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18
Wanda Gajewski opened the door. She looked more resigned than surprised. “I knew you’d be back sooner or later.”
It took a little of the wind out of Kate’s sails, but not all of it. She walked in without invitation, followed by Jim Chopin. It didn’t help her temper that Wanda and Jim took one look at each other and formed a mutual admiration society. “I need you to tell me about William Muravieff.”
Wanda closed the door behind her. “Would you like some coffee?” Without waiting for an answer, she disappeared into the kitchen while Kate paced up and down.
“Relax, Kate,” Jim said.
“Relax, my ass,” she said.
Wanda’s home was as architecturally unremarkable inside as it was outside. The living room carpet was new, its color a horribly dull dusty rose. The furniture was a collection of modular units upholstered in some nubby fabric in a brown-and-gold weave that would hide dirt well. The walls were livened by large paintings of wildflowers, oil on canvas. They looked as if Wanda had bought them in bulk for a discount from the artist at a street fair, on the last day of the fair, just as the artist had been packing up to go home and long after all the best paintings had been sold. They were bright, Kate would give them that. One of them might even have looked like a lupine, if she squinted. She winced away from it and encountered the very blue eye of a Siamese cat, curled into a perfect circle in the dimpled seat of a chair. It hissed at Kate.
“Same backatcha,” Kate said, hurt. Usually animals liked her. Good thing they’d left Mutt in the car.
Wanda came into the room carrying a tray. Kate had seen more trays on this case than in the rest of her life combined. She didn’t own one herself, not even before the fire. She wondered if perhaps she should buy one with which to serve guests coffee when they came to visit her brand-new home.
“I need to know everything you can tell me about William,” she said.
“I thought I already had,” Wanda said, pouring the coffee.
“No, you told me everything about Eugene, William’s father, for whom you dumped William when you were in high school.”
The Siamese took exception to Kate’s tone.
“Come on, you,” Wanda said, rising to scoop up the cat. “You know you want to get hair all over my pillow anyway.” She carried the cat into another room. “Sorry about that,” she said when she reappeared. “Wilma’s a little overprotective.”
Wanda and her cat, Wilma. Kate put the mug down on the coffee table, a rectangular wicker basket with a sheet of glass cut to fit the top. She rubbed her face and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands dangling. “I’m trying to figure out who killed your lover, not to mention his son and his daughter, too. Aren’t you the least bit interested in helping me do that?”
Wanda met her eyes steadily. “William’s mother was convicted of the crime. The police told me that Eugene was the victim of a home invasion. The paper said that Charlotte was killed by a hit-and-run driver. It’s awful that so much tragedy has happened to one family, but it’s not evidence of conspiracy to commit serial murders.”
Jim looked like he might applaud.
“They just let Victoria out,” Kate said.
“Yes.”
“They pardoned her for the crime of killing her son.”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“It’s been thirty years. She’s worked hard and made a difference during that time. She’s paid for her crime.”
“That’s big of you,” Kate said. “Talk to me about William.”
There was a brief silence. Wanda took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She sat back and looked at Kate. “He was one of the good guys,” she said, her eyes sad. “He never said he’d do something and then didn’t deliver, didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep. He was kind and honest and trustworthy. He wasn’t a saint, you understand. He was just a good boy who never got to be a good man.”
“Did you believe Victoria had done it?”
Wanda shook her head again. “I didn’t know her that long or that well, but from what I did see, it seemed insane to me that anyone could possibly accuse her of such a thing. But the police seemed so sure, and then the trial… When she was convicted, I thought she must have done it, after all. How could a jury find her guilty otherwise?”
“And now?”
“And now I don’t know,” Wanda said. She looked exhausted suddenly, and less beautiful. Again, Kate imagined a younger Wanda and the stir she must have created at Anchorage High School. Even Max had vivid memories of the young Wanda. What had he called her? A honey pot? “Wanda, before you met William, did-”
“That’s enough,” Victoria Ba
Kate’s mouth dropped open, and she suffered a momentary flashback to Max’s smug expression “I might” he’d said when she asked him if he knew where Victoria was. Might, my ass, she thought to herself. “Ms. Muravieff,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Victoria came forward to take a seat next to Wanda. She took Wanda’s hand in both of her own. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Wanda said, managing a watery smile.
Victoria looked back at Kate. “Why are you here? What else can you possibly need to know?”
Kate looked at Victoria, every regal inch the matriarch of a family whose roots went deep into Alaska’s history. Truth be told, it was all that mattered to either of them. “What if I told you,” Kate said slowly, “what if I said I’m starting to think that the person who died in that house fire thirty-one years ago was the target all along?”
Victoria snorted. “Today’s big surprise. I already told you, I killed them both, or I tried to. I was broke,” she said stonily, “and I needed the money. Now I want you to leave this house, please.”
She didn’t rise to see Kate out. The last Kate saw of them was Victoria putting an arm around Wanda’s shoulders, and tears ru
Jim looked back at Wanda’s house as they drove away. “How the hell did she wind up there?”
“Wanda works for Judge Berlin. She would have known about the release, and made sure she was waiting when Victoria got out.”
“That wasn’t what I meant. What the hell is Victoria Ba
“They both loved William,” Kate said. “And they both loved Eugene. I suppose it’s natural that they would become-” She hesitated.
“Friends?” Jim said.
Kate shrugged. “At least they’ll both have someone to talk to about their lost men.”
“Sweet Jesus. I will never understand women.”
She summoned up a smile, but it was lacking its customary provocation. “You’re not supposed to.”
“Good to know.”
The gold nugget numerals on the Alaska map clock read 5:00 P.M. when they walked in the door, and Jim reached for the remote and clicked on the television. He saw Kate’s glance and said, “Sorry. It’s like a nervous twitch when I’m in Anchorage,” then made as if to turn it off again.
“Wait,” she said, staring at the screen.
Ralph Patton was shown leaving the courthouse, his arm draped protectively around a woman holding a baby, shielding them from the television cameras. He looked angry, and immensely relieved.
“-in what the judge called a tragic and inexcusable miscarriage of justice, it appears that the arresting officer did not read Mr. Patton his rights when Mr. Patton was taken into custody. Further, in an exclusive interview with this reporter, Patton’s attorney, Joseph Dial, inferred that there were other and multiple irregularities to do with Patton’s arrest, culminating in the arraigning judge’s decision this afternoon to allow Patton to go free on bail.”