Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

“What do you know about Constantin Zhukovsky?”

“You mean why my son might want his bones? I can’t imagine. It’s very, very strange.” She did indeed appear baffled.

“Did you know the man?”

“Me? No.”

“Did Stefan ever mention Christina Zhukovsky to you?” Paul asked.

She shook her head. “And he didn’t kill her, either. When he was a little kid I used to think how much he reminded me of one of his tops, just spinning around knocking down everything that he came near. About as powerful and effective as a gnat,” she said. “Any harm he ever did was completely unintentional.”

“Stefan was arrested twice before.”

“I thought once kids grew up you could get on with your life, watch from afar while they solved their own problems.” She petted her dog. “Stupid me. They never stop worrying you. Even when they’re adults, you lie awake at night hating that other people hurt and disappoint them, scared they’ll do something asinine, which they will. You never escape from being a mother.” She sighed. “Stefan’s got a good heart,” she said dutifully. “I love my son, but he’s a hopeless idealist, one of those people who thinks you can change things by making waves in a wading pool. I thought I taught him better. I was involved in all that nonsense when I was young, too, but then I grew up. And what did he get for trying to organize a union? Fired. Surprise, surprise.”

Momentarily sidetracked, she turned attention to her dog. “Get down, Bo, or no cookie.” Bo got down. “Listen,” she continued, “Stefan dug up a grave. I think we all know that. He shouldn’t have done it. But he didn’t kill that woman. He found her there, just like he said. One thing about Stefan-and this sets him apart from most of the world-he’s not a liar. He always openly admitted the cookies he stole: one reason he was always in trouble.”

“So let’s prove that, Ms. Wyatt. What can you say that will clear him?”

She shook her head, scratching Bo behind the ear with agitated fingers. “Stefan would never harm another soul.”

“Ms. Wyatt, did he ever mention that Alex Zhukovsky hired him to dig up his father’s bones?” Paul asked.

“Here’s what he told me: he said he had a quick job to do, and that he would make enough doing it to buy that girl of his a ring. He said he would have a thousand dollars. So he was hired to dig the bones. Honestly, that kid. How could he not know it was some awful setup or something? Why couldn’t God give him a little common sense?”

“More like his brother?”

“Right. Classic mother’s lament.”

“How do you explain what he did?” Paul asked.

“For the money. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

Can’t or won’t? Paul thought, wishing he knew. Classic detective’s lament.

“You say you’re a widow,” Wish said. “What was your husband like?”

“A decent man, but distant from us. He traveled a lot. I raised the boys by myself, pretty much. They hardly remember him.”

“When did your husband die?” Wish persisted.

“The boys were very young. Stefan was three, Gabe was four. Stefan hardly noticed. Gabe was hit hardest. It’s funny, he never knew his father well at all, it was more the idea of him. He didn’t want to tell kids at school his father was dead. He pretended to have one. I guess I should have remarried.”

“What did he die of?”

“One of those breakdowns of the system,” she said. “He was old, and he had a lot wrong with him over the years, things that came and went. One day something got him. I was there with him when he died at the hospital.” Suddenly, she looked ready to cry.

“What kind of parent was he?” Paul asked hastily.

“Old-fashioned, courtly but conventional in his attitudes about women’s roles, in spite of my attitude, which was hardly conventional. But I’ll tell you one thing. He loved his children,” she said. She petted the pooch so hard its little eyes bulged, and that made Paul want to pursue the topic, but Wanda didn’t give much up. “I do believe he did.”

“Did your sons get along as kids?” Paul asked.

“Not a bit. They fought dirty.” She actually had a lot to say on the topic, many memories, but none of them helped much with the present-day issues. “But Stefan would die for Gabe,” she finished. “He proved it when Gabe got so sick.”

“With what?”

“Childhood leukemia. They gave Stefan drugs that made him forget the procedure, and promised me there was a low risk of him being hurt, although I felt terrible when they did the spinal thing and took his donation. He was awfully young. But Gabe’s paying his brother back now, giving his hard-earned savings to save Stefan’s skin. It’s a shame. He’s worked hard for every dime. Stefan has a lot to answer for. Just-not murder.”

“Notice how happy she is talking about Gabe, and how conflicted when she talks about Stefan?” Paul asked Wish as they drove away.

“I’m glad to be the only son,” Wish said, accelerating to eighty as soon as they hit Highway 1 going north toward Seaside. “But my parents don’t play favorites anyway. No, they’re equally conflicted over all of us.” He laughed heartily.

“Stefan’s the worm; Gabe’s the bright, red apple.”

“Oldest son, and the striver in the family,” Wish said. “Must be a burden for Gabe being her favorite, even though he’s got a brother in jail who is definitely no competition.”

Seaside, formerly populated almost entirely by transient military families who traded in their thrift-shop furniture to new families when they left, had come up in the world. It had its very own Borders to make up for the bankrupt Kmart. On the eastern fringe of the town, the building housing Classic Collections stood where once acres of artichokes had flourished.

Paul thought he could still smell artichokes, although it might perhaps have been a massive sewer project that had caught his attention.

Wanda Wyatt had directed them to Building E, a small, flat-roofed, asymmetrical building with ominous overhangs some architect had had a blast-no, had been blasted-designing.

The weekend security guard, a small woman stuck behind a desk, excited to have a break from the existential angst of her daily breadwinning, took their IDs, scratched the back of her neck, and wasted a lot of their time making up questions to ask them, mostly irrelevant. Finally, cowed by the brevity of their answers, she called up to Gabriel Wyatt’s office. “Second floor,” she said, handing back the IDs.

“Thanks,” said Paul with what he hoped was a grateful smile, expressing his deep sympathy for the bored. As they waited for the elevator they read off the names of some of the other small businesses sharing the building. This was clearly not a ragingly successful place.

Wyatt met them at the elevator and led them back into offices accessible only to the chosen few with bar-coded cards.

“How’s it going?” Paul asked.

“Like it’s supposed to.” Tall, maybe six feet two, Gabe Wyatt had glossy fair hair, a thin build, and a loose grace as he pulled a chair up to his desk and sat, crossing one leg. A handsome dude, on the ascetic side.

He resembled Stefan, if you caught his right profile, but in a supercharged, glamorous incarnation. He had strong features perfectly sized and shaped, and skin that appeared airbrushed, scrubbed as clean of texture as the face of a computer-generated game hero. If he were a movie star, he would be typecast in romantic leads, and would lose all the good character roles to Nicolas Cage’s bird beak and bovine eyes.

“Sorry it’s been so hard getting together, but what can I do for you?” Gabe asked. “How’s Stef? Holding up? I haven’t been able to see him since the trial started, in case I need to testify.”