by Lee Child
“That’s for sure.”
“Do you know why you do things?”
“Sometimes,” Reacher said. “Other times I don’t have the faintest idea. Maybe you could tell me.”
“I’m normally very expensive. That’s why I can afford to do things like this for nothing.”
“Maybe I could pay you five bucks a week, like rent.”
Niebuhr smiled uncertainly.
“Uh, no,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
Then the waiting area went quiet again and stayed quiet for ten long minutes. Danuta stretched his legs way out and worked on papers inside an open briefcase that he kept balanced on his knees. Mason had her eyes closed and might have been asleep. Niebuhr stared into space. The three of them were clearly accustomed to waiting. As was Reacher himself. He had been a military cop for thirteen years, and Hurry Up and Wait was the real MP motto. Not Assist, Protect, Defend. He focused on the distant electronic heartbeat, and passed the time.
Grigor Linsky turned his car around and watched the hospital doors in his mirror. Made a bet with himself that nothing would happen for at least sixty minutes. At least sixty, but not more than ninety. Then he rehearsed an order of priority in case they didn’t all come out together. Who should he ignore and who should he tail? In the end he decided to stick with whoever acted alone. He figured that was most likely to be the soldier. His guess was the lawyers and the doctors would head back to the office. They were predictable. The soldier wasn’t.
Helen Rodin came out of James Barr’s room fifteen minutes after she went in. She walked straight back to the waiting area. Everyone looked at her. She looked at Mary Mason.
“Your turn,” she said. Mason stood up and walked away down the corridor. She took nothing with her. No briefcase, no paper, no pen. Reacher watched her until Barr’s door closed behind her. Then he leaned back in his chair, in the silence.
“I liked him,” Helen said, to nobody in particular.
“How is he?” Niebuhr asked.
“Weak,” Helen said. “Smashed up. Like he got hit by a truck.”
“Is he making sense?”
“He’s coherent. But he doesn’t remember anything. And I don’t think he’s faking.”
“How far back is he blanking?”
“I can’t tell. He remembers listening to a baseball game on the radio. Could have been last week or last month.”
“Or last year,” Reacher said.
“Did he accept your representation?” Danuta asked.
“Verbally,” Helen said. “He can’t sign anything. He’s handcuffed to the bed.”
“Did you walk him through the charges and the evidence?”
“I had to,” Helen said. “He wanted to know why I thought he needed a lawyer.”
“And?”
“He assumes he’s guilty.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Alan Danuta closed his briefcase and took it off his knees and put it on the floor. Sat up straight, fast, all in one fluid movement.
“Welcome to the gray areas,” he said. “This is where good law comes from.”
“Nothing good about it,” Helen said. “Not so far.”
“We absolutely cannot let him go to trial. The government injured him through its own negligence and now it wants to put him on trial for his life? I don’t think so. Not if he can’t even remember the day in question. What kind of a defense could he conduct?”
“My father will have kittens.”
“Obviously. We’ll have to cut him out. We’ll have to go straight to federal court. It’s a Bill of Rights issue anyway. Federal, then Appeals, then the Supremes. That’s the process.”
“That’s a long process.”
Danuta nodded.
“Three years,” he said. “If we’re lucky. The most applicable precedent is Wilson, and that case took three and a half years. Almost four.”
“And we’ve got no guarantee of winning. We might lose.”
“In which case we’ll go to trial down the road and we’ll do the best we can.”
“I’m not qualified for this,” Helen said.
“Intellectually? That’s not what I heard.”
“Tactically and strategically. And financially.”
“There are veterans’ associations that can help with the money. Mr. Barr served his country, after all. With honor.”
Helen didn’t reply to that. Just glanced Reacher’s way. Reacher said nothing. He turned away and stared at the wall. He was thinking: This guy is going to get away with murder again? Twice?
Alan Danuta moved in his chair.
“There is an alternative,” he said. “Not very exciting legally, but it’s out there.”
“What is it?” Helen asked.
“Give your father the puppet master. Under these circumstances, half a loaf is better than none. And the puppet master is the better half anyway.”
“Would he go for it?”
“You know him better than I do, presumably. But he’d be a fool not to go for it. He’s looking at a minimum three-year appeals process before he even gets Mr. Barr inside a courtroom. And any prosecutor worth his salt wants the bigger fish.”
Helen glanced at Reacher again.
“The puppet master is only a theory,” she said. “We don’t have anything that even remotely resembles evidence.”
“Your choice,” Danuta said. “But one way or the other, you can’t let Barr go to trial.”
“One step at a time,” Helen said. “Let’s see what Dr. Mason thinks.”
Dr. Mason came back twenty minutes later. Reacher watched her walk. The length of her stride and the look in her eyes and the set of her jaw told him she had arrived at a firm conclusion. There was no uncertainty there. No diffidence, no doubt. None at all. She sat back down and smoothed her skirt across her knees.
