Lifeguard

Moretti sniffed. “You’ll pardon me if I just don’t buy into that, Ellie.”

“Into what?” she asked, hesitating.

“Your read. With all due respect, of course.”

“On the basis of what?” she shot back. The asshole was holding back something from her.

“On the basis that i

“I did say he panicked, George.”

“And that we ran the guy’s picture around the Brazilian Court in Palm Beach. He was seen with Tess McAuliffe, Ellie. He had lunch with her. The same afternoon she was killed.”

Chapter 35

I’M PRETTY SURE that night was the longest and loneliest of my life.

It was my third night on the run. I didn’t know whom I could trust, except Dave, and I was determined not to get him involved. Everyone else I would’ve gone to, who would’ve helped me out, was dead.

The worst thing was, some of those people I couldn’t trust had the same last name as I did.

I ditched the minivan and spent the night curled up in an all-night movie theater in Cambridge, watching Lord of the Rings over and over with a bunch of overenthused college students. I was bundled up in my hooded sweatshirt, too scared to let anybody see my face. When the final showing was over, I actually felt as though I’d been reprieved.

About eight the next morning I took a cab out to Watertown, fifteen minutes away. I caught a glimpse of the morning Globe on the cabbie’s front seat. LOCAL MAN HUNTED IN FBI HOSTAGE ABDUCTION. SOUGHT IN CONNECTION WITH FLORIDA MURDERS. I sank back in the seat and pulled down my cap.

Watertown was one of those working-class suburbs of Boston, except instead of just the Irish and the Italians and the blacks, it was home to a lot of Armenians. I had the cab let me off on Palfrey, and walked back a couple of blocks to Mount Auburn. I stopped in front of an ordinary white Victorian just off the corner.

A sign hung over the front steps: WATCHES REPAIRED. JEWELRY BOUGHT AND SOLD. A wooden arrow pointed up to the second floor. I climbed the steps and made my way around to the porch. A bell tinkled as I opened the door.

A heavyset man with bushy gray hair in a jeweler’s apron looked up from behind the counter. His jowly face broke into a thin smile. “You’re taking a helluva chance coming here like this, Neddie-boy. But how the hell are you?”

Chapter 36

I FLIPPED a hand-scrawled sign to CLOSED. “I need to talk to you, Uncle George.”

George Harotunian wasn’t my real uncle. It was just that I had known him my whole life. He was my father’s trusted friend, his business partner. His fence.

When we were growing up, George was as close to a real uncle to Dave and me as we ever had. He always gave my mother money when my father was in jail. He had co

“Congratulations, Neddie.” George shook his head. “Always thought it would be for hockey, but you certainly made the big leagues now.”

“I need to find Frank, Uncle George.”

He took out his eyepiece and wheeled his chair back from the counter. “I don’t think that would be wise right now, son. You want some advice? You need a lawyer. Let me hook you up with somebody good. Turn yourself in.”

“C’mon, Uncle George, you know I didn’t do anything down there.”

“I know you didn’t do anything,” George said, tossing a copy of the morning paper on the counter, “but you got a helluva novel way of showing that to everyone else. You think your father was involved? Jesus, Neddie, you don’t know him now. Whitey’s too sick to do anything these days. Except cough and complain.”

“He needs a kidney, right?”

“He needs a lot of things, kid. You think your father would trade his brother’s son, and the rest of those kids, just to pee in a tube for a couple more years? You’re judging him a bit too hard, son.”

“You know better than anyone that Mickey wouldn’t make a move without Frank,” I said. “I’m not saying he had anybody killed, but I damn well think he knows who set them up. He knows something, and I need to know it, too. My best friends are dead.”

“Christ, Ned,” George wheezed, “you think your father knows the difference between a Jackson Pollock and a fucking Etch-A-Sketch? The man’s no saint, I know, but he loves you more than you think.”

“I guess I figure he loves his life more. I need to find him, Uncle George, please…”

George came around the counter and stared at me, shaking his large, bushy head. “You must need money, kid.”

He reached under his apron and peeled off five fresh hundred-dollar bills from a large roll. I took them and stuffed them in my jeans. Accessing my ATM account would have been like a homing signal now. “I know people you could stay with, but your best bet is to come clean.”

“Tell my father I need to see him, George. Somewhere safe, if he doesn’t trust me. He should be pleased. I finally landed in the family business.”

George’s hooded eyes grew soft. He stared at me for a long time, then shook his head. “Try calling me Thursday, Neddie. I may run into him by then.”

“Thanks, Uncle George.” I smiled.

He stuck out his fleshy palm, and when I took it, he pulled me close in a hard embrace. “Everyone knows you had nothing to do with what happened down there, son. I’m sorry about Mickey and your friends. But you’re in trouble, Ned, and I don’t think Frank can get you out. My offer stands. You think it over. Most of all, you take care.”

I nodded and patted him on the back. I made my way toward the door.

“No offense, kid,” he said, stopping me, “but you mind leaving through the back?”

The stairs led to a small parking lot that hooked around to an alley. I waved back at Uncle George as he watched me go. I knew he loved me like a real nephew.

But he had made a mistake, and I caught it.

In no report I had read or seen on TV had anyone mentioned a Jackson Pollock being stolen.

Chapter 37

ELLIE WAS FUMING and, actually, she liked herself best when she got like this – feisty, combative, standing up for herself.

She’d been co

Ellie was still in the Boston office, but was headed back home that night. She spent the day fielding calls – a frantic one from her parents in New Jersey, one from the regional director of the FBI, going over her ordeal with the Crisis Team one more time. And then trying to dig up someone in the business who had gone by the name Gachet.

She knew the name, of course. Anyone with an art degree did.

Gachet was the subject of one of van Gogh’s last paintings. It was finished in Auvers, in June of 1890, only a few weeks before he died. The famous doctor with the achingly sad blue eyes. It was first sold from van Gogh’s estate for 300 francs, $58. In 1990 a Japanese businessman paid $82 million for it, the most ever paid for a piece of art at the time. But what the hell did any of that have to do with the theft in Florida?

She also spent some time pulling up whatever she could find on Ned Kelly. His friends’ police records. His father’s. The older brother, who’d been shot in 1997 by the police in the middle of a robbery, possibly set up by the father.

That stuff was all true.

Then she found Ned in a team picture of the 1998 BU hockey team on the university’s Web site. She checked with Stoughton Academy. He had been accused, unjustly, by a female student. And cleared a few weeks later. Just as Ned told her. He hadn’t been lying about that.