A Taint in the Blood

8

Oliver kept her waiting in his outer office, during which she had ample time to admire the gray walls, the maroon carpet, the teak furniture, and the abstract art. She didn’t admire it, actually, but she had time to.

Emily didn’t come out to greet her. The receptionist, a woman in her late thirties who had artfully arranged hair and was wearing a trim black suit that must have cost most of three months’ salary, was seated at a large desk with a pile of what Kate instantly recognized as court documents. Occasionally, the phone would ring and the receptionist, whose nameplate announced her to be one Miss Belinda Bracey, would answer it in mellifluous tones. Every now and then, she would look at Kate and smile. Kate would smile back. Now and then, the sound of footsteps came from that part of the office suite at whose entrance Miss Bracey was standing guard, and the sound of voices in muted conversation. It went like that for fifteen minutes, until the outer door opened and Oliver Muravieff stepped into the room wearing a suit that cost even more than Miss Bracey’s. He had a slim cane, ebony, with brass fittings, which he leaned upon heavily. The brass was only marginally shinier than his shoes, which matched his suit perfectly. His thick black hair grew straight back from his forehead, ending at a recently trimmed line just above his collar.

Maybe Oliver Muravieff and Associates had a personal shopper on staff.

In spite of the window dressing, Muravieff brought the aura of a street fighter into the room with him. He was maybe five four, five five, and thick from the neck down. He worked out with weights, Kate would bet money on it, to such effect that his biceps pushed his arms out from his sides like an ape’s. Making up for the gimpy leg, Bobby Clark would say. Muravieff moved well, belying his bulk with purpose and strength, if not with grace, his step quick and firm, his movements deft and sure.

Instinctively, Kate slid forward on the couch and pulled her feet in so that her weight would be over them if she had to move fast. The movement caught the corner of Muravieff’s eye and he turned to look at her. His face was square and blunt-featured. He had a long nose with a flat bridge, heavy black brows, and deep-set brown eyes. His gaze was steady and assessing, and he was smart enough not to dismiss her on first sight, even if she was wearing jeans.

“This is Ms. Shugak, Mr. Muravieff,” Miss Bracey said in a low murmur, and dropped her voice even further to add, “Your four-thirty.”

“Your four-forty-five now,” Kate said, and smiled.

There was a brief silence. “Of course,” Muravieff said smoothly. “I’m Oliver Muravieff, Ms. Shugak.” He walked past the receptionist’s desk and opened a door in the wall. “Will you come with me to my office?”

Kate followed him through the door, down a hallway, and through an office with three women in it typing at computers, one of whom pursued him into his office with a document for his signature.

“Have a seat,” Muravieff said, nodding at the chair sitting on one side of a vast expanse of teak. He signed the document and shed his jacket, handing both to the woman. “May I offer you some coffee, Ms. Shugak?”

“Certainly,” Kate said. “Cream and sugar, please,” she said to the woman.

“Black,” Muravieff said. “Thanks, Nancy.”

Nancy went out, soft-footed. “I apologize for being so late,” Muravieff said. “I was held up in court.”

“That’s quite all right,” Kate said, and wondered at the sudden graciousness of her grammar.

“Shugak,” Muravieff said. “Any relation to Ekaterina?”

“Why, yes,” Kate said.

“I believe my mother may have known her.”

“So she tells me,” Kate said.

An awkward silence fell, broken by Nancy coming back with the coffee, served on a silver tray in porcelain cups and saucers, with a matching sugar bowl and creamer. Kate doctored her coffee, Muravieff didn’t, and they both settled back in their chairs. Muravieff barely sipped his before placing it to one side. “So, Ms. Shugak,” he said, “how many I help you?”

“Your sister, Charlotte, has hired me to look into your mother’s case.”

Muravieff’s expression didn’t change. “So Emily has informed me. It was not a wise decision on Charlotte’s part.”

“Why is that?”

“Because my mother has no case, Ms. Shugak. She was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.”

“Your sister believes otherwise,” Kate said. “She believes your mother was wrongly convicted, and she wants me to find the evidence necessary to prove it.”

