“On the up and up or on the quiet?”
“On the very quiet.”
“What names?”
“Janice May Chapman,” I said.
“That’s the dead woman, right?”
“One of several.”
“And?”
“Audrey Shaw,” I said.
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I want you to check her out.”
“In connection with what?”
“She’s a loose end connected to another loose end.”
“Audrey Shaw,” he said, slowly, as if he was writing it down.
Then he said, “What else?”
I asked, “How far away is Garber’s office from yours?”
“It’s on the other side of the stairwell.”
“I need him on the line. So go get him and drag him over by the scruff of his raggedy old neck.”
“Why not just call him direct?”
“Because I want him on your line, not his.”
No answer, except a plastic thump as he laid down the phone on his desk, and a grunt as he stood up, and a hiss as his chair cushion recovered its shape. Then silence, which was expensive, because I was on a pay phone. I fed it another quarter and waited. Whole minutes passed. I started to think Garber was sitting tight. Refusing to come. But then I heard the phone lift up off the desk and the familiar voice asked, “What the hell do you want now?”
“I want to talk to you,” I said.
“So call me. We have switchboards now. And extensions.”
“They’re listening to your line. I think that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? You’re a pawn here, the same as me. Therefore someone else’s line is safer.”
Garber was quiet for a beat.
“Possible,” he said. “What have you got for me?”
“The boots on the ground outside of Kelham were an unofficial force. A local citizens’ militia. Evidently part of some weirdo network of true patriots. Apparently they were here to defend the army from unjustified harassment.”
“Well, Mississippi,” he said. “What do you expect?”
“They were from Tennessee, actually,” I said. “And you’re missing the point. They didn’t just happen to be here. They weren’t just passing by on a whim. They weren’t here for a vacation. They were deployed here. They have a contact somewhere, who knew exactly when, and exactly where, and exactly how, and exactly why they would be needed. Who would have that kind of information?”
“Someone who had all the facts from the get-go.”
“And where would we find such a person?”
“Somewhere high up.”
“I agree,” I said. “Any idea who?”
“None at all.”
“You sure? You need to put me in the loop here if you can.”
“I’m sure. You’re already in the loop as much as I am.”
“OK, go back to your office. Five minutes from now I’m going to call you. You can ignore what I say, because it won’t mean much. But stay on the line long enough to let the tape recorders roll.”
“Wait,” Garber said. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Like what?”
“News from the Marine Corps.”
“What kind of news?”
“There’s some kind of issue with Elizabeth Deveraux.”
“What kind of issue?”
“I don’t know yet. They’re playing hard to get. They’re making a real big deal about access. The file she’s in is apparently some super-toxic thing. Highest category, biggest deal in the world, and similar bullshit. But word is there was some big scandal about five years ago. The story is Deveraux got some other Marine MP fired for no good reason. Rumors say it was personal jealousy.”
“Five years ago is three years before she quit. Was she honorably discharged?”
“Yes, she was.”
“Voluntary separation or involuntary?”
“Voluntary.”
“Then there’s nothing there,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You’re thinking with the wrong part of your body, Reacher.”
“Five minutes,” I said. “Be back at your desk.”
The waitress freshened my cup and I drank most of the new brew while I counted three hundred seconds in my head. Then I stepped back to the phone and dialed Garber direct. He answered and I said, “Sir, this is Major Reacher reporting from Mississippi. Can you hear me?”
Garber said, “Loud and clear.”
I said, “I have the name of the individual who ordered the Tennessee Free Citizens to Kelham. That order became part of a criminal conspiracy in that it resulted in two homicides and two felony assaults. I have an appointment I need to keep at the Pentagon the day after tomorrow, and then I’ll return to base immediately afterward and I’ll get JAG Corps involved at that point in time.”
Garber was on the ball. He caught on fast and played his part well. He asked, “Who was the individual?”
I said, “I’ll keep that strictly to myself for the next forty-eight hours, if you don’t mind.”
Garber said, “Understood.”
I dabbed the cradle to end the call, and then I dialed a new number. Colonel John James Frazer’s billet, deep inside the Pentagon. The Senate Liaison guy. I got his scheduler and made a twelve o’clock appointment with him, in his office, for the day after next. I didn’t say why, because I couldn’t. I didn’t have a real reason. I just needed to be somewhere in the giant building. As bait in a trap.
Then I sat at a table and waited for Deveraux. I knew a woman who ate like she did wouldn’t be long.
Chapter
54
Deveraux came in thirty minutes later, looking pale and drawn. Death messages are never pleasant. Especially when lightning strikes twice, against a mother who is already angry. But it’s all part of the job. Bereaved relatives are always angry. Why wouldn’t they be?
Deveraux sat down and blew a long sad breath at me.
“Bad?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Terrible,” she said. “She’s not going to vote for me ever again, that’s for sure. I think if I had a house, she’d burn it down. If I had a dog, she’d poison it.”
