Dana Stabenow - A Taint in the Blood

“Of course,” Kate said with equal sincerity. “The governor has always been on the cutting edge of humanitarian concerns.”

Her voice was innocently smooth, but her words earned her a sharp look, quickly concealed. “So you see,” Erland said, sitting back and taking up his wine to admire its color with the sun shining through it, “really, Kate, your job is finished.”

“It would seem so,” Kate said, pretending again to sip at her wine. “Still…”

“Still?” Erland said.

Kate gave him a smile of pretty apology. “Charlotte did seem certain that Victoria did not set the fire that killed her son. I feel a certain…” She hesitated.

One of the better tricks in the interrogator’s toolbox was to entice the subject into eliciting information himself.

“Yes?” Erland said. “A certain what?”

“Obligation,” Kate said, and looked at Erland for reassurance.

He gave her a benevolent smile. “Your sense of duty does you credit, Kate, but really, there is nothing left for you to do in this case.”

“But if your sister is innocent of the crime, wouldn’t you like to have that innocence established beyond all doubt? And you lost a nephew, Erland. Wouldn’t you like to see his real killer brought to justice?” Kate leaned forward again, all earnestness. “I saw you on the news when you offered the reward for information leading to the arrest and apprehension of the hit-and-run driver who killed your niece.” She peered at him from beneath her eyelashes. “I was impressed at your determination to see him brought to justice. Would you want any less for the murderer of your nephew?”

He sighed heavily. “It was all so long ago.” He paused, and asked almost casually, “Do you have any leads?”

Not by the flicker of an eyelash did he betray that he already knew of her interview with Ralph Patton, but Kate could feel his attention focused directly and unwaveringly upon her, as if she were a bug beneath a microscope. The act of observation changes the thing observed, she thought. Obviously, Erland had skipped that class in Physics 101. “A few,” she said dismissively. She smiled modestly. “As you say, it has been thirty years. It’s been difficult to track down the investigating officers and the witnesses who testified at your sister’s trial. Many of the people involved have died or moved Outside.”

He sat back and smiled at her, an intimate smile full of intelligence, a smile that knew women inside and out, a smile of power and assurance. “That’s a shame. I wish you luck.”

“You have no objection to my proceeding with the investigation, then?” Kate said, trying to infuse her question with a hint of anxiety, as if she required permission of the great and powerful Erland Bannister before going forward.

“None at all,” Erland said, waving a hand. “As you pointed out, if my sister is innocent of the crime for which she was convicted, certainly that is something that I want the whole world to know.”

It was a bit of a change from the “Here’s your hat. What’s your hurry?” attitude the last time they’d met.

“You did know that the person who killed my niece has, in a travesty of justice, been set free on bail.”

“Really?” Kate said. “How an earth did that happen?”

Erland allowed rage to darken his eyes, just enough to be convincing. “I don’t know, but I’m going to make it my business to find out.”

“If anyone can do that, Erland, you can,” Kate said.

The waiter served their entrees, and afterward they talked of other things-local politics, the cost of a week’s worth of groceries for a family of four now compared to ten years ago, the problems of shipping to Bush communities, Oliver’s most recent case (Erland wincing at the thought of the family’s only child of that generation in the business of turning criminals loose on the streets again, then saying, “But I have high hopes of enticing him into Dwyer, Watson, an estate-planning firm run by a friend of mine”), the record salmon run up the Kanuyaq River and the lack of one up the Yukon. Erland was by turns witty, wise, and charming, with a large dollop of obvious attraction to his dinner companion. He was well-nigh irresistible.

For her part, Kate kept her lips parted in a constant gasp of wonder and admiration. She didn’t know how much of it Erland bought, but like all great men, he had an ego that was there to be stroked, and, needs must when the devil drives, Kate could stroke a male ego with the best of them.

She permitted him to walk her to the car, where they took fond leave of one another.

On the way home, she wondered if it had worked, if he was as smart as she thought he was. Lacking his resources, all she could do was lure him out of hiding, encourage him to show his hand in some way.

“You’re provoking him to attack, Kate,” Jim had said earlier, and she had replied, “I know. At this point, it’s all I can do.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed, goddamm it!”

His anger was enough to have her cruise past the town house once, checking for suspicious vehicles or activity, before she pulled into the driveway.

She lowered the garage door and went into the house. “Mutt?” she said. There was a muted, unidentifiable noise from the postage stamp-size piece of lawn that served as a backyard. Her skin prickled, and she slid along the wall to the window and looked out.

Kevin and Jordan had erected a tent and were currently occupying it with Mutt.

She opened the door. “Hey, guys.”

“Hey, Kate.”

“Your mom know you’re over here?”

“Sure,” Jordan said.

“Sure,” Kevin said.

“Wuff,” Mutt said.

Right. “Okay, but in the morning, we really have to talk. You got enough to eat?”

“Yes.”

“Want more blankets?”

“We’re using the sleeping bags from the garage.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Kate?”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

Don’t thank me, she thought.

She went into the kitchen and poured herself a Diet Sprite by the light of the refrigerator. When she closed the door again, Jim was standing there. Kate nearly jumped out of her skin.

“So?” he said. “How’d it go?”

“I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t see your car outside.”

“The guy I borrowed it from needed it back. How’d it go?”

Kate rolled her head, and he surprised her by turning her around to put his hands on her shoulders, whereupon he began to knead them.

“Oh yeah,” she said on a quiet exhalation.

“How’d it go?” he said for the third time.

“He’s pretty slick, is old Erland Bannister. Honestly? I don’t know.”

“How long are you going to stick around waiting to find out?”

“I don’t know that, either.” She gave the ghost of a laugh.

“What?”

“It turns out there is such a thing as too much information, and I’ve got it all. I just don’t know what the hell to do with any of it, and I still don’t know who burned down that house and killed that kid.”

“Even the governor stopped short of saying Victoria was innocent of the crime,” Jim said softly, his thumbs zeroing in on the knot of tension below her shoulder blades.

“Oh God, yes,”“ she said, ”right there.“ She was silent for a moment. ”Then why kill Charlotte? There’s no point to her death if I wasn’t looking for who really killed William Muravieff. There’s no point to the murder of Eugene Muravieff and the attempted murder of Kurt Pletnikoff. Killing them was supposed to put me out of a job.“

“Those two goons were waiting to kill you, too.”

“Yeah, mat would be another way of discouraging me. Someone is tying up lose ends all over town. And Erland Bannister is-”