by Lee Child
Neagley came in and said, “The protocol office can’t find the parents. They think the father might be deceased. But they’re not sure. And they don’t have a number for the mother. Or an address. They’re still looking.”
Then the soft sergeant trailed in behind her, with a torn-off telex in his hand.
The Georgia State Police had made an arrest.
Not a soldier.
Not a military veteran.
—
Reacher called Fort Smith direct for the skinny. The suspect was a black man who lived alone in a cabin on the muddy shore of a lake forty miles north and west of the post. He was six feet seven inches tall, and wore size fifteen shoes. He drove a Ford Ranger pick-up truck with Firestone tires, and he owned a nine-millimeter handgun.
He denied everything.
Reacher looked up at the soft sergeant standing in front of him and said, “You’re in charge now, soldier. Sergeant Neagley and I are going to Smith.”
—
Neagley drove, in her pool car from Bragg. It was a green Chevrolet, with Firestone tires. The trip was about a hundred and ten miles, more or less due east from Benning. Most of the scenery was woods. New spring-green leaves flashed by in the sun. Reacher said, “So we’ll call this the casting-the-net theory. Like fishing on a lazy afternoon. Once in a while the guy comes down from the lake and sets up on a back road and catches something. Like Robin Hood. Or an ogre from under a bridge. When the moon is full. Or whenever he needs to eat. Or something. Like a fairytale.”
“Or maybe he comes down every day. But catches something only once in a while. Either way is possible. These are the Georgia woods. Think about carjacking in LA. Or getting mugged in New York City. Routine. Maybe this is the local version. Adapted to the environment.”
“Then why did the carjacker not jack her car? Why did he execute her very clinically instead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did she stop in the first place?”
“He was blocking the road.”
“She didn’t need to come close and talk to the guy. Being in War Plans doesn’t make her a total idiot. She went to West Point. She’s a woman driving alone. She should have stood back a hundred yards and made a threat assessment.”
“Maybe she did.”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes. She did. She was a woman driving alone.”
“In which case we conclude the guy was no threat. She drove right up to him, with her window open. Would she do that, for a weird six-seven stranger she had never seen before? With a broken-down pick-up truck? I’m sure she saw all the movies. With the chainsaws and the banjo music.”
“OK, she felt safe with the guy. Maybe she knew him. Or thought she knew him. Or knew his type.”
“Exactly,” Reacher said. “Which would make him active-duty military. Probably in uniform. Possibly even with a military vehicle. Not too far below in rank. Or maybe equal or even higher. For her to feel truly comfortable. This was a whole complicated performance. I want to get the right guy. Otherwise what’s the point? And I’ve always found a big part of getting the right guy is not getting the wrong guy.”
“They’re going to say this guy has the right tires.”
“So do a million other people.”
“He has the right bullets.”
“So do a million other people.”
“He has the right feet.”
—
Neagley had read a lot of research into first impressions, those merciless subliminal split seconds where one human judges another, on a million different things, all at once like a computer, all leading to an instant and inevitable yes-no answer: Should I stay or should I go? Sadly the State Police’s suspect scored very low on that test. Neagley knew her own sense of threat assessment was likely to be more robust than Crawford’s, by an order of magnitude, but even so she would have kept her distance and approached warily, and only after locking her doors and getting her gun out.
They saw the guy in a holding cell at the county police station, which was ten minutes from Smith. He had some kind of growth disorder. Pituitary, maybe. A hormone imbalance. He should have been average size, but the long bones in his arms and legs had been racked out way longer than nature could have intended, and his hands and feet were equally huge, and his face was very long, with a chisel of a chin below it, and a narrow-domed forehead above.
Reacher asked, “Has he lawyered up?”
The county sheriff said, “He waived. He believes innocent men don’t need lawyers.”
“That’s groundwork for an insanity plea.”
“No, I think he means it.”
“Then it might be true. It sometimes is.”
“He’s got the feet and the gun and the tires. That’s a rare combination.”
“A guy with hands that big prefers a shotgun.”
“He told us he owns a nine.”
“He might. But does he use it?”
“Think I should ask him? What else is he going to say?”
“Did you match the footwear?”
“It was raining again almost immediately. Photographs were all we got. No casts. Not that we could have gotten casts anyway. Wrong kind of mud. More like liquid peat. Too spongy. I apologize on behalf of the state of Georgia for the poor quality of our mud. Not what you expect, I know. But spongy or not, we measured the prints with a ruler. They were size fifteen. Just like the boots he was wearing when they brought him in.”
“So you can’t match the tires either. Not exactly. For nicks or wear.”
“The photograph is clear as to brand.”
“Has he said where he was at the time?”
“Home alone. No witnesses.”
“So it’s a closed case?”
“The State Police is expressing considerable satisfaction in the outcome. But no case is closed until the grand jury says so.”
“Are they still looking?”
“Not as hard. What’s your problem, major?”
