axenia didn’t ask why; she just reached for the phone and dialed a number from memory. The call took less than two minutes. She hung up and said to Kate, “Celia lives with Nadine. You can go over there right now.”

  “Thanks, Axenia.”

  Axenia inclined her head again. “No problem.”

  “You’ve got a cute baby there,” Kate said on the doorstep.

  “Thank you,” Axenia said, and closed the door.

  Kate stared at it for a few moments.

  Nope, nothing in the way of a reconciliation going on there anytime soon.

  Eugene’s niece Nadine lived west of Axenia, in Roger’s Park. Nadine’s house wasn’t as large as Axenia’s and it looked a lot more user-friendly, but then Kate told herself not to be so judgmental. Axenia had been well on her way to being a drunk in the Park. In Anchorage, she was sober and a mother and one hell of a housekeeper. Kate told herself she really had to learn how to let go.

  “Kate Shugak?”

  Her reverie interrupted, she looked up to see a short, slight woman regarding her.

  “Yes,” Kate said.

  “Ekaterina’s granddaughter?”

  Kate stifled a sigh and nodded, wondering where her own identity had gone.

  The woman had a compact, neat-featured face, well-proportioned, a face whose chief characteristic was its calm, a face it was hard to imagine angry, which would make it all that more formidable when it was. Her eyes were dark and direct and her hair a styled gray cap. She wore dark blue slacks and a white long-sleeved button-down shirt, tucked under a slim brown leather belt that exactly matched her penny loafers.

  In the Park, Kate would have addressed Celia as “Auntie,” an honorific demonstrating the respect due an elder from a younger person. The word did not rise to her lips this afternoon. Maybe it was the fact that Celia was wearing her shoes inside, not the general practice in Alaska, as it tracked in snow and mud. Whatever the reason, Kate found herself saying formally, “Thank you for speaking with me this afternoon, Ms.—?”

  “It’s Herrick, and it’s Mrs.” She indicated a chair. Kate sat. Celia sat opposite her and folded her hands. A younger woman came bustling in with a tray with coffee and a plate of homemade cookies. At least it wasn’t Oreos again.

  “My daughter, Nadine,” Celia said. “Kate Shugak.”

  Nadine filled the cups and made as if to sit next to Celia. Some signal passed between them that Kate did not see. Nadine stood back up as if she’d been attached to a wire that Celia was pulling, and said brightly, “Those kids sound like they’re killing each other. I’d better check on them.” She bustled out again.

  Celia poured coffee. “I was sorry to hear about your grandmother. She was a strong woman, a strong leader, and very wise.” Celia allowed herself a small smile. “It doesn’t always happen that the two are able to coexist in one personality.” Her diction was smooth and uninflected, with no trace of ancestral gutturals. Celia was old enough to have been sent away to school, to Mount Edgecumbe in Sitka or even as far away as Chemawa in Oregon, where in that day and time she would have been punished severely for speaking in her Native tongue.

  Of course, the Muravieffs had been members of the first tribes to be impacted by the intrusion of Western civilization, as witness their Russian-derived last name. They’d had a couple of centuries to learn how to speak English. “Thank you,” Kate said, accepting the coffee. She sipped it, scalding her tongue. “Your own family has produced some fine leaders itself. Harold Muravieff was one of the founding members of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, was he not?” She, too, could be formal when there was need.

  Celia inclined her head, accepting the implied tribute as her family’s due.

  Kate took a chance. “And I believe I remember my grandmother speaking of Mary Muravieff, your mother, who worked with her on the language of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.”

  Celia inclined her head again. Emaa and Mary had hated each other with a fervor that had passed into legend long before either woman was dead. Kate had never known the source of that hatred. When she was younger, she had tried to find out, but when she got older, she had come to realize that some things were better left to die a natural death. She still wondered, though, and it had been a risk mentioning Mary to Celia. Still, Mary had been a well-known Alaska Native leader in her own right, and deserved mention. She also provided a neat segue into Kate’s next comment. “Eugene was her son, I believe.”

  Celia’s expression didn’t change. “He was.”

  “And your brother.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” Both women sipped coffee. “I wonder,” Kate said, displaying as humble a facade as she could manufacture, “I wonder, Mrs. Herrick, if you would mind talking to me about your brother, Eugene.”

  “What do you want to know about him?” Celia said, still calm.

  “I have been employed to look into the matter of his wife’s criminal case.”

  Celia’s composed face displayed nothing but polite interest. “Indeed. By whom, may I ask?”

  “Her daughter.”

  “Charlotte?”

  “Yes, Charlotte.”

  Celia reached for the newspaper that was sitting on the table next to the serving tray. “Didn’t I read that Charlotte had been killed by a hit-and-run driver?”

