Full Metal Jack

by Diane Capri

  “Yeah. And really, who would be driving by here? That washboard road we drove in here didn’t seem like it was well-traveled to me,” Perry replied.

  “Two bodies, maybe three inside,” Greyson said.

  Kim kept thinking out loud. “Did they park the trucks inside for some reason, and then something unexpected happened to cause the fire, which killed them?”

  “I see what you mean,” Perry said. “Or did the murders happen first, then the trucks were moved inside afterward, and then the fire was deliberately started? Depending on the cause of death, it could go either way.”

  “Arson destroys a lot of evidence. But not as much as arsonists often expect.” Kim nodded. She walked along the two-track that led up to the barn, peering at the ground. She kicked up the dusty gravel. “They had rain here yesterday. Today, the ground is dry. If they’d driven those trucks in here yesterday, we’d see some ruts when yesterday’s mud dried.”

  “But we’re not seeing that,” Perry said. “Which could mean they drove in here today after the rain stopped, and the ground was dried out and hard.”

  Kim kneeled to get a closer look at the gravel along the two-track. Then she stood and dusted her hands. “All three trucks could have already been inside the barn before yesterday’s rain. Or, more likely, they drove in earlier today. The problem is there’s an extra truck.”

  Perry nodded. “Three trucks, two bodies so far. Where’s the third guy? And how did he get away from here?”

  “All good questions, Major Perry. The third guy might be dead, too. If he is, there was a fourth guy. Either way, three guys or four guys, there’s another vehicle. Greyson needs to find him and the vehicle.” She looked around again.

  The bad news was, unlike in most American cities these days, there were no CCTV cameras out here on the farm. No buildings or poles to mount them on, either. No electricity or running water or heating and cooling systems, either.

  The good news was in an open area no trees blocked the view. Which meant the Boss could get satellite imagery. Possibly.

  It was a long shot. If they’d driven the trucks into the barn, the satellite images might not show the drivers themselves, depending on the angles.

  On the other hand, she could get lucky. Maybe the same trucks had been here before. Maybe the drivers had parked outside another time. Maybe they’d been caught on satellite images before.

  All of which meant that if Reacher had been anywhere near this barn, he might have been recorded.

  Simply because it could have been done, doesn’t mean Reacher was here. She formulated the questions as she scanned the emptiness around the burning barn.

  What brought Reacher back to Carter’s Crossing? Who were those dead men in the barn? What did they have to do with Reacher? Was Reacher the one who killed them?

  Those were just the starter questions.

  She had lots more.

  Because she was fairly sure Reacher wasn’t one of the charred bodies inside the barn. He was way too capable to end up dead in a place like this.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Thursday, May 12

  Carter’s Crossing, Mississippi

  5:15 p.m.

  He’d heard the fire trucks headed toward the barn as he’d rushed away from the scene. Driving an unfamiliar hearse through town would have captured too much interest from the town folks. A witness would have remembered it when Sheriff Greyson came around asking.

  So he didn’t go that way. The heavy old hearse was difficult to maneuver. It bounced into the potholes. He struggled with the wobbly steering around the sinkholes, giving them a wide berth just in case. All told, the circuitous route along the back roads to his safe house had taken twice as long, but it was wiser, too.

  When he arrived, he quickly moved his Jaguar out of the garage and pulled the hearse into it, out of sight. Once the hearse was safely stashed, he closed and locked the garage.

  He went into the house, stripped, and dropped his clothes into the washer. He poured detergent onto the stinking pile, set the temperature, and started the extended cycle.

  It would take at least two hot washings to remove the stench of sweat and fire, and whatever trace evidence of the murders remained embedded in his clothes. Then he glanced at the clock and headed for the shower to clean his body thoroughly.

  When he’d finished his shower and donned fresh clothes, he hurried out again.

  He’d planned to deal with Nina first before he returned to Kelham. But setting the fire and the return trip from the barn had taken too long. Hammer would be finishing his initial interviews soon.

  There weren’t many personnel left on the base. Almost everyone had been evacuated. The last personnel were slated to leave in the morning. Redmond and Hern should have been there, but they weren’t.

  When Hammer figured that out, he’d come looking for answers.

  Nina had waited this long. She could wait a little longer.

  He drove around to Kelham’s back entrance and returned the sentry’s salute on his way past. He left the Jaguar in the lot behind the barracks and headed toward the interview room, striding purposefully, like a man with nothing to hide.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. Nina Cloud. He sighed and answered the call. “Yeah.”

  “Have you heard?” Nina was sniffling, and her voice was thick as if she’d been crying the entire day. Which she probably had. Maybe she really was pregnant. She was certainly more emotional than usual.

  “Heard what?” he replied, although he figured he already knew.

  “The barn. It’s burned to the ground. Everything in it is gone. All the money. Everything,” Nina said, crying softly, bewildered. “This is so horrible. First Bonnie. Then Caroline. Now the money. What’s going on?”

  “It’ll be okay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll come over as soon as I’m done here. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she sniveled. “I need to tell you about Bonnie, too.”