“This guy lives alone in a cabin. You know why that is? People are scared to look at him. He’s repellent. That’s all he’s ever heard, ever since he was a little kid. These growth things start early. So when it came time to earn some coin, why would he choose the role of smooth-talking conman, lulling passing drivers into a false sense of security? Why would he expect to succeed at that, given the way he’s been looked at all his life? I think he’s ugly, but I think he’s innocent. In fact I think he’s innocent because he’s ugly.”
“Lots of people look a little funny. Doesn’t stop them working.”
“Does this happen often? Is it a big thing here? Sticking people up by faking breakdowns?”
“I never heard of it before.”
“So this guy invented it, too?”
“He’s got the feet and the gun and the tires,” the county guy said. “That’s a rare combination.”
—
They gave Reacher Caroline Crawford’s room, in the Fort Smith visiting officers’ quarters. The MPs had taken all her possessions out, as part of the investigation, and the stewards had cleaned the place up. Some of the surfaces were still damp. Neagley was in NCO accommodation. They met first thing the next morning in her mess for coffee and breakfast, and then they headed to the MP office to look at maps. The local commander was a captain named Ellsbury. He was a squared-away individual running a tight ship, and rightly proud of it. He produced every kind of map there was, including the government surveys they had seen before, plus large-scale topographical sheets bound into an atlas, and even a Triple-A giveaway of the southern part of the state.
Reacher started at the far end of a random potential journey, at what the government survey labeled a bar, and what the much older topographical sheets called a Negro Night Club. It was about thirty miles out. An hour by car, probably, given the prevailing conditions. There was no really direct way to get there. An intending patron departing Fort Smith would have to leave the county road at the first fork, and then th
read through the woods on any one of ten potential routes, all looping and curving, none obviously better than another. The road Crawford had used had nothing to recommend it. Not in terms of efficiency. It might even have added unnecessary distance. A mile or two.
Reacher said, “Why would the guy with the big feet set up there? He could go days without seeing traffic. And nine times out of ten what traffic he saw would be soldiers. From here. What kind of a business plan is that? He decides to make a living by mugging Delta Force and Army Rangers? Good luck with that career choice.”
“Why would anyone set up there?” Ellsbury said. “But we know someone did.”
“You think the guy they got did it? Two to the chest and one to the head? That’s a learned technique. Center mass, skip left, center mass again, skip up, one to the head just in case they get over the chest wounds. It’s relatively precise. It’s been practiced.”
“They practice it here. But no one is unaccounted for ahead of when she left. It wasn’t one of ours lying in wait.”
“And I doubt it was a guy with a skeletal disorder that probably hurts his fine motor control, either.”
“He’s got the tires and the gun and the feet. He’s a weird black guy who lives alone in a hut. This is 1989, but it’s Georgia. Sometimes it’s still 1959. This guy will do. He won’t be the first and he won’t be the last.”
“I want to see that road for myself,” Reacher said.
—
Neagley drove, with Reacher in the front and Ellsbury in the back. Off the county road at the first fork, into the capillary network, and then finally onto a not-quite two-lane blacktop ribbon through the trees, mostly straight and sunlit, bordered by fine black mud washed smooth again by the rain. Ellsbury peered ahead between the seats, and pointed Neagley to a spot about three hundred yards after a slight bend. He said, “That’s the scene.”
There was plenty of scope for a threat assessment. Neagley pretended to see the broken-down vehicle, and lifted off and coasted, and she could have stopped two hundred yards out, or a hundred, or fifty, or wherever she wanted. She came to rest right where Ellsbury said it happened. There was nothing to see. The mud was dull and flat and uniform, lightly pocked by rain spatter. But the marks in the photographs had told the story. A vehicle had been parked right there, across the not-quite two traffic lanes, and a guy had gotten out and waited near the front, probably pretending to look under the hood.
They all got out, making fresh marks in the mud, deep and oozing where it was thick, and spongy and blotted where it wasn’t. The air smelled of rain and sun and earth and pine. Reacher looked back, and looked ahead.
He said, “OK, I’ve seen enough.”
Then he looked ahead again.
A car was coming. Black and white. A cop car. State Police. A spotlight on the pillar, and a bubble on the roof, like a little red hat. One guy behind the wheel. Otherwise empty.
The car came to a stop symmetrical with Neagley’s, nose to nose in the other traffic lane. The trooper climbed out. A young guy, with fair hair and a red face. Built like a side of beef. He had small deep-set eyes. They made him look mean.
He said, “The army is supposed to inform us before interfering with the crime scene.”
Reacher said, “Are you working this case?”
“Just taking a look, out of curiosity.”
“Then get lost.”
“Get what?”
“Lost.”
The guy stepped closer and looked at Reacher’s chest. U.S. Army. Reacher. He said, “You’re the boy who don’t like our work.”
Reacher said, “I’m the boy?”
“You think we got the wrong guy.”
“You think you got the right guy?”
“Sure I do. It’s scientific. Plenty of people have Firestone tires, and plenty have nine-millimeter ammunition, but not many have size fifteen feet, so when you put it all together it’s like three cherries on a slot machine.”
“Will the guy get a lawyer?”
“Of course. The public defender.”
“Does the public defender have a pulse?”
“Of course.”
