23 Past Tense

by Lee Child

  The guy with the ponytail nodded.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Can you park right outside?”

  “Why?”

  “So I can get in and out real fast.”

  “It isn’t raining.”

  “Other reasons.”

  “No,” the guy said. “It’s a big building in a parcel all its own. It looks like a castle. You have to walk through the gardens.”

  “How far?”

  “Couple minutes.”

  “How many people will I see in the gardens?”

  “On a nice day like this, there could be a few. People like the sun. They got a long winter coming.”

  “How far is the library from the police station?”

  “Sounds like you have a problem, Mr. Reacher.”

  Reacher paused a beat.

  “What’s your name?” he asked. “You know mine, but I don’t know yours.”

  The guy with the ponytail said, “The Reverend Patrick G. Burke, technically.”

  “You’re a priest?”

  “Currently I’m between parishes.”

  “Since how long?”

  “About forty years.”

  “Irish?”

  “My family was from County Kilkenny.”

  “Ever been back?”

  “No,” Burke said. “Tell me about your problem.”

  “The apple farming folks aren’t the only ones mad at me. Apparently I upset someone in Boston, too. Different type of family. Different type of likely reaction. The Laconia police department doesn’t want its streets shot up like the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre. I’m supposed to stay out of town.”

  “What did you do to the people in Boston?”

  “I have no idea,” Reacher said. “I haven’t been in Boston in years.”

  “Who are you exactly?”

  “I’m a guy who followed a road sign. Now I’m anxious to get on my way. But first I want to know what bird it was.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. Why not?”

  “Aren’t you worried about the people from Boston?”

  “Not really,” Reacher said. “I don’t suppose they’ll be hanging out at the library, reading a book. It’s the cops I’m worried about. I kind of promised I wouldn’t come back. I don’t want to let them down. One in particular. She was an army cop too.”

  “But you want to know about the bird.”

  “Since it’s right there.”

  Burke looked away.

  “What?” Reacher said.

  “I never saw a police officer in the library gardens,” Burke said. “Never once. Chances are they would never know you were there.”

  “Now it’s you getting me in trouble.”

  “Live free or die.”

  Reacher said, “Just make sure you park as close as you can.”

  —

  Twenty miles to the north, Patty Sundstrom once again took off her shoes, and stepped up on the bed, and balanced flat-footed on the unstable surface. Once again she shuffled sideways, and looked up, and spoke to the light.

  She said, “Please raise the window blind. As a personal favor to me. And because it’s the decent thing to do.”

  Then once again she climbed down and sat on the edge of the mattress, to put her shoes back on. Shorty watched the window.

  They waited.

  “It’s taking longer this time,” Shorty mouthed.

  Patty just shrugged.

  They waited.

  But nothing happened. The blind stayed down. They sat in the gloom. No electric light. It was working, but Patty didn’t want it.

  Then the TV turned on.

  All by itself.

  There was a tiny crackle and rustle as circuitry came to life, and the picture lit up bright blue, with a line of code, like a weird screen on a computer you weren’t supposed to see.

  Then it tugged sideways and was replaced by another picture.

  A man.

  It was Mark.

  The screen showed him head and shoulders, ready and waiting, like an at-the-scene reporter. He was standing in front of a black wall, staring at a camera.

  Staring at them.

  He spoke.

  He said, “Guys, we need to discuss Patty’s latest request.”

  His voice came out of the TV speaker, just like a regular show.

  Patty said nothing.

  Shorty was frozen in place.

  Mark said, “I’m totally happy to raise the blind, if that’s really what you want. But I’m worried you won’t enjoy it as much the second time around. It would help me ethically if I could double check your positive consent.”

  Patty stood up. Put her hands to her shoes.

  Mark said, “You don’t need to get on the bed. I can hear you from there. The microphone is not in the light.”

  “Why are you keeping us here?”

  “We’ll discuss that very soon. Before the end of the day, certainly.”

