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Two of Stellini’s wise guys started to move towards Petrenko. He knew he could take care of them if he had to, but he was beginning to have doubts about Raymond Lombardo’s involvement. Maybe the FBI did manufacture the video of Lombardo outside the bank. Maybe they were even behind the bank robbery. Petrenko knew there were high-level government officials who would do anything to get their hands on the computer disks and videotapes that he was keeping in his safety deposit boxes. If they had found out about his boxes, then maybe...

Both wise guys were stopped in their tracks by the look Petrenko gave them, their hard smirks drying up on their faces. Petrenko nodded curtly to Stellini, stood up and left the room. When he saw Yuri, he told him in Russian that things were not good. “I am afraid we might need to relocate to Europe.”

During the ride back to Lynn, Petrenko tried to sort out what his next steps were going to be. He still had connections in his home city of Volgograd and could set up operations there. As far as funds, he had maybe one hundred and sixty thousand that was liquid. That would be all he could take. He would have no choice but to leave Yuri behind and entrust him with selling off his other holdings.

When he arrived home, he was surprised to find a message on his answering machine. His number was unlisted, and usually his associates would call only on his cell phone.

The message stated that for a hundred thousand dollars Petrenko would be told how to get back his stolen belongings. The person added that he would call back on Sunday at ten in the morning. Petrenko stood rubbing his knuckles as he replayed the message. The second time around he had no trouble detecting that the caller was of Indian descent.

27

Dan’s mind raced as he played back the events at the cemetery. He tried to slow down his thoughts and concentrate on what was said, trying to detect any nuances from the way the cop had looked at him and any changes of inflection in his voice. He couldn’t help cringing every time he thought about Wendy telling that cop about Gordon’s community theater work. Of all the times for Wendy to have to open her big mouth...

The central air was on, but Dan had still sweated through the boxers and undershirt he wore to bed. He pushed himself up and squinted at the alarm clock. Four seventeen. At least two more hours before he’d have an excuse to get out of bed. He knew there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to get any sleep.

Carol was on her side with her back to him. She had been sleeping fitfully through most of the night. He knew the cop showing up at the cemetery had affected her too. Thank God Lombardo had been arrested! But even so she must still have her doubts. Not enough so she’d come right out and say anything, but they were there. During the ride back, he could feel her studying him. A few times he caught glimpses of her in the rearview mirror and saw the way she was biting her lip and how pale her skin had become. He knew she was beginning to wonder about that picture of Raymond Lombardo outside the bank with his ski mask off. They’d been married seventeen years and had known each other twenty. Maybe she’d seen something in that picture she’d been in denial about, at least until she had seen that cop at the cemetery. When they had gotten home he had buried himself in his office, claiming he had work to do to finish his contract.

He tried to think through everything that had happened and every conversation he had. Even if that cop did suspect something, there was no evidence against him. Nothing that could link him to the changes he’d made to the bank’s security software, or him breaking into their databases or really anything involved with the robbery. He’d made sure there were no records of him purchasing those drills, or the safety deposit boxes he and Shrini had practiced on, or the overalls and the ski masks. All of it had been hidden under a labyrinth of untraceable Internet transactions. There was nothing for that cop to find.

Of course he could be tied to Joel, and if Joel had been careless enough to keep those guns or not hide the money well enough...

Fuck it. He was making too much of this. What could that cop possibly know? That he and Gordon were friends? What did that prove? That Gordon used to do make up for a community theater? Knowing that was still a long way from suspecting that Dan had been made up to look like Raymond Lombardo. And even if the cop did suspect that, what could he prove? Dan’s mind buzzed as he wondered whether the FBI had any advanced imaging software that could identify him from the security tape. He would have to try to research that, but he doubted the security cameras could provide enough resolution for something like that to be feasible. Still...

Enough already! He had been worrying himself sick over this for hours now. Forget it. No more. There was nothing to tie him to the robbery. Hell, there was nothing to even tie Gordon to it. All they had was Gordon’s body being found outside the bank and... and that nobody knew what he was doing there. That still didn’t put him inside the bank. They had nothing, and more important, there was nothing for them to find.