His eyes went flat, and for the first time Kate saw the pit bull lurking inside every decent trial attorney. “Charlotte is mistaken. My mother even admitted doing it.”

“Your mother admitted her guilt?” Kate said.

Oliver nodded. “Yes.”

“When? There is no mention of it in the court records.”

“Privately, to us, after she was convicted and she knew lying wouldn’t keep her out of jail.”

“To us‘? Meaning Charlotte and yourself?”

“Yes. They took us in to say good-bye to her after the verdict. She told us then. So you can see for yourself, Ms. Shugak, my sister has sent you on a fool’s errand.”

“That’s something you will need to take up with your sister,” Kate said, setting her cup and saucer down. “May I ask you some questions?”

“I don’t want to talk about that time.”

“It was thirty years ago.”

“It was yesterday,” Muravieff said.

A brief silence. “Well then, did your mother say why she did it?” Kate said.

“What does that matter? She killed her own son. She would have killed me. She admitted as much to me, face-to-face, the last time I saw her.”

“You haven’t seen her since?” Kate said.

“She tried to kill me,” he said. “She told me so. Why would I want to see her ever again?”

Kate regarded him in silence. He met her gaze steadily. “The prosecution held that your mother tried to kill you both for the insurance money.”

“Yes.”

“Was she really so in need of money?”

“I suppose she was.”

“A Bannister? Out of money?”

He said nothing.

“Charlotte told me that you and she went to live with your uncle afterward.”

“Yes.”

“He or your grandparents couldn’t have helped your mother financially, whatever trouble she might have been in?”

“Look, Miss Shugak,” he said, “I don’t know what her problem was. All I know is what she said. You worked for the DA for five and a half years. You certainly know the difference.”

“I do,” she said. And wasn’t it interesting that he knew of her previous employment. “Did you know your mother has cancer?”

He stared at her. “No,” he said finally. “I didn’t know that.”

Nancy tapped at the door. “Mr. Muravieff, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Ellefson is on line two.”

“Not a problem,” Kate said. “Mr. Muravieff and I are done here. Thank you for your time, Mr. Muravieff. May I call if I have any further questions?”

“Certainly,” he said, and handed her a card.

Interesting, she thought as she walked out of the building, that Oliver’s chosen profession was that of a defense lawyer, a job designed to get criminals off. An Alexander Ellefson had been the second story on last night’s ten o’clock news, something regarding a little disagreement he’d had in the parking lot of a local bar, involving three other men and a.38 Special.

She got home to a blinking red light on the answering machine, her first this time in town. She pushed the button, smiling a little, expecting some heavy breathing and a few rude remarks from Brendan.

“Yes, this is a message for Kate Shugak,” a pleasant female voice said. “Ms. Shugak, this is Rosemary Watson, secretary to Erland Bannister. Mr. Bannister is having a party tomorrow evening at his home in Turnagain, and he wonders if you might like to attend. Seven o’clock, drinks and hors d’oeuvres-oh, and semi-formal dress, please.” Directions were given and the message ended.

Kate stared at the answering machine. It sat on the kitchen counter, squat, black, and unrevealing. She played the message again. Rosemary Watson repeated herself.

“Christ,” Kate said.

She went into the kitchen, filled a glass with ice, and poured a Diet 7UP over it. She took it into the living room and curled up on the window seat to watch the joggers go by.

Erland Bannister. Victoria’s brother, the president and CEO of Pilz Mining and Exploration, PME Corporation after the post-bankruptcy restructuring. He hadn’t been president when Victoria went to jail, but he had been on the way up.

She remembered the response of the man on Brendan’s witness list: “Does Erland know about this?” She had the feeling that if Erland hadn’t known about her investigation into Victoria’s thirty-year-old case he did now.

She went upstairs and climbed back into Jack’s shirt and socks. She went back downstairs and stood looking into the refrigerator for a while, as if it might hold the secrets to the universe, which refrigerators sometimes do. She wandered back out into the living room and ran a finger down the spines of the video library.

On impulse, she called Brendan. “What are you doing home on a Monday night?” she said when he answered. “On any night, for that matter?”

“Pining away by the phone, waiting for you to call,” he replied promptly.

