A taint in the blood by Dana Stabenow
Authors: Dana Stabenow
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Mystery, Detective and Mystery Stories, Mystery Fiction, Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Women Private Investigators, Fiction - Mystery, Crime & mystery, alaska, Crime thriller, Mothers and daughters, Shugak; Kate (Fictitious character), Women private investigators - Alaska, Murder Victims' Families, Arson Investigation, Women prisoners
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She was comfortable with who she was and what she had done to get there. Mostly, she did things for people. Most of the time, it helped, enough of the time it earned her a living, and she was comfortable with that, too.
She was, she admitted to herself, uncomfortable with being done for. The Park had come together as one unit, ranger and developer, subsistence and sport and commercial fisherman, lumberjack and tree-hugger, wildlife biologist and hunter, Native and white, all to build her, little old Kate Shugak, her own house. She still had trouble believing it. Old Sam had helped her to a vague understanding, but she feared she would never feel worthy of it.
She turned and looked at the living room, into which all of her former cabin could have fit with room to spare, never mind the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bathrooms. It still felt odd to have separate rooms for things, and doors into them.
"Okay," she said out loud. "I guess I got you by doing what it is that I do, and I guess if I want to earn it out, I keep doing what it is I do."
Mutt had mastered the art of opening the door on the first try, and she came in in time to hear the last of Kate's announcement. She cocked a quizzical ear in Kate's direction, received no enlightenment, and flopped down on the sheepskin in front of the couch with a sigh whose satisfaction might have had something to do with the tuft of parka squirrel fur adhering to her muzzle. "Been up on the hill again, have you, girl?" Kate said.
She made herself a cup of tea, seasoned liberally with honey, which was also low in the container, and she added that to her Costco list for town. She curled up with the tea and the two files again, leafing through them at random this time, pausing here and there to reread a section.
Whether the fire had been set in Victoria Muravieff’s house was not at issue. Traces of a trail of gasoline led from the fireplace in the living room downstairs to two different sets of drapes hanging at two windows on either side of the fireplace. It was a typically amateur attempt to hide arson, trying to simulate a wood fire in the fireplace sparking out of control and consuming the house. Kate was no arson investigator, but even she knew that it had been a long time since one had fallen for that trick.
She looked at the picture of the house in the police file. It was big and rectangular, with two stories and what had been a white paint job with pale green trim. She knew less than nothing about burn patterns, but from the smoke and char marks on the exterior of the house, it looked like the fire had started on the first floor and worked its way upstairs. A window on the extreme left of the second floor was open. The rest of the windows were broken, jagged pieces of glass still evident in the frames. What had been a nice yard had been trampled into a muddy mire.
William Muravieff, seventeen, had been asleep in an upstairs bedroom—probably not the room with the open window-when the fire had broken out. He'd been asleep, and according to the coroner's report—Alaska had still had coroners back then—he had never woken up.
Oliver Muravieff, sixteen, had. He had managed to grope his way to the window, open it, and more or less fall out, landing awkwardly on his right leg, which had fractured in half a dozen places, which led to a charge of assault with intent. With the first-degree murder charge, and another for attempted murder, the assault charge was only gravy for the prosecutor.
The good news for Kate's new client was that there was no physical evidence linking Victoria Pilz Bannister Muravieff with the crime.
The bad news was that there was a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing straight at her like a road sign at a crossroads with a choice of only one destination. Victoria lived in the house. The gas in the can in her garage was a chemical match for the traces of gas found in the living room. She had fought
She was comfortable with who she was and what she had done to get there. Mostly, she did things for people. Most of the time, it helped, enough of the time it earned her a living, and she was comfortable with that, too.
She was, she admitted to herself, uncomfortable with being done for. The Park had come together as one unit, ranger and developer, subsistence and sport and commercial fisherman, lumberjack and tree-hugger, wildlife biologist and hunter, Native and white, all to build her, little old Kate Shugak, her own house. She still had trouble believing it. Old Sam had helped her to a vague understanding, but she feared she would never feel worthy of it.
She turned and looked at the living room, into which all of her former cabin could have fit with room to spare, never mind the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bathrooms. It still felt odd to have separate rooms for things, and doors into them.
"Okay," she said out loud. "I guess I got you by doing what it is that I do, and I guess if I want to earn it out, I keep doing what it is I do."
Mutt had mastered the art of opening the door on the first try, and she came in in time to hear the last of Kate's announcement. She cocked a quizzical ear in Kate's direction, received no enlightenment, and flopped down on the sheepskin in front of the couch with a sigh whose satisfaction might have had something to do with the tuft of parka squirrel fur adhering to her muzzle. "Been up on the hill again, have you, girl?" Kate said.
She made herself a cup of tea, seasoned liberally with honey, which was also low in the container, and she added that to her Costco list for town. She curled up with the tea and the two files again, leafing through them at random this time, pausing here and there to reread a section.
Whether the fire had been set in Victoria Muravieff’s house was not at issue. Traces of a trail of gasoline led from the fireplace in the living room downstairs to two different sets of drapes hanging at two windows on either side of the fireplace. It was a typically amateur attempt to hide arson, trying to simulate a wood fire in the fireplace sparking out of control and consuming the house. Kate was no arson investigator, but even she knew that it had been a long time since one had fallen for that trick.
She looked at the picture of the house in the police file. It was big and rectangular, with two stories and what had been a white paint job with pale green trim. She knew less than nothing about burn patterns, but from the smoke and char marks on the exterior of the house, it looked like the fire had started on the first floor and worked its way upstairs. A window on the extreme left of the second floor was open. The rest of the windows were broken, jagged pieces of glass still evident in the frames. What had been a nice yard had been trampled into a muddy mire.
William Muravieff, seventeen, had been asleep in an upstairs bedroom—probably not the room with the open window-when the fire had broken out. He'd been asleep, and according to the coroner's report—Alaska had still had coroners back then—he had never woken up.
Oliver Muravieff, sixteen, had. He had managed to grope his way to the window, open it, and more or less fall out, landing awkwardly on his right leg, which had fractured in half a dozen places, which led to a charge of assault with intent. With the first-degree murder charge, and another for attempted murder, the assault charge was only gravy for the prosecutor.
The good news for Kate's new client was that there was no physical evidence linking Victoria Pilz Bannister Muravieff with the crime.
The bad news was that there was a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing straight at her like a road sign at a crossroads with a choice of only one destination. Victoria lived in the house. The gas in the can in her garage was a chemical match for the traces of gas found in the living room. She had fought
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