Gary agreed to close the store for the day and Emerson sent a patrol car to pick him up. First stop was the morgue. Gary identified the body and was white and badly shaken when he arrived in Emerson’s office. Donna Bianca calmed him down and Emerson watched him carefully. Statistics show that women get killed by husbands, boyfriends, brothers, employers, and workmates—in descending order of likelihood—well before passing strangers show up on the list of possible suspects. And sometimes a boyfriend and a workmate can be the same guy. But Emerson knew that Gary was in the clear. He was too shaken. No way could a person fake that kind of sudden shock and surprise over something he had already known about for eight or ten hours.
So Emerson started in, gently, with all the usual cop questions. Last time you saw her? Know anything about her private life? Family? Boyfriends? Ex-boyfriends? Weird phone calls? Did she have any enemies? Problems? Money troubles?
And then, inevitably: Anything unusual over the last couple of days?
And so by ten-fifteen Emerson knew all about the stranger that had come to the store the day before. Very tall, heavily built, tan, aggressive, demanding, wearing olive-green pants and an olive-green flannel shirt. He had spent two mysterious sessions with Sandy in the back office, and had borrowed her car, and had demanded Jeb Oliver’s address with menace, and Jeb Oliver was missing, too.
______
Emerson left Gary with Donna Bianca and went out to the corridor and used his cell to call Alex Rodin in his office.
“Your lucky day,” he said. “We’ve got a nineteen-year-old female homicide victim. Someone broke her neck.”
“How does that make me lucky?”
“Her last unexplained contact was yesterday, at her place of work, with a guy that sounds a whole lot like our pal Jack Reacher.”
“Really?”
“We got a pretty good description from her boss. And her neck was busted by a single blow to the side of the head, which ain’t easy unless you’re built like Reacher is.”
“Who was the girl?”
“A redhead from the auto parts store out toward the highway. There’s also a boy missing from the same store.”
“Where did this thing happen?”
“Outside the Metropole Palace Hotel.”
“Is that where Reacher is staying?”
“Not according to the register.”
“So is he a suspect or not?”
“Right now he looks pretty damn good for it.”
“So when are you going to bring him in?”
“As soon as I find him.”
“I’ll call Helen,” Alex Rodin said. “She’ll know where he is.”
Rodin lied to his daughter. He told her that Bellantonio needed to see Reacher to correct a possible misunderstanding about part of the prosecution’s evidence.
“What part?” Helen asked.
“Just something they discussed. Probably nothing important, but I’m playing this very cautiously. Don’t want to hand you grounds for an appeal.”
The traffic cone, Helen thought.
“He’s on his way to the airport,” she said.
“Why?”
“To say hello to Eileen Hutton.”
“They know each other?”
“Apparently.”
“That’s unethical.”
“To know each other?”
“To influence her testimony.”
“I’m sure he won’t do that.”
“When will he be back?”
“After lunch, I think.”
“OK,” Rodin said. “It’ll keep.”
But it didn’t keep, of course. Emerson left for the airport immediately. He had met Reacher twice face-to-face and could pick him out of a crowd. Donna Bianca went with him. They went in together through a restricted area and found a security office that looked out over the whole arrivals hall through one-way glass. They scanned the waiting faces carefully. No sign of Reacher. Not here yet. So they settled down to wait.
CHAPTER 9
Reacher didn’t go to the airport. He knew better. Senior military personnel spend a lot of time flying small aircraft, either fixed wing or rotary, and they don’t like it. Outside of combat, more military personnel die in plane crashes than from any other single cause. Therefore, given a choice, a smart Brigadier General like Eileen Hutton wouldn’t ride a puddle jumper down from Indianapolis. She would be happy enough with a big jet out of Washington National, but she wouldn’t contemplate a twin-prop for the final leg of her journey. No way. She would rent a car instead.
So Reacher walked south and east to the library. Asked the subdued woman at the desk where the Yellow Pages were stored. He went where she pointed and hauled the book out onto a table. Opened it to H for Hotels. Started looking. Almost certainly some JAG Corps office grunt had done the equivalent thing the previous day, but remotely, probably online. Hutton would have told him to book her a room. He would have been anxious to please, so he would have turned first to the street map and found the courthouse and the road in from the north. Then he would have chosen a decent place convenient for both. Somewhere with parking, for the rental car. Probably a chain, with an established government rate accessible by a code number.
The Marriott Suites, Reacher thought. That’s where she’ll be headed. Off the highway, south toward town, an obvious left turn east, and there it was, three blocks north of the courthouse, an easy walk, breakfast included. The office grunt had probably printed out driving directions from the internet and clipped them to her itinerary. Anxious to please. Hutton had that effect on people.
He memorized the Marriott’s number and put the book away. Then he walked out to the lobby and dialed the pay phone.
“I want to confirm a reservation,” he said.
“Name?”
“Hutton.”
“Yes, we’ve got that. Tonight only, a suite.”
