“Tell me about William,” Kate said to Max.
Max looked at Jim, standing at Kate’s shoulder. “You the boyfriend?”
“No,” Jim said.
Max surveyed him with palpable contempt. “If you’d said yes, I’d‘ve called you a lucky bastard. Now I’m just gonna call you a stupid one.” He looked back at Kate. “You want to know about William Muravieff.”
“Yes,” Kate said.
“He was only seventeen, Kate.”
“I know. Tell me anyway. Everything you can remember.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re done.”
Max made a production out of looking at his watch. “About lunchtime, I’m thinking.”
“Your nothing but a serial opportunist,” Kate said, and that was how Jim Chopin found himself seated at a table at Simon & Seaport’s, in the middle of a gaggle of tourists in purple polyester and straw hats, with a few shysters in three-piecers mixed in and reminding him uncomfortably of Dial. The chatter was deafening, but the food was great, and the view went south all the way to Redoubt.
Max gave the drinks menu prolonged, concentrated study and then ordered a Lemon Drop. “No martini?” Kate said, and with an airy wave, Max said, “I like to broaden my experience from time to time,” and then he ruined the comment with his nasty old man’s grin. Kate laughed, and Jim, so help him, resented the laugh-or rather, the fact that Max had elicited the laugh and not him. The man had to be ninety-three, for crissake.
Besides which, Jim knew he had no serious relationship with Kate Shugak. They were acquaintances merely. Acquaintances who were at present having most excellent sex, but that was simply a matter of propinquity, born out of the circumstances of her life being in danger because of the case she was working on. Didn’t matter a damn to him who made her laugh.
He’d like to see Morris “Max” Maxwell, Sergeant, Alaska State Troopers (Retired), protect Kate from a crazed killer.
Mercifully, at that moment his steak sandwich arrived and he used it to keep his mouth full.
Max’s second drink appeared as he was draining his first. “How do you do that?” Kate said.
“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.”
18
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.