Outsourced

9

After his messy divorce, Captain Kenneth Hadley jumped from the Somerville to the Lynn police force when the opening presented itself. All he did, though, was trade one problem for another. Maybe he no longer had his ex-wife stumbling into his station screaming her accusations at him whenever she damn well pleased, but the job was no better. Just as in Somerville, he had to deal with the same urban crimes – car thefts, break-ins, drugs, youth gangs – but in Lynn he now had to deal with Russian mobsters. And, as in Somerville, he now suspected that he had an officer drinking on the job. When Resnick had stepped into his office, Hadley detected a strong whiff of bourbon on his breath. Couldn’t the guy at least have had the decency to chew on a few mints before reporting back to the station? Resnick, though, seemed coherent, with no change in his typical bulldog manner and the same burning intensity. Hadley decided to let the matter drop. The guy was his best detective and there was nothing to indicate that this was anything more than an isolated incident. Still, he felt exhausted listening to Resnick complain about Viktor Petrenko and he was pretty sure the alcohol had something to do with loosening his detective up.

“There’s got to be something we can do,” Resnick was going on. “We can’t just let this son of a bitch terrorize our neighborhoods and business owners. I know he’s using his auto-body shop as a chop shop. Let me sit on it until we can get something on him, or better yet, let me follow him around, put some pressure on him.”

Hadley looked at his watch. They’d been arguing this for ten minutes now. “Alex, with all the state cutbacks in funding we’re shorthanded as it is. I can’t lose you for God-knows-how-long on some wild goose chase. Besides, the victim stated from the hospital that it was an accident and his wife was more than happy to corroborate him, claiming he tripped.”

“They’re both afraid.”

“I have to go with what they say-”

“The store just magically got trashed. Maybe the air conditioner was on too strong and blew an eighty-pound cash register out the front window.”

Hadley lifted his palms up in a sign of futility. “Unless these people are willing to come forward my hands are tied.” He edged closer to his detective, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial tone. “Look at it from my point of view: one way we’ve got an open case that needs manpower assigned to it. The other way, the way it currently stands, the case is closed. As it is we already have far too many open cases.”

“Ken, that’s a lousy way to look at it. Besides, we put Petrenko away and we’re going to end up with a lower caseload down the road. Damn it, there’s got to be something we can do.”

“There is something you can do,” Hadley said. “Take the rest of the day off. You’re looking a bit under the weather.”

“I’m fine.”

“No you’re not. I can’t have police officers drinking on the job. Not that I’m accusing you of anything. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a little worn out and can use a few hours off.”

Resnick stared into Hadley’s pale blue eyes before turning away, nodding. “I’ve never touched the stuff before while on duty. Something about Petrenko, I don’t know… I’ll put in extra hours tomorrow to make up for this,” he said.

“Not necessary. You’ve put in more than enough extra hours since I’ve been here. Try not to get under the weather like this again, okay?”

“You’ve got my word.”

As Resnick walked out of Hadley’s office, he acknowledged Maguire’s questioning look with a shrug. “I’ve been told I’m feeling under the weather,” Resnick informed his partner. “I’m taking the rest of the day off. Be here bright and early tomorrow morning.”

“Lesson learned,” Maguire said, a smart-alecky grin tightening on his face. “Booze up on the job and get some time off.”

“Not a good lesson to have taught you. I apologize.”

As Resnick walked away, Maguire tried telling him that he was only yanking his chain. Resnick waved a hand, letting his partner know not to worry about it.

Alex Resnick met his ex-wife while in college. She was a beautiful redhead from Long Island with a peaches and cream complexion and the most dazzling green eyes he had ever seen. At the time he was a political science major and was expecting to go to law school after graduation. On a whim he took the Lynn police entrance exam and posted a perfect score. His dad tried like hell to talk him out of joining the force.

“Alex,” his dad told him, “why do something like this? You can make a real life for yourself as a lawyer. Don’t make this mistake. If you need money, I’ll find a way to help you.”

“Pop,” Resnick said, “Jewish lawyers are a dime a dozen. How many Jewish cops do you know? Besides, you need someone who can help you fix all these parking tickets you’re racking up.”

His dad drove a cab for a living and the last thing Resnick wanted was for his dad to take on more shifts to try to help him out. So while his dad pleaded with him not to throw his life away, Resnick patiently argued that the police work would be good experience for a future career as a lawyer and in a few years he would go back to school at night and earn a law degree. Nothing his dad could say changed the fact that he was anxious to make a living so he could marry Carrie. He was crazy about her and more than anything wanted her to be his wife.

