Echo Burning jr-5

by Lee Child

  Sloop said nothing. He was so silent, the skin at the inside corners of his eyes turned dark purple. Walk away now, Reacher thought, and you're confessing it to me. But Sloop stayed exactly where he was, very still, staring into space, seeing nothing. Then he recovered. The eyes came back into focus. Not quickly, but not too slowly, either. A smart guy.

  "Well, that makes me feel better," he said. "About withholding my taxes. They might have ended up in your pocket."

  "You don't approve?"

  "No, I don't," Sloop said.

  "Of who?"

  "Either of you," Sloop said. "You, or the other guy."

  Then he turned and walked away.

  Reacher went back to the bunkhouse. The maid brought him dinner and came back for the plate. Full darkness fell outside and the night insects started up with their crazy chant. He lay down on his bed and sweated. The temperature stayed rock-steady around a hundred degrees. He heard isolated coyote howls again, and cougar screams, and the invisible beating of bats' wings.

  Then he heard a light tread on the bunkhouse stair. He sat up in time to see Carmen come up into the room. She had one hand pressed flat on her chest, like she was out of breath, or panicking, or both.

  "Sloop talked to Bobby," she said. "For ages."

  "Did he hit you?" Reacher asked.

  Her hand went up to her cheek.

  "No," she said.

  "Did he?"

  She looked away.

  "Well, just once," she said. "Not hard."

  "I should go break his arms."

  "He called the sheriff."

  "Who did?"

  "Sloop."

  "When?"

  "Just now. He talked to Bobby, and then he called."

  "About me?"

  She nodded. "He wants you out of here."

  "It's O.K.," Reacher said. "The sheriff won't do anything."

  "You think?"

  Reacher nodded. "I squared him away, before."

  She paused a beat. "I've got to get back now. He thinks I'm with Ellie."

  "You want me to come with you?"

  "Not yet. Let me talk to him first."

  "Don't let him hit you again, Carmen. Come get me, soon as you need me. Or make noise, O.K.? Scream and shout."

  She started back down the stairs.

  "I will," she said. "I promise. You sure about the sheriff?"

  "Don't worry," he said. "The sheriff won't do a thing."

  * * *

  But the sheriff did one thing. He passed the problem to the state police. Reacher found that out ninety minutes later, when a Texas Ranger cruiser turned in under the gate, looking for him. Somebody directed it all the way down past the barns and in behind the bunkhouse. He heard its motor and the sound of its tires crushing the dust on the track. He got off of his bed and went down the stairs and when he got to the bottom he was lit up by the spotlight mounted in front of its windshield. It shone in past the parked farm tractors and picked him out in a bright cone of light. The car doors opened and two Rangers got out.

  They were not similar to the sheriff. Not in any way. They were in a different class altogether. They were young and fit and professional. Both of them were medium height, both of them were halfway between lean and muscled. Both had military-style buzz cuts. Both had immaculate uniforms. One was a sergeant and the other was a trooper. The trooper was Hispanic. He was holding a shotgun.

  "What?" Reacher called.

  "Step to the hood of the car," the sergeant called back.

  Reacher kept his hands clear of his body and walked to the car.

  "Assume the position," the sergeant said.

  Reacher put his palms on the fender and leaned down. The sheet metal was hot from the engine. The trooper covered him with the shotgun and the sergeant patted him down.

  "O.K., get in the car," he said.

  Reacher didn't move.

  "What's this about?" he asked.

  "A request from a property owner to remove a trespasser."

  "I'm not a trespasser. I work here."

  "Well, I guess they just terminated you. So now you're a trespasser. And we're going to remove you."

  "That's a state police job?"

  "Small community like this, we're on call to help the local guys, their days off, or serious crimes."

  "Trespassing is a serious crime?"

  "No, Sunday is the Echo sheriff's day off."

  The moths had found the spotlight. They fluttered in and crowded the lens, landing and taking off again when the heat of the bulb got to them. They batted against Reacher's right arm. They felt dry and papery and surprisingly heavy.