Dan took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through his nose. It was funny how the mind worked. After the robbery all he could think about were the victims and the damage that was done to them, now all he could think about was self-preservation. He decided that was normal. It didn’t make him a bad person. He never would’ve gone through with the robbery if he had any idea people were going to be hurt. How could he have expected Gordon to do what he did?

How could any rational person have expected that?

But all that was in the past. There was nothing he could do now except move forward and do what was best for him and his family. He had to somehow forgive himself, but for now he needed to empty his mind and relax, at least before the pressure inside his head exploded.

He looked over at Carol and studied the outline her hips made under the sheets. They were so slender, her waist seemingly thin enough for him to wrap both hands around. At forty-four she still had a better body than most thirty-year-olds – hell,forget that, most twenty-year-olds. He touched her hip lightly. He didn’t want to wake her. He just wanted to have some sort of physical connection to her, to somehow make himself feel like there was still a reason for hope.

He gently rested his hand on her hip. She made a grunting noise in her sleep and angrily pushed his hand away. He lay paralyzed for a moment, feeling as empty as he had ever felt. Then he just started laughing. He couldn’t help himself.

Par for the fucking course
, he thought.

Later, when he heard the thud of the Sunday paper against his driveway, he decided he’d been in bed about as long as he could stand. Carol was tossing restlessly, but she was still mostly asleep. Moving quietly, he got out of bed, put on a robe and went outside to get the paper. When he saw the front page, he stood frozen for a long moment not knowing what to do next. Then, resigned to the situation, he headed back inside.

Petrenko let the phone ring six times before he picked up. He placed his hand over the mouthpiece and listened silently.

“Hello, hello?”

It was the same voice from the answering machine. Petrenko didn’t bother saying anything.

The pitch of the caller’s voice rose in confusion as he tried again. “Hello, is anybody there?”

Petrenko answered softly, “You have items that belong to me, correct?”

“I don’t have them.” There was a hesitation, then, “But I know who does.”

“And why should I believe you?”

The caller told him the numbers of his safety deposit boxes. “You had mostly packets of hundred-dollar bills rubber-banded together. Also videotapes and computer disks. Will you pay me a hundred thousand dollars or do I hang up?”

“Of course I will pay you. What time?”

“Tomorrow—”

“That is not convenient for me. Why not today?”

“Because I said tomorrow. Be at the Middlesex Diner in Burlington at eleven-thirty. If you are not there on time I will leave, and believe me, you will not hear from me ever again. Wait by the cashier and make sure you have the money with you.”

“How will I know you?”

“You won’t. But I know you and that is all that matters.”

The caller hung up. Petrenko, feeling more relaxed than he had felt in days, placed the phone down. He stood for a long moment rubbing his thumb over the hard calluses that had built up over his knuckles.

If the caller hadn’t known about the safety deposit box numbers, Petrenko could’ve considered paying him off – or, if not paying him off, at least letting him live. But now that was impossible. The caller’s knowledge, both about the safety deposit box numbers and what was taken from them, meant that he must have been part of the robbery. Which meant he had to be paid back by means other than money.

Petrenko couldn’t keep from smiling, thinking that this person must have been double-crossed after the robbery. Well, if he was double-crossed once, he could be double-crossed again.

Resnick was surprised to see that it was after ten o’clock. This was the first morning since he was told about Brian needing a new heart valve that he had been able to stay in bed past six. That was over ten years ago. Now he found himself lounging around, partly thinking about the robbery and what his next steps with Dan Wilson were going to be and partly drifting into daydreams about Kathleen Liciano. He kept thinking of how she looked sitting in the bar: the expression in her almond-shaped eyes, the way her hair fell past her shoulders, the softness of her lips and the way they parted slightly when she smiled. Thinking of her, he found himself longing to see her again. Then, clenching his teeth hard enough to hurt his jaw, he made a decision. She was too young to have all his emotional baggage dumped on her. He’d call her later and let her know that he was afraid things were never going to get less complicated for him.

