“It’s mine,” Patton said, “it’s my money, and it’s going to pay the doctors for my little girl. You can’t touch it!”
“Of course I can’t. It’s your money, just like you said. So long as the Internal Revenue Service gets their share, they don’t really care. Have you reported this money as income yet, Ralph?”
“It’s my money!” Patton shouted, spraying Kate with spittle. “You can’t touch it. I earned that for our baby!”
Jim slammed him back into his seat again and Kate pounced. “Who paid you, Ralph? Who paid you to crash your pickup into Charlotte’s car as she was coming home Tuesday night?”
“What the hell is going on here?” a voice said from the doorway.
Kate and Jim looked up, to see a man in a three-piece suit that screamed attorney standing in the doorway.
“Mr. Dial,” Patton said, shoving his chair over in his hurry to get to his feet, “I didn’t say anything, sir, I promise!”
“You don’t have to talk to these people, Ralph,” Dial said. He looked first at Kate and then at Jim. “I’m Joseph Dial, Mr. Patton’s attorney. And you are leaving. Now.” He looked at Sam. “I understand you’re responsible for this meeting. I’ll be lodging a complaint with the governor’s office in the morning.”
Five minutes later, they were outside the front door. “I’m sorry as hell, Sam,” Jim said.
Sam didn’t appear to be upset. “The worst they can do is force me into early retirement, and I’ve already got my thirty in. Don’t sweat it, Jim. I owed you more than one.”
“Thanks,” Jim said, and they shook hands.
“Where now?” Jim said as he and Kate got into the Subaru.
“Max,” Kate said, and started the engine.
“Tell me about William,” Kate said to Max.
Max looked at Jim, standing at Kate’s shoulder. “You the boyfriend?”
“No,” Jim said.
Max surveyed him with palpable contempt. “If you’d said yes, I’d’ve called you a lucky bastard. Now I’m just gonna call you a stupid one.” He looked back at Kate. “You want to know about William Muravieff.”
“Yes,” Kate said.
“He was only seventeen, Kate.”
“I know. Tell me anyway. Everything you can remember.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re done.”
Max made a production out of looking at his watch. “About lunchtime, I’m thinking.”
“You’re nothing but a serial opportunist,” Kate said, and that was how Jim Chopin found himself seated at a table at Simon & Seafort’s, in the middle of a gaggle of tourists in purple polyester and straw hats, with a few shysters in three-piecers mixed in and reminding him uncomfortably of Dial. The chatter was deafening, but the food was great, and the view went south all the way to Redoubt.
Max gave the drinks menu prolonged, concentrated study and then ordered a Lemon Drop. “No martini?” Kate said, and with an airy wave, Max said, “I like to broaden my experience from time to time,” and then he ruined the comment with his nasty old man’s grin. Kate laughed, and Jim, so help him, resented the laugh—or rather, the fact that Max had elicited the laugh and not him. The man had to be ninety-three, for crissake.
Besides which, Jim knew he had no serious relationship with Kate Shugak. They were acquaintances merely. Acquaintances who were at present having most excellent sex, but that was simply a matter of propinquity, born out of the circumstances of her life being in danger because of the case she was working on. Didn’t matter a damn to him who made her laugh.
He’d like to see Morris “Max” Maxwell, Sergeant, Alaska State Troopers (Retired), protect Kate from a crazed killer.
Mercifully, at that moment his steak sandwich arrived and he used it to keep his mouth full.
Max’s second drink appeared as he was draining his first. “How do you do that?” Kate said.
“Do what?” Max said, smacking his lips.
“Never mind,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re going to be this case’s highest-paid informant, I’ll say that for you.”
His bristly cheeks creased. “Have to spend it on someone.”
“Okay, old man, earn your keep. Tell me about William Muravieff.”
Max shrugged. “Okay, but it ain’t going to do you no good. He was a seventeen-year-old boy. Didn’t have no record, not so much as a speeding ticket. He majored in basketball and only kept his grades high enough so he could stay on the team.”
“Was he good?”
“At b-ball?” Max shrugged again. “Nothing flashy. Had a dependable free throw. Didn’t foul except when the coach told him to.”
“How do you remember all this after thirty years?” Jim said. At Max’s glare, he added, “I can barely remember my own games.”
“You played b-ball?” Kate said, diverted. “I didn’t know that.”
“I was six feet tall by the time I was twelve,” he said. “I was recruited in grade school.”
Max, still affronted by Jim’s challenging his memory, said crushingly, “Tall ain’t everything. Hell, Butch Lincoln ran rings around players twice his size when he played for UAA.”
Kate jumped in to head off the pissing contest at the pass. Testosterone didn’t wane with age, evidently. “What else did William do besides play b-ball well?”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “What are you looking for?”
“She was wondering if he ever had a summer job working for his uncle,” Jim said.
Max’s expression told Jim that he was not allowed to speak. Jim, whose sense of humor was strong and broad, would normally have grinned. Jim, whose sense of humor was being seriously tested, found himself getting annoyed at how Kate Shugak hung on this old fart’s every word.
