"Where does he live?" Lucas asked.

"I don't know, exactly," she said. "Virginia. I heard that he had a job somewhere, that he was working, but he hides that from me because he's afraid that I'll have the child-support people get after him. He owes me almost fifteen thousand dollars in support."

Lucas said, "We heard that he, ah, has gotten physical with you. In the past."

"He hit me a few times-that's why I eventually threw him out. I wasn't going to put up with it. He was always drunk, but that was no excuse. He says it himself-it's no excuse."

"You ever call the cops?"

"No. I threatened to, but he begged me not to. He used to hunt, and the way the law is now, if he got a ticket, he could never have a gun again. He could never hunt again. So I didn't call; I just threw him out."

"Okay." Lucas looked around. "Where's your kid?"

"He's in school," she said. "I don't want you bothering him, he's just a child. God, you'll ruin his life, too…"

Jan Walther knew nothing about anything, she said. Nothing about spies, nothing about the other families, although she knew the Svobodas and had been inside Spivak's, but not for years. As a final question, Lucas asked, "Is he a runner? Roger? Go out and jog and stuff?"

An incredulous look passed over her face: "Roger? Roger has a cigarette with every drink. He couldn't run around the block."

When they left, and were back at the truck, Nadya said, "Everybody lies. She was too worried, but not enough… amazed… when we asked about spying. She should have been amazed."

"Maybe," Lucas said. "We're a half hour from Hibbing… wanna get a late lunch? I'm starving. Then we find Roger."

The lunch service was slow, and took a while; and there was roadwork on the way to Virginia, and they got hung up while a paving machine tried to maneuver across the highway. By the time they arrived at the Virginia police station, it was almost four o'clock. John Terry, the chief, said he didn't know Roger Walther, but he could check with his on-duty cops in a few minutes. He went to do that, took ten minutes, and came back: "Nobody on-duty knows him. I took a minute and went out on NCIC and they have no record of him. He's kept his nose clean."

"He's a drunk," Lucas said.

"Really a drunk, or just an alcoholic?" Terry asked. "Lots of alcoholics hold it together forever. Keep working, never drive drunk."

"He beats his wife."

"She ever charge him?"

Lucas was already shaking his head. "Okay, listen. If he's a drunk, he's drinking up here. If you could have your guys check the bars and get back to me. Somebody's got to know him."

Lucas's cell phone rang, and he said, "Excuse me," took it out, and turned away. "Yeah, Davenport."

Larry Kelly, from Duluth. "Is Nadya Kalin with you?"

"Yes. Right here."

"We'd like to get you both down here, this evening, if we could. We need to take statements. We're not trying to cover up the relationship, but we want to make it clear that Reasons was guarding her, that he'd been assigned to do that, and that the, mmm, emotional relationship grew out of that, uh, closeness."

"I think we can do that," Lucas said. "Nadya and I will coordinate and get down there."

"Come right into the Detective Bureau. The statements are for our shooting board, and the chief and the city attorney both say that written statements will be okay."

"See you in an hour," Lucas said.

Terry promised to have every bar in Hibbing checked by morning. Lucas gave him a cell-phone number, and he and Nadya headed for Duluth.

"What they're doing is, they're taking testimony on the shooting to make sure nothing illegal happened, and that all proper procedures were being followed," Lucas told her on the way, explaining the board. "If Reasons was assigned to guard you, then your, mmm, emotional involvement becomes irrelevant. He was killed in the line of duty."

"He wasn't exactly…"

"Shhh…" Lucas said.

Chapter 24

Grandpa fussed around the rest of the day-shuffled out to put a bill in the mailbox, raised the red flag for the mailman, saw that the van was still there. Went out to the garage, threw a shovel in the back of the car, unscrewed the automatic light in the garage-door opener, shuffled back to the house, and didn't look at the van, still there halfway up the block. Would it ever leave? And if it did, would it be replaced by another? He saw nothing at all on the backside of the block…

He couldn't help watching, but he was afraid he'd be spotted if he did. Eventually, he spent a few minutes vacuuming, pushing back and forth in front of the picture window. When he was done, he propped open one of Melodie's old compact cases in the corner of the window, among a group of plants, adjusted the mirror so he could see the van, then sat on a couch opposite the television and watched the mirror.

An hour or so after the cops left, Jan Walther called, panicked about being interviewed by the police. "They think Roger is a spy. They think he was spying with the Spivaks and the Svobodas and some people named Witold. They're crazy," she said.

"They are crazy," Grandpa agreed. "There's nothing we can do but cooperate. Maybe we should get a lawyer."

"Not yet; I can't afford a lawyer."

She gave him everything the cops had asked her about, but in the context of a protest to a relative. Excellent. Janet had been told a little bit, back when she was still in love with Roger, had been told that the spying was a heritage thing that the families were trying to work out of… but that was it. If the phones were bugged, her protests would sound normal and innocent. If the tapes ever got into court, they might help influence a jury.

He watched the van the rest of the afternoon; watched as a mostly cloudy day turned gloomy and dark, and little spits of rain began trickling down the window. At a little after five o'clock, the van pulled away. The movement was so quick, and unexpected, that Grandpa almost missed it-and he knew for certain, from watching all afternoon, that nobody had gotten into it. Whoever was driving had been inside all morning and afternoon.

This was not paranoia; he was being watched.

At seven o'clock, with a steady drizzle darkening the streets, he drove slowly down to the supermarket, and then back to the house, going out one way, coming back on the other side of the block. He saw no one following, and he knew all the cars still on the street. So the watch was sporadic-the state cop and the Russian must have wanted to see if he'd panic after they talked to him. Grandpa smiled as he pulled back into the garage, just thinking about it. He'd sold them, all right.

There was, he thought as he went into the house, just the slightest possibility that they were watching from a neighbor's house… but then, why would they watch from the van at all? Still…

Inside, thinking of bugs and phone taps, he said to Grandma, "Let's eat." He banged around the kitchen, heating up some spaghetti, fed her and then himself. When she was done, he cleaned her up for the fourth time that day, and parked her in front of the TV again. The History Channel had a show about World War II, the landings at Normandy. They watched it together, and he talked to his wife, and then they watched a show about ice dancing, then the local news, and finally he said, "Let's get you off to bed, sweetheart. Let's get you off to bed, okay?"

At ten thirty, he flushed the toilet and said into the walkie-talkie as the water rushed around the bowl, "Exactly at eight."

Three words. He got back two burps of static. Good. He got the silenced pistol and put it in the pocket of a black jacket, and pulled on the jacket.

At ten fifty-five, he slipped out the back door, stood in the shadows under the eaves. The rain wasn't as heavy as it had been, but the night was misty, with fog coming up from the street. He walked straight back to the garage, through the back door, pushed the button on the garage-door opener. If they were watching from the back of the house, then he was done. If they were on the other side of the street, he'd be okay. He didn't think they were there at all, but…