“Thank you,” Reacher said, and put the phone down.
She would take an early flight out of D.C. After two decades in uniform she would be up at five, in a cab at six, boarding at seven. She would be in Indianapolis by nine, latest. Out of the Hertz lot by nine-thirty. It was a two-and-a-half-hour drive. She would arrive at noon. In about an hour.
He stepped out of the lobby and looped through the plaza and headed north and east through a thin crowd of people, past the far side of the recruiting office, past the back of the courthouse. He found the Marriott easily enough and took a corner table in its coffee shop and settled down to wait.
Helen Rodin called Rosemary Barr at work. She wasn’t there. The receptionist sounded a little embarrassed about it. So Helen tried Rosemary’s home number, and got her after the second ring.
“Did they let you go?” she asked.
“Unpaid leave,” Rosemary said. “I volunteered for it. Everyone was acting awkward around me.”
“That’s awful.”
“It’s human nature. I need to make a plan. I might have to move.”
“I need a list of your brother’s friends,” Helen said.
“He doesn’t have any. The true test of friendship is adversity, isn’t it? And nobody’s visited him. Nobody’s even tried. Nobody’s called me to ask how he is.”
“I meant before,” Helen said. “I need to know who he saw, who he hung out with, who knew him well. Especially anyone new.”
“There wasn’t anyone new,” Rosemary said. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“What about old?”
“Have you got a big piece of paper?”
“I’ve got a whole yellow pad.”
“Well, you aren’t going to need it. A matchbook cover would do it. James is a very self-sufficient person.”
“He must have buddies.”
“A couple, I guess,” Rosemary said. “There’s a guy called Mike from the neighborhood. They talk about lawns and baseball, you know, guy stuff.”
Mike, Helen wrote. Guy stuff. “A
nyone else?”
There was a long pause.
“Someone called Charlie,” Rosemary said.
“Tell me about Charlie,” Helen said.
“I don’t know much about him. I never really met him.”
“How long has James known him?”
“Years.”
“Including the time you lived there?”
“He never came around when I was in. I only ever saw him once. He was leaving as I was coming in. I said, Who was that? James said, That was Charlie, like he was an old pal.”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s small. He’s got weird hair. Like a black toilet brush.”
“Is he local?”
“I guess so.”
“What was their point of contact?”
Another long pause.
“Guns,” Rosemary said. “They shared an interest.”
Charlie, Helen wrote. Guns.
Donna Bianca spent some time on her cell phone and mapped out the flight schedules between D.C. and Indianapolis. She knew the onward connecting flights left on the hour and took thirty-five minutes. She figured a person with a courthouse appointment at four o’clock wouldn’t aim to arrive on anything later than the two thirty-five. Which meant leaving Indianapolis at two, which meant getting in there at about one-thirty, latest, to allow for the walk between gates. Which meant leaving Washington National at eleven-thirty or twelve, latest. Which wasn’t possible. The last direct flight from National to Indianapolis was at nine-thirty. There was a morning cluster and an evening cluster. Nothing in between.
“She’ll come in on the twelve thirty-five,” she said.
Emerson checked his watch. Quarter to twelve.
“Which means Reacher will be here soon,” he said.
At ten to twelve a courier arrived at Helen Rodin’s building with six large cardboard cartons containing the defense’s copies of the prosecution’s evidence. The discovery process, mandated by the rules of due process. By the Bill of Rights, as interpreted. The courier called from the lobby and Helen told him to come on up. He had to make two trips with his handcart. He stacked the boxes in the empty secretarial pen. Helen signed for them and he left. Then she opened them. There was a mass of paperwork and dozens of photographs. And eleven new VHS cassettes. They had labels with numbers neatly printed on them that referred to a notarized sheet that described them as faithful and complete copies of the parking garage’s security tapes, made by an independent third-party contractor. Helen took them all out and stacked them separately. She would have to take them home and use her own VCR to look at them. She didn’t have a VCR in the office. Or a television set.
There was a television set in the Marriott’s coffee shop. It was mounted high in the corner, on a black articulated bracket bolted to the wall. The sound was off. Reacher watched an advertisement that featured a young woman in a filmy summer dress romping through a field of wildflowers. He wasn’t sure what product was being advertised. The dress, maybe, or makeup, or shampoo, or allergy medicine. Then a news banner popped up. Noon Report. Reacher checked his watch. Twelve exactly. He glanced toward the reception desk in the lobby. He had a clear view. No sign of Hutton. Not yet. So he glanced back at the television. Ann Yanni was on. She seemed to be live on location, downtown, out on the street. In front of the Metropole Palace Hotel. She talked silently but earnestly for a moment and then the picture cut to tape of dawn twilight. An alley. Police barriers. A shapeless form under a white sheet. Then the picture cut again. To a driver’s license photograph. Pale skin. Green eyes. Red hair. Just under the chin a caption was superimposed: Alexandra Dupree.
Alexandra. Sandy.
Now they’ve gone too far, Reacher thought.