“Permanent retrograde amnesia,” she said. “Completely genuine. As clear a case as I ever saw.”
“Duration?” Niebuhr asked.
“Major League Baseball will tell us that,” she said. “The last thing he remembers is a particular Cardinals game. But my bet would be a week or more, counting backward from today.”
“Which includes Friday,” Helen said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“OK,” Danuta said. “There it is.”
“Great,” Helen said. She stood up and the others joined her and they all moved around and ended up facing the exit, either consciously or unconsciously; Reacher wasn’t sure. But it was clear that Barr was behind them, literally and figuratively. He had changed from being a man to being a medical specimen and a legal argument.
“You guys go on ahead,” he said.
“You’re staying here?” Helen asked.
Reacher nodded.
“I’m going to look in on my old buddy,” he said.
“Why?”
“I haven’t seen him for fourteen years.”
Helen stepped away from the others and came close.
“No, why?” she asked quietly.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to switch his machines off.”
“I hope you’re not.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I don’t have much of an alibi, do I?”
She stood still for a moment. Said nothing. Then she stepped back and joined the others. They all left together. Reacher watched them process out at the security desk, and as soon as they were through the steel door and in the elevator lobby he turned around and walked down the corridor to James Barr’s door. He didn’t knock. Just paused a beat and turned the handle and went inside.
CHAPTER 7
The room was overheated. You could have roasted chickens in it. There was a wide window with white venetian blinds closed against the sun. They glowed and filled the room with soft white light. There was medical equipment piled everywhere. A silent respirator, disconnected. IV stands and heart monitors. Tubes and bags and wires.
Barr was flat on his back in a bed in the middle of t
he room. No pillow. His head was clamped in a brace. His hair was shaved and he had bandages over the holes they had drilled in his skull. His left shoulder was wrapped in bandages that reached to his elbow. His right shoulder was bare and unmarked. The skin there was pale and thin and marbled. His chest and his sides were bandaged. The bedsheet was folded down at his waist. His arms were straight at his sides and his wrists were handcuffed to the cot rails. He had IV needles taped to the back of his left hand. There was a peg on his right middle finger that was connected by a gray wire to a box. There were red wires leading out from under the bandages on his chest. They led to a machine with a screen. The screen was showing a rolling pattern that reminded Reacher of the cellular company’s recording of the gunshots. Sharp peaks, and long troughs. The machine made a muted beep every time a peak hit the screen.
“Who’s there?” Barr asked.
His voice was weak and rusty, and slow. And scared.
“Who’s there?” he asked again. The way his head was clamped limited his field of vision. His eyes were moving, left and right, up and down.
Reacher stepped closer. Leaned over the bed. Said nothing.
“You,” Barr said.
“Me,” Reacher said.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Barr’s right hand trembled. The motion put a ripple in the wire from the peg. The handcuff moved against the bed rail and made a quiet metallic sound.
“I guess I let you down,” he said.
“I guess you did.”
Reacher watched Barr’s eyes, because they were the only part of him that could move. He was incapable of body language. His head was immobile and most of the rest of him was trussed up like a mummy.
“I don’t remember anything,” Barr said.
“You sure?”
“It’s all blank.”
“You clear on what I’ll do to you if you’re bullshitting me?”
“I can guess.”
“Triple it,” Reacher said.
“I’m not bullshitting,” Barr said. “I just can’t remember anything.” His voice was quiet, helpless, confused. Not a defense, not a complaint. Not an excuse. Just a statement of fact, like a lament, or a plea, or a cry.
“Tell me about the ballgame,” Reacher said.
“It was on the radio.”
“Not the TV?”
“I prefer the radio,” Barr said. “For old times’ sake. That’s how it always was. When I was a kid. The radio, all the way from St. Louis. All those miles. Summer evenings, warm weather, the sound of baseball on the radio.”
He went quiet.
“You OK?” Reacher said.
“My head hurts real bad. I think I had an operation.”
Reacher said nothing.
“I don’t like baseball on the TV,” Barr said.
“I’m not here to discuss your media preferences.”
“Do you watch baseball on TV?”
“I don’t have a TV,” Reacher said.
“Really? You should get one. You can get them for a hundred bucks. Maybe less, for a small one. Look in the Yellow Pages.”
“I don’t have a phone. Or a house.”
“Why not? You’re not still in the army.”
“How would you know?”
“Nobody’s still in the army. Not from back then.”
“Some people are,” Reacher said, thinking about Eileen Hutton.
“Officers,” Barr said. “Nobody else.”
“I was an officer,” Reacher said. “You’re supposed to be able to remember stuff like that.”
“But you weren’t like the others. That’s what I meant.”
“How was I different?”
“You worked for a living.”
“Tell me about the ballgame.”
“Why don’t you have a house? Are you doing OK?”
“You worried about me now?”
“Don’t like it when folks aren’t doing so well.”
“I’m doing fine,” Reacher said. “Believe me. You’re the one with the problem.”
