by Lee Child
“Alison Lamarr,” she said. “Really pleased to meet you.”
She led the way inside. The hall was square and as large as a room, walled and floored in old pine, which had been stripped and waxed to a fresh color a shade darker than the gold on Harper’s badge. There were curtains in yellow checked gingham. Sofas with feather-filled pillows. Old oil lamps converted to take electric bulbs.
“Can I get you guys coffee?” Alison Lamarr asked.
“I’m all set right now,” Harper said.
“Yes, please,” Reacher said.
She led them through to the kitchen, which was the whole rear quarter of the first floor. It was an attractive space, waxed floor polished to a shine, new cabinets in unostentatious timber, a big country range, a line of gleaming machines for washing clothes and dishes, electric gadgets on the countertops, more yellow gingham at the windows. An expensive renovation, he guessed, but designed to impress only herself.
“Cream and sugar?” she asked.
“Just black,” he said.
She was medium height, dark, and she moved with the bounce of a fit, muscular woman. Her face was open and friendly, tanned like she lived outdoors, and her hands were worn, like she maybe installed her own ranch fencing for herself. She smelled of lemon scent and was dressed in clean denim which had been carefully pressed. She wore tooled cowboy boots with clean soles. It looked like she’d made an effort for her visitors.
She poured coffee from a machine into a mug. Handed it to Reacher and smiled. The smile was a mixture of things. Maybe she was lonely. But it proved there was no blood relationship with her stepsister. It was a pleasant smile, interested, friendly, smiled in a way Julia Lamarr had no idea existed. It reached her eyes, which were dark and liquid. Reacher was a connoisseur of eyes, and he rated these two as more than acceptable.
“Can I look around?” he asked.
“Security check?” she said.
He nodded. “I guess.”
“Be my guest.”
He took his coffee with him. The two women stayed in the kitchen. The house had four rooms on the first floor, entrance, kitchen, parlor, living room. The whole place was solidly built out of good timber. The renovations were excellent quality. All the windows were new storm units in stout wood frames. The weather was cold enough that the screens were out and stored. Each window had a key. The front door was original, old pine two inches thick and aged like steel. Big hinges and a city lock. There was a back hallway with a back door, similar vintage and thickness. Same lock.
Outside there were thick thorny foundation plantings he guessed were chosen for wind resistance, but were as good as anything for stopping people spending time trying to get in the windows. There was a steel cellar door with a big padlock latched through the handles. The garage was a decent barn, less well maintained than the house, but not about to fall down anytime soon. There was a new Jeep Cherokee inside, and a stack of cartons proving the renovations had been recent. There was a new washing machine, still boxed up and sealed. A workbench with power saws and drills stored neatly on a shelf above it.
He went back into the house and up the stairs. Same windows as elsewhere. Four bedrooms. Alison’s was clearly the back room on the left, facing west over empty country as far as the eye could see. It would be dark in the mornings, but the sunsets would be spectacular. There was a new master bathroom, stealing space from the next-door bedroom. It held a toilet, and a sink, and a shower. And a tub.
He went back down to the kitchen. Harper was standing by the window, looking out at the view. Alison Lamarr was sitting at the table.
“OK?” she said.
Reacher nodded. “Looks good to me. You keep the doors locked?”
“I do now. Julia made such a fuss about it. I lock the windows, I lock the doors, I use the spyhole, I put 911 on the speed dial.”
“So you should be OK,” Reacher said. “This guy isn’t into breaking doors down, apparently. Don’t open up to anybody, nothing can go wrong.”
She nodded. “That’s how I figure it. You need to ask me some questions now?”
“That’s why they sent me, I guess.”
He sat down opposite her. Focused on the gleaming machines on the other side of the room, desperately trying to think of something intelligent to say.
“How’s your father doing?” he asked.
“That’s what you want to know?”
He shrugged. “Julia mentioned he was sick.”
She nodded, surprised. “He’s been sick two years. Cancer. Now he’s dying. Almost gone, just hanging on day by day. He’s in the hospital in Spokane. I go there every afternoon.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Julia should come out. But she’s awkward with him.”
“She doesn’t fly.”
Alison made a face. “She could get over that, just once in two years. But she’s all hung up on this step-family thing, as if it really matters. Far as I’m concerned, she’s my sister, pure and simple. And sisters take care of each other, right? She should know that. She’s going to be the only relative I’ve got. She’ll be my next of kin, for God’s sake.”
“Well, I’m sorry about all that, too.”
She made another face. “Right now, that’s not too important. What can I help you with?”
“You got any feeling for who this guy could be?”
She smiled. “That’s rather a basic question.”
“It’s rather a basic issue. You got any instinct?”
“It’s some guy who thinks it’s OK to harass women. Or maybe not OK, exactly. Could be some guy who just thinks the fallout should be kept behind closed doors.”
“Is that an option?” Harper asked. She sat down, next to Reacher.
Alison glanced at her. “I don’t really know. I’m not sure there is any middle ground. Either you swallow it, or it goes public in a big way.”
“Did you look for the middle ground?”