“You like tequila, don’t you?”

He was amused. “Sure, why? You want to get me drunk and take advantage of me?”

“There are a few bottles rattling around in the cupboards over here. One of them is a bottle of something called anejo. You want it?”

“I’ll be right there.”

He was, in fifteen minutes flat, and Kate fetched the bottle from the kitchen, along with a glass. He immediately slammed back a shot. “All right,” he said, looking impressed. He offered her the glass. “Your turn.”

She shook her head.

“Right, I forgot, you don’t drink. Darn, now I don’t have to share this bottle.”

She laughed. “I’ve been calling the numbers on your list.”

He leaned back into the easy chair, a big man comfortable with his size, and let his eyes run up the expanse of smooth skin between the bunched top of the thick socks to the tail of the blue plaid shirt. “What about them?”

She smiled. Flirting was the thing Brendan McCord knew best how to do, next to litigation.

“The response has been”-she hesitated-“mixed.”

“Getting hung up on by the elite?” Brendan asked.

“How did you guess?”

“Yeah, well, hang on to your hat, because I’ve got some more bad news for you.”

“Great.”

“The investigating officer is dead.”

Kate searched her memory. “Sgt. Charles Baltzo?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn,” Kate said with real feeling. “Do you know of anybody else who was around at the time of the murder? Someone who might know something about the case?” She added, “Who is actually alive?”

“I can see where alive would be good,” Brendan said gravely.

“Also, is Henry Cowell still practicing in Anchorage?” He raised an interrogatory eyebrow. “Victoria’s defense attorney. I looked in the phone book. He’s not there.”

He thought. “I don’t know the name.”

“Could you find out where he is?”

He poured himself another shot. “What’s it worth to you?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I figured you got your payment in advance.”

He looked at the bottle and opened his mouth, and the doorbell sounded.

Kate’s pulse scrambled. “Excuse me,” she said, and went to the door.

Jim Chopin was on the doorstep, his face like a thundercloud. It seemed that Kate had credited him with more self-control than he actually had.

“Jim,” she said, unable to keep a grin from spreading across her face. “How nice to see you again. What’s-”

He stepped inside, shoved her against the wall, and kissed her hard.

“Who is it, Kate?” Brendan said from the living room.

Jim raised his head. “Who the hell is that?” He stalked into the living room, hands knotted into fists. Kate pulled herself together and followed.

Jim looked from Brendan, shot glass in hand, taking his leisure in the easy chair, to Kate standing next to him in Jack’s shirt and socks and apparently very little else. He looked back at Brendan and said, “Get out.”

Brendan thought about that for a little longer than Jim thought strictly necessary. He moved, but Kate grabbed his arm. “Thanks for coming over, Brendan,” she said. “Let me know what you find out. I’ll be here.”

Brendan saw the barely repressed glee in her eye and threw in the towel, at least for tonight. “All right, don’t shoot. I’m gone.”

He lumbered outside. The door had barely shut behind him when Jim turned and tossed Kate up into his arms. He took the stairs two at a time.

“Oooooh,” she said, “I feel just like Scarlett O’Hara.”

“Shut up,” he said.

He woke up alone again. “Son of a bitch” he said.

While Jim was jerking on his pants, full of a fine, righteous wrath, the source of which he did not bother to identify, Kate and Mutt were out for a run on the coastal trail. She didn’t run as a habit, but at home simple maintenance around the homestead kept her fit. In town, she took her exercise where she found it. Considerate of Jack to buy a house so close to the coastal trail.

She was feeling much more limber this morning-the benefits of regular sex on the various muscle groups were not to be denied-and she ran smoothly, stretching her legs out in front of her, carrying her arms at midtorso, breathing deeply in and out, with no hint of labor. It was another day of unbroken sunshine, Susitna and Denali and Foraker were on her right, and she felt good. Hell, she felt great, every cell in her body was singing. Mutt, loping next to her, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth, legs and haunches moving like pistons, looked not unhappy herself. Mutt knew how to live in the moment, to savor it, not to fear or try to second-guess the future. Kate decided that Mutt had a lot to teach her, and picked up the pace.

