around, and almost no cars were parked in the barren lots.
Zhukovsky’s office was located in front. He must have seen them coming, because he met them at the main door, which he unlocked.
Deano’s report hadn’t described him, except to say he taught languages. Zhukovsky was a little younger and shorter than Paul, late thirties, with red-rimmed eyes in a soft face marked by a fine, straight nose and an unhappy expression. He had the well-trimmed beard of a stereotypical academic and the belly of a sedentary type, but might be fitter than he looked. The brown hair was already receding into a
They introduced themselves and exchanged business cards, and he nodded impatiently. Instead of inviting them inside, he pulled the door shut behind him, saying, “Follow me. Let’s not waste time sitting around inside.”
The three set off, turning up the hill nearby. Zhukovsky’s pace was relentless, no trouble but faster than suited decent conversation. They didn’t have far to go. He stopped at the student center, and motioned toward the outside tables. “It’s better here in the sunshine,” he said. “A teacher spends too much time indoors.”
Once they sat down, Zhukovsky’s foot started tapping. He kept raising and lowering his shoulders, a strange tic. He was hyper, probably. How did he get through his classes? In his own youth Paul had found it unbearable to be stuck at a desk with a soothing voice droning somewhere in the distance, the equivalent of a warm summer day in a flower field, insects buzzing, sun shining, bored out of his skull and sleepy into infinity.
Of course, the instructor could pace around in front, even if he was in the cage, too. And maybe Zhukovsky’s fidgeting was a function of nerves. Paul studied him through his sunglasses and decided to be friendly.
“Good of you to see us,” he said. Finally, he added silently. Zhukovsky had stalled Paul for the past two weeks, refusing to meet with him. “I realize you’ve been interviewed before by someone from the Pohlmann firm.”
“Deano, he called himself,” Zhukovsky said with a lifted Elvis lip.
“We’re not like him,” Wish put in hastily, starting up a tiny recorder.
Deano stands alone, Paul thought, king of fools. He was looking forward to running into Deano soon.
“I don’t have much time. I teach a Saturday afternoon class for the dedicated and the crazy. I wouldn’t have talked to you again. But I have a demand.”
“Ms. Reilly-remember her? She’s the attorney for Stefan Wyatt and has a few more questions.”
“Speaking of crazy, she is if she thinks she’ll get Stefan Wyatt off.” He said “Stefan” with the accent on the second syllable, and Paul remembered that Wyatt’s mother was Polish. Zhukovsky spoke good old American English himself. “First, I tell you what I want. Then, maybe I’ll answer some questions.”
“Okay,” Paul said. He crossed his legs and looked amenable.
“I want my father’s bones back. My father, Constantin Zhukovsky.”
Paul and Wish exchanged looks.
“Tell me more,” Paul said.
“I received my father’s remains a couple of weeks ago, and had buried him once. This time the remains were cremated. You can understand why.” Paul did understand. The bones had been busy, getting dug up, riding around in back seats, and pawed over by police forensics technicians. “But now I find out two bones were withheld. Do you understand how infuriating this is? How disrespectful?” He jabbed a thick finger into Paul’s chest, never a good idea, saying, “I’ve been informed by the D.A.’s office that your people have them.”
Paul held up his hands, to show there were no bones there, but he was aching to jab back, show Zhukovsky what a real jab felt like.
“I want to know why, and I want to know where the hell you are keeping them.”
When Paul said nothing, he said more reasonably, “I have a right to know, don’t I? He was my father.”
“They were considered evidence. The remaining bones are in Sacramento being tested by our expert, a forensic scientist, Ginger Hirabayashi, and they’ll be released once the trial is over.”
“Tested? What? Why? You have no right! The D.A. never tested my father’s bones. They have nothing to do with my sister’s murder. I want all testing discontinued immediately. Tell your boss I’ll sue her if I don’t get them back within a week.” He folded his arms, glaring.
“I’ll get back to you. I’m a mere functionary in such matters.”
“Do that,” Zhukovsky demanded. “I don’t think you people fully comprehend what I’ve been going through. My sister is dead, murdered. It’s the worst thing I can remember, worse than losing my father. At least he lived his full life. Now she’s a spectacle, remembered for all the wrong reasons, as the victim of a ghoulish crime.” He had Stalin’s black eyebrows, which ruined an otherwise rather pleasant face. “It’s a shock I will never get over, and then, on top of it, this never-ending thing with my father…”
“My turn, now? I’m wondering,” Paul said, “how close were you and your sister, Christina?”
“She was older, and, growing up, we weren’t close. We became closer as we reached adulthood.”
“Were you close enough to know her lovers?” Paul asked.
The foot-tapping stopped abruptly. The shoulders hesitated. This was not a question to ask a brother, Zhukovsky’s disapproving face said. “What?”
“Who she was sleeping with,” Wish said helpfully.