“Can’t blame her,” I said. “Two for two.”
“It will be three for three soon. That woman is going to take a midnight stroll on the railroad tracks. I guarantee it. Within a week, probably.”
“Has that happened before?”
“Not often. But the train is always there, once a night. Like a reminder that there’s a way out if you need one.”
I said nothing. I wanted to remember the midnight train in a happier context.
She said, “I want to ask you a question, but I’m not going to.”
“What question?”
“Who put those idiots in the woods?”
“Why aren’t you going to ask it?”
“Because I’m assuming there’s a whole bunch of things here, all interconnected. Some big crisis on the base. A part answer wouldn’t make sense. You’d have to tell me everything. And I don’t want to ask you to do that.”
“I couldn’t tell you everything even if I wanted to. I don’t know everything. If I knew everything I wouldn’t be here anymore. The job would be done. I’d be back on post doing the next thing.”
“Are you looking forward to that?”
“Are you fishing?”
“No, I’m just asking. I’ve been there myself, don’t forget. Sooner or later we all hit the moment when the light goes out. I’m wondering if it’s happened to you yet. Or if it’s still to come.”
I said, “No, I don’t really want to get back on post. But that’s mostly because of the sex, not the work.”
She smiled. “So who put those idiots in the woods?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Could have been a number of people. Kelham is a pie the same as any other pie, and there are lots of folks with their fingers in it. Lot
s of interests, lots of angles. Some of them are professional, and some of them are personal. Maybe five or six of them pass the crazy test. Which means there are five or six different chains of command terminating in five or six very senior officers somewhere. Any one of them could feel threatened in some way bad enough to pull a stunt like this. And any one of them would be quite capable of doing it. You don’t get to be a very senior officer in this man’s army by being a sweet guy.”
“Who are the five or six?”
“I wouldn’t have the faintest idea. That’s not my world. From where they are, I’m just a grunt. I’m indistinguishable from a private first class.”
“But you’re going to nail him.”
“Of course I’m going to nail him.”
“When?”
“Day after tomorrow, I hope. I have to go to D.C. Just for a night, maybe.”
“Why?”
“I got on a line I knew to be tapped and said I knew a name. So now I have to go hang out up there and walk the walk and see what comes out of the woodwork.”
“You made yourself the bait in a trap?”
“It’s like a theory of relativity. Same difference if I go to them or they come to me.”
“Especially when you don’t even know who they are, let alone which one of them is guilty.”
I said nothing.
She said, “I agree. It’s time to shake something loose. If you want to know if the stove is hot, sometimes the only way to find out is to touch it.”
“You must have been a pretty good cop.”
“I still am a pretty good cop.”
“So when did your light go out? With the Marines, I mean. When did you stop enjoying it?”
“About where you are now,” she said. “For years you’ve laughed off the small things, but they come so thick and fast that eventually you realize an avalanche is made up of small things. Snowflakes, right? Things don’t get much smaller than that. Suddenly you realize that small things are big things.”
“No single specific thing?”
“No, I got through fine. I never had any trouble.”
“What, all sixteen years?”
“I had some minor speed bumps here and there. I dated the wrong guy once or twice. But nothing worth talking about. I made it to CWO5, after all, which is as high as it goes for some of us.”
“You did well.”
“Not bad for a country girl from Carter Crossing.”
“Not bad at all.”
She asked, “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning, I guess. It will take me all day to get there.”
“I’ll have Pellegrino drive you to Memphis.”
“No need,” I said.
“Agree for my sake,” she said. “I like to get Pellegrino out of the county as often as possible. Let him wreck his car and kill a pedestrian in some other jurisdiction.”
“Has he done that here?”
“We don’t have pedestrians here. This is a very quiet town. Quieter than ever right now.”
“Because of Kelham?”
“This place is dying, Reacher. We need that base open, and fast.”
“Maybe I’ll make some headway in D.C.”
“I hope you do,” she said. “We should have lunch now.”
“That’s why I came in.”
Deveraux’s lunch staple was chicken pie. We ordered a matched pair and were halfway through eating them when the old couple from the hotel came in. The woman had a book, and the man had a newspaper. A routine pit stop, like dinner. Then the old guy saw me and detoured to our table. He told me my wife’s brother had just called. Something very urgent. I looked blank for a second. The old guy must have thought my wife came from a very large family. “Your brother-in-law Stanley,” he said.
“OK,” I said. “Thanks.”
The old guy shuffled off and I said, “Major Stan Lowrey. A friend of mine. He and I have been TDY at the same place for a couple of weeks.”
Deveraux smiled. “I think the verdict is in. Marines were better comedians.”
I started eating again, but she said, “You should call him back if it’s very urgent, don’t you think?”
I put my fork down.
