A taint in the blood (13 page)

However, she, Kate Shugak, had an unimpeachable work ethic, and she, Kate Shugak, would fulfill her contract, thereby separating an exemplar of the Great Washed from some of that lovely, filthy lucre by that most legitimate of means, work for hire, a concept of which the Great Washed had no working— pardon the expression—knowledge.

Suffused with a righteous sense of superiority, she sat down on the indicated chair and said without preamble, "Your mother fired me."

Charlotte looked a little startled, but she rallied. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Thank you," Kate said, inclining her head a regal inch or thereabouts, "no. I went to see your mother yesterday, and she was not enthusiastic about you reopening her case. Let me repeat: She fired me."

"She can't fire you," Charlotte said, "she didn't hire you."

"Yeah, well, as I told you from the outset, this whole endeavor is a long shot at best. Victoria not talking to me is not shortening the odds."

"I told you she wouldn't," a voice said.

Kate looked around and saw another woman standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs. She was pudgy in form and pugnacious in manner, with a short mop of tight gray curls and a jaw like a bulldog. She wore an elegant three-piece suit, charcoal with a faint pinstripe, the hem of the skirt hitting directly at midknee. The cream-colored blouse was tied beneath her chin in a soft bow. Her eyes were brown, and they narrowed as they stared at Kate.

"Kate Shugak, allow me to introduce to you to Emily Gessner."

Emily strode forward, the very high heels of her very narrow Italian shoes making a strong staccato statement against the wood floor. Kate saw Charlotte wince.

"Kate," Emily said, and went to stand in back of Charlotte, placing one hand on her shoulder.

"Emily," Kate said.

"Emily's my attorney," Charlotte said.

Emily rolled her eyes. "And her partner," she said.

"You're an attorney, too?" Kate said to Charlotte.

Emily huffed out an impatient sigh. "That's life partner."

She didn't add "you moron," but Kate could tell the temptation was almost too great to resist. "Congratulations," Kate said.

Emily, prepared for shock and disgust, blinked a little. Pressing her advantage, Kate said, "What did you tell Charlotte?"

Emily rallied. "I told her Victoria wouldn't talk to you."

"You know her?"

Emily shrugged. "We've never met, but Charlotte's told me a lot."

"What kind of law do you practice?" Kate said.

"Criminal."

"Are you a litigator?"

Emily's smile showed all her teeth. For a moment she looked like Mutt in a bad mood.

"And in your professional opinion, do I have a hope in hell of getting Victoria a get-out-of-jail-free card?"

Emily opened her mouth to reply, but Charlotte beat her to it. "It doesn't matter what Emily thinks. It's what I want that matters."

Kate sighed. "Look, Charlotte—"

"You don't have to talk to my mother," Charlotte said. "What about the witnesses who testified at the trial?"

"Most of them testified for the prosecution," Kate said.

"Then most of them were lying," Charlotte said.

Kate thought over the list of witnesses she had compiled from the trial transcript. "You realize who some of these people are?"

"What," Emily said, "you afraid of rocking the establishment boat?"

"No," Kate said, "I'm making sure Charlotte isn't."

"I want my mother out of jail," Charlotte said flatly. "There is no way she'd try to kill my brothers. She didn't do it, and now she's dying, and I won't let her die in there."

"I have to say that Victoria didn't look all that ill to me," Kate said.

With jerky movements, Charlotte rose and walked over to a desk to extract a file. She almost threw it at Kate.

Kate opened it up. It was a medical report confirming Victoria's cancer.

"They'll let me take her out for the operation, but she's going to have to go through chemo and radiation and she's going to require some long-term care, and even then those toadies down at the hospital don't think she has much of a chance. I don't care how much it costs or whose toes you step on, I want her out of that place as soon as possible. Are you out of money yet? I can get my checkbook." She half-rose.

"I've barely cashed the first check, Charlotte."

Charlotte settled back onto the couch, sitting at its extreme edge, her back rigidly straight. Emily suddenly looked less pugnacious and more worried. "Charlotte—" Emily said.

"I want her
out,”
Charlotte said without looking around at her partner.

Emily met Kate's eyes. "All right, Charlotte, we'll get her out. Won't we, Kate?"

"Based on the trial transcript and the police report, I don't think we're going to be able to prove that she didn't do it," Kate said, "So, Charlotte, if your mom didn't do it, who did?"

Charlotte slumped, her face dropping into her hands. "I don't know," she said, her voice muffled. "Don't you think I've asked myself that question over and over again? Who sets out to murder two teenage boys? And why only the boys? Why not me, too?"

"Were you always supposed to go with your mother that day?"

"Yes, it was a fund-raiser for Mr. Stafford, and Mom always helped Uncle Erland when he put one of those on."

"Too cheap to pay for catering," Emily said to Kate.

