Dana Stabenow - A Taint in the Blood

“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?”

“If’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.”

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?”