Outsourced by Dave Zeltserman Page B

sorry about this, Mrs. Wiseman,” Resnick said.
    Mrs. Wiseman’s eyes were mostly shut as she cried. “Do I know you?” she asked, trying to open her eyes enough to focus on him.
    “I shop here sometimes,” Resnick said. “You have very good smoked whitefish.”
    Mrs. Wiseman nodded slightly as recognition seeped in. She was a small woman, not much at all to her. “I’ve seen you, yes,” she said. Her head turned to the side as she watched the paramedics lift her husband on to a portable gurney.
    “You probably want to go with your husband to the hospital. We can talk with you later.” Resnick handed her a card. “How am I to go with him?” she asked. “How can I leave the store like this?”
    “I’ll have the hospital call you then.” Resnick took a heavy breath. “Mrs. Wiseman, this is not Russia. People like Viktor Petrenko are not protected here. If you tell me he did this, I will arrest him, and I promise you he will go to prison.”
    Mrs. Wiseman seemed to shrink inwards as she watched the paramedics move her husband out to a waiting ambulance. She pushed her mouth shut, her eyes helplessly looking over the damage that was done. Then she met Resnick’s stare and shook her head. “No,” she said weakly, “my husband fell.”
    Resnick nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder before walking over to the counter. He found a yellow pages directory, called a glass repair shop and arranged for them to replace the store front window within the hour. Taking another deep breath, he moved to one of the aisles and started doing what he could with the shelves, then stacked the food back on to them.
    “What’s going on?” Maguire asked.
    “Go check if anything came of the canvassing,” Resnick said. “Give me a half hour, okay?”
    “This is ridiculous. Let the old lady hire a cleaning service. And who’s Viktor Petrenko?”
    Resnick ignored him and continued methodically restacking the food that had been dumped on the floor. Maguire watched for a moment then, cursing to himself, joined his partner.
    *
    “I can’t believe you had us do that,” Maguire complained.
    Resnick gave his partner a hard stare. “You would leave that old lady alone with the store like that?”
    “That’s not our job.” Maguire tried to meet his partner’s stare but had to look away. “Besides, I don’t like being lied to. She’s going to tell me straight-faced that her husband fell when it’s clear as day that someone slammed his head against that counter?”
    “She had no choice.”
    “Bullshit. And who the hell’s Viktor Petrenko?”
    Resnick gave his partner a sad look before turning to talk to one of the cops who had been canvassing for witnesses. “Anything?” he asked. The cop shook his head. “No one saw a thing. At least that’s what they’re saying.”
    “I’d like you to go to Lynn Memorial and take a statement from the husband when he wakes up. Okay?”
    “Sure, but I’ll be wasting my time. He’s not going to tell us anything.”
    “Yeah, I know, but we need to get his statement. Why don’t you wait until those repairmen are done with the window, then you can take the wife along with you.”
    “Sure.”
    Resnick clapped him on the shoulder before turning towards the Buick he was driving. He unlocked the car. Maguire got in the passenger side.
    “You going to tell me what’s going on?” Maguire asked.
    Resnick waited until he secured his seatbelt. Then, “Petrenko, among other things, runs an extortion ring in the North Shore, targeting Russian immigrants. He did this.”
    “Why didn’t you push the wife some more? She looked like she was ready to start talking.”
    Resnick shrugged.
    “I mean, Jesus,” Maguire continued, “what’s wrong with these people? If she talks to us we can arrest the bastard.”
    “Then he’d have her killed. Not just her, but her husband and any children they might have.”
    “That’s bullshit. We could protect her.”
    A shadow fell over Resnick’s