The old fart left off glaring at Jim long enough to look at Kate. “What are you thinking, Shugak? That the kid worked for Erland Bannister long enough to stumble across something bent with his uncle’s company?”
“It’s a theory.”
“Have you talked to Victoria since she’s been out?”
Kate looked glum. “I can’t find her.”
Max snorted. “You’re not much of a detective, are you, girl?”
Kate sat up. “You know where she is?”
“I might.”
Jim started to say something. Kate shut him up with a single searing look. Max saw it and said, “Guess we know who’s top dog now, hey, boy?” He looked back at Kate. “Why don’t you go talk to his girlfriend, you want to know about William.”
18
Wanda Gajewski opened the door. She looked more resigned than surprised. “I knew you’d be back sooner or later.”
It took a little of the wind out of Kate’s sails, but not all of it. She walked in without invitation, followed by Jim Chopin. It didn’t help her temper that Wanda and Jim took one look at each other and formed a mutual admiration society. “I need you to tell me about William Muravieff.”
Wanda closed the door behind her. “Would you like some coffee?” Without waiting for an answer, she disappeared into the kitchen while Kate paced up and down.
“Relax, Kate,” Jim said.
“Relax, my ass,” she said.
Wanda’s home was as architecturally unremarkable inside as it was outside. The living room carpet was new, its color a horribly dull dusty rose. The furniture was a collection of modular units upholstered in some nubby fabric in a brown-and-gold weave that would hide dirt well. The walls were livened by large paintings of wildflowers, oil on canvas. They looked as if Wanda had bought them in bulk for a discount from the artist at a street fair, on the last day of the fair, just as the artist had been packing up to go home and long after all the best paintings had been sold. They were bright, Kate would give them that. One of them might even have looked like a lupine, if she squinted. She winced away from it and encountered the very blue eye of a Siamese cat, curled into a perfect circle in the dimpled seat of a chair. It hissed at Kate.
; “Same backatcha,” Kate said, hurt. Usually animals liked her. Good thing they’d left Mutt in the car.
Wanda came into the room carrying a tray. Kate had seen more trays on this case than in the rest of her life combined. She didn’t own one herself, not even before the fire. She wondered if perhaps she should buy one with which to serve guests coffee when they came to visit her brand-new home.
“I need to know everything you can tell me about William,” she said.
“I thought I already had,” Wanda said, pouring the coffee.
“No, you told me everything about Eugene, William’s father, for whom you dumped William when you were in high school.”
The Siamese took exception to Kate’s tone.
“Come on, you,” Wanda said, rising to scoop up the cat. “You know you want to get hair all over my pillow anyway.” She carried the cat into another room. “Sorry about that,” she said when she reappeared. “Wilma’s a little overprotective.”
Wanda and her cat, Wilma. Kate put the mug down on the coffee table, a rectangular wicker basket with a sheet of glass cut to fit the top. She rubbed her face and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands dangling. “I’m trying to figure out who killed your lover, not to mention his son and his daughter, too. Aren’t you the least bit interested in helping me do that?”
Wanda met her eyes steadily. “William’s mother was convicted of the crime. The police told me that Eugene was the victim of a home invasion. The paper said that Charlotte was killed by a hit-and-run driver. It’s awful that so much tragedy has happened to one family, but it’s not evidence of conspiracy to commit serial murders.”
Jim looked like he might applaud.
“They just let Victoria out,” Kate said.
“Yes.”
“They pardoned her for the crime of killing her son.”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“It’s been thirty years. She’s worked hard and made a difference during that time. She’s paid for her crime.”
“That’s big of you,” Kate said. “Talk to me about William.”
There was a brief silence. Wanda took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She sat back and looked at Kate. “He was one of the good guys,” she said, her eyes sad. “He never said he’d do something and then didn’t deliver, didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep. He was kind and honest and trustworthy. He wasn’t a saint, you understand. He was just a good boy who never got to be a good man.”
“Did you believe Victoria had done it?”
Wanda shook her head again. “I didn’t know her that long or that well, but from what I did see, it seemed insane to me that anyone could possibly accuse her of such a thing. But the police seemed so sure, and then the trial…When she was convicted, I thought she must have done it, after all. How could a jury find her guilty otherwise?”
“And now?”
“And now I don’t know,” Wanda said. She looked exhausted suddenly, and less beautiful. Again, Kate imagined a younger Wanda and the stir she must have created at Anchorage High School. Even Max had vivid memories of the young Wanda. What had he called her? A honey pot? “Wanda, before you met William, did—”
“That’s enough,” Victoria Bannister Muravieff said, appearing in the hallway.
Kate’s mouth dropped open, and she suffered a momentary flashback to Max’s smug expression “I might,” he’d said when she asked him if he knew where Victoria was. Might, my ass, she thought to herself. “Ms. Muravieff,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Victoria came forward to take a seat next to Wanda. She took Wanda’s hand in both of her own. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Wanda said, managing a watery smile.
Victoria looked back at Kate. “Why are you here? What else can you possibly need to know?”
