Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

“A difficult cross-exam, Miss Reilly,” he said finally, giving her arm a squeeze. “Yet you exposed that prevaricating blockhead.”

“Did I?” She remembered the fight, the clanging of the bell, the mouth guard in her mouth, the shouts from the audience. She just couldn’t recall the referee raising her hand in the air, declaring a clear victory.

He slapped his knee. “Controlled, reactive, and powerful,” he said. “Masterful.”

Tuesday 9/23

NINA DROVE KLAUS BACK TO CARMEL, THEN DROVE OVER TO THE main library in Monterey. The time had come. One of the characters in this case claimed to be a page to the last tsar of Russia, and what she could remember about the Romanovs from a paper she wrote in high school might fill a paragraph.

The librarian stacked books in front of her, an intimidating pile which she opened one after another. She read. She studied pictures. If she had been at home alone, she would have cried.

The Romanovs ruled Russia for three hundred years, until 1918, when Nicholas II gave up power, and even gave up the rights of succession for his son. The last tsar had failed as a leader, spending too much time leading his troops into massacres, and leaving his German wife in charge of the country. She, Alexandra, had fallen under the sinister influence of a shaman-healer, Rasputin, and all the country despised the situation. Insulted, and empowered by Nicholas’s frequent, lengthy absences, in the end, rebels forced Nicholas to release his family’s ancient iron grip on the leadership of Russia.

The entire family and some of their retainers were sent into exile, eventually landing in Ekaterinburg. For months they lived an abnormally tranquil existence there, although terror was never far beneath the surface.

And then came their final day at Ekaterinburg, starting with a menacing request: because of unrest in the town, the Romanov family needed to go into hiding in the basement. They were given just over one half hour to dress for the occasion. A boy, his family-four beautiful sisters, a long-suffering mother, a loving father-and a few devoted servants did as they were told.

Alexis Romanov, the tsarevitch, son of the last Romanov ruler of Russia, fourteen years old, described over and over again as a physically fragile hemophiliac, had been learning to play the balalaika. Because of his ill health, his father Nicholas carried him downstairs. His older sister, Anastasia, only seventeen years old, clutched her King Charles spaniel, Jemmy. His mother, Alexandra, suffering from back pain, asked for chairs and they were brought. She and her ailing son sat in the chairs. Her husband and four daughters surrounded her. They were told to line up for a group photograph.

Instead, their Bolshevik executioners filled the room. The fusillade began. First a Colt took down Nicholas II, the last tsar, who was still shouting, “What? What?” at the words read by the leader of the death squad. His wife, trying to make the sign of the cross, died instantly, along with their oldest daughter, Olga, who was taken down by a single shot to the head.

The tsarevitch, Alexis, along with his other sisters and assorted consorts, remained alive as the bullets flew. Marie, Tatiana, and their sister, Anastasia, crouched in front of the wall, arms up, defensive. Alexis, on the floor, grabbed for his dead father’s shirt.

Later, the bodies were hauled on a cart, headed for an old mine shaft near an area called “Four Brothers” because of the large pines ringing the area. Eighteen pounds of diamonds which had acted as armor were recovered from the corpses. The Romanovs had realized the seriousness of the invitation to the basement. The gems sewn into their clothing, which protected some of them from the barrage of bullets, at least forestalling their final moments, had also been intended to provide them a future.

In the 1990s, when the bodies were uncovered in that mine shaft in the pine forest, two were missing. One of the scientists involved could not say if it was Marie or Anastasia who was missing, but he could say definitely that Alexis was not among those buried that cold morning. Yurovsky, a man who was present at the executions, wrote that two of the bodies were burned instead.

No sign of the burned bodies was ever found. Did those two Romanovs die? Or did they live?

And what appeared to be an ending was in fact the beginning of a new story. Thus began the resurrection of a new generation of monarchist Romanovs: the pretenders.

Even Nina had heard of one of the dozens of women who claimed to be Anastasia. From 1920 until 1984, when DNA tests disproved her claim, a Polish woman named Franziska Schanzkowska claimed to be the tsar’s youngest daughter. Even today, the question of who might be the legitimate heir to the Russian empire was a matter of spirited debate. Grand Duke George, grandson of a cousin of Nicholas II, was a claimant, as was his mother, the Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna.

A man in Canada claimed to be the tsarevitch. A man in Finland did, too. One who had been imprisoned in a gulag in Siberia had a really good story. Dozens of wannabe Alexis Nicholaevich Romanovs sneaked into the news on a regular basis.

Some claimed there was no legitimate heir. But a yearning grew up in the hearts of many Russians, after the fall of Communism, for the old days and the old ways, and the stories of the pretenders continued.

Did Constantin Zhukovsky know something about the death of the Romanovs? If he did, what in the world did it have to do with the death of his daughter, and her burial in his grave? Did he have some link to a survivor of the carnage at Ekaterinburg?

Nina called Ginger, then Paul to tell him what she had found out, and what she now suspected. Why were the bones of Constantin Zhukovsky stolen? Because someone-Christina? Alex? Sergey?-someone thought Constantin Zhukovsky’s heritage was suspect, or useful, and needed the bones to prove it.

Paul had to keep it brief on his cell phone. He was heading north along the coast, in hot pursuit of his suspect.

Up the angular silhouette of California they flew, Paul, in his treasured red Mustang, tailing Alex Zhukovsky. Paul knew his car wasn’t ideal for blending in, but figured he could make up for his conspicuousness with his skill. He didn’t know what to make of what Nina told him about executions nearly a hundred years before. He tossed the information in with the rest of the wet, involuted salad of facts in his mind.

Dusk brought out the commuters with their cruise controls. The self-absorbed faces all around Paul didn’t seem to notice the sand dunes, the glimpses of the Pacific on his left, the seductive air. Zhukovsky, a couple of cars ahead, driving a white Cadillac Coupe de Ville, wove relentlessly through the traffic.

In addition to her unusually moving lecture about the Romanovs, Nina had said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with a guiltier conscience than Alex Zhukovsky. He lied on the stand, and, you know what? I think he feels bad about it. Watch him tonight, Paul.” So of course, after a quick drink at Alfredo’s, the professor headed out of town for points unknown. Paul did have his portable cooler with a quart of orange Gatorade so he wouldn’t perish, but he hadn’t had time to find Wish. So he listened to Diana Krall’s new jazz CD, opened the windows, and tried to enjoy the ride.

At Santa Cruz, Zhukovsky turned onto Highway 17, which meant a trip over the mountains toward San Jose and the San Francisco peninsula. Paul called Nina again on his cell phone and reported in, asking if she needed him to bring home anything from Alaska, in case Zhukovsky kept going, but Nina just said to stay with him. They took the curves fast, but Zhukovsky never made any elusive maneuvers, he just drove grimly on.