  “What do you want from us?”

  “Right now all I need is your positive consent to raise the window blind.”

  “Why wouldn’t we want that?”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “What is going to happen to us?”

  “We’ll discuss that very soon. Before the end of the day, certainly. All we need right now is a decision on the window blind. Up or down?”

  “Up,” Patty said.

  The TV turned itself off. The screen went blank, and the circuitry rustled, and a tiny standby light glowed red.

  Then inside the window unit the motor whirred and the blind came up, slow and steady, with warm sunlight pouring in underneath. The view was the same. The Honda, the lot, the grass, the wall of trees. But it was beautiful. The way it was lit. Patty put her elbows on the sill and her forehead on the glass.

  She said, “The microphone is not in the light.”

  Shorty said, “Patty, we’re not supposed to be talking.”

  “He said I didn’t need to get on the bed. How did he know I got on the bed? How did he know I was about to right that minute?”

  “Patty, you’re saying stuff out loud.”

  “It’s not just a microphone. They have a camera in here. They’re watching us. They’ve been watching us all along.”

  Shorty said, “A camera?”

  “How else could he know I just stood up, ready to get on the bed? He saw me do it.”

  Shorty looked around.

  “Where is it?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “What would it look like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s a weird feeling.”

  “You think?”

  “Were they watching when we were asleep?”

  “I guess they can watch whenever they want.”

  “Maybe it’s in the light fixture,” he said. “Maybe that’s what he meant. Maybe he was saying it’s the camera in the light, not the microphone.”

  Patty didn’t answer. She pushed off the sill and stepped back to the bed. She sat down next to Shorty. She put her hands on her knees and stared ahead through the window. The Honda, the lot, the grass. The wall of trees. She didn’t want to move. Not a muscle. Not even her eyes. They were watching her.

  Then right in front of her a man peeked in the window.

  He was on the boardwalk outside, craning around. Peeking in, one eye. Then he stepped more into view. He was a big guy with gray hair and a rich man’s tan. He stood square on and stared. A frank and open gaze. At her. At Shorty. At her. Then he turned away and waved. And beckoned. And spoke. Patty couldn’t hear what he said. The window was soundproof. But it looked like he said, their blind is up now.

  In a happy and triumphant tone of voice.

  Another man stepped into view.

  And another.

  All three men looked in the window.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder, an inch from the glass.

  They were staring, and judging, an
d evaluating. Their eyes were narrowing in contemplation. Their lips were pressing together.

  They were starting slow, satisfied half smiles.

  They were pleased by what they saw.

  Patty said, “Mark, I know you can hear me.”

  No response.

  She said, “Mark, who are these people?”

  His voice came out of the ceiling.

  “We’ll discuss that very soon,” he said. “Before the end of the day, certainly.”

  Chapter 26

  The library was a handsome construction, built of red and white stone, in a revival style that would have worked equally well on a college campus or in a theme park. As promised it was surrounded on all sides by landscaped gardens, with trees and bushes and lawns and flower beds. Reacher took a paved path from a gate near where the Reverend Burke parked the Subaru. Inside there were people strolling, and people sitting on benches, and people lying flat on the grass. No one looked wrong. No one stood out. No police anywhere.

  Up ahead on the street beyond the gardens beyond the building was a white panel van. Parked at the curb. Diametrically opposite the Subaru. The other side of the square. It had ice blue writing on the side. Every letter had a loaf of snow on top. An air conditioning repairman. Reacher walked on. Two minutes, Burke had said. A wild overestimate. It was going to be closer to fifty seconds. So far four people had passed him by on the narrow winding path, almost cheek to cheek, and four people had looked at him, from static positions on benches and lawns. Three others had paid him no attention. Eyes closed, or in a dream.

  He went up the steps and in through the door. The lobby had the same red and white stone inside as outside. Granite, he thought. In the same ornate style. He found the stair to the basement. He came out in a big underground room with shelves like the spokes of a wheel. The reference section. Just like old Mr. Mortimer had promised. They get anything, he had said.