  The mention of Bonnie raised his internal radar. What did she know? And worse, who had she told?

  “You’re alone?” he asked as if he was concerned about her.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Just stay put. Take a nap. Get some rest. I’ll be there as soon as I can. And don’t worry,” he coaxed. “It’ll be okay. You trust me, don’t you?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “I’ve got to hang up now. I’ll see you soon,” he said, glancing ahead where Major Hammer waited outside the interview room door.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  He cringed.

  “You, too,” he replied before he hung up and dropped the phone into his pocket. He covered the last few feet and glanced up at the big man. “How’d it go with your interviews, Major?”

  “Not as well as I’d hoped, General Murphy,” Hammer replied, falling into step beside him. “To a man, everyone I’ve interviewed has a solid alibi. I’ve got a few more to question. Then I’ll need to check all of the alibis out before we lift the lockdown. But so far, no gaping holes.”

  “How can you be sure that someone will talk?” he asked.

  “Technique I learned from an old-timer. Guy named Duncan Munro. He called it his secret weapon,” Hammer replied with a grin.

  “What’s that?”

  “Confine everybody to quarters. Or the mess hall or the officer’s club. MPs watching everybody, including each other,” Hammer said. “Nice to still have one, by the way. Officer’s club. Lots of bases don’t have them anymore.”

  “What makes you so sure Munro’s secret weapon will work?”

  “It’s foolproof.” Hammer nodded and grinned again. “Sitting down all day. No reading, no television, no electronics of any kind. Sooner or later, someone talks from sheer boredom. Never fails.”

  “If you say so.” He nodded, opened the door, and gestured Hammer toward the big wooden chairs. “How are you planning to confirm the alibis while you’re waiting for some bored soldier to confe
ss?”

  “Leg work. No other way I know of to do it.” Hammer shrugged. “Like you said, quite a few of them claim to have been at that poker tournament. Good place to start is out at the casino. I’m headed out there next.”

  “You got any jurisdiction on the rez?”

  “No. But usually, they like to cooperate with the federal government,” Hammer replied easily. “I can get a warrant for the CCTV if I need to. What’s your experience out there? You think a warrant will be necessary?”

  “The manager of the place is Randy Cloud. He’s used to being the master of that universe. But he won’t want any trouble.” He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows. “Unless you think one of his employees or a member of the tribe killed Bonnie Nightingale?”

  “It’s not looking that way at the moment,” Hammer replied.

  “Make that clear to him. He’ll voluntarily release the video. If he doesn’t, just go back with your warrant. You can get one quickly, can’t you?” he asked.

  “Might have to wait until morning. But yeah,” Hammer nodded, “if it comes to that. You think it will?”

  He shrugged. “Hard to tell with Randy Cloud. But if you tell him why you want to know, it’ll help. He doesn’t want any trouble with the locals or with the army. All he wants is to keep that steady line of gamblers leaving their paychecks at his casino.”

  “I’ve got two more guys to talk to. Redmond and Hern. Any idea where I can find them?” Hammer asked.

  He shook his head. “They live off base, I think.”

  “Yeah, so I heard. They had a couple of days’ leave, your sergeant told me. Supposed to be back tonight. Guess I’ll see them when I get back from the casino,” Hammer said, standing up to leave. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Thursday, May 12

  Carter’s Crossing, Mississippi

  6:35 p.m.

  Long before the crime scene crews finished the grim process at the barn, Kim caught a lift to Toussaint’s Hotel for a shower and fresh clothes. She had seen charred bodies before and the sight was always disturbing. The visual, once seen, was impossible to wipe from her mind’s eye.

  An involuntary shudder rumbled through her from head to toe.

  She hurried up the front sidewalk, up the steps, and into the hotel. She didn’t stop to talk with anyone in the lobby. She took the stairs to the second floor two at a time and moved toward her room.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she fished it out while she used her key card to open the door. As she walked inside and closed the door behind her, a glance at the caller ID reflected the one person in the world she actually wanted to talk to at the moment.

  “Hey, Chico. What do you have for me?” she asked Gaspar wearily and without preamble, as if he were still her partner and the two of them were in this case together. For the thousandth time since he’d retired, she wished Gaspar was still on the job.

  “Sounds like you’ve had a rough day,” he replied, chewing on something. Which made her grin. With his eating habits, Gaspar should have weighed five hundred pounds. She had no idea what he did with all those calories.

  “I’m sure you saw satellite footage of that barn. The fire was hot when we arrived and it didn’t get a lot better until there wasn’t much left but ashes.” She talked as she peeled off her clothes. She stuffed them into the trashcan liner she found in the bathroom. She would never wear them again.

  She turned on the shower and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The image was horrifying. She had black soot all over her face. She must have swiped at it a few times in the heat, which left swaths around her eyes and mouth.

  “Do you mind if I get a quick shower and call you back?” she asked. She didn’t want to put her filthy body in the white robe hanging on the back of the door. If she did, no amount of washing would ever get it clean.

  “Yeah. No problem.” He clicked off.

