A taint in the blood (9 page)

The young woman realized that the frown was producing an unsightly line across her forehead, smoothed it away with one hand, and turned the frown into a smile. "Of course, you must be the one from UAA," she said, as if that and that alone would explain the jeans.

Kate didn't deny it.

"May I see some identification, please?"

Kate produced her driver's license, was deemed to be who she really was, and was permitted entry. When the door closed behind her with a solid thud, she had the same reaction she always did: an overwhelming wave of claustrophobia, which was not alleviated by the wall of windows that lined one side of the large room to which she had been admitted and which looked out on a spectacular view of the Chugach Mountains. The worst part of Kate's job with the district attorney had been having to enter various correctional facilities around the state voluntarily to interview perps. She'd hated it then, and she hated it now. She took a deep breath, trying to fill her lungs with fresh air that wasn't there.

The room was filled with long tables and plastic bucket chairs, and there were a couple of kids running around, obviously on visits to their mothers, who were hunched over tables, talking either to their mothers or their lawyers. At another table, a group of women were laboring over some arts and crafts project. A couple of them were in bright orange jumpsuits, which meant that they had misbehaved in some way on the inside, which could mean anything from petty theft to assault. A majority of them were Native and black, big surprise.

Kate was ushered to a chair at the end of one table and told firmly to wait there. She sat. Lunch was being cooked somewhere— burgers, at a guess—and her stomach growled.

"Kate Shugak?"

She looked up and saw a woman standing in front of her. The last time Kate had seen her, Kate had been seated in the witness chair and she had been at the defendant's table next to a public defender who was trying to impeach Kate's testimony. Kate searched her memory and dredged up a name and, with a little more effort, a case file. "Myra Hartsock," she said. Child endangerment, fourth offense, and the judge had taken away her children and evidently thrown enough jail time at her to keep her in Hiland for six years.

"Are you here to see me?" Myra said.

"No," Kate said.

"I'm sober now."

"I see that."

"And I'm straight. I been straight for four, going on five years now."

"Good for you."

Myra hesitated, hands clenched on the edge of her tray. "My kids," she said. "I see them sometimes."

"Really."

Myra nodded. "My mother brings them here to visit me."

"Good for her."

"I read to them, and we play games."

"Good for you."

Myra gestured with her head. "I've been working in the prison greenhouse. My case officer says she thinks she can place me in a job pretty easy when I get out."

"Good for her."

Myra took a deep breath. "Because I'm coming up for parole in seven months."

"Really?"

"You could speak for me at my hearing."

"I could," Kate agreed.

Myra's look of hope faded. "But you won't."

"No."

Myra bared her teeth. "Bitch."

"Backatcha," Kate said.

Myra started to cry. "Why won't you help me?"

"Because your kids come first for me," Kate said, "like they should have with you. Reading to them and playing games with them one or twice a month doesn't make up for the fact that Andy had to learn how to write left-handed because you broke his right hand in so many places that he can't even brush his teeth with it, and that Kay will probably be in therapy for the rest of her life because you sold her for money you used to buy booze and drugs."

"I was a drunk and a junkie back then!" Myra said, her voice rising. "I told you—I don't do that anymore!"

"You don't in this adult day-care center of yours," Kate said. "Doesn't mean you won't when you get out again. Best thing that can happen to your kids is for you to be away from them as long as possible. If I had my druthers it'd be forever."

"Let's move it along, Myra, shall we?" a guard said, coming up behind her.

He took her arm. She yanked free, glared at Kate, and stomped off.

Kate could feel the eyes on her from all over the room. Oh yeah, it was old home week for her here at Hiland Mountain, a regular felons reunion. A few minutes later, the officer returned, Victoria Pilz Bannister Muravieff in tow.

She didn't look anything at all like Kate had imagined she would. For one thing, she didn't look ill, and for another, she didn't look sixty-seven. She was a tall woman with a thick head of gray hair cut bluntly to a determined jawline and parted over her right eye. Her brow was broad, her eyebrows arched, her nose so high-bridged as to be almost hooked, which it probably would be eventually, her mouth full and firm. She was wearing street clothes, a faded pink T-shirt tucked into a pair of button-front Levi's, and tennis shoes with Velcro fasteners.

She moved with a brisk step, her shoulders square, no hint of osteoporosis about her. Her cheeks were pink, her wrinkles confined for the most part to the corners of her eyes and mouth, beneath her chin, and on the backs of her hands. Her eyes were dark blue and direct, fixing Kate with a puzzled stare. "You aren't Caroline.

Kate got up and offered her hand. "No, I'm Kate Shugak."

Victoria took it automatically in a strong, cool grip, one firm pump and release. "I'm sorry. Have we met?"

"No," Kate said.

The older woman looked at the table and then at the floor next to Kate's chair. "Didn't you bring them?"