They trotted down a hill and around a curve, and a park bench appeared. It was occupied.

There were two boys, one lying on the bench, the other beneath it. Both were asleep. Two bikes lay on their sides on the grass nearby.

The boys looked to be about ten and twelve, respectively. Kate slowed to a halt and stood looking down at them. Their eyelashes stood out darkly against their cheeks and their faces were smooth and innocent enough to break her heart.

She could think of a number of scenarios that would result in the boys sleeping on a bench next to the coastal trail, chief among them trouble at home, a fight between parents maybe, resulting in the boys getting out of the house until it was all over.

There was also the possibility they had not left their home voluntarily, that they could have been thrown out. Or had run from punishment, or abuse.

She found herself reluctant to disturb them. At least in sleep, there was respite from whatever troubled them awake.

But she was equally incapable of just walking away. “Hey,” she said.

Neither boy stirred.

She raised her voice. “Hey.”

The boy on the bench moved, groaned, and opened his eyes. It took him a minute to focus. When he did, he sat up abruptly, accidentally kicking his companion, who banged his head against the bottom of the bench when he sat up.

“Ouch!” He rubbed his head.

His brother-the resemblance was obvious around the eyes and the way the hair grew stiffly from the hairline-risked taking his eyes off Kate for a moment. “You okay, Kevin?”

Kevin rubbed his head. “Yeah. I’m all right. Who’s she, Jordan?”

“Nobody.” Jordan got up and headed for his bike. “Come on, Kevin. Let’s go.”

“Where you going?” Kate said.

“None of your business,” he said shortly.

“You’re right,” she said, which at least surprised him enough to halt forward motion. “But I could give you some breakfast, if you’re interested.”

He looked at her, frowning. Kevin rolled out from beneath the bench and brushed ineffectively at the leaves adhering to his clothes. “I’m hungry, Jordan,” he said plaintively.

“We don’t know her, Kevin,” Jordan said. “She could be some kind of weirdo.”

“Right again,” Kate said, noticing that Jordan wasn’t automatically making for home. “How about this? You follow me to my house. You stay outside, and I’ll bring the food out.”

“You’ll call the cops is what you’ll do.”

She met his eyes squarely. “Not unless and until you give me permission to,” she said.

With the timing and tact of a seasoned diplomat, Mutt trotted over and shoved her nose under Jordan’s hand. Her tail whapped vigorously against Kevin’s knee.

Even Jordan smiled.

Jim was still at the town house when Kate and entourage arrived. He stood glaring at her from the front door. She almost lost the boys when they saw his uniform shirt. “He’s a trooper from the Bush, he doesn’t know from Anchorage,” she said quickly.

They didn’t run, but they looked ready to.

“Who’re they?” Jim said as she leapt the steps to the minuscule front porch.

“Friends,” Kate said, “hungry friends.” She turned. “ Come in or park it on the lawn, your choice.”

In the end, the four of them sat down to breakfast together- eggs scrambled with cheese, onions, garlic, and green chilies, served on tortillas with salsa and sour cream. The boys had cocoa and she and Jim had coffee.

I’m going to have to buy more eggs, she thought as she watched the boys, their heads bent over their plates. Hungry as they were, they ate neatly. Someone had been teaching them manners. That wasn’t always a good thing, in her experience.

She looked at Jim. She saw him look at the boys. He opened his mouth, and she caught his eyes and shook her head once from side to side.

He closed his mouth again.

She wondered why he was still here. She wondered if he was ready to cave. Probably not, she thought. Probably just pissed off to wake up alone for a second time. Probably thought waking up alone the morning after was the sole province of women.

She got up to get the coffeepot, and paused next to Jim to refill his mug. She took her time over it, leaning in, ensuring as much body contact as possible.

He wrapped his hand around one of her thighs, and for a split second she didn’t know if that hand was going to slide up or shove away. It shoved, and she went with it, moving around the table to refill her own mug and replace the coffeepot. Neither of the boys, faces still in their plates, noticed anything. She slid into her seat, her eyes mocking. Jim looked very tense around the jaw-line. She smiled at him. His hand tightened around his mug. She hoped he wouldn’t throw it at her, as she didn’t know what the boys were running from and she didn’t want them to run from her house, too.