  Kim dropped the phone on the bed and stepped into the steamy hot water. Sooty rivulets ran off her and circled the drain. She quickly soaped up from head to toe. She had black marks in the crooks of her elbows and every crevice on her body. The soot was everywhere.

  After three shampoos, the water from her hair finally ran clean. She lathered her body one last time and rinsed for another five minutes until she was satisfied. She turned off the water, grabbed a white towel to dry off, and then wrapped it around her head.

  Only then did she slip into the white terry robe and wrap it around herself. She finished toweling the water from her hair on her way to the bedroom, where she picked up the phone and hit redial. While she waited for the connection, she found a bottle of water and opened it. She drank as if her entire body was parched.

  Gaspar picked up after the first ring. “Feeling better?”

  “More human, at least. Man, fires are grisly.”

  “And they stink.”

  Which made her smile and feel a little better. “So, what’ve you got?”

  “It took some digging. But I finally found a connection between Reacher and Kelham. Something that your boss might think would draw Reacher back there,” Gaspar said, chewing something like a crispy apple in her ear.

  Her stomach growled. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. She glanced at the clock. Mayor Deveraux was expecting her for dinner at seven o’clock. At this rate, she’d be late.

  “Can you give me the highlights and send me a report to read later?”

  “Got a date or something? That Major Perry looks like a hottie in the headshots I found,” Gaspar teased.

  “Yeah, I’ve got a date with Elizabeth Deveraux. And I’m running late.”

  “Huh. And all this time, I thought you liked men,” Gaspar deadpanned.

  “Smartass. Tell me. What did you find out about Reacher?” She settled onto the bed and put her feet up. She leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes. It had already been a very long day. And it was a long way from being over.

  “You know that North Korean diplomat that died in New York last week?”

  “Hana Pak?”

  “Yep. Turns out he and Reacher had crossed paths before. Reacher was posted briefly to a place called Camp Stanley in South Korea. The base is closed now. Reacher was only there a few weeks. Working on a case when he was still with the 110th Special Investigations Unit.”

  “What kind of case?”

  “Suspicious death of a woman under circumstances of interest to the army, I guess. The records are heavily redacted.”

  “Of course they are,” she said wearily. “This is Reacher we’re dealing with. It seems everything about his life that’s important to my assignment is off-limits.”

  “Well, from what I can glean, the woman was sort of a party girl. A real looker. Her background is a little cloudy, but people called her June. She had a steady boyfriend, but she liked to mingle, if you catch my drift,” Gaspar said.

  Kim felt like she knew where this was going before he said the rest, but she let him continue. “Um hmm.”

  “Her steady guy was then Major Alec Murphy. Apparently he fell hard for June and wanted her to marry him.”

  “But she had other ideas?”

  “Turns out that June wasn’t free to marry anyone. She was already married.”

  “To Hana Pak,” Kim said dully.

  “Bingo. Pak found out about June’s affair with Murphy and killed her. After an illegal dog fight. In front of the entire crowd.”

  “A dog fight?”

  “It’s a big thing over there. Lots of money changes hands. Gambling, drugs, prostitution, the whole sordid mess.”

  “How does any of this have anything to do with Reacher?”

  “First, he was there. He was assisting with an investigation into a theft ring, I guess. It’s not exactly clear why he was on the scene, but he was.”

  “Theft? Sounds kind of small potatoes for a guy at Reacher’s level, doesn’t it?” She cocked her head.

  “It started out that
way. Lasted years. Eventually became about twenty million dollars’ worth of goods that they could prove. All stolen from the Army and Air Force Exchange Service Stores. Plenty of blame to go around. It was a joint operation between some South Koreans and some military personnel. Happened right under the noses of the brass. People went to jail,” Gaspar said. “I’ve put all the details into a file I’ll send you.”

  “Okay. Thanks for digging this up. Must have taken you all day,” she replied.

  “You owe me. I’ll collect next time I see you,” he teased. “But here’s the thing. Reacher, Hana Pak, and Alec Murphy were all there when the woman, June, was murdered. All three of them dated the woman, too.”

  “What? Reacher dated June?”

  “Yep. Reading between the lines, it seems like Reacher liked her. A lot. He and Murphy got into a fistfight over her the same day she died,” Gaspar said. “Some speculated at the time that Reacher would have killed Murphy over June.”

  Kim would have liked to say that idea was absurd. But she knew it wasn’t. Not where Reacher was concerned. She kneaded the headache that was starting between her eyes. “So you’re thinking Reacher found out Pak was in New York and he went there and killed him?”

  Gaspar replied, “Possible. But like you said before, it’s not really Reacher’s style to kill a guy with poison and walk away, is it?”

  “Which means Pak’s killer could have been this Alec Murphy?” She drank the last of the water while she thought about it. “I don’t know. That’s a long time to carry a grudge, isn’t it?”

  “I checked Murphy out. He’s got a temper. And a long memory. It could have been him. Or not. I’m looking for CCTV on Pak. If there was any contact between Murphy and Pak, I’ll find it.” Gaspar said, sensing her impatience, “That’s not the important part of this story.”

  He’d given her a lot to mull over. “Okay. I’ll bite. And the important part is…”