  "O.K., I'll leave," he said. "I'll walk out to the road."

  "Then you'll be a vagrant on a county highway. That's against the law, too, around here, especially during the hours of darkness."

  "So where are we going?"

  "You have to leave the county. We'll let you out in Pecos."

  "They owe me money. I never got paid."

  "So get in the car. We'll stop at the house."

  Reacher glanced left at the trooper, and the shotgun. Both of them looked businesslike. He glanced right, at the sergeant. He had his hand on the butt of his gun. He saw in his mind the two Greer boys, two versions of the same face, both of them grinning, smug and triumphant. But it was Rusty he saw mouthing checkmate at him.

  "There's a problem here," he said. "The daughter-in-law is getting smacked around by her husband. It's an ongoing situation. He just got out of prison today."

  "She made a complaint?"

  "She's scared to. The sheriff's a good old boy and she's a Hispanic woman from California."

  "Nothing we can do without a complaint."

  Reacher glanced the other way at the trooper, who just shrugged.

  "Like the man told you," he said. "Nothing we can do without we hear about it."

  "You're hearing about it now," Reacher said. "I'm telling you."

  The trooper shook his head. "Needs to come from the victim."

  "Get in the car," the sergeant said.

  "You don't have to do this."

  "Yes, we do."

  "I need to be here. For the woman's sake."

  "Listen, pal, we were informed you're trespassing. So all we got is a question of whether you're wanted here, or whether you're not. And apparently, you're not."

  "The woman wants me here. Like her bodyguard."

  "Is she the property owner?"

  "No, she isn't."

  "Are you employed by her? Like officially?"

  Reacher shrugged. "More or less."

  "She paying you? You got a contract we can see?"

  Reacher said nothing.

  "So get in the car."

  "She's in danger."

  "We get a call, we'll come running."

  "She can't call. Or if she does, the sheriff won't pass it on."

  "Then there's nothing we can do. Now get in the car."

  Reacher said nothing. The sergeant opened the rear door. Then he paused.

  "You could come back tomorrow," he said, quietly. "No law says a man can't try to get himself rehired."

  Reacher took a second look at the shotgun. It was a big handsome Ithaca with a muzzle wide enough to stick his thumb in. He took a second look at the sergeant's handgun. It was a Glock, secured into an oiled leather holster by a strap that would take about half a second to unfasten.

  "But right now, get in the car."

  Checkmate.

  "O.K.," Reacher said. "But I'm not happy."

  "Very few of our passengers are," the sergeant said back.

  He used his hand on the top of Reacher's head and folded him into the back seat. It was cold in there. There was a heavy wire barrier in front of him. Either side, the door handles and the window winders had been removed. Small squares of aluminum had been riveted over the holes in the trim. The seat was vinyl. There was a smell of disinfectant and a heavy stink from an air freshener shaped like a pine tree hanging from the mirr
or in front. There was a radar device built up on top of the dash and quiet radio chatter coming from a unit underneath it. The sergeant and the trooper swung in together in front and drove him up to the house. All the Greers except Ellie were on the porch to see him go. They were standing in a line at the rail, first Rusty, then Bobby, then Sloop and Carmen. They were all smiling. All except Carmen.

  The sergeant stopped the car at the foot of the steps and buzzed his window down. "This guy says you owe him wages," he called.

  There was silence for a second. Just the sound of the insects. "So tell him to sue us," Bobby called back.

  Reacher leaned forward to the metal grille.

  "Carmen!" he shouted. "Si hay un problema, llama directamente a estos hombres!"

  The sergeant turned his head. "What?"

  "Nothing."

  "So what do you want to do?" the sergeant asked. "About your money?"

  "Forget about it," Reacher said.

  The sergeant buzzed his window up again and pulled out toward the gate. Reacher craned his neck and saw them all turn to watch him go, all except for Carmen, who stood absolutely still and stared rigidly ahead at the spot where the car had just been. The sergeant made a right onto the road and Reacher turned his head the other way and saw them all filing back into the house. Then the sergeant accelerated hard and they were lost to sight.