“Doesn’t that worry you? You think the three-cherries argument will stand up to the slightest scrutiny? Were you out sick the day they taught thinking?”
“Now you’re being unpleasant.”
“Not yet,” Reacher said. “You’ll notice the difference.”
“This is a public road. I could arrest you.”
“Theoretically possible. Like I could get a date with Miss America.”
“You planning to resist?”
“Maybe I’ll arrest you instead.”
“For what?”
“I’m sure we could figure something out. A bit of this, and a bit of that. We could get three cherries of our own.”
The guy said, “Try it.”
He stepped up and squared his shoulders. Local civilian hotheads with guns in their pockets and points to prove.
Reacher said, “Sergeant, arrest this man.”
Neagley stepped up.
Face to face with the trooper.
She said, “Sir, I’m going to lean forward and take your weapon from its holster.”
The guy said, “Little lady, I don’t think you are.”
Neagley said, “If you impede me in any way, you will be handcuffed.”
The guy shoved her in the chest.
Which was a mistake on several different levels. Military discipline could not allow assaults by detainees. And Neagley hated physical contact. No one knew why. But it was a recognized issue. She couldn’t bear to be touched. She wouldn’t even shake hands. Not even with a friend. Thus a glove laid on her in anger was beyond the pale, and liable to produce a reaction.
For the trooper the reaction resulted in a broken nose and a kick in the balls. She came off the back foot and drove the heel of her hand into the guy’s face, from below, an arching blow like a flyweight boxer thumping the heavy bag, and there was a puff of blood in the air, and the guy skittered back on his heels, and she punted him another six feet with the kick, and he went down on his ass with his back against the front wheel of his car, huffing and puffing and squealing.
Reacher said, “Feel free to make an official complaint. I’ll swear out a witness statement. About how you got your clock cleaned by a girl. You want that in the record?”
The guy didn’t, apparently. He just flapped his hands, mute.
Get lost.
In the car on the way back to base Neagley said, “I agree the guy was an idiot.”
Reacher said, “But?”
“Why me? Why didn’t you do it?”
“Like they say in England, why buy a dog and bark yourself?”
—
Back on the base Ellsbury’s sergeant had a phone message for Neagley. She returned the call and came out and said, “They found an address for Crawford’s parents. Plural. Now they think the father is still alive. But the phone number doesn’t get them past the servants’ quarters. They can’t even establish whether the Crawfords are home or not right now. I guess the butler is too discreet. They want someone to do a drive-by, to get the lay of the land.”
Reacher said, “Where is it?”
“Myrtle Beach.”
“That’s in South Carolina.”
“Which is an adjacent state. I think we should volunteer.”
“Why?”
“Why not? It’s a done deal here.”
—
Neagley drove. An adjacent state, but still hundreds of miles. They took I-16 to I-95, and headed north, and then jumped off cross-country for the final short distance, in the middle of the afternoon. They had an address but no street map, so they asked at gas stations until they got pointed in the right direction, which turned out to be a ritzy enclave between an inland waterway and the ocean. A manicured road ran through it, with little dead-end streets coming off it left and right like ribs. The Crawfords’ street was on the ocean side. Their house w
as a big mansion facing the sea, on a deep lot with a private beach.
It looked closed up.
The windows were shuttered from the inside. Painted surfaces, reflecting blindly through the glass. Neagley said, “They’re obviously away. In which case we should go talk to the butler. We shouldn’t take no for an answer. Evasion is easy on the phone. Face to face is harder.”
“Works for me,” Reacher said.
They drove in, on a long cobblestone driveway, their Firestone tires pattering, and they paused briefly at the front door, but it was blank and bolted, so they followed the cobblestones around to the back, where a back door was also blank and bolted. The servants’ entrance, currently not in use.
“So where is the servant?” Reacher said. “How discreet can one man be?”
There was a garage block. Most of the bays had doors, but one was a pass-through to a utility yard in back. There was a car parked in the pass-through. An old compact, all sun-faded and dinged up with age. A plausible POV for a butler.
There was an apartment above the garage bays. All dormer windows and gingerbread trim, slimy from the salt air. There was an external staircase leading to the door.
Reacher said, “This place is so upscale even the downstairs people are upstairs.”
He went first, with Neagley at his shoulder, and he knocked on the door. The door was opened immediately. As if they were expected. Which they were, Reacher supposed. Their car had made a certain amount of noise.
A woman. Maybe sixty years old, and careworn. A housedress. Knuckles like walnuts. A hard worker. She said, “Yes?”
Reacher said, “Ma’am, we’re from the U.S. Army, and we need to know Mr. and Mrs. Crawford’s current location.”
“Does it concern their daughter?”
“At this point, until I know their whereabouts, I’m not at liberty to say what it concerns.”
The woman said, “You better come in and speak to my husband.”
Who was not the butler. Not if the shows Reacher had seen on TV were true. This was a hangdog fellow, thin and bent over from labor, with big rough hands. A gardener, maybe.
Reacher said, “What’s your phone number?”
They told him, and Neagley nodded. Reacher said, “Are you the only people here at the moment?”