  There was a woman at a desk. She was half hidden behind a computer screen. Maybe thirty-five. Long black hair, in a cascade of tiny curls. She looked up and said, “Can I help you?”

  “The birdwatching club,” Reacher said. “Someone told me you have the old records.”

  The woman pattered on her keyboard.

  “Yes,” she said. “We have those. What years?”

  Reacher had never known Stan when he wasn’t a birdwatcher. There was no before and after. But neither was there in the way Stan had talked about it. He had sounded like he had been a birdwatcher forever. Which was plausible. A lot of people started a lifelong hobby at a very young age. He could have joined the club right then. But he wouldn’t have been trusted to write the minutes. Not as a kid. He wouldn’t have been taken seriously by the hobby magazine. He wouldn’t have been elected secretary. Not until much later. So as a starting point Reacher gave the woman four consecutive years, from when Stan was fourteen, up to when he left home to join the Marines.

  “Take a seat,” she said. “I’ll bring them to you.”

  He sat down at a study carrel, one of many pushed together in the center of the room. Three minutes later the woman brought him the records. Which was three months faster than Elizabeth Castle could have gotten him a property file. He decided if he ever saw her again he would point that out.

  The records were in four large ledgers with maroon marbled covers, stained and faded by time. Each book was an inch and a half thick, and the edges were marbled too, in curling, feathery patterns. Inside, the pages were numbered, and lined, and faded, and brittle, and covered in neat fountain-pen handwriting, gone watery and pale with age.

  He asked, “Should I be wearing white cotton gloves?”

  “No,” the woman said. “That’s a myth. Generally does more harm than good.”

  She walked back to her desk. He opened the first ledger. It continued from where the last ledger must have left off. The year Stan was thirteen. The first page of the new book jumped right in with the minutes of the next meeting. It was held in the back room of a downtown restaurant. Stan Reacher was not listed as present. Much time was taken up debating whether to change the club’s name. Currently it was The Society of Laconia Birdwatchers. A faction thought The Laconia Audubon Society would be better. More upscale and scientific. More professional, less amateur. Much discussion ensued but no recommendation was made.

  Stan Reacher was not present at the next meeting, either. It seemed to have wasted a lot of time with a guy banging on about restating the club’s fundamental purpose, which in his opinion should be accurately maintaining a comprehensive register of competent binocular repairers. This, he felt, would bring maximum value to the members. Reacher was glad Stan hadn’t been present. He would have needed a lot more patience as a kid than he ever displayed as an adult.

  He put the first ledger aside, and tried the second. It was an identical book. He opened it at random, in the middle. Where he found a handwritten essay about hummingbird migration. It was labeled as a Report on Proceedings, and it was written, very neatly, by someone named A. B. Smith. It was like a scholarly article, recapping the work of others, before venturing a new opinion at the end. About how a baby hummingbird could be born in North America, and then fly alone two thousand miles and land on a spot the size of a pocket handkerchief. Mr. or Ms. Smith figured it must have been born with a fixed instinct, directly inherited from the parent, mysteriously transmitted at a cellular level by a mechanism as yet unknown. DNA, Reacher thought. Twenty years in the future. He knew the end of the movie.

  He tried the third book. He opened it at random, and leafed ahead, and a minute later he found the meeting where his father was elected secretary. Right there. Stan Reacher, nem con. Which was short for the Latin nemine contradicente , which meant no one spoke against, which meant no one else wanted the job. Easy to see why. But Stan slowly got control. The meetings got faster. There was more talk of birds than names or binocular repairs. The fountain-pen writing was neat. But not Stan’s. Not even a juvenile version. He must have delegated the clerical duties. Like later in life. Why the Corps invented clerks, he would say. But the content sounded like him. The secretary ruled immediately that it was an inappropriate subject for discussion. The secretary set a two-minute time limit on discussion of the motion . In other words, shut up, and hurry up. Like later in life. Why the Corps invented captains.