  “You did, yes,” Kate said.

  “And you are continuing to look into this matter?”

  “Yes. Charlotte was concerned that her mother had been wrongly imprisoned.”

  “I see.” Celia put down her cup and gave Kate a kind and c
arefully limited smile. “I haven’t seen my brother in thirty years. I don’t know what I could tell you about him.”

  “Were you at Victoria’s trial?”

  Celia shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

  “He did not testify at her trial.”

  “He was not called.”

  “Did he tell you if he thought Victoria had set that fire?”

  “On the contrary. He was sure that she had not.”

  “Did he, perhaps, have any thoughts as to who might have?”

  “No.” Celia rose to her feet. “I’m sorry to cut this so short, but I have an engagement this evening. Was there anything else?”

  “Do you know where I might find your brother, Mrs. Herrick?”

  Celia looked Kate right in the eye and lied like the trooper she was. “No,” she said. “As I said before, I haven’t seen Eugene in over thirty years.”

  And you know he’s dead and can’t contradict you, Kate thought.

  She wondered how much of Celia’s stonewalling had to do with Emaa and Mary’s relationship. She wondered if perhaps it had more to do with who had really set fire to Victoria’s house, and why.

  As seemed to be this case’s increasingly annoying habit, she had no answers to either question.

  It had all seemed so simple on Monday, Kate thought as she drove back to the town house. The facts were all right there in the police report and the trial transcript. Someone, with malice aforethought, had splashed gasoline around Victoria Bannister’s house and set it on fire. There, those were cold, hard facts that no one could deny.

  The gasoline had come from the tank of Victoria’s car, as proven by an extensive chemical analysis by the police lab and again by an independent testing lab hired by the defendant. There was another fact.

  There were no signs of forced entry to the house, and Oliver and Charlotte had both testified that their mother was very conscientious about keeping the doors and windows locked. A third fact.

  The fire had resulted in the death of William Muravieff, seventeen, by smoke inhalation, and in the injury of Oliver Muravieff. Fourth and fifth facts.

  Victoria Bannister Muravieff had taken out substantial life-insurance policies on all three of her children just weeks before. Another fact.

  Victoria Bannister Muravieff had refused to take the stand.

  That, in Kate’s opinion, was the most interesting fact of all. The peripheral stuff about Victoria’s marriage and divorce and Eugene’s whereabouts the night of the murder were just the defense trying to cast reasonable doubt. Cowell had been throwing up as much of a smoke screen as he could muster to deflect the jury’s attention from the facts.

  Why hadn’t Victoria testified? Never mind the Fifth Amendment, juries always wanted to hear from those accused, wanted to hear them say they didn’t do it, wanted to test the veracity of their testimony in person. There were gigantic traps laid for those who did, of course, and it was every criminal attorney’s job to dissuade his defendant from getting up on that stand and falling into them, but with a case as weak as Cowell’s had been, there would have been nothing to lose and everything to gain, especially if Victoria’s testimony had been convincing.

  Kate, thinking of her two interviews with Victoria Bannister Muravieff, that pillar of community rectitude, the good daughter, the good wife, the good mother (except for the little matter of filicide), and now the good inmate, thought that it would have been.

  And then she thought, What if Victoria had stayed off the stand not because she didn’t want to testify against herself but because she was afraid she would be asked questions about something else, something that had nothing to do with the murder?

  She got back to the town house at 9:15 P.M., to find Jim Chopin pacing up and down the sidewalk. He didn’t look happy. “Where the hell have you been, Shugak? I’ve been checking in since I got out of court. I nearly put out an APB! Get down, damn it!” This last to Mutt, who had greeted him in her usual exuberant fashion. After being addressed in this ungentlemanly fashion, she dropped to all fours and slunk past him, the picture of dejection.

  “I’ve been chasing my tail all day,” she said. “Did you get him?”

  “Jury was out for seven minutes, guilty on all counts, and who gives a shit? Chasing your tail how, and why the hell didn’t you call? And how the hell am I supposed to watch your back when I can’t find it anywhere!”

  “Congratulations,” she said, leading the way into the kitchen. “Want a beer to wet the head of the newly convicted?”

  “You have beer?”

  “I stopped at the store on my way home.” She uncapped a bottle of Alaskan Amber and poured herself a glass of cranberry juice.

  Mutt, careful to keep herself within Jim’s range of vision, sidled into the kitchen, her body language devoted to broadcasting how severely her heart had been broken by her idol.

  Jim took the beer ungraciously and stamped into the living room, from whence the sound of the television soon followed, turned up probably a tad bit more than necessary. Mutt followed. After a few moments, Kate heard Jim’s voice say, “Oh for chrissake sake, dog, get your butt over here!” and there was a joyous bark, the scrabble of toenails on wood, a loud thump, and an even louder groan.