"Bring what?"

"The GED workbooks," the older woman said impatiently.

"I didn't know I was supposed to," Kate said.

Victoria Pilz Bannister MuraviefF put her hands on her hips and looked down her nose at Kate. "How the devil am I supposed to teach my class without workbooks? Listen, Ms. Shugak, if this is another end run by the university around my program, I have told you people before that I won't—"

"I don't work for the university," Kate said.

Victoria halted. "Then who the hell are you?"

"I told you. Kate Shugak."

Victoria tapped her foot. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?" Her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. Any relation to Ekaterina Shugak?"

"My grandmother."

"I see." A brief pause. "I knew her."

"Everyone did," Kate said. There was a sick feeling rising in the pit of her stomach. "Have you talked to your daughter lately?"

All trace of expression wiped itself from Victoria's face. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth settled into a thin line. "What's Charlotte got to do with this?"

"She hired me," Kate said.

Victoria folded her arms. "To do what?"

"To look into your case."

"What case?"

The sick feeling intensified. "The case that put you in here, Ms. MuraviefF. The murder of your son."

The tapping foot had stilled, but the older woman's shoulders were so tight, Kate thought they might break off if someone tapped them. From the corner of her eye, Kate could see people turning to look at them, and she could hear conversations dropping off one by one into an expectant silence. Into it, Kate said, "Your daughter thinks you were wrongly convicted, Ms. MuraviefF, and she hired me to prove it. I'd like to ask you some questions, if I may. First, I'll need—"

"You may not," the other woman said in a taut voice.

Kate, thrown off her stride, said blankly, "I beg your pardon?"

"Tell Charlotte I fired you," the other woman said. And with that, she marched off.

Kate watched her go, not a little mystified, and recollected herself only when one of the officers started to move toward her. She held up a hand and headed for the door.

She dropped the visitor badge off at the desk. As she was going out, another woman was coming in with a large box. Kate held the door for her, and as it closed behind her, she heard the fresh-faced young guard say, "Caroline, hey. I thought you weren't coming. I thought you'd sent someone else today."

Kate kept going. Mutt was sunbathing on the hood of the Forester. "Let's go," Kate told her. She started the engine and drove out of the parking lot. About a mile down the road, she pulled a U-turn and drove back up the hill and into the parking lot, this time pulling into a space about two rows down and ten spaces over.

Mutt gave her a quizzical look. "To confuse anyone inside who's monitoring the cameras on the roof," Kate said, pointing them out.

Mutt looked pointedly at the door. Kate leaned over to open it up and Mutt got back up on the hood.

The sun beat down. Kate rolled down first her window, then the one on the passenger side, then the two back windows. She kicked herself for not bringing a book, and cleaned out the glove compartment in lieu of reading. There was the car manual, a near-empty box of Wash 'n Dries, a handful of lemon drops, a Reese's Cup that was silver with age but which Kate ate anyway, and a comb with a few strands of short, dark, curly hair caught in its teeth. She touched them gently. How strange that something grown by a man dead for almost two years could feel so alive.

Kate had read in various places how scientists were mapping the human chromosome down to the last molecule, and how it might be possible in the future to reconstruct a human being from the DNA in a strand of hair. They wouldn't have the same life experience, of course, the same memories. The all new and improved Jack Morgan wouldn't necessarily like Jimmy Buffett, for example, and Jimmy Buffett had been responsible for bringing Jack and Kate together.

She became aware that she could no longer see the hair or the comb for the tears in her eyes. She blinked them away and put the comb back in the glove compartment.

The sun beat down some more. Mutt rolled onto her back, paws in the air in a disgusting display of abandon. Kate considered starting the engine just to see how high Mutt could jump from a prone position.

An hour passed. The woman Kate had passed in the doorway came out and went to her car, a beige Toyota Camry that looked, if possible, even more beige beneath an unregarded layer of mud and dust. Kate opened the door of the Subaru. Mutt jumped as if someone had given her a nudge with a cattle prod and then slid down from the hood in an ignominious heap. She leaped to her feet and pretended that she had meant to do that.

Kate approached the woman as she was about to get in her car. "Excuse me?"

The woman looked over her shoulder. "Yes? May I help you?"

"My name is Kate Shugak."

The woman looked puzzled. "I'm sorry. Have we met?"

Twice in one day. If this kept up, Kate was going to get an inferiority complex. "No. I've been retained by Victoria Muravieff's daughter to look into her case."

The woman looked more puzzled. "What case?"

Kate sighed. "Listen, I'm fresh off a plane and I'm hot, and I'm hungry and I'm thirsty. Have you—what was your name?"

"Caroline Landry," the woman said, and then looked as if she wished she hadn't.

"So, Caroline, have you had lunch?"