They cleaned their plates and then cleared the table. “I guess we better go,” Jordan said.

Kevin looked forlorn, but he nodded obediently.

Jim looked at Kate.

She pushed back from the table and draped a knee over one arm of the chair. “Where you going to go?” she said to the older boy.

“Home,” he said.

Kevin raised his head to give his brother a quick, alarmed glance.

Kate nodded. “Think things will have calmed down since you left?”

“They always do,” he said, his eyes bleak.

Drinkers, she thought. They’ll have sobered up by now. And it’s chronic enough for the boys to know the routine. “You live off the trail?”

The boys exchanged a glance. “Sort of.”

Not even close to it, she thought. “I’d like to give you a ride home.”

“No,” Jordan said immediately.

Jim opened his mouth. Kate closed it with another look. “Guys, you did good. When things got bad, you left, you found a place to sleep, and you found a nonweirdo to feed you breakfast. You did good, but you were lucky, too. I’d just as soon you don’t have to be lucky again.”

“We do okay,” Jordan said.

Kevin said nothing, pale of face, standing very close to his brother.

“I bet you do,” Kate said. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”

Kevin plucked at his brother’s sleeve. “Jordan-”

Jordan looked down at the pleading face of his little brother and all the fight went out of him.

Their home was a trailer in Spenard, a good three miles from the coastal trail. Their mother came to the door after Kate pounded on it for a while. The smell of spilled booze and stale cigarettes was strong enough to rock Kate back a step.

The woman, short-waisted and thick through the middle, looked to be at least part Aleut, something Kate had suspected from the first time she had seen the boys.

She blinked at her sons. “Kevin? Jordan? What are you doing up already?” She saw Kate. “And who is this woman?”

When Kate got back to the town house, Jim was still there. “You’re still here,” she said, brushing by him in the doorway.

“We’ve got to talk,” he said, following her into the kitchen.

“Really?” She poured the last of the coffee. “I wouldn’t wish the home those boys are living in on a dog.”

Mutt looked reproachful, or as reproachful as she could pressed up next to Jim, tail wagging with delight.

“Call DFYS.”

Kate pressed her lips together. “They aren’t starving, and nobody’s hit them. Yet. I had a conversation with their mother. Might have scared her some. I’ll keep tabs.”

Diverted momentarily from his mission, Jim said, “You can’t save everyone, Kate.”

“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” she said.

“You know damn well what about,” he said. He kept himself well to the other side of the room, out of her reach.

She cleared her face of all traces of a grin before turning. “I must be a little slow this morning,” she said, leaning against the counter, hands cradling her mug. She smiled at him through the steam rising up off the surface of the coffee. “Explain it to me.”

He stared at her in fulminating silence for a charged moment, then finally blurted, “Those damn boys, for one thing! Are you out of your mind, bringing them home like that? You should have called DFYS the instant you walked in the door!”

“No, I shouldn’t,” she said equably. “Is that all?”

It was like throwing gas on an open fire, she noticed and waited hopefully, thinking she might be tossed over his shoulder and hauled back upstairs. To her disappointment, Jim managed to reign in his temper. That couldn’t be good for his blood pressure. She drained the mug and put it in the sink. “Well, I’ve got work to do, and I’m sure you do, too, back in the Park. I won’t keep you.”

He found himself being ushered from the house. One moment he was in the kitchen, full of legitimate fury, and the next he was on the sidewalk, looking up at her framed in the doorway, with no clear idea of how he got there.

“Kate,” he said.

“Yes, Jim?” she said.

He opened his mouth and closed it, several times.

He looked so bewildered that she relented, if only a little. “Isn’t this how you wanted it?” she said.

“What?” he said.

“Isn’t this how you wanted it?” she repeated. “Straight sex with no complications-when its over we go our separate ways, no harm, no foul?”

“Sounds good to me,” the man next door said, retrieving the newspaper from his front step.

“You mind your own goddamn business,” Jim told him.

The man, grinning, vanished back inside.

When Jim turned back, Kate had closed the door in his face.