Unlucky in Law (14 page)

“My turn, now? I'm wondering,” Paul said, “how close were you and your sister, Christina?”

“She was older, and, growing up, we weren't close. We became closer as we reached adulthood.”

“Were you close enough to know her lovers?” Paul asked.

The foot-tapping stopped abruptly. The shoulders hesitated. This was not a question to ask a brother, Zhukovsky's disapproving face said. “What?”

“Who she was sleeping with,” Wish said helpfully.

“Christina didn't confide in me in that way,” Alex Zhukovsky said, gathering himself, his agitation showing itself in the rapid eye movements, the shifting of weight, the folding of a napkin. He didn't like this.

“Oh, you probably knew.” Wish seemed to be studying the professor. “Even if she didn't tell you.”

Zhukovsky said nothing.

Paul flipped through his notebook. “Witnesses say she was having a relationship with a man named Sergey Krilov.”

“What witnesses?” The thought of witnesses clearly jarred the professor.

“You know Krilov?”

“I know about him,” he admitted. “You're right. They had a relationship for a while. She ended it.”

“Was that the day of the conference, or before it?”

“What do you know about that?”

“We know you were there and so was she, along with a bunch of Russian visitors. She was seen arguing with Krilov.”

“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.”

“Not with his parents?”

“They died in the revolution.” His body, until then managing a slow tap of agitation, practically turned inside out as he decided to find himself a better position on the wire chair, failed, and stood up.

“He was a good man, my father,” Zhukovsky said firmly. He began pacing the deck, hands in his pockets. “Sociable, well liked. Loved to talk. He could make friends with anyone.” A fleeting nostalgic smile died on his face. “My parents had a happy marriage,” he went on, tacking in another direction. “After Mother died in 1971, Papa would go to that cemetery. Visit her. He got to know the workers over there. They had their children late in life. Christina was born in 1960 and I was born in 1964.”

Paul could see Zhukovsky enjoyed talking about his family history, but he wasn't the only one having problems figuring out how Papa Zhukovsky related to their present-day murder, other than the fact that his grave offered a convenient receptacle for the victim. He wondered, as he had before, if there had been some kind of symbolism in the daughter ending up buried with her father.

Nina's client claimed Alex had something to do with it. He was a logical suspect, considering he knew both of the dead people and had the strongest emotional connection to them, but what kind of a symbol might he mean by the gesture? Paul had thought about it several times, and discussed it with Nina, but neither of them had the slightest idea.

He had lied about Christina, saying he had no idea where she had gone when she took a leave from the university early this year. Why? A normal instinct to keep private things private?

“Getting back to this conference,” Paul said, “how many of the participants did you know before they came?”

“These were people from all over the world. Christina knew many of the participants. I knew a few.”

“So she did have extensive contacts with the Russian community and with Russia?”

“She was involved locally,” the professor said. “We were raised in the American Russian Orthodox Church and have many close ties there. She found people through our church, which is a gathering place for many Russian nationals, and through our cultural association.”

“I never know what people mean when they say that. What do these organizations do exactly?”

“The main one that's still active in this area is the Russian Alliance. They raise money for good causes. They allow others with similar heritage to meet and perhaps practice some old traditions.”

He was leaning against the railing, and had taken up thrumming with his right hand. Noticing, he put it in his pocket, took it out again, checked his watch, and sat back down in his chair.

Silence fell. Paul had asked about everything but the crucial thing, and he still wasn't sure how to approach it. He took off his sunglasses and squinted out at the windswept sea plain.

Zhukovsky, no fool himself, was waiting anxiously for Paul to get down to it. He knew what Stefan had told Nina and Paul. Deano had leaked all that months before.

“Professor Zhukovsky, you know that Mr. Wyatt was arrested after digging up the remains of your father,” Paul finally said.

“He admits that? He's going to admit that in court? I thought . . .”

“He's not going to testify, I believe,” Paul said.

“Why did he kill Christina? Why? I've asked myself that over and over. It's crazy. How did he know her? Has he told you that?”

“He pled innocent to the murder of your sister. But he admits digging up the grave of your father.”

“It's all the same,” Zhukovsky said with disgust. “I'm sick of this. You're not going to tell me anything, I understand. So what else do you want to know? Let's get this over with.”

“On that Saturday night, April twelfth and into the morning of the thirteenth, the night the police discovered your sister's body, how did they know you were related to the man buried in the cemetery?”

“I signed the logbook at the cemetery when my father was buried. I suppose they got my name from that.”

“And why did you hire Mr. Wyatt to dig up the bones of your father?”

Alex Zhukovsky drew himself up. All the restive tapping of his fingers on his knee, the twitching of his foot, stopped. His neck—ah, his neck had taken on the hue of a tequila sunrise, heavy on the grenadine.

“As I've told the police and said in a deposition, I didn't. Is that why you came? To drag me into this? Because you don't want to do that.”

“Stefan Wyatt collected your father's bones,” Paul said. “That's a fact.” He consulted his notes. “He says you hired him.”

“Yes! Yes! He says that! He's a liar! Does he say I hired him to kill Christina? Because I'll kill him if he has the audacity to suggest such a thing!”

“Calm down, Professor. He only claims that you hired him to get the bones.”

Zhukovsky's eyebrows beetled into one. “I didn't. And don't try to claim I did or I'll sue. Tell your boss that. I would never hurt my sister.”

“But why bury her in your father's grave?” Paul asked. “That's the thing that keeps me awake at night. There were other graves nearer the street. So why that one? Was he involved in something special, something important, your father, Constantin Zhukovsky?”

“My father was no one, an entirely ordinary man. A baker, for God's sake! Let him rest in peace!” The flush test had stopped working. Zhukovsky was far too excited by now.