Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

“I believe they broke up before the conference. That day he wanted to reconcile. She didn’t. That’s all that happened.”

Paul felt like a seal breaking through the ice to the surface, finally able to take a breath. Krilov excited him. “I’ve been looking into Krilov’s background and have learned a few things.”

“Really?” All the pretend indifference in the world couldn’t disguise Zhukovsky’s intense interest in exactly what Paul had learned.

“Yeah, you know, information’s cheap these days. Anyone can access the Web for the price of coffee in a Styrofoam cup.” He waited for Zhukovsky to beg him. He needed the guy engaged at this point, and he wasn’t going to let him ice up again.

“What did you learn?” Zhukovsky asked, unable to escape the plan.

Paul smiled to himself. “He’s from a family of formerly wealthy Russians who hit the skids when the Soviet Union busted up. He’s heavily into politics there, and holds some unusual views, such as, much as he hated the Soviet Union, he hates the current regime more. He hangs with radicals who want to throw out the president and restore a kind of prerevolutionary hierarchy over there. How involved was your sister?”

“My sister-okay, let me tell you the truth about her. She never got over losing our mother and father. She put herself to sleep reading an old book of fairy tales Papa used to read her at night. She never married. She had friends, but her natural reserve kept her from getting really close to people. Her life was-empty, sad. Then this Russian pops up out of nowhere, whispering in her ear, telling her she’s beautiful, unique, consequential. Well, can you blame her for wanting to believe him? He gave her life the meaning she needed. She fell in love with him and with the dream of a meaningful existence he offered.”

“Did she buy his politics?”

“She wasn’t mixed up in any cockeyed, lunatic, jug-headed plans to overthrow the Russian government, if that’s what you’re implying!”

Whew. Hit a nerve there, Paul thought. So, she had been involved somehow. To give himself a further chance to ponder Alex’s overreaction, and Alex a chance to use a napkin to wipe sweat from his forehead, he scribbled in his notebook. “Is Krilov the violent type?”

“Don’t try to pin my sister’s death on Sergey Krilov. Believe me, I wish it had been him-but your client’s blood was in her apartment! Stefan Wyatt killed her.”

Paul wanted to know why Alex would prefer that the killer be Krilov and not Stefan, but the purple map springing up on Zhukovsky’s forehead suggested he move on. Zhukovsky would clam up again if Paul wasn’t careful. He was feeling guilty about something. A connection with Stefan he regretted?

“You and your sister grew up here in the Monterey area?” Paul asked.

Breathing hard, still upset, the professor said brusquely, “Yes. Our father owned a pastry shop on Alvarado Street. Our mother died when my sister and I were children.”

“Was Christina a handful growing up? Anything unusual about her?”

“Everything. While her girlfriends were trading lipsticks, baring their belly buttons, and sleeping around, she was at the library reading. After college, she worked at a preschool and as a recreation counselor for elderly people. Later, she got a job here at the university.”

“You worked together?”

“No. There is a big gulf between administration and faculty at most colleges.”

“What was her title?”

“Public Affairs Officer. She was in charge of organizing special occasions on the campus.”

Low on the totem, Paul thought, for such an accomplished woman. And given her fancy apartment, there must have been family money behind her. He made a mental note. “And you’re on the Russian faculty?”

“I am the Russian faculty. I also teach French and German. Unfortunately, nobody around here wants to study anything but Spanish.”

“Did your sister speak Russian, too?”

“Yes.”

“Impressive,” Paul said. “I never learned a foreign language.”

“Why should you? You live in this vast land that you consider the center of civilization, and you simply make foreigners learn English. Most of my students are just filling in time or need to have a smattering of language to read technical articles.”

“But Christina wasn’t like that, was she? She left her work to travel for several months early this year, and nobody could tell me where she went. That’s a long time to be living out of a suitcase, isn’t it?”

“She was seeing the world,” Zhukovsky said shortly. “She was unmarried and unencumbered. Why shouldn’t she?”

“Just going from hotel to hotel? I mean, her coworkers didn’t even get postcards.”

“She kept in touch with me. She had her own money and she wanted to travel.”

“Yes, that would be expensive,” Paul said. “I suppose your father left you and Christina something.”

“That’s not your business.”

“The probate is a public record,” Paul said. “Your father seems to have done very well with his pastry business.”

Zhukovsky scratched behind his ear, saying, “Deano didn’t bother me with personal questions.”

Wish, who had listened patiently, said, “We kind of got that from his report.”

“What was she doing during those months she disappeared?” Paul said. “I’m trying to figure her out. She’s an enigma.” He had an idea about where Christina Zhukovsky had spent those missing months, and he would bet Zhukovsky knew.

“Having fun. I got postcards from all over.” A faint red shadow appeared on his neck as he spoke.

Zhukovsky was a liar. But Paul had figured that before even meeting him.

“You know,” Paul said, “I have a sister. And she drives me nuts, by the way, but if she disappeared for a month, much less several months, even I would send a posse out to find her.” He exaggerated. He would wait as long as he could. She could be extremely irritating.

“I wasn’t worried. She could take care of herself.” He must have realized how foolish that sounded now because he added, “Of course I would have worried if she hadn’t prepared me for a long absence. Is your assistant taping me?”

“Yes.”

“Tell him to stop.” Paul nodded and Wish turned off the recorder and got out his notepad.

“I understand that before she died, your sister helped organize an important conference on Russian international relations here. Word is,” Paul said, “Cal State Monterey as a whole has benefited in terms of prestige and recognition from the conference she set up.”

“True,” Zhukovsky said. “Christina was very enthusiastic about it. She worked hard to get some big names here.”

“What was the subject of the conference?”

Zhukovsky said a long Russian phrase, then, apparently translating, “Post-Communist Russia and the Twenty-first Century.”

“Did either of you ever live in Russia?” Wish asked.

“No.”

“Did you visit there?”

“What do you think? I am a Russian professor! I studied for a year at a language institute in Moscow.”

“Right,” Wish said, and wrote that down.

“But your father came from Russia?” Paul asked, taking over again.

“Yes, long ago.”

“Whereabouts?”

“St. Petersburg.”

“When did he come to this country?”

“In the 1920s.” A soft pink crawled up Zhukovsky’s neck. “He came from Russia when he was very young.”

“How young?”

“Oh, twenty-four or -five.”

“How did he end up in Monterey?”

“After the turn of the century, there was quite a Russian immigration to San Francisco and south to the Monterey Peninsula. He came over with family friends.”