Kate looked at Victoria, every regal inch the matriarch of a family whose roots went deep into Alaska’s history. Truth be told, it was all that mattered to either of them. “What if I told you,” Kate said slowly, “what if I said I’m starting to think that the person who died in that house fire thirty-one years ago was the target all along?”
Victoria snorted. “Today’s big surprise. I already told you, I killed them both, or I tried to. I was broke,” she said stonily, “and I needed the money. Now I want you to leave this house, please.”
She didn’t rise to see Kate out. The last Kate saw of them was Victoria putting an arm around Wanda’s shoulders, and tears running down Wanda’s face as she let her head fall on Victoria’s shoulder.
Jim looked back at Wanda’s house as they drove away. “How the hell did she wind up there?”
“Wanda works for Judge Berlin. She would have known about the release, and made sure she was waiting when Victoria got out.”
“That wasn’t what I meant. What the hell is Victoria Bannister Muravieff doing staying in the same house with her husband’s mistress? My God, thirty years ago this was an eighteen-year-old who’d had an affair with her husband. You’d think Victoria would want to scratch Wanda’s eyes out.”
“They both loved William,” Kate said. “And they both loved Eugene. I suppose it’s natural that they would become—” She hesitated.
“Friends?” Jim said.
Kate shrugged. “At least they’ll both have someone to talk to about their lost men.”
“Sweet Jesus. I will never understand women.”
She summoned up a smile, but it was lacking its customary provocation. “You’re not supposed to.”
“Good to know.”
The gold nugget numerals on the Alaska map clock read 5:00 P.M. when they walked in the door, and Jim reached for the remote and clicked on the television. He saw Kate’s glance and said, “Sorry. It’s like a nervous twitch when I’m in Anchorage,” then made as if to turn it off again.
“Wait,” she said, staring at the screen.
Ralph Patton was shown leaving the courthouse, his arm draped protectively around a woman holding a baby, shielding them from the television cameras. He looked angry, and immensely relieved.
“—in what the judge called a tragic and inexcusable miscarriage of justice, it appears that the arresting officer did not read Mr. Patton his rights when Mr. Patton was taken into custody. Further, in an exclusive interview with this reporter, Patton’s attorney, Joseph Dial, inferred that there were other and multiple irregularities to do with Patton’s arrest, culminating in the arraigning judge’s decision this afternoon to allow Patton to go free on bail.”
A clip of Joseph Dial, talking head. “It’s hard to imagine such incompetence in this day and age,” he said into the camera. “We have one of the finest police forces in the nation, well educated, well paid, and virtually free of corruption. But because of the victim’s prominence in the community and the pressure on the Anchorage Police Department to hold someone accountable for the crime as soon as possible, there was a rush to judgment. My client is innocent, and I fully expect all charges against him to be dropped in the next twenty-four hours.”
The scene shifted back to the anchor, who offered a brief recap of Charlotte’s death, with a mention of Victoria’s release, and moved on to the next story. Jim turned off the television.
Kate stared at the blank screen and saw Max’s face as he was recounting the story of Jasper Bannister and Richie Constantine and Calvin Esterhaus: “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. So we let him go.”
She went to the phone and dialed.
“Erland Bannister, please,” she said when someone answered.
“Kate?” Jim said ominously.
“May I ask who is calling?”
“Kate Shugak.”
“One moment, please.”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Shugak?” Jim said.
“Kate,” Erland’s v
oice came smoothly on the line. “How nice to hear from you.”
“Hello, Erland. I just wanted to call and thank you for the invitation to your party. I had a lovely time.”
Kate felt the exhale of breath on the back of her neck.
“Why, thank you,” Erland said, “it was my pleasure entirely.”
“In fact, I’d like to take you out to dinner as a way of showing my gratitude.”
He almost purred. “You mean we will see each other again after all? How nice. When and where?”
“Are you free this evening?”
“I’ll get free for you, Kate.”
Kate laughed, as low and as husky as she could make it. “Great. What’s your favorite restaurant?”
“It’s a beautiful afternoon. Let’s try the Crow’s Nest for the view. Do you know it?”
“I’ll find it,” Kate said.
“Seven o’clock? I’ll make a reservation.”
“Perfect,” Kate said, and hung up.
“Nice outfit,” Erland said, giving her the once-over. “I thought so the other night, too.”
“It’s the only dress-up outfit I’ve got,” Kate said, smiling.
“Stick with what works,” Erland said.
“I generally do.”
The waiter appeared and Erland ordered wine. Kate let him pour her a glass, touched the rim to her lips, and smiled at him over it.
They were at the top of the Hotel Captain Cook, with a view all the way down Cook Inlet to Redoubt, and Kate thought she might be able to see the peak of Iliamna, too. Their table was set with white linen, silver, and fine china.
Kate let Erland order for both of them, sitting back in her chair, and thought that there wasn’t a whole lot of difference between a man and a bull moose in rut. The moose had a bonus, the antlers with which he could fight off pretenders to his harem, but Erland’s competence with a menu and a waiter could not be denied.
He finished and reached for his wine. “A toast?”
She raised her glass. “To what?”
He touched his glass to hers. “How about to the beginning of a beautiful relationship?”
A Taint in the Blood Page 25