Chapter 21
Andreno and Nadya arrived at nine o'clock the next morning, Nadya still red and puffy around the eyes. She'd been having crying jags, Andreno told him, but not as often anymore. Andreno was solemn and attentive when he was beside her, but he winked at Lucas when her back was turned. Andreno was wearing a green-and-white baseball jacket with a hammerless.38 hanging in a holster under his arm. 'What's happening?'
'The Hibbing cops got a picture of the old man this morning,' Lucas said. 'They phoned it in to St. Paul, and St. Paul e-mailed it to me. I've got it in my laptop.'
'Christ, you're a computer weenie,' Andreno said. 'But I knew that.'
'Look, here's where we're at,' Lucas said. 'We know that who-ever's doing the shooting isn't ninety years old and is probably hooked into these families-unless the shooter is from completely outside.' He looked at Nadya. 'Like a shooter out of the embassy.'
She shook her head: 'Absolutely no.'
'I buy that,' Lucas said to Andreno. 'The only reason to go after the Russian Mafia guy, the Russian embassy guy, and Nadya is that these people are trying to protect themselves from everybody. So we're looking for somebody tied into these families, but young and healthy enough to run away from me. Spivak's kids would be candidates, except that we know where they were when the killings took place.'
'Maybe not the daughter…'
'That wasn't the daughter running from me the other night,' Lucas said. 'That was a guy. Anyway: it's gotta be somebody young enough to run, which means not more than my age. I'm in good shape, for my age, and I wasn't gaining on him.'
'So if we look at everybody related, everybody young enough to run away from you…'
'Unless the families have brought somebody in,' Nadya said. 'They were spies. They have resources. They would have some hidden money-gold, even. They would have some criminal contacts to perform their duties.'
'Yeah…' They all thought about it for a few seconds. 'If they were moving people out of the country through Canada… I mean, Canada is notorious for the criminal gangs along the border, preying on Americans,' Lucas said. 'They work over here, go back there, and take advantage of the lack of coordination by the cops. If it's a Canadian killer, we're probably not going to find him.'
'But we keep looking,' Andreno said, 'Because it probably isn't.'
Nadya shifted the subject: 'Should I find Jerry's wife and try to talk with her?'
Lucas shook his head: 'No. Nothing to be said.'
'Always something to be said,' Nadya argued.
'Nothing that would do any good,' Lucas said. 'Best to finish this case, and go back home.'
She nodded, but with an air of doubt, and Andreno said, 'If you gotta talk to her, I'll go along. Don't go sneaking over there. Cops got guns.'
Nadya nodded again and changed the subject again: 'What now? With this picture in your laptop?'
'We go back up to Virginia,' Lucas said. 'We'll talk to Maisy Reynolds-I called and told her we're coming-and show her the old man's picture. The guy I've got in the computer looks like her description, but we need her to say yes.'
'What about the genealogy?' Nadya asked.
'It fits,' Lucas said. 'The Walther family slips right in. One difference: the oldest ones, Burt and Melodie, the ones with the weird birth certificates, are still alive. But their kids-they had a son named Thomas, who was married to a woman named Catherine-are dead. They were killed in a car accident back in the seventies. There was still a third generation, though. Thomas and Catherine had a son named Roger who married a woman named Janet. They're still around, in Hibbing.'
'You still want me to trail you?' Andreno asked.
'Yeah. If Reynolds identifies the old guy as the one who was in Spivak's bar, we're gonna go jack him up. Maybe even if she can't identify him. I'd like you to get to his place before we do, find a spot on the street, and then just watch. See if anything happens after we leave.'
'What about the youngest one?' Nadya asked. 'The old man's… what? Grandson?'
'Grandson, yes. Roger,' Lucas said. 'After we're done with the old man, we'll look him up. Him and his wife. He's our best candidate right now.'
'Are we breaking the case now?' Nadya asked.
Lucas looked at Andreno, who did something Italian with his face and shoulders, meaning, 'Could be.' He said, 'Could be.'
And on the way down in the elevator, Nadya said, 'Micky says this woman in Legally Blonde will be appointed to the federal appeals court by the president.'
Lucas looked at Andreno, and said, 'You pushed it too far.' Andreno shrugged.
'You're joking me again,' she said. 'Why do American men joke so much? Do you ever discuss?'
On the drive up to Virginia, Nadya again asked about going to see Raisa Reasons. 'I believe there are some useful things that I could tell her.'
'Listen… you're not really a cop, are you?' Lucas asked. 'You're some kind of intelligence agent. You can tell me, because I know you're not a cop.'
'Why is this?'
'Because you know some stuff that cops know, but you don't know other stuff. Daily things. What we see every day. You don't know why you shouldn't go see Reasons's wife.'
'Well, why shouldn't I?'
'Are you a cop? I won't tell anybody what you say.'
She thought about it for a minute, then said, 'No. I'm a major with the SVR. I'm in the Counterintelligence Division.'
'Now we're getting somewhere,' Lucas said. 'Reasons and I figured out that you weren't a cop the first time we went to the morgue, to look at Oleshev's body.'
'Yes?' She may have been discomfited, but didn't reflect it. Instead, she seemed amused and interested.
'Yes. You flinched when you looked at the body. Cops your age don't flinch. They've seen two hundred bodies and are interested in what they're going to find out, they don't really feel much about looking at another dead guy.'
'Why would that tell me about talking to Raisa Reasons?'
' 'Cause you'd know it wouldn't do any good. When you've been a cop for a while, you figure out that the best thing in domestic disputes is distance,' Lucas said. 'Just simple distance. You get a husband and wife breaking up, and one of them goes after the other, the one thing that'll end the violence, end the anger, is distance. If you can't find the other person, don't know where she is, pretty soon the violent feelings dissipate and everybody goes back to living their lives.'
'But I could tell her-'
'What's to explain? She knows what happened. What're you going to tell her, that it didn't feel good?'
'No, I-'
'That it did feel good?'
Small smile. 'No, but-'
Lucas kept interrupting: 'That he really loved her, but their marriage was troubled and he was lonely? That makes his death her fault. That he really wasn't serious? That devalues her marriage, that he could sleep with somebody so casually.'
'Maybe tell her that I'm sorry.'
'If you're sorry for her, that's patronizing, and it'll really piss her off. If you're sorry about the situation, that's obvious, and she won't care how sorry you are. None of it does any good,' Lucas said. 'The best thing to do is go home, get some distance. You know the saying 'Let sleeping dogs lie'?'
'I know it, but this dog is not sleeping,' Nadya said.
'She'll be okay, when the shock wears off. The Duluth guys will manage her, they'll take care of her, and after a while, you won't be so important. She'll have other things to do and other things to think about. What to do with
