A taint in the blood (39 page)

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—"

"Is what?"

"He's just so damned smug."

"I don't think you can arrest someone for aggravated smugness, Kate."

"His whole attitude is—it's like he's got all his exits covered, and he knows it, and he's making sure I know it, so that there is nothing left for me to do but go home or . . ."

"Or?"

She thought of the party at Erland's house. "Or stay here and join his herd."

'"His herd'?"

"You should have seen the people at his party. Talk about suck-ups, brownnosers, and hangers-on. You should have heard how he talked about them. Guests in his house, for whom he had no liking and no respect. It was sickening."

His hands paused. "You turning this into some kind of class warfare, Kate?"

"What?" she said, her head whipping around. "No! What the hell are you talking about?"

"The Bannisters have, you don't. Is that what this is about?"

It was so ridiculous, she laughed out loud. "No. That is not what this is about."

Jim resisted an urge to cover his balls. "Well, then, how about race warfare?"

"What?"

"You heard me," Jim said steadily, still kneading her shoulders. "Is there possibly a little bit of 'us versus them' going on here? The residue of three hundred years of white power?"

"You think this can be reduced to skin color?" Kate said hotly.

"No," Jim said. "I don't."

There was another, longer silence. "Okay," Kate said. "I heard you."

Jim remained silent.

Kate glared at him. "Why are you still here, anyway?"

"I told you." He mustered up a lazy grin. "I got your back on this one, Shugak."

Never happy on the defensive, she was delighted to switch on the siren. "You sure that's all it is?" she said, mimicking him. She leaned back against him, and smiled when she felt his erection settle into the crack of her ass.

He didn't move away, but he said, "This has nothing to do with us."

"Oh." The gluteus maximus, properly employed, was a well-muscled instrument of torture.

He caught his breath. "Because there is no us."

"No?"

"No. This is about you pissing off one of the most powerful men in Alaska, Kate, a man with his fingers tied to every Alaskan string there is. It won't be long before he starts pulling those strings. If you're determined to carry on with this, you're going to need backup. I'd do the same for any friend in this situation."

Kate smiled.

"I've got to pee," Jim said.

"I cannot begin to tell you how much I am enjoying this," Kate said to his vanishing back.

She followed him up the stairs, unbuttoning the glittering red jacket. He came out of the bathroom as she walked into the bedroom.

"You know," Kate said, "from the beginning, this has been all about family. There's Erland and Victoria, brother and sister. Erland married Alice, and from what I picked up at the party, they had no children. Which may be a contributing factor to why she carves up her face every six months." Remembering Alice's pale, taut skin, as firm and smooth as a Barbie doll's, if not quite so forever young, Kate shivered. There was something frightening in such a single-minded pursuit of a semblance of youth. She walked over to the dresser and peered into the mirror.

Her skin was firm and smooth and a pale brown that had turned its usual gold after a summer spent outdoors, but it was thirty-five-year-old skin, no getting around it, with at least the hint of squint lines at the corners of her eyes and laugh lines at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were the sort of indeterminate hazel that could seem anything from gray to green, depending on where she was and what she was wearing. She examined her temples. Still black as an October night, but it wouldn't be long. She raised her chin and looked at her throat. Nope, she would never be mistaken for sixteen again.