  Reacher turned the pages. Another meeting, and another. And then another Report on Proceedings. There were maps and pictures and diagrams, done in colored pencils. There were columns of text, done in ink. The title, carefully lettered, was An Historic Sighting Over Ryantown, New Hampshire . The article was respectfully submitted by S. Reacher and W. Reacher.

  The birdwatching boys. Both Reachers. Cousins, probably. Like old Mr. Mortimer said. Everyone had cousins in and out. Maybe their fathers were brothers. Living nearby. Or second cousins, or once removed, or whatever it was when it got complicated. Stan and, who? William, Walter, Warren, Wesley, Winston. Or Winthrop or Wilbert or Waylon.

  The bird was a rough-legged hawk.

  It was thought to be gone, but it came back. No doubt about it. There was no issue with the identification. There was a clue in the name. It was a hard bird to mistake. The question was why it came back.

  The answer, according to S. and W. Reacher, was vermin. Settlements like Ryantown attracted rats and mice like magnets, where they were poisoned, so the hawks either got nothing to eat, or they died from consuming toxic flesh. Naturally the few survivors went elsewhere, not to return until years later, when the government started commandeering every kind of basic item for the war effort, including steel and rubber and aluminum, of course, and gasoline, but also all kinds of other things. Such as rat poison. The military needed it all. For unspecified reasons. None was available on the civilian market. Like so many things. The result was the rats and mice in Ryantown grew plump and healthy. So the hawks came hustling over from wherever they had weathered the chemical storm, and they got back to work. Respectfully submitted.


  W. Reacher was not listed as present at the next meeting. Or the meeting before. Reacher flipped through the pages, forward and backward, and never saw the name. Not once. Not on the committee, not among the membership, not at events, not on days out.

  Cousin W. was not a joiner.

  Reacher closed the book.

  The woman at the desk said, “Did you find what you needed?”

  “It was a rough-legged hawk,” Reacher said. “In Ryantown, New Hampshire.”

  “Really?”

  She sounded astonished.

  “Because of no more rat poison,” he said. “A new abundance of prey. I think it’s plausible. As an integrated theory.”

  “No, I mean it’s amazing because someone else looked at that exact same thing about a year ago. I remember. It was about two boys, right? A long time in the past. They recorded the hawk and wrote an explanation. It was reprinted in an old magazine a month or so afterward.”

  She pattered at her keyboard.

  She said, “Actually it was more than a year ago. It was an ornithologist from the university. He had seen the historic magazine reprint, but because it came from a handwritten manuscript, he wanted to see the original. To be sure of the accuracy. We talked a little bit. He said he knew one of the participants.”

  “One of the boys?”

  “I think he said he was related to both of them.”

  “How old was this guy?”

  “Not old. Obviously the boys were from a previous generation. Uncles or great-uncles or something. The stories were clearly passed down.”

  “He had stories?”

  “Some of them were pretty interesting.”

  “Which university?”

  “New Hampshire,” she said. “Down in Durham.”

  “Can you give me his name and number?”

  “Not without a good reason.”

  “We might be related too. One of those boys was my father.”

  The woman wrote out the name and the number. Reacher folded the paper and put it in his back pants pocket, next to Brenda Amos’s business card. He said, “Can I put the books away for you?”

  “My job,” she said.

  He thanked her and went back up the stair to the lobby. He stood for a moment. He was all done in town. He had nothing more to see. On a whim he crossed to the main staircase, which was inside a wide tower, just like it would be in a castle. He went up as far as the second-floor windows, for a last look around. It was a good vantage point. He saw the Subaru in the distance, small and dull, still parked, patiently waiting, about sixty yards away. He crossed the hall and in the opposite direction he saw the air conditioning truck. Still there, with its icy letters, and their snowy caps.