Charlotte reddened but didn't deny it. "It had been planned for a month."

"And everyone knew you'd be there."

"Yes. Mom paid me. It was part of my allowance to do stuff like that." She paused. "And I liked doing it. It's what I do now."

Kate looked at Emily. "Cater," Emily said. "At least now her uncle has to pay her for it."

"Where is your surviving brother?"

"Oliver? He lives here in town."

"Is he in the book?"

"He's my partner," Emily said.

Kate looked at her, brow raised.

Emily rolled her eyes. "My law partner," she said.

"He's an attorney?"

"Yes," Charlotte said.

"A criminal attorney?" Kate said.

"Yes."

Kate climbed into the Subaru and thought for a moment. It was a little past 10:00
a.m.
Emily had promised to make an appointment for Kate to speak to Oliver, but that probably wouldn't pan out today. Emily had wanted Kate's cell phone number, and Kate had to admit that it would have been handy to have had one.

She could go home and make a start on the list of names and phone numbers Brendan had given her.

Instead, she drove to Bean's Cafe, a warehouse on Third Avenue that had been converted into a soup kitchen, and inquired after Luba Hardt. A slender dark-haired woman with a calm, pretty face knew the name and told her that Luba had been in the previous Monday for lunch. The bad news was Luba looked like she was living on the street. The good news was Luba didn't look like she'd been strung out on anything. "She mention a location?"

"Who are you?" the woman said.

"I'm from Niniltna, Luba's village," Kate said. "Her family heard I was coming to Anchorage and asked me to look around for her."

"What family?"

"Billy Mike."

The woman's face cleared. "Sure, I know Billy. Heap big chief."

Kate smiled. "You know him, all right. But about Luba?"

The woman shook her head. "I'm sorry. If they find a safe place to stay, they don't usually talk about it, for fear someone is going to hear and move in on them."

On the way out, Kate examined the faces of the people standing around, smoking and talking, all waiting for the doors to open for lunch. More than half of them were Alaska Native, mostly Aleut and Athabascan and Yupiq, from the looks of them, with maybe a few Inupiaq thrown in. Kate had an urge to cram them all into the back of the car and truck them out to Merrill and put them on planes back to their villages.

One familiar face popped out at her and she halted. "Kurt?" she said, disbelieving.

After some argument, she bundled him into the car and took him to the Bone. A redheaded waitress in a crisp white apron with a name tag that read
heidi
pinned to it bustled up and gave them their pick of booths.

"My treat," Kate said, and Kurt ordered as much deep-fried chicken as you could fit in one basket. She drank coffee while he ate. He sat back when he was done and looked around like it hadn't quite registered where he was until then. Heidi brought him coffee and smiled blindingly down at him, and he watched her walk away with appreciation, although Kate couldn't be sure whether it was Heidi or the fried chicken that inspired it.

Kate looked out the window. The Subaru was parked right in front. Mutt was nowhere to be seen. Probably draped over the backseat, snoozing. Kate owed her a good run.

Mutt had greeted Kurt with enthusiasm, which gave Kate pause. Mutt's built-in bullshit detector was second only to her own. Kate might have to readjust her ideas about Kurt. "So," she said. "Kurt."

He braced himself, both hands curled around his cup of coffee. "Kate."

"What are you doing in town?"

He shrugged. "What you told me to do." She looked blank, and he said, "Look for a legitimate job in Anchorage if I couldn't find one in Niniltna."

"That was only two days ago," she said. "I didn't mean you had to do something immediately."

He shrugged again. "You confiscated my bank account." He didn't sound accusatory, merely factual. "Fishing's over, and I never was much of a trapper, and anyway, Dan O'Brien's got the Park pretty much locked up for trapping, at least for this year. Didn't have a dime to get me through a winter in the Bush. Figured I'd give Anchorage a try." His smile was wan. "Bigger selection of women in town anyway."

"And first thing you wind up at Bean's?"

He nodded. "For lunch. Sometimes people come down there looking for day labor. I figured it was worth a shot. Plus, I really don't have any money."

"Have you signed up at Job Service?"

He nodded. "I went straight there from Merrill."

"And?"

"They're not hopeful. The seasonal work's just about over for the year, and I don't know Microsoft Word, whatever the hell that is." He drank coffee. "I'll check with contractors, see if anyone's got anything going. I hammer a pretty straight nail."

She felt guilty, although she shouldn't have, and she knew it. He'd been poaching bears, and endangering a species while he was at it. He'd been violating the wanton-waste law by taking only the bladders, leaving the meat and the pelt for carrion, a Class A misdemeanor. By statute, he could have been fined $2,500 and jailed for a week, no suspension or reduction in sentence allowed. Not to mention the thirteen hundred dollars he'd be ordered to pay as restitution to the state for the unlawful taking of a grizzly bear. Some people were just too dumb to live.