He pushed himself out of bed, put on running shorts and a T-shirt, did his ten minutes of stretching and went out for a five-mile run to try to clear his head. When he got back he took a quick shower and then made some salami and scrambled eggs for lunch. It was almost twelve before he headed out to the hospital. On his way, he stopped off at a drug store for a newspaper. When he spotted the single-word headline, ‘
Framed?
’, on the front page, it took a moment for it to register. Scanning down the page, he saw the two pictures side by side: Raymond Lombardo outside the bank with his ski mask off, and at a golf course clean-shaven with his hair cut short and dyed yellow.

According to the accompanying article, the photographer who took the golf course picture swore it was taken at the same time that the bank robbery had happened. The article also stated that there were over two dozen people who supported the photographer’s claim, all of them filling out affidavits saying they had seen Lombardo at the golf course with one of the affidavits coming from a Massachusetts Superior Court judge. The gist of the article was that the videotape was a fake and that Lombardo was being framed, possibly by the FBI.

Resnick put down the paper and first tried calling Hadley at his home before reaching him at the station.

“What do you want?” Hadley asked brusquely.

“Nothing really. I thought maybe you’d want me to come in.”

“Didn’t I assign you to watch Viktor Petrenko?”

“Yeah, you did, but after what was in the paper—”

“Look, I’m with the district attorney right now. If you want to put in any overtime today, keep watching Petrenko.”

Hadley hung up. Resnick stared at his cell phone, wondering what the hell was going on. Shaking his head, he slipped the phone back into his pocket, paid for the paper and headed off to the hospital.

When Mary O’Donnell’s eyes closed, Resnick couldn’t help thinking she had passed on. Holding her hand and feeling the coldness of her skin, that was all he could think of though logically he realised this was the effect of the morphine. She reminded him of the way his mom had been during her last few hours. His mom was only fifty-two when she died. She had been brought to the hospital after her stroke and had the same shrunken look to her face. The same heaviness in her eyelids. The same frailness.

“Mrs. O’Donnell,” Resnick said. “Are you awake?”

Mary O’Donnell’s eyes fluttered open. “I’m so tired,” she forced out, her voice barely above a whisper. The whole middle of her body was thickly bandaged. Even with the morphine drip, Resnick knew she was in a great deal of pain.

“I know,” Resnick said. “I’d just like to ask you a few questions. Do you remember anything about the man who shot you?”

“He talked about Brazil.”

“What was that?”

“He was talking stuff about Brazil. I couldn’t understand him. Also something about the New Jersey Shore.” She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. “One of the beaches there.”

“Which beach?”

“Asb—” She coughed weakly. The effort seemed to wipe her out. When she could, she whispered, “Asbury Park.”

“Did you see anything that could help us identify him?”

She closed her eyes again. Resnick thought she had drifted off. He was about to leave when she whispered something too low for him to make out.

“What was that?” he asked. He moved closer to her.

“His sneaker...”

“We know, he was wearing Converse basketball sneakers.”

“Not that. Green paint on the bottom.”

That seemed to take all the strength she had. Resnick lowered her hand, placing it gently to her side.

“You’ve been a great help,” he told her. He was about to say more, but realized she was drifting off, her breathing growing shallower.

“Don’t worry,” he said, more to himself that to her. “They’re not getting away with this.”

Later, when he was walking across the parking lot to his car, his cell phone rang. It was Hadley.

“Alex,” Hadley said, his voice sounding so tired that Resnick could picture his pale blue unhappy eyes drooping with exhaustion. “Why don’t you come in after all.”

Dan knew there was no getting around Carol seeing the newspaper and reading about Raymond Lombardo. If she didn’t read it in the paper she’d see it later on the news. All he could do was prepare himself for what was coming and to try to act as oblivious as possible when she called him on it.

From the corner of his eye he saw her picking up the front section. He was sitting at the kitchen table drinking his coffee and pretending to read the sports page. Carol stood by the refrigerator, holding the paper in one hand while pouring a glass of orange juice with the other. All at once her body went rigid. While reading the front page, her eyes narrowed into thin slits and her mouth compressed into a small tight circle. Muscles clenching along her jaw formed hard lines above and below her lips. She looked worn out, almost like she had aged twenty years.

In an odd, barely recognizable voice, she asked, “Did you read this?”

He peered at the paper, feigning mild interest in what she was showing him. “Yeah, pretty wild, huh?” he said. “Sounds kind of far-fetched to me.”