“Are you a cop now? Here? I never saw you around.”
Reacher shook his head. “I’m just a citizen.”
“From where?”
“From nowhere. Out in the world.”
“Why are you here?”
Reacher didn’t answer.
“Oh,” Barr said. “To nail me.”
“Tell me about the ballgame.”
“It was the Cubs at the Cardinals,” Barr said. “Close game. Cards won, bottom ninth, walk-off.”
“Home run?”
“No, an error. A walk, a steal, then a groundout to second put the runner on third, one out. Soft grounder to short, check the runner, throw to first, but the throw went in the dugout and the run scored on the error. The winning run, without a hit in the inning.”
“You remember it pretty well.”
“I follow the Cards. I always have.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t even know what day it is today.”
Reacher said nothing.
“I can’t believe that I did what they say,” Barr said. “Just can’t believe it.”
“Plenty of evidence,” Reacher said.
“For real?”
“No question.”
Barr closed his eyes.
“How many people?” he asked.
“Five.”
Barr’s chest started moving. Tears welled out of his closed eyes. His mouth opened in a ragged oval. He was crying, with his head in a vise.
“Why did I do it?” he said.
“Why did you do it the first time?” Reacher said.
“I was crazy then,” Barr said.
Reacher said nothing.
“No excuses,” Barr said. “I was a different person then. I thought I’d changed. I was sure I had. I was good afterward. I tried real hard. Fourteen years, reformed.”
Reacher said nothing.
“I would have killed myself,” Barr said. “You know, back then. Afterward. I came close, a couple of times. I was so ashamed. Except those four guys from KC turned out to be bad. That was my only consolation. I clung on to it, like redemption.”
“Why do you own all those guns?”
“Couldn’t give them up. They were reminders. And they keep me straight. Too hard to stay straight without them.”
“Do you ever use them?”
“Occasionally. Not often. Now and then.”
“How?”
“At a range.”
“Where? The cops checked.”
“Not here. I go across the line to Kentucky. There’s a range there, cheap.”
“You know the plaza downtown?”
“Sure. I live here.”
“Tell me how you did it.”
“I don’t remember doing it.”
“So tell me how you would do it. Theoretically. Like a recon briefing.”
“What would the targets be?”
“Pedestrians. Coming out of the DMV building.”
Barr closed his eyes again. “That’s who I shot?”
“Five of them,” Reacher said.
Barr started crying again. Reacher moved away and pulled a chair from against a wall. He turned it around and sat down on it, backward.
“When?” Barr said.
“Friday afternoon.”
Barr stayed quiet for a long time.
“How did they catch me?” he asked.
“You tell the story.”
“Was it a traffic stop?”
“Why would it be?”
“I would have waited until late. Maybe just after five. Plenty of people then. I would have stopped on the highway behind the library. Where it’s raised. Sun in the west, behind me, no reflection off the scope. I would have opened the passenger window and lined it all up and emptied the mag and hit the gas again. Only way to get caught would be if a state trooper pulled me over for speeding and saw the rifle. But I think I would have been awar
e of that. Wouldn’t I? I think I would have hidden the rifle and driven slow. Not fast. Why would I have risked standing out?”
Reacher said nothing.
“What?” Barr said. “Maybe a trooper stopped to help me right there. Was that it? While I was parked? Maybe he thought I had a flat. Or I was out of gas.”
“Do you own a traffic cone?” Reacher asked.
“A what?”
“A traffic cone.”
Barr started to say no, but then he stopped.
“I guess I’ve got one,” he said. “Not sure if I own it, exactly. I had my driveway blacktopped. They left a cone on the sidewalk to stop people driving on it. I had to leave it there three days. They never came back for it.”
“So what did you do with it?”
“I put it in the garage.”
“Is it still there?”
“I think so. I’m pretty sure.”
“When was this driveway work done?”
“Start of spring, I think. Months ago.”
“You got receipts?”
Barr tried to shake his head. Winced at the pressure from the clamp.
“It was a gypsy crew,” he said. “I think they stole the blacktop from the city. Probably from where they were starting to fix First Street. I paid cash, quick and dirty.”
“You got any friends?”
“A few.”
“Who are they?”
“Just guys. One or two.”
“Any new friends?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Women?”
“They don’t like me.”
“Tell me about the ballgame.”
“I already did.”
“Where were you? In the car? At home?”
“Home,” Barr said. “I was eating.”
“You remember that?”
Barr blinked. “The shrink lady said I should try to remember the circumstances. It might bring more stuff back. I was in the kitchen, eating chicken, cold. With potato chips. I remember that. But that’s as far as I can get.”
“Drink? Beer, juice, coffee?”
“I don’t remember. I just remember listening to the game. I’ve got a Bose radio. It’s in the kitchen. There’s a TV in there too, but I always listen to the game, never watch. Like when I was a kid.”
“How did you feel?”
“Feel?”