“Christina didn’t confide in me in that way,” Alex Zhukovsky said, gathering himself, his agitation showing itself in the rapid eye movements, the shifting of weight, the folding of a napkin. He didn’t like this.
“Oh, you probably knew.” Wish seemed to be studying the professor. “Even if she didn’t tell you.”
Zhukovsky said nothing.
Paul flipped through his notebook. “Witnesses say she was having a relationship with a man named Sergey Krilov.”
“What witnesses?” The thought of witnesses clearly jarred the professor.
“You know Krilov?”
“I know about him,” he admitted. “You’re right. They had a relationship for a while. She ended it.”
“Was that the day of the conference, or before it?”
“What do you know about that?”
“We know you were there and so was she, along with a bunch of Russian visitors. She was seen arguing with Krilov.”
“I believe they broke up before the conference. That day he wanted to reconcile. She didn’t. That’s all that happened.”
Paul felt like a seal breaking through the ice to the surface, finally able to take a breath. Krilov excited him. “I’ve been looking into Krilov’s background and have learned a few things.”
“Really?” All the pretend indifference in the world couldn’t disguise Zhukovsky’s intense interest in exactly what Paul had learned.
“Yeah, you know, information’s cheap these days. Anyone can access the Web for the price of coffee in a Styrofoam cup.” He waited for Zhukovsky to beg him. He needed the guy engaged at this point, and he wasn’t going to let him ice up again.
“What did you learn?” Zhukovsky asked, unable to escape the plan.
Paul smiled to himself. “He’s from a family of formerly wealthy Russians who hit the skids when the Soviet Union busted up. He’s heavily into politics there, and holds some unusual views, such as, much as he hated the Soviet Union, he hates the current regime more. He hangs with radicals who want to throw out the president and restore a kind of prerevolutionary hierarchy over there. How involved was your sister?”
“My sister-okay, let me tell you the truth about her. She never got over losing our mother and father. She put herself to sleep reading an old book of fairy tales Papa used to read her at night. She never married. She had friends, but her natural reserve kept her from getting really close to people. Her life was-empty, sad. Then this Russian pops up out of nowhere, whispering in her ear, telling her she’s beautiful, unique, consequential. Well, can you blame her for wanting to believe him? He gave her life the meaning she needed. She fell in love with him and with the dream of a meaningful existence he offered.”
“Did she buy his politics?”
“She wasn’t mixed up in any cockeyed, lunatic, jug-headed plans to overthrow the Russian government, if that’s what you’re implying!”
Whew. Hit a nerve there, Paul thought. So, she had been involved somehow. To give himself a further chance to ponder Alex’s overreaction, and Alex a chance to use a napkin to wipe sweat from his forehead, he scribbled in his notebook. “Is Krilov the violent type?”
“Don’t try to pin my sister’s death on Sergey Krilov. Believe me, I wish it had been him-but your client’s blood was in her apartment! Stefan Wyatt killed her.”
Paul wanted to know why Alex would prefer that the killer be Krilov and not Stefan, but the purple map springing up on Zhukovsky’s forehead suggested he move on. Zhukovsky would clam up again if Paul wasn’t careful. He was feeling guilty about something. A connection with Stefan he regretted?
“You and your sister grew up here in the Monterey area?” Paul asked.
Breathing hard, still upset, the professor said brusquely, “Yes. Our father owned a pastry shop on Alvarado Street. Our mother died when my sister and I were children.”
“Was Christina a handful growing up? Anything unusual about her?”
“Everything. While her girlfriends were trading lipsticks, baring their belly buttons, and sleeping around, she was at the library reading. After college, she worked at a preschool and as a recreation counselor for elderly people. Later, she got a job here at the university.”
“You worked together?”
“No. There is a big gulf between administration and faculty at most colleges.”
“What was her title?”
“Public Affairs Officer. She was in charge of organizing special occasions on the campus.”
Low on the totem, Paul thought, for such an accomplished woman. And given her fancy apartment, there must have been family money behind her. He made a mental note. “And you’re on the Russian faculty?”
“I am the Russian faculty. I also teach French and German. Unfortunately, nobody around here wants to study anything but Spanish.”
“Did your sister speak Russian, too?”
“Yes.”
“Impressive,” Paul said. “I never learned a foreign language.”
“Why should you? You live in this vast land that you consider the center of civilization, and you simply make foreigners learn English. Most of my students are just filling in time or need to have a smattering of language to read technical articles.”
“But Christina wasn’t like that, was she? She left her work to travel for several months early this year, and nobody could tell me where she went. That’s a long time to be living out of a suitcase, isn’t it?”
“She was seeing the world,” Zhukovsky said shortly. “She was unmarried and unencumbered. Why shouldn’t she?”
“Just going from hotel to hotel? I mean, her coworkers didn’t even get postcards.”
“She kept in touch with me. She had her own money and she wanted to travel.”
“Yes, that would be expensive,” Paul said. “I suppose your father left you and Christina something.”
