by Louise Penny
“I move from place to place. A day here, a day there.”
“Why?”
“Because I like to.”
“Like a tourist?”
“I suppose.”
“Where’s your luggage?”
“I don’t use any.”
“You have no stuff?”
“I saw a little book in a store at the airport. Apparently we’re supposed to get rid of whatever doesn’t bring us joy.”
“So you junked your stuff?”
“I already had no stuff. I figured that part out years ago.”
Aaron stared down at his pad of paper, unsure. He said, “So what would be the best word for you? Vagrant?”
Reacher said, “Itinerant. Distributed. Transient. Episodic.”
“Were you discharged from the military with any kind of diagnosis?”
“Would that hurt my credibility as a witness?”
“I told you, it’s like a credit score. No fixed address is a bad thing. PTSD would be worse. Defense counsel might speculate about your potential reliability on the stand. They might knock you down a point or two.”
“I was in the 110th MP,” Reacher said. “I’m not scared of PTSD. PTSD is scared of me.”
“What was the 110th MP?”
“An elite unit.”
“How long have you been out?”
“Longer than I was in.”
“Okay,” Aaron said. “But this is not my call. It’s about the numbers now, pure and simple. Trials happen inside laptop computers. Special software. Ten thousand simulations. The majority trend. A couple of points either way could be crucial. No fixed address isn’t ideal, even without anything else.”
“Take it or leave it,” Reacher said.
They took it, like Reacher knew they would. They could never have too much. They could always lose some of it later. Perfectly normal. Plenty of good work got wasted, even on slam-dunk successful cases. So he ran through what he had seen, carefully, coherently, completely, beginning to end, left to right, near to far, and afterward they all agreed that must have been about all of it. Aaron sent Bush to get the audio typed and printed, ready for Reacher’s signature. Bush left the room, and Aaron said, “Thank you again.”
“You’re welcome again,” Reacher said. “Now tell me your interest.”
“Like you saw, it happened right in front of us.”
“Which I’m beginning to think is the interesting part. I mean, what were the odds? Detective Bush parked in the D2 slot. Which means he’s number two on the detective squad. But he drove the car and now he’s doing your fetching and carrying. Which means you’re number one on the detective squad. Which means the two biggest names in the most glamorous division in the whole county police department just happened to be taking a stroll in the sun twenty yards behind a girl who just happened to get robbed.”
“Coincidence,” Aaron said.
Reacher said, “I think you were following her.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because you don’t seem to care what happened to her afterward. Possibly because you know who she is. You know she’ll be back soon, to tell you all about it. Or you know where to find her. Because you’re blackmailing her. Or she’s a double agent. Or maybe she’s one of your own, working undercover. Whichever, you trust her to look out for herself. You’re not worried about her. It’s the bag you’re interested in. She was violently robbed, but you followed the bag, not her. Maybe the bag is important. Although I don’t see how. It looked empty to me.”
“Sounds like a real big conspiracy going on, doesn’t it?”
“It was your choice of words,” Reacher said. “You thanked me for my help. My help in what exactly? A spontaneous split-second emergency? I don’t think you would have used that phrase. You would have said, Wow, that was something, huh? Or an equivalent. Or just a raised eyebrow. As a bond, or an icebreaker. Like we’re just two guys, shooting the shit. But instead you thanked me quite formally. You said, Thank you very much for helping us out with that.”
Aaron said, “I was trying to be polite.”
Reacher said, “But I think that kind of formality needs a longer incubation. And you said with that. With what? For you to internalize something as that, I think it would need to be a little older than a split second. It would need to be previously established. And you used a continuous tense. You said I was helping you out. Which implies something ongoing. Something that existed before the kid snatched the bag and will continue afterward. And you used the plural pronoun. You said thanks for helping us out. You and Bush. With something you already own, with something you’re already running, and it just came off the rails a little bit, but ultimately the damage wasn’t too bad. I think it was that kind of help you were thanking me for. Because you were extremely relieved. It could have been much worse, if the kid had gotten away, maybe. Which is why you said thank you very much. Which was way too heartfelt for a trivial mugging. It seemed more important to you.”
“I was being polite.”
“And I think my witness statement is mostly for the chief of police and the selectmen, not a computer game. To show them how it wasn’t your fault. To show them how it wasn’t you who just nearly screwed up some kind of a long-running operation. That’s why you wanted a regular person. Any third party would do. Otherwise all you would have is your own testimony, on your own behalf. You and Bush, watching each other’s back.”
“We were taking a stroll.”
“You didn’t even glance at each other. Not a second thought. You just chased after that bag. You’d been thinking about that bag all day. Or all week.”
Aaron didn’t answer, and got no more opportunity to discuss it, because at that moment the door opened and a different head stuck in. It gestured Aaron out for a word. Aaron left and the door snicked shut behind him. But before Reacher could get around to worrying about whether it was locked or not, it opened up again, and Aaron stuck his head back in and said, “The rest of the interview will be conducted by different detectives.”