She shook her head. “I’m the living proof. I just went ballistic. There was no middle ground there. At least, I couldn’t see any.”
“Who was your guy?” Reacher asked.
“A colonel called Gascoigne,” she said. “He was always full of shit about coming to him if anything was bothering you. I went to him about getting reassigned. I saw him five times. I wasn’t pleading the feminist case or anything. It wasn’t a political thing. I just wanted something more interesting to do. And frankly I thought the Army was wasting a good soldier. Because I was good.”
Reacher nodded. “So what happened with Gascoigne? ”
Alison made a face.
“I didn’t see it coming,” she said. “At first I thought he was just kidding around.”
She paused. Looked away.
“He said I should try next time without my uniform on,” she said. “I thought he was asking for a date, you know, meet him in town, some bar, off duty, plain clothes. But then he made it clear, no, he meant right there in his office, stripped off.”
Reacher nodded. “Not a very nice suggestion.”
She made another face. “Well, he led up to it pretty slow, and he was pretty jokey about it, at first. It was like he was flirting. I almost didn’t notice, you know? Like he’s a man, I’m a woman, it’s not a huge surprise, right? But clearly he figured I wasn’t getting the message, so then all of a sudden he got obscene. He described what I’d have to do, you know? One foot on this corner of his desk, the other foot on the other corner, hands behind my head, motionless for thirty minutes. Then bending over, you know? Like a porno movie. Then it did hit me, the rage, all in a split second, and I just went nuclear.”
Reacher nodded. “And you busted him?”
“Sure I did.”
“How did he react?”
She smiled. “He was puzzled, more than anything. I’m sure he’d done it lots of times before, and gotten away with it. I think he was kind of surprised the rules had changed on him.”
“Could he be the guy?”
&
nbsp; She shook her head. “No. This guy is deadly, right? Gascoigne wasn’t like that. He was an old, sad man. Tired, and ineffectual. Julia says this guy is a piece of work. I don’t see Gascoigne having that kind of initiative , you know?”
Reacher nodded again. “If your sister’s profile is correct, this is probably a guy from the background somewhere. ”
“Right,” Alison said. “Maybe not connected with any specific incident. Maybe some kind of distant observer, turned avenger.”
“If Julia’s profile is correct,” Reacher said again.
There was a short silence.
“Big if,” Alison said.
“You got doubts?”
“You know I have,” she said. “And I know you have, too. Because we both know the same things.”
Harper sat forward. “What are you saying?”
Alison made a face. “I just can’t see a soldier going to all this trouble, not over this issue. It just doesn’t work like that. The Army changes the rules all the time. Go back fifty years, it’s OK to harass blacks, then it’s not. It’s OK to shoot gook babies, then it’s not. A million things like that. Hundreds of men were canned one after the other, for some new invented offense. Truman integrated the Army, nobody started killing the blacks who filed complaints. This is some kind of new reaction. I can’t understand it.”
“Maybe men versus women is more fundamental,” Harper said.
Alison nodded. “Maybe it is. I really don’t know. But at the end of the day, like Julia says, the target group is so specific, it has to be a soldier. Who else could even identify us? But it’s a very weird soldier, that’s for damn sure. Not like any I ever met.”
“Really?” Harper said. “Nobody at all? No threats, no comments, while it was all happening?”
“Nothing significant. Nothing more than casual bullshit. Nothing that I recall. I even flew out to Quantico and let Julia hypnotize me, in case there was something buried there, but she said I came up with nothing.”
Silence again. Harper swept imaginary crumbs from the table and nodded. “OK. Wasted trip, right?”
“Sorry, guys,” Alison said.
“Nothing’s ever wasted,” Reacher said. “Negatives can be useful too. And the coffee was great.”
“You want more?”
“No, he doesn’t,” Harper said. “We’ve got to get back.”
“OK.” She stood up and followed them out of her kitchen. Crossed the hall and opened her front door.
“Don’t let anybody in,” Reacher said.
Alison smiled. “I don’t plan to.”
“I mean it,” Reacher said. “It looks like there’s no force involved. This guy is just walking in. So you might know him. Or he’s some kind of a con artist, with some kind of a plausible excuse. Don’t fall for it.”
“I don’t plan to,” she said again. “Don’t worry about me. And call me if you need anything. I’ll be at the hospital afternoons, as long as it takes, but any other time is good. And best of luck.”
Reacher followed Harper through the front door, out onto the shale path. They heard the door close behind them, and then the loud sound of the lock turning.
THE LOCAL BUREAU guy saved them two hours’ flying time by pointing out that they could hop from Spokane to Chicago and then change there for D.C. Harper did the business with the tickets and found out it was more expensive, which was presumably why the Quantico travel desk hadn’t booked it that way in the first place. But she authorized the extra money herself and decided to have the argument later. Reacher admired her for it. He liked impatience and wasn’t keen on another two hours in the Cessna. So they sent the Seattle guy back west alone and boarded a Boeing for Chicago. This time there was no upgrade, because the whole plane was coach. It put them close together, elbows and thighs touching all the way.
“So what do you think?” Harper asked.