  Kate’s stomach growled. She sliced a ring of Polish sausage into a jambalaya mix, brought it all to a boil, reduced the heat to low, and covered it to simmer for twenty-five minutes.

  She walked into the living room, to find Jim barely visible behind a lapful of Mutt. The easy chair must have been straining in every joint, but Jim seemed a little calmer. They were both watching the end of Law and Order. Jim looked up. “Find out anything new today?”

  She sat down on the couch and propped her feet on the coffee table. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, Jim. Maybe Brendan’s right. Maybe I should just walk away.”

  “Brendan?” Jim said, shoving Mutt off his lap. Mutt gave him a look of burning reproach and padded over to sprawl out on the hearth. Made of dark green slate, it was the coolest surface in the house that Mutt could find to sleep on.

  “He agrees there’s something bent about Victoria’s case, but he doesn’t think there’s any point in pursuing it. I haven’t unearthed any evidence about the actual case, now, have I?”

  Jim was obviously torn between a reluctance to agree to anything said by a rival for Kate’s affections and his inclination that Brendan was right. After a brief inner struggle, he said, “Were you thinking there was something else you could do? Some line of inquiry you’ve missed?”

  “Plus, although he’d never admit it, I think Brendan is a little intimidated by Erland Bannister being involved.”

  “‘Involved’?” Jim said.

  “Yeah, I was having coffee with Eugene Muravieff’s mistress and he saw us and came over to have a little chat.”

  “‘A little chat’? You had a little chat with Erland Bannister?”

  “What,” Kate said, amused, “big bad Erland scares you, too?”

  “Kate,” Jim said, pushing the footrest of his chair down so he could address her from an upright position, “out of the blue Erland Bannister invites you to a party at his house, and then he just happens to run into you downtown, where the two of you have a little chat? Erland Bannister, also known as Alaska’s kingmaker and all around super-duper utility political angel slash fat cat. I’d say this time Brendan’s right on the money.”

  Kate was grinning openly now. “You think I should get the hell out of Dodge, do you?”

  But he wasn’t listening. “Did you say Eugene Muravieff’s mistress?”

  But she heard a familiar name from the television and turned to look.

  There was Bruce Abbott, the governor’s gopher, doing a stand-up behind a podium with the state of Alaska’s seal on it. On his right stood the attorney general of the state of Alaska, a large man overflowing his three-piece pinstripe, and on his left the state DA for Anchorage, a bleached blonde in a gray two-piece. Abbo
tt wore a red tie, the attorney general a red handkerchief, and the DA a red scarf, indicating that they’d all graduated with honors from Television Spin 101.

  “—due to the stellar work Ms. Muravieff has performed in achieving a level of quality education for the inmates at Hiland Mountain Correctional Facility, and because he feels she has contributed substantially to the lowest rate of recidivism for a corrections facility in the state and one of the lowest rates in the nation, because Victoria Bannister Muravieff has set a standard for community service under the most difficult of conditions, with a selfless disregard for her own situation and a commitment to the rehabilitation of people the rest of us have given up on long ago, the governor has decided to commute her sentence to time served. And now I will take just a few questions. Yes, Mike.”

  “Bruce, is this action in response to the rumor that Victoria Muravieff has inoperable cancer?”

  Bruce looked reproving. “I don’t know where you got that information, Mike, but certainly not. Jill?”

  “Bruce, does the governor’s action have anything to do with the recent death of Charlotte’s daughter?”

  Bruce looked grave. “The governor’s heart goes out to the Bannister family in their time of grief and mourning. Nothing can replace the life that was so randomly, so carelessly, and so criminally taken, but we want to reassure the Bannisters and the Muravieffs that the perpetrator of this most heinous act will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Yes, Andy?”

  “Bruce, it’s well known that Erland Bannister, Victoria Muravieff’s brother, was a big supporter of the governor’s candidacy and subsequent election. Did—”

  Bruce look austere. “I know where you’re going with this, Andy, and I’m shocked that you would suggest for even a moment that this act was in the nature of a political debt paid. The governor made this decision on the merits of the case in question and on the character of the person named, nothing else. Yes, Sandy?”

  The scene cut away to an interview with Erland Bannister, who answered the questions put to him with an appropriately somber (demonstrating his grief at the death of his niece) but quietly joyous (demonstrating his happiness at the release of his sister) face. He was delighted that the state finally had a governor who could show mercy where it was due. Victoria had done extraordinary work during her incarceration, and Erland thought that even the judge who had sentenced her to life without parole would have agreed with the governor’s action today. Victoria had already been released and was lodged with family members, exactly where, the reporter would understand, Erland was disinclined to say.