Eighteen months after they were married, Carrie gave birth to their son. Brian was one of those one-in-a-million type babies. He almost never cried and always seemed to break out smiling whenever Resnick picked him up. As much as Resnick loved his wife, he found that his feelings towards his boy were stronger than he could’ve ever imagined. Leaving him each morning to go to work was like ripping out a small piece of his heart. When Brian was two they discovered that he had a heart defect and needed a valve replaced with an artificial plastic one. The surgery was touch and go for a while, but his boy did okay.

Three years later the four packs of cigarettes Resnick’s dad smoked each day caught up with him and he died of lung cancer after a tough nine-month battle. Resnick’s mom died a week later – supposedly of a stroke. Her death, while maybe somewhat of a shock, didn’t really come as much of a surprise to Resnick. He knew his parents loved each other dearly and he could never imagine one of them surviving without the other. He was still reeling from the death of both parents when six weeks later he found out his son’s plastic heart valve was leaking and needed to be replaced. This time Brian didn’t survive the surgery.

According to Carrie, Resnick emotionally abandoned her then. He didn’t believe she was right, but he also didn’t see any point in arguing with her. He just couldn’t live within his own skin. It was that simple. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t sit still. There was so much pressure inside his chest – and the only way he felt he could breathe freely was if he kept moving. He started putting in extra shifts and taking any detail work he could, sometimes working twenty-four hours straight. Exhaustion helped. When he was exhausted he could sometimes fall into unconsciousness when he closed his eyes. The worst – the absolute worst of it – were the few times when he did dream. Brian was always with him in those dreams, and he’d have to wake up realizing all over again that he had lost his boy.

Two years later Carrie told Resnick that the day Brian had his first heart surgery was the day he lost his sense of humor. Maybe even his own heart.

Resnick stared at her dumbly. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“That’s what I mean, Alex. The man I married would have thought of something to say to make me laugh. Even if it was something very sad.”

“My wife, the eternal optimist.”

“That wasn’t even close.” She paused, the color draining from her, leaving her skin a pale white. “I’ve cried every day since we lost Brian. Sometimes for hours at a stretch. I don’t think you’ve cried once. I don’t think I’ve seen a single tear from you. You keep running from it, Alex, you won’t let your grief catch up to you. Unless you let yourself grieve, I don’t think we can fix things between us.”

Resnick didn’t disagree with her, but he couldn’t sit still either. He saw too much of Brian in her as she sat across from him, a pleading in her eyes as she waited for him to say something. He got up and left their modest two-bedroom house. He just couldn’t do anything else.

That was about it for their marriage. They didn’t talk much after that. There didn’t seem to be any animosity or hard feelings. For the most part his feelings for Carrie hadn’t changed since that moment when he first saw her on campus, but there was distance between them. A distance that he knew he created. Maybe she reminded him too much of his boy. Whatever it was he wouldn’t let her close the gap and after a while she gave up trying. They divorced shortly after the three-year anniversary of Brian’s death. A few years later Carrie remarried.

After Resnick got in his car he headed towards the studio apartment he had been living in since his divorce. Halfway home he had a change of heart, turned and drove to Lynn Memorial. Once he arrived at the hospital he talked with the doctor who had examined Mr. Wiseman when he was brought in. Along with a concussion, the old man had a fracture running along the front part of his skull and had also suffered some muscle damage in his neck. They were going to be holding him in intensive care for a few days for observation.

Resnick found Wiseman alone in his room. The old man’s head was bandaged, a thick brace around his neck. He stared glassy-eyed at the detective until a glimmer of recognition showed.

“You’re the police officer who shops in our store,” he said slowly, evenly, his voice a hoarse whisper. “I remember you. My wife told me how you helped today. Thank you.”

“I thought I’d see your wife here.”

“Why do I need her here weeping?” he asked. “I sent her back to the store. Let her weep there.”

“I read the statement you gave the other officer.”

“I tripped,” he said stubbornly.

“We both know that’s not true, Mr. Wiseman.”

He shrugged as much as his neck brace would allow. “Old men trip sometimes.”

“It’s not right what Viktor Petrenko did to you. It’s not right what he has been doing to hundreds of other people like you. I need someone to talk to me so I can send that piece of garbage to prison.”

“If it were just me…” The old man’s voice broke off and his lips started to quiver. He looked away. When he could talk, he said, “My wife, Anna, we’ve been married fifty-two years. No, I am sorry, all I can say is that I tripped.”

Resnick laid a card with his contact information on the night stand next to the bed. “If you have a change of heart and are willing to tell me what happened, call me.”

The old man looked back at Resnick, his half-closed eyes holding steady on the detective. “Would you be able to protect my Anna?”

Resnick couldn’t answer him.

“That’s what I thought,” Wiseman said, letting his eyes close. “All I can tell you is that I tripped. Excuse me, please, I am very tired.”

Resnick stood watching the old man as he tried to think of something more to say. Eventually he gave up.