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Why hadn’t Victoria testified? Never mind the Fifth Amendment, juries always wanted to hear from those accused, wanted to hear them say they didn’t do it, wanted to test the veracity of their testimony in person. There were gigantic traps laid for those who did, of course, and it was every criminal attorney’s job to dissuade his defendant from getting up on that stand and falling into them, but with a case as weak as Cowell’s had been, there would have been nothing to lose and everything to gain, especially if Victoria’s testimony had been convincing.
Kate, thinking of her two interviews with Victoria Ba
And then she thought, What if Victoria had stayed off the stand not because she didn’t want to testify against herself but because she was afraid she would be asked questions about something else, something that had nothing to do with the murder?
She got back to the town house at 9:15 P.M., to find Jim Chopin pacing up and down the sidewalk. He didn’t look happy. “Where the hell have you been, Shugak? I’ve been checking in since I got out of court. I nearly put out an APB! Get down, damn it!” This last to Mutt, who had greeted him in her usual exuberant fashion. After being addressed in this ungentlemanly fashion, she dropped to all fours and slunk past him, the picture of dejection.
“I’ve been chasing my tail all day,” she said. “Did you get him?”
“Jury was out for seven minutes, guilty on all counts, and who gives a shit? Chasing your tail how, and why the hell didn’t you call? And how the hell am I supposed to watch your back when I can’t find it anywhere!”
“Congratulations,” she said, leading the way into the kitchen. “Want a beer to wet the head of the newly convicted?”
“You have beer?”
“I stopped at the store on my way home.” She uncapped a bottle of Alaskan Amber and poured herself a glass of cranberry juice.
Mutt, careful to keep herself within Jim’s range of vision, sidled into the kitchen, her body language devoted to broadcasting how severely her heart had been broken by her idol.
Jim took the beer ungraciously and stamped into the living room, from whence the sound of the television soon followed, turned up probably a tad bit more than necessary. Mutt followed. After a few moments, Kate heard Jim’s voice say, “Oh for chrissake sake, dog, get your butt over here!” and there was a joyous bark, the scrabble of toenails on wood, a loud thump, and an even louder groan.
Kate’s stomach growled. She sliced a ring of Polish sausage into a jambalaya mix, brought it all to a boil, reduced the heat to low, and covered it to simmer for twenty-five minutes.
She walked into the living room, to find Jim barely visible behind a lapful of Mutt. The easy chair must have been straining in every joint, but Jim seemed a little calmer. They were both watching the end of Law and Order. Jim looked up. “Find out anything new today?”
She sat down on the couch and propped her feet on the coffee table. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, Jim. Maybe Brendan’s right. Maybe I should just walk away.”
“Brendan?” Jim said, shoving Mutt off his lap. Mutt gave him a look of burning reproach and padded over to sprawl out on the hearth. Made of dark green slate, it was the coolest surface in the house that Mutt could find to sleep on.
“He agrees there’s something bent about Victoria’s case, but he doesn’t think there’s any point in pursuing it. I haven’t unearthed any evidence about the actual case, now, have I?”
Jim was obviously torn between a reluctance to agree to anything said by a rival for Kate’s affections and his inclination that Brendan was right. After a brief i
“Plus, although he’d never admit it, I think Brendan is a little intimidated by Erland Ba
“‘Involved’?” Jim said.
“Yeah, I was having coffee with Eugene Muravieff’s mistress and he saw us and came over to have a little chat.”
“A little chat”? You had a little chat with Erland Ba
“What,” Kate said, amused, “big bad Erland scares you, too?”
“Kate,” Jim said, pushing the footrest of his chair down so he could address her from an upright position, “out of the blue Erland Ba
Kate was gri
But he wasn’t listening. “Did you say Eugene Muravieff’s mistress?”
But she heard a familiar name from the television and turned to look.
There was Bruce Abbott, the governor’s gopher, doing a stand-up behind a podium with the state of Alaska’s seal on it. On his right stood the attorney general of the state of Alaska, a large man overflowing his three-piece pinstripe, and on his left the state DA for Anchorage, a bleached blonde in a gray two-piece. Abbott wore a red tie, the attorney general a red handkerchief, and the DA a red scarf, indicating that they’d all graduated with honors from Television Spin 101.
“-due to the stellar work Ms. Muravieff has performed in achieving a level of quality education for the inmates at Hiland Mountain Correctional Facility, and because he feels she has contributed substantially to the lowest rate of recidivism for a corrections facility in the state and one of the lowest rates in the nation, because Victoria Ba
“Bruce, is this action in response to the rumor that Victoria Muravieff has inoperable cancer?”
Bruce looked reproving. “I don’t know where you got that information, Mike, but certainly not. Jill?”
“Bruce, does the governor’s action have anything to do with the recent death of Charlotte’s daughter?”
Bruce looked grave. “The governor’s heart goes out to the Ba
“Bruce, it’s well known that Erland Ba
Bruce look austere. “I know where you’re going with this, Andy, and I’m shocked that you would suggest for even a moment that this act was in the nature of a political debt paid. The governor made this decision on the merits of the case in question and on the character of the person named, nothing else. Yes, Sandy?”
The scene cut away to an interview with Erland Ba