  "What was that you called out to them?" he asked.

  Reacher said nothing.

  The trooper answered for him. "It was Spanish," he said. "For the woman. It meant 'Carmen, if there's trouble, call these guys direct.' Terrible accent."

  Reacher said nothing.

  They drove the same sixty miles he had covered the other way in the white Cadillac, back to the crossroads hamlet with Ellie's school and the gas station and the old diner. The sergeant stuck to a lazy fifty-five all the way, and it took an hour and five minutes. When they got there, everything was closed up tight. There were lights burning in two of the houses, and nothing else. Then they drove the stretch where Carmen had chased the school bus. Nobody talked. Reacher sprawled sideways on the vinyl bench and watched the darkness. Another twenty minutes north he saw the turn where Carmen had come down out of the hills. They didn't take it. They just kept on going, heading for the main highway, and then Pecos beyond it.

  They never got there. The radio call came in a mile short of the county line. An hour and thirty-five minutes into the ride. The call was bored and laconic and loud with static. A woman dispatcher's voice.

  "Blue Five, Blue Five" it said.

  The trooper unhooked the microphone and stretched the cord and clicked the switch.

  "Blue Five, copy, over," he said.

  "Required at the Red House Ranch immediately, sixty miles south of north Echo crossroads, domestic disturbance reported, over."

  "Copy, nature of incident, over?"

  "Unclear at this time, believed violent, over."

  "Well, shit," the sergeant said.

  "Copy, on our way, out," the trooper said. He replaced the microphone. Turned around. "So she understood your Spanish. I guess your accent wasn't too far off, after all."

  Reacher said nothing. The sergeant turned his head.

  "Look on the bright side, pal," he said. "Now we can do something about it."

  "I warned you," Reacher said. "And you should have damn well listened to me. So if she's hurt bad, it's on you. Pal."

  The sergeant said nothing to that. Just jammed on the brakes and pulled a wide slow turn across the whole of the road, shoulder to shoulder. Got it pointing straight south again and hustled. He got it up to a hundred on the straightaways, kept it at ninety on the curves. He didn't use the lights or the siren. Didn't even slow at the crossroads. He didn't need to. The chances of meeting traffic on that road were worse than winning the lottery.

  They were back again exactly two hours and thirty minutes after they left. Ninety-five minutes north, fifty-five minutes south. First thing they saw was the sheriff's secondhand cruiser, dumped at an angle in the yard, door open, light bar flashing. The sergeant slewed through the dirt and jammed to a stop right behind it.

  "Hell's he doing here?" he said. "It's his day off."

  There was nobody in sight. The trooper opened his door. The sergeant shut down the motor and did the same.

  "Let me out," Reacher said.

  "No dice, pal," the sergeant said back. "You stay right there."

  They got out and walked together to the porch steps. They went up. Across the boards. They pushed the door. It was open. They went inside. The door swung shut behind them. Reacher waited. Five minutes. Seven. Ten. The car grew warm. Then hot. There was silence. No sound at all beyond random static from the radio and the ticking of the insects.

  The trooper came out alone after about twelve minutes. Walked slowly back to his side of the car and opened his door and leaned in for the microphone.

  "Is she O.K.?" Reacher asked.

  The guy nodded, sourly.

  "She's fine," he said. "At least physically. But she's in a shitload of trouble."

  "Why?"

  "Because the call wasn't about him attacking her. It was the other way around. She shot him. He's dead. So we just arrested her."

  Chapter 10

  The trooper clicked the microphone and called in for backup and an ambulance. Then he dictated an interim report to the dispatcher. He used the words gunshot wounds twice and homicide three times.

  "Hey," Reacher called to him. "Stop calling it homicide on the radio."

  "Why?"

  "Because it was self-defense. He was beating her. We all need to get that straight, from the start."

