Dana Stabenow - A Taint in the Blood

Victoria stared at a point on the wall in back of Kate’s head. “My brother Erland took them in. It wasn’t for long. Charlotte was sixteen, Oliver was seventeen. They were in college and out of his house in a very short time.”

Kate nodded. “I see.” She folded her hands on the table in front of her and took a deep breath. “Ms. Muravieff-” She paused. “You kept the name,” she said.

“What?”

“You kept your husband’s name. Even after the divorce.”

Victoria’s eyes narrowed, as if she were really looking at Kate for the first time. “Why are you here, Ms. Shugak?” Despite her best efforts, something of what she was feeling must have crossed Kate’s face, because Victoria sat up straight in her chair. “Tell me at once,” she said, snapping it out like an order.

“I’m afraid I have bad news, Ms. Muravieff,” Kate said. She took another breath and said steadily, “Your daughter, Charlotte, was killed going home yesterday evening by a hit-and-run driver.”

Victoria sat very still, frozen in place. Kate couldn’t even hear her breathing.

When she spoke, her voice was frail and thready. “Yesterday? Charlotte’s been dead all day today?” “Yes. I’m so very sorry, Ms. Muravieff.” Victoria spoke again through stiff lips. “Leave me.” Kate got up at once and left the room.

Jim was waiting for her when she got back to the town house. “My trial was continued until tomorrow,” he said the minute he saw her.

“Oh, save it,” she snapped, and stamped upstairs to take another long hot shower. She was turning into a ritual bather. Lucky she had her own bathroom to go back to. She wished more than ever that she could go back to it right now.

She had her face turned into the spray when she heard the shower curtain being drawn back. She didn’t move, and she didn’t jump either when his hands slid around her waist to draw her against him. By unspoken agreement, they took their time, drawing it out to a point way past pleasure, something that was almost pain, and when they were done, she let her head fall back against the tiles and laughed out loud for the sheer joy of it.

He mumbled something into her neck.

“What?” she said.

He raised his head, and she was moved almost to pity by the look of despair on his face. “I don’t understand how it can keep getting better.”

She laughed again, low in her throat. “Don’t you?” No one, not even Kate’s best friends, had ever said she was a nice person, and she proved it now. She raised his hand to her face, nuzzled into his palm, and sank her teeth into the base of his thumb.

He swore, but he didn’t pull his hand away. Instead, he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, where he tossed her onto the bed and followed her down.

“I’m going to stay in town for a while,” he said later.

“Okay,” she said.

“Maybe I could hang out here.”

“Sure.”

“It’s only until this case of yours is finished.”

“Of course.”

“I mean, somebody just took out your client.”

Kate willed away the remembered fury, the images of Kurt on the floor and Eugene with the bullet hole in his head, the footage of Charlotte’s crumpled car, the tears on Emily’s face, Victoria’s stricken expression. Not now, she told herself. Not now.

“Stands to reason whoever did it might think you know something you shouldn’t.”

“They might.”

“Seems to me they might think twice about trying something if you had a trooper hanging around.”

“You’re probably right.”

“And there’s nothing really pressing back at the post, and Tok and Cordova have promised to cover for me if something happens.”

“Good to know.”

“And I might be recalled to the stand tomorrow.”

“You might.”

There was a brief silence. “Oh fuck,” he said.

“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, and rolled over on top of him.

“I don’t want to talk to anyone.” Emily stood in the open doorway with a tear-blotched face, arms crossed, hugging herself tightly.

Every line in her brow looked deeper, her eyes seemed sunken, and her hair lay lank and lifeless upon her head.

“Is anyone else here?”

Emily shook her head miserably, and Kate shoved her way in, closing the door behind her, Jim barely making it inside. She took Emily in a firm, impersonal grip and steered her into the living room. Emily sat on the couch and stared in front on her with unseeing eyes. Kate found the kitchen and made hot, sweet tea. She took it into the living room and pressed the mug into Emily’s hands. “Drink.”

“I don’t want it,” Emily said.

“Drink,” Kate said firmly.

It took half an hour, another cup of tea, and a box of Kleenex to get Emily to where she could speak in more or less coherent sentences. Kate was unfailingly kind and patient, never at a loss for what word was needed next. Jim, observing from a neutral corner, was reminded of a rock battered by waves of emotion and incipient hysteria, only to emerge each time from the sea spray with the same unshakable face. Kate Shugak was the only person he’d ever met able to combine the qualities of the irresistible force and the immovable object at once. It was only a matter of time.

Evidently, Emily came to realize that, too. Lying back against the couch, she closed her eyes and said in an exhausted voice, “What do you want?”

“Why weren’t you in the car with her on the way home from the party?” Kate said.

A tear slid down Emily’s cheek, but only one this time. “I drove to Erland’s from work. Charlotte had to haul the food to Erland’s house, and she had to be there early to set things up.”

Kate suffered a slight feeling of deja vu, remembering where Victoria and Charlotte had been the night William had been killed. Bad things had a habit of happening when the Bannister women were away from home, and in particular when they were helping host parties at their male relative’s house.

Still, two similar occurrences thirty-one years apart didn’t necessarily constitute a pattern. “Were you behind her on the road?” Kate said.

Emily shook her head miserably. “Ahead. I left right after you did. There’s only so much of that crap I can take.”

“Then why do you go?”

“Because Charlotte wants me there. Wanted.” Another tear. “She hates all that glad-handing stuff. She isn’t a public person. Wasn’t.”

“Were you home yesterday?”

“What?”

“Did you stay home yesterday, or did you go into work?”

Emily, uncomprehending, said, “I stayed home, I-I couldn’t go to work.”

“Did a man come to see you?”

Emily gave a convulsive sniff. “All kinds of men. Policemen, mostly. Knocking, knocking at the door, they wouldn’t leave me alone. They kept asking questions about Charlotte, and her mother, and her father, and I just didn’t see what that had to do with anything, I just couldn’t, I-oh God, oh God, I can’t believe she’s dead.” Emily buried her face in her hands and began to rock back and forth. “Charlotte, oh God, Charlotte.”

“Emily.” Kate grasped her hands and pulled them from her face. “Is there someone I can call? Someone who can come and stay with you?”

Kate couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her there all alone. Emily kept shaking her head-at the thought of her loss or the thought of enduring companionship, Kate couldn’t tell. She looked for and found a desk, located an address book inside the top drawer, and started calling numbers. Twenty minutes later, two women showed up, so alike they were almost twins, stocky, short, cropped gray hair and piercing blue eyes.

“You Shugak?” the first one said, and walked inside without waiting for an answer. “I’m Becky. This is Lael.”