The door closed again.
Opened again.
The guy who had stuck his head in the first time led the way. He had a similar guy behind him. Both looked like classic New England characters from historic black-and-white photographs. The product of many generations of hard work and stern self-denial. Both were lean and wiry, all cords and ligaments, almost gaunt. They were wearing chino pants, with checked shirts under blue sport coats. They had buzzed haircuts. No attempt at style. Pure function. They said they worked for the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. A statewide organization. They said state-level inquiries outbid county-level inquiries. Hence the hijacked interview. They said they had questions about what Reacher had seen.
They sat in the chairs Aaron and Bush had vacated. The one on the left said his name was Cook, and the one on the right said his name was Delaney. It looked like he was the team leader. He looked set to do all the talking. About what Reacher had seen, he said again. Nothing more. Nothing to be concerned about.
But then he said, “First we need more information on one particular aspect. We think our county colleagues went a little light on it. They glossed right over it, perhaps understandably.”
Reacher said, “Glossed over what?”
“What exactly was your state of mind, in terms of intention, at the moment you knocked the kid down?”
“Seriously?”
“In your own words.”
“How many?”
“As many as you need.”
“I was helping the cops.”
“Nothing more?”
“I saw the crime. The perpetrator was fleeing straight toward me. He was outrunning his pursuers. I had no doubt about his guilt or innocence. So I got in his way. He wasn’t even hurt bad.”
“How did you know the two men were cops?”
“First impressions. Was I right or wrong?”
Delaney paused a beat.
Then he said, “Now tell me what you saw.”
“I’m sure you were listening in the first time around.”
“We were,” Delaney said. “Also to your continued conversation afterward, with Detective Aaron. After Detective Bush left the room. It seems you saw more than you put in your witness statement. It seems you saw something about a long-running operation.”
“That was speculation,” Reacher said. “It didn’t belong in a witness statement.”
“As an ethical matter?”
“I suppose.”
“Are you an ethical man, Mr. Reacher?”
“I do my best.”
“But now you can knock yourself out. The statement is done. Now you can speculate to your heart’s content. What did you see?”
“Why ask me?”
“We might have a problem. You might be able to help.”
“How could I help?”
“You were a military policeman. You know how this stuff works. Big picture. What did you see?”
Reacher said, “I guess I saw Aaron and Bush following the girl with the bag. Some kind of surveillance operation. Surveillance of the bag, principally. When the thing happened they ignored the girl completely. Best guess, maybe the girl was due to hand the bag off to an as-yet-unknown suspect. At a later stage. In a different place. Like a delivery or a payment. Maybe it was important to eyeball the exchange itself. Maybe the unknown suspect is the last link in the chain. Hence the high-status eyewitnesses. Or whatever. Except the plan failed because fate intervened in the form of a random purse-snatcher. Sheer bad luck. Happens to the best of us. And really no big deal. They can run it again tomorrow.”
Delaney shook his head. “We’re in murky waters. People like we’re dealing with here, if you miss a rendezvous, you’re dead to them. This thing is over.”
“Then I’m sorry,” Reacher said. “But shit happens. Best bet would be get over it.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Not my monkeys,” Reacher said. “Not my circus. I’m just a guy passing by.”
“We need a word about that too. How could we get ahold of you if we needed to? Do you carry a cell phone?”
“No.”
“Then how do folks get ahold of you?”
“They don’t.”
“Not even family and friends?”
“No family left.”
“No friends either?”
“Not the kind you call on the phone every five minutes.”
“So who even knows where you are?”
“I do,” Reacher said. “That’s enough.”
“You sure?”
“I haven’t needed rescuing yet.”
Delaney nodded. Said, “Let’s go back to what you saw.”
“What part?”
“All of it. Maybe it ain’t over yet. Could there be another interpretation?”
“Anything’s possible,” Reacher said.
“What kind of thing would be possible?”
“I used to get paid for this kind of discussion.”
“We could trade you a cup of county coffee.”
“Deal,” Reacher said. “Black, no sugar.”
Cook went to get it, and when he got back Reacher took a sip and said, “Thank you. But on balance I think it was probably just a random event.”
Delaney said, “Use your imagination.”
Reacher said, “Use yours.”
“Okay,” Delaney said. “Let’s assume Aaron and Bush didn’t know where or when or who or how, but eventually they were expecting to see the bag transferred into someone else’s custody.”
Reacher said, “Okay, let’s assume.”
“And maybe that’s exactly what they saw. Just a little earlier than anticipated.”
“Anything’s possible,” Reacher said again.
“We have to assume secrecy and clandestine measures on the bad guys’ part. Maybe they gave a decoy rendezvous and planned to snatch the bag along the way. For the sake of surprise and unpredictability. Which is always the best way to beat surveillance. Maybe it was even rehearsed. According to you, the girl gave it up pretty easily. You said she went down on her butt and then she sprang back up and ran away.”