  "Not for me to say. You, either."

  Reacher shook his head. "It is for you to say. Because what you say now counts for something, later. You put it in people's heads it's a homicide, it'll be tough for her. Better that everybody's real clear from the start about what it is."

  "I don't have that kind of influence."

  "Yes, you do."

  "How would you know what kind of influence I have?"

  "Because I was you, once upon a time. I was a cop, in the military. I called things in. I know how it works."

  The trooper said nothing.

  "She's got a kid," Reacher said. "You should remember that. So she needs minimum bail, and she needs it tonight. You can influence that for her."

  "She shot him," the trooper said. "She should have thought about all that before."

  "The guy was beating up on her. It was self-defense."

  The trooper said nothing.

  "Give her a break, O.K.? Don't make her a victim twice over."

  "She's the victim? Her husband is the one lying there dead."

  "You should have sympathy. You must know how it is for her."

  "Why? What's the connection between her and me?"

  Now it was Reacher who said nothing.

  "You think I should cut her a break just because I'm Hispanic and she is too?"

  "You wouldn't be cutting her a break," Reacher said. "You'd be being accurate, is all. She needs your help."

  The trooper hung up the microphone.

  "Now you're offending me," he said.

  He backed out of the car and slammed the door. Walked away, up to the house again. Reacher glanced through the window to his right, toward the rocky land west of the compound, full of regret. I knew how it would be, he thought. I should have made her leave the damn gun up there on the mesa. Or I should have taken care of the whole thing myself.

  The state cops stayed inside the house and Reacher saw nothing until the backup arrived more than an hour later. It was an identical cruiser with another trooper driving and another sergeant riding alongside him. This time the trooper was white and the sergeant was Hispanic. They got out of their car and walked straight into the house. The heat and the quiet came back. There were animal howls in the far distance and the whisper of insects and the beating of invisible wings. Lights came on in some of the house
windows and then snapped off again. After twenty minutes, the Echo sheriff left. He came out of the house and stumbled down the porch steps to his car. He looked tired and disoriented. His shirt was dark with sweat. He maneuvered his cruiser out from behind the tangle of police vehicles and drove away.

  Another hour later, the ambulance came. It had its emergency lights on. Reacher saw the night pulsing red far to the south and then bright headlight beams and a boxy vehicle painted red and gold and white lurching in through the gate. It was marked PRESIDIO FIRE DEPARTMENT. Maybe it was the same truck Billy had called the night before. It turned a slow circle in the yard and backed up to the porch steps. The crew got out lazily and stretched and yawned in the dark. They knew they weren't about to be called on for their paramedic skills.

  They opened the rear doors and took out a rolling gurney and the backup sergeant met them on the steps and led them inside. Reacher was sweating inside the car. It was airless and hot. He traced in his mind the medics walking through the interior hallways to the bedroom. Attending to the corpse. Lifting it onto the gurney. Rolling the gurney out. It was going to be difficult to handle. There were narrow stairs and tight corners.

  But they came back out about as fast as was feasible and lifted the gurney down the porch steps. Sloop Greer was just a large heavy shape on it, wound into a white sheet. The medics lined up the gurney with the rear of the ambulance and pushed. The wheels folded up and the gurney slid inside and the medics closed the doors on it.

  Then they stood around in a group with three of the cops. The trooper who Reacher had offended wasn't there. He must have been guarding Carmen, somewhere inside the house. The three cops out in the yard were slow and relaxed. The excitement was over. The deal was done. So they were standing there a little deflated, and maybe a little disappointed, like cops often get, like something had happened they were supposed to prevent from happening. Reacher knew exactly how they felt.

  They talked for a couple of minutes and then the ambulance crew climbed back into their cab and bounced their vehicle across the yard to the gate. It paused there for a second and turned right and headed slowly north. The cops watched it until it was gone and then they turned together and headed back inside the house. Five minutes later they came out again, all four of them, and this time they brought Carmen with them.