“I’m not paid to think,” Reacher said. “In fact, so far I’m not getting paid at all. I’m a consultant. So you ask me questions and I’ll answer them.”
“I did ask you a question. I asked you what you think.”
He shrugged. “I think it’s a big target group and three of them are dead. You can’t guard them, but if the other eighty-eight do what Alison Lamarr is doing, they should be OK.”
“You think locked doors are enough to stop this guy?”
“He chooses his own MO. Apparently he doesn’t touch anything. If they don’t open the door for him, what’s he going to do?”
“Maybe change his MO.”
“In which case you’ll get him, because he’ll have to start leaving some hard evidence behind.”
He turned to look out of the window.
“That’s it?” Harper said. “We should just tell the women to lock their doors?”
He nodded. “I think you should be warning them, yes.”
“That doesn’t catch the guy.”
“You can’t catch him.”
“Why not?”
“Because of this profiling bullshit. You’re not factoring in how smart he is.”
She shook her head. “Yes, we are. I’ve seen the profile. It says he’s real smart. And profiling works, Reacher. Those people have had some spectacular successes. ”
“Among how many failures?”
“What do you mean?”
Reacher turned back to face her. “Suppose I was in Blake’s position? He’s effectively a nationwide homicide detective, right? Gets to hear about everything. So suppose I was him, getting notified about every single homicide in America. Suppose every single time I said the likely suspect was a white male, age thirty and a half, wooden leg, divorced parents, drives a blue Ferrari. Every single time. Sooner or later, I’d be right. The law of averages would work for me. Then I could shout out hey, I was right. As long as I keep quiet about the ten thousand times I was wrong, I look pretty good, don’t I? Amazing deduction.”
“That’s not what Blake’s doing.”
“Isn’t it? Have you read stuff about his unit?”
She nodded. “Of course I have. That’s why I applied for the assignment. There are all kinds of books and articles.”
“I’ve read them too. Chapter one, successful case. Chapter two, successful case. And so on. No chapters about all the times they were wrong. Makes me wonder about how many times that was. My guess is a lot of times. Too many times to want to write about them.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying a scattergun approach will always look good, as long as you put the spotlight on the successes and sweep the failures under the rug.”
“That’s not what they’re doing.”
He nodded. “No, it isn’t. Not exactly. They’re not just guessing. They try to work at it. But it’s not an exact science. It’s not rigorous. And they’re one unit among many, fighting for status and funding and position. You know how organizations work. They’ve got the budget hearings right now. First, second, and third duty is protecting their own ass against cuts by proclaiming their successes and concealing their failures.”
“So you think the profile is worthless?”
He nodded. “I know it is. It’s internally flawed. It makes two statements that are incompatible.”
“What two statements?”
He shook his head. “No deal, Harper. Not until Blake apologizes for threatening Jodie and pulls Julia Lamarr off the case.”
“Why would he do that? She’s his best profiler.”
“Exactly.”
THE MOTOR POOL guy was at the National Airport in D.C. to pick them up. It was late when they arrived back at Quantico. Julia Lamarr met them, alone. Blake was in a budget meeting, and Poulton had signed out and gone home.
“How was she?” Lamarr asked.
“Your sister?”
“My stepsister.”
“She was OK,” Reacher said.
“What’s her house like?”
“Secure,” he said. “Locked up tight as Fort Knox.”
“But isolated, right?”
“Very isolated,” he said.
She nodded. He waited.
“So she’s OK?” she said again.
“She wants you to visit,” he said.
She shook her head. “I can’t. It would take me a week to get there.”
“Your father is dying.”
“My stepfather.”
“Whatever. She thinks you should go out there.”
“I can’t,” she said again. “She still the same?”
Reacher shrugged. “I don’t know what she was like before. I only just met her today.”
“Dressed like a cowboy, tanned and pretty and sporty?”
He nodded. “You got it.”
She nodded again, vaguely. “Different from me.”
He looked her over. Her cheap black city suit was dusty and creased, and she was pale and thin and hard. Her mouth was turned down. Her eyes were blank.
“Yes, different from you,” he said.
“I told you,” she said. “I’m the ugly sister.”
She walked away without speaking again. Harper took him to the cafeteria and they ate a late supper together. Then she escorted him up to his room. Locked him inside without a word. He listened to her footsteps fade away in the corridor and undressed and showered. Then he lay down on the bed, thinking, and hoping. And waiting. Above all, waiting. Waiting for the morning.
13
THE MORNING CAME, but it was the wrong morning. He knew it as soon as he reached the cafeteria. He had been awake and waiting thirty minutes before Harper showed up. She unlocked his door and breezed in, looking elegant and refreshed, wearing the same suit as the first day. Clearly she had three suits and wore them in strict rotation. Three suits was about right, he figured, given her likely salary. It was three suits more than he had, because it was a whole salary more than he had.
They rode down in the elevator together and walked between buildings. The whole campus was very quiet. It had a weekend feel. He realized it was Sunday. The weather was better. No warmer, but the sun was out and it wasn’t raining. He hoped for a moment it was a sign that this was his day. But it wasn’t. He knew that as soon as he walked into the cafeteria.