“Probably,” I said. “But don’t eat my pie.”
I went back to the phone for the third time and dialed. Lowrey answered on the first ring and asked, “Are you sitting down?”
I said, “No, I’m standing up. I’m on a pay phone in a diner.”
“Well, hold on tight. I have a story for you. About a girl called Audrey.”
Chapter
55
I leaned on the wall next to the phone. Not because I was necessarily worried about falling down with shock or surprise. But because Lowrey’s stories were usually very long. He fancied himself a raconteur. And he liked background. And context. Deep background, and deep context. Normally he liked to trace everything back to a seminal point just before random swirls of gas from the chartless wastes of the universe happened to get together and form the earth itself.
He said, “Audrey is a very ancient name, apparently.”
The only way to knock Lowrey off his discursive stride was to get your retaliation in first. I said, “Audrey was an Anglo-Saxon name. It’s a diminutive of Aethelthryt or Etheldreda. It means noble strength. There was a Saint Audrey in the seventh century. She’s the patron saint of throat complaints.”
“How do you know shit like this? I had to look it up.”
“I know a guy whose mother is called Audrey. He told me.”
“My point is, it’s no longer a very common name.”
“It was number 173 on the hit parade at the last census. It’s slightly more popular in France, Belgium, and Canada. Mostly because of Audrey Hepburn.”
“You know this because of a guy’s mother?”
“His grandmother too, actually. They were both called Audrey.”
“So you got a double ration of knowledge?”
“It felt like a double ration of something.”
“Audrey Hepburn wasn’t from Europe.”
“Canada isn’t in Europe.”
“They speak French there. I’ve heard them.”
“Of course Audrey Hepburn was from Europe. English father, Dutch mother, born in Belgium. She had a U.K. passport.”
“Whatever, what I’m saying is, if you would ever let a guy get a word in edgewise, if you search for Audreys you don’t get too many hits.”
“So you found Audrey Shaw for me?”
“I think so.”
“That was fast.”
“I know a guy who works at a bank. Corporations have the best information.”
“Still fast.”
“Thank you. I’m a diligent worker. I’m going to be the most diligent unemployed guy in history.”
“So what do we know about Audrey Shaw?”
“She’s an American citizen,” Lowrey said.
“Is that all we know?”
“Caucasian female, born in Kansas City, Missouri, educated locally, went to college at Tulane in Louisiana. The Southern Ivy League. She was a liberal arts student and a party girl. Middling GPA. No health problems, which I imagine means slightly more than it says, for a party girl from Tulane. She graduated on schedule.”
“And?”
“After graduation she used family connections to get an intern’s job in D.C.”
“What kind of intern’s job?”
“Political. In a Senate office. Working for one of her home-state Missouri guys. Probably just carrying coffee, but she was called an assistant to an assistant executive director of something or other.”
“And?”
“She was beautiful, apparently. She made strong men weak at the knees. So guess what happened?”
“She got laid,” I said.
“She had an affair,” Lowrey said. “With a married man. All those late nights, all that glamour. The thrill of working out the fine print in trade deals with Bolivia. You kno
w how it is. I don’t know how those people stand the excitement.”
“Who was the guy?”
“The senator himself,” Lowrey said. “The big dog. The record gets a little hazy from that point onward, because obviously the whole thing was covered up like crazy. But between the lines it was a torrid business. Between the sheets too, probably. A real big thing. People say she was in love.”
“Where are you getting this from, if the record is hazy?”
“The FBI,” Lowrey said. “Plenty of them still talk to me. And you better believe they keep track of things like this. For leverage. You notice how the FBI budget never goes down? They know too many things about too many politicians for that to ever happen.”
“How long did the affair last?”
“Senators have to run for reelection every six years, so generally they spend the first four rolling around on the couch and the last two cleaning up their act. Young Ms. Shaw got the last two of the good years and then she was patted on the butt and sent on her way.”
“And where is she now?”
“This is where it gets interesting,” Lowrey said.
I pushed off the wall and looked over at Deveraux. She seemed OK. She was eating what was left of my pie. She was craning across the table and picking at it. Demolishing it, actually. In my ear Lowrey said, “I’ve got rumors and hard facts. The rumors come from the FBI and the hard facts come from the databases. Which do you want first?”
I settled back against the wall again.
“The rumors,” I said. “Always much more interesting.”
“OK, the rumors say young Ms. Shaw felt very unhappy about being discarded in the way she was. She felt used and cheap. Like a Kleenex. She felt like a hooker leaving a hotel suite. She began to look like the kind of intern that could cause serious trouble. That was the FBI’s opinion, anyway. They keep track of that stuff too, for different reasons.”
“So what happened?”
“In the end nothing happened. The parties must have reached some kind of mutual accommodation. Everything went quiet. The senator was duly reelected and Audrey Shaw was never heard from again.”
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