Reacher nodded. “Which means you would say the kid in the black sweatshirt was the unknown suspect. You would say he was due to receive the bag all along.”
Delaney nodded. “And we got him, and therefore the operation was in fact a total success.”
“Easy for you to say. Also very convenient.”
Delaney didn’t answer.
Reacher asked, “Where is the kid now?”
Delaney pointed to the door. “Two rooms away. We’re taking him to Bangor soon.”
“Is he talking?”
“Not so far. He’s being a good little soldier.”
“Unless he isn’t a soldier at all.”
“We think he is. And we think he’ll talk, when he comes to appreciate the full extent of his jeopardy.”
“One other major problem,” Reacher said.
“Which is?”
“The bag looked empty to me. What kind of a delivery or a payment would that be? You won’t get a conviction for following an empty bag around.”
“The bag wasn’t empty,” Delaney said. “At least not originally.”
“What was in it?”
“We’ll get to that. But first we need to loop back around. To what I asked you at the very beginning. To make sure. About your state of mind.”
“I was helping the cops.”
“Were you?”
“You worried about liability? If I was a civilian rendering assistance, I get the same immunity law enforcement gets. Plus the kid wasn’t hurt anyway. Couple of bruises, maybe. Maybe a scrape on his knee. No problem. Unless you got some really weird judges here.”
“Our judges are okay. When they understand the context.”
“What else could the context be? I witnessed a felony. There was a clear desire on the part of the police department to apprehend the perpetrator. I helped them. Are you saying you’ve got an issue with that?”
Delaney said, “Would you excuse us for a moment?”
Reacher didn’t answer. Cook and Delaney got up and shuffled out from behind the crossways table. They stepped to the door and left the room. The door snicked shut behind them. This time Reacher was pretty sure it locked. He glanced at the mirror. Saw nothing but his reflection, gray tinged with green.
Ten minutes of your time. What’s the worst thing could happen?
Nothing happened. Not for three long minutes. Then Cook and Delaney came back in. They sat down again, Cook on the left and Delaney on the right.
Delaney said, “You claim you were rendering assistance to law enforcement.”
Reacher said, “Correct.”
“Would you like to revisit that statement?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No,” Delaney said.
“Why not?”
“We think the truth was very different.”
“How so?”
“We think you were taking the bag from the kid. The same way he took it from the girl. We think you were a second surprising and unpredictable cutout.”
“The bag fell on the ground.”
“We have witnesses who saw you bend down to pick it up.”
“I thought better of it. I left it there. Aaron picked it up.”
Delaney nodded. “And by then it was empty.”
“Want to search my pockets?”
“We think you extracted the contents of the bag and handed them off to someone in the crowd.”
“What?”
“If you were a second cutout, why wouldn’t there be a third?”
“Bullshit,” Reacher said.
Delaney said, “Jack-none-Reacher, you are under arrest for felonious involvement with a racketeer-influenced corrupt organization. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. Yo
u have the right to the presence of an attorney before further questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, then one will be appointed for you, on the taxpayers’ dime.”
Four county cops came in, three with handguns drawn and the fourth with a shotgun held at port arms across his body. Across the table Cook and Delaney merely peeled back their lapels to show off Glock 17s in shoulder holsters. Reacher sat still. Six against one. Too many. Dumb odds. Plus nervous tension in the air, plus trigger fingers, plus a completely unknown level of training, expertise, and experience.
Mistakes might be made.
Reacher sat still.
He said, “I want the public defender.”
After that he said nothing at all.
They handcuffed his wrists behind his back and led him out to the corridor, and around two dogleg corners, and through a locked steel door in a concrete frame, into the station’s holding area, which was a miniature cell block with three empty billets on a narrow corridor, all ahead of a booking table that was currently unoccupied. One of the county cops holstered his weapon and stepped around. Reacher’s handcuffs were removed. He gave up his passport, his ATM card, his toothbrush, seventy bucks in bills, seventy-five cents in quarters, and his shoelaces. In exchange he got a shove in the back and sole occupancy of the first cell in line. The door clanged shut, and the lock tripped like a hammer hitting a railroad spike. The cops looked in for a second more, like people at the zoo, and then they about-turned and walked back past the booking table and out of the room, one after the other. Reacher heard the steel door close after the last of them. He heard it lock.
He waited. He was good at waiting. He was a patient man. He had nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there. He sat on the bed, which was a cast concrete structure, as was a little desk with an integral stool. The stool had a little round pad, made of the same thin vinyl-covered foam as the mattress on the bed. The toilet was steel, with a dished-in top to act as a basin. Cold water only. Like the world’s lousiest motel room, further stripped back to the unavoidable minimum requirements and then reduced in size to the barely bearable. The old-time architects had used even more concrete than elsewhere. As if prisoners trying to escape might exert more force than atom bombs.
Reacher kept track of time in his head. Two hours ticked by, and part of a third, and then the youngest of the county uniforms came by for a status check. He looked in the bars and said, “You okay?”