He shivered.
Way too far.
He stared at the screen. Sandy’s face was still there. Then the picture cut again, back to tape of the early hours, to a head-and-shoulders shot of Emerson. A recorded interview. Yanni had her microphone shoved up under Emerson’s nose. He was talking. Yanni pulled the microphone back and asked a question. Emerson talked some more. His eyes were flat and empty and tired and hooded against the bright light on the camera. Even without the sound Reacher knew what he was saying. He was promising a full and complete investigation. We’ll get this guy, he was saying.
“I saw you from the desk,” a voice said.
Then it said, “And I thought to myself, don’t I know that guy?”
Reacher looked away from the TV.
Eileen Hutton was standing right there in front of him.
Her hair was shorter. She had no tan. There were fine lines around her eyes. But otherwise she looked just the same as she had fourteen years ago. And just as good. Medium height, slim, poised. Groomed. Fragrant. Feminine as hell. She hadn’t put on a pound. She was wearing civvies. Khaki chino pants, a white T, a blue oxford shirt open over it. Penny loafers, no socks, no makeup, no jewelry.
No wedding band.
“Remember me?” she said.
Reacher nodded.
“Hello, Hutton,” he said. “I remember you. Of course I do. And it’s good to see you again.”
She had a purse and a key card in her hand. A rolling carry-on with a long handle at her feet.
“It’s good to see you again, too,” she said. “But please tell me it’s a coincidence that you’re here. Please tell me that.”
Feminine as hell, except she was still a woman in a man’s world, and you could still see the steel if you knew where to look. Which was into her eyes. They ran like a stock ticker, warm, warm, welcome, welcome, with a periodic bright flash: Mess with me and I’ll rip your lungs out.
“Sit down,” Reacher said. “Let’s have lunch.”
“Lunch?”
“It’s what people do at lunch time.”
“You were expecting me. You’ve been waiting for me.”
Reacher nodded. Glanced back up at the TV set. Sandy’s driver’s license picture was on the screen again. Hutton followed his gaze.
“Is that the dead girl?” she asked. “I heard it on the radio, driving down. Sounds like a person should get combat pay, coming here.”
“What did the radio say? There’s no sound in here.”
“Homicide. Late last night. Local girl got her neck broken. A single blow to the right temple. In an alley outside a hotel. Not this one, I hope.”
“No,” Reacher said. “It wasn’t this one.”
“Brutal.”
“I guess it was.”
Eileen Hutton sat down at the table. Not across from him. In the chair next to him. Just like Sandy, at the sports bar.
“You look great,” he said. “You really do.”
She said nothing.
“It’s good to see you,” he said again.
“Likewise,” she said.
“No, I mean it.”
“I mean it, too. Believe me, if we were at some Beltway cocktail party I would be getting all misty and nostalgic with the best of them. I might still, as soon as I find out you’re not here for the reason I think you’re here.”
“What reason would that be?”
“To keep your promise.”
“You remember that?”
“Of course I do. You talked about it all one night.”
“And you’re here because the Department of the Army got a subpoena.”
Hutton nodded. “From some idiot prosecutor.”
“Rodin,” Reacher said.
“That’s the guy.”
“My fault,” Reacher said.
“Christ,” Hutton said. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing,” Reacher said. “I didn’t tell him anything. But he told me something. He told me my name was on the defense’s witness list.”
“The defense list?”
Reacher nodded. “That surprised me, obviously. So I was confused. So I asked him if my name had come from some old Pentagon file.”
“Not in this lifetime,” Hutton said.
; “As I found out,” Reacher said. “But still, I had said the magic words. I had mentioned the Pentagon. The type of guy he is, I knew he would go fishing. He’s very insecure. He likes his cases armor-plated. So I’m sorry.”
“You should be. I get to spend two days in the back of beyond and I get to perjure myself from here to breakfast time.”
“You don’t need to do that. You can claim national security.”
Hutton shook her head. “We talked about it, long and hard. We decided to stay away from anything that draws attention. That Palestinian thing was very thin. If that unravels, everything unravels. So I’m here to swear blind that James Barr was GI Joe.”
“You OK with that?”
“You know the army. None of us is a virgin anymore. It’s about the mission, and the mission is to keep a lid on the KC thing.”
“Why did they delegate you?”
“Two birds with one stone. No good to them to send someone else and still have me out there knowing the truth. This way, I can’t talk about it ever again, anywhere. Not without effectively confessing to perjury one time in Indiana. They’re not dumb.”
“I’m surprised they still care. It’s practically ancient history.”
“How long have you been out?”
“Seven years.”
“And clearly you don’t have a subscription to the Army Times.”
“What?”
“Or maybe you never knew.”
“Never knew what?”
“Where it went back then, up the chain of command.”
“Division, I supposed. But maybe not all the way to the top.”
“It stopped on a certain colonel’s desk. He was the one who nixed it.”
“And?”
“His name was Petersen.”
“And?”
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