by Lee Child
“None at all? Not even a shred?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Stretching the bounds of reasonable likelihood?”
“There’s nothing there.”
“Stretching the bounds all the way until they break?”
“Still nothing. She had a normal pregnancy and she was an unlucky horseback rider. That’s all I see here.”
“No reasonable doubt?” Walker said. “That’s all I need. Just a shred will do.”
“It’s not there.”
Walker paused a beat. “Doctor, please let me say this with the greatest possible respect, O.K.? From a DA’s point of view, you’ve been a pain in the rear end many more times than I can remember, to me and my colleagues throughout the state. There have been times when we’re not sure what you’ve been smoking. You’ve always been capable of coming up with the most bizarre explanations for almost anything. So I’m asking you. Please. Is there any way at all you could interpret this stuff differently?”
Black didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” Walker said. “I offended you.”
“Not in the way you think you did,” Black said. “The fact is, I’ve never offered a bizarre explanation of anything. If I see possible exoneration, I speak up in court, sure. But what you clearly fail to understand is if I don’t see possible exoneration, then I don’t speak up at all. What your colleagues and I have clashed over in the past is merely the tip of the iceberg. Cases that have no merit don’t get to trial, because I advise the defense to plead them out and hope for mercy. And I see many, many cases that have no merit.”
“Cases like this one?”
Black nodded. “I’m afraid so. If I had been retained by Ms. Aaron directly, I would tell her that her client’s word is not to be trusted. And you’re right, I say that very reluctantly, with a long and honorable record of preferring to take the defense’s side. Which is a record I have always maintained, despite the attendant risk of annoying our districts’ attorneys. And which is a record I always aim to continue, for as long as I am spared. Which might not be much longer, if this damn heat keeps up.”
He paused a second and looked around.
“For which reason I must take my leave of you now,” he said. “I’m very sorry I was unable to help you, Mr. Walker. Really. It would have been enormously satisfying.”
He squared the reports together and slipped them back into the FedEx packet. Handed it to Reacher, who was nearest. Then he stood up and headed for the door.
“But there has to be something,” Walker said. “I don’t believe this. The one time in my life I want Cowan Black to come up with something, and he can’t.”
Black shook his head. “I learned a long time ago, sometimes they’re just guilty.”
He sketched a brief gesture that was half-wave, half-salute, and walked slowly out of the office. The breeze from the air conditioners caught the door and crashed it shut behind him. Alice and Reacher said nothing. Just watched Walker at his desk. Walker dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes.
“Go away,” he said. “Just get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”
The air in the stairwell was hot, and it was worse still out on the sidewalk. Reacher swapped the FedEx packet into his left hand and caught Alice’s arm with his right. Stopped her at the curb.
“Is there a good jeweler in town?” he asked.
“I guess,” she said. “Why?”
“I want you to sign out her personal property. You’re still her lawyer, as far as anybody knows. We’ll get her ring appraised. Then we’ll find out if she’s telling the truth about anything.”
“You still got doubts?”
“I’m from the army. First we check, then we double-check.”
“O.K.,” she said. “If you want.” They turned around and walked down the alley and she took possession of Carmen’s lizard skin belt and her ring by signing a form that specified both items as material evidence. Then they went looking for a jeweler. They walked away from the cheap streets and found one ten minutes later in a row of upmarket boutiques. The window display was too crowded to be called elegant, but judging by the price tags the owner had a feel for quality. Or for blind optimism.
“So how do we do this?” Alice asked.
“Make out it’s an estate sale,” Reacher said. “Maybe it belonged to your grandmother.”
The guy in the store was old and stooped. He might have looked pretty sharp forty years ago. But he still acted sharp. Reacher saw a flash in his eyes. Cops? Then he saw him answer his own question in the negative. Alice didn’t look like a cop. Neither did Reacher, which was a mistaken impression he’d traded on for years. Then the guy went into an assessment of how smart these new customers might be. It was transparent, at least to Reacher. He was accustomed to watching people make furtive calculations. He saw him decide to proceed with caution. Alice produced the ring and told him she’d inherited it from family. Told him she was thinking of selling it, if the price was right.
The guy held it under a desk lamp and put a loupe in his eye.
“Color, clarity, cut and carat,” he said. “The four Cs. That’s what we look for.”
He turned the stone left and right. It flashed in the light. He picked up a slip of stiff card that had circular holes punched through it. They started small and got bigger. He fitted the stone in the holes until he found one that fit exactly.
“Two and a quarter carats,” he said. “Cut is real handsome. Color is good, maybe just on the yellow side of truly excellent. Clarity isn’t flawless, but it’s not very far off. This stone ain’t bad. Not bad at all. How much do you want for it?”
“Whatever it’s worth,” Alice said.
“I could give you twenty,” the guy said.
“Twenty what?”
“Thousand dollars,” the guy said.
“Twenty thousand dollars?”
The guy put up his hands, palms out, defensively.
“I know, I know,” he said. “Someone probably told you it’s worth more. And maybe it is, retail, some big fancy store, Dallas or somewhere. But this is Pecos, and you’re selling, not buying. And I have to make my profit.”
“I’ll think about it,” Alice said.
“Twenty-five?” the guy said.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars?”
The guy nodded. “That’s about as high as I can go, being fair to myself. I got to eat, after all.”
“Let me think about it,” Alice said.
“Well, don’t think too long,” the guy said. “The market might change. And I’m the only game in town. Piece like this, it’ll scare anybody else.”
They stopped together on the sidewalk right outside the store. Alice was holding the ring like it was red hot. Then she opened her pocketbook and put it in a zippered compartment. Used her fingertips to push it all the way down.
“Guy like that says twenty-five, it’s got to be worth sixty,” Reacher said. “Maybe more. Maybe a lot more. My guess is he’s not the Better Business Bureau’s poster boy.”
“A lot more than thirty dollars, anyway,” Alice said. “A fake? Cubic zirconium? She’s playing us for fools.”
He nodded, vaguely. He knew she meant playing you for a fool. He knew she was too polite to say it.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They walked west through the heat, back to the cheap part of town, beyond the courthouse, next to the railroad tracks. It was about a mile, and they spent thirty minutes on it. It was too hot to hurry. He didn’t speak the whole way. Just fought his usual interior battle about exactly when to give up on a lost cause.
He stopped her again at the door to the mission.
“I want to try one last thing,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I’m from the army,” he said. “First we double-check, then we triple-check.”
She sighed. A little impatience there. “What do you want to do?”
“You need to driv
e me.”
“Where?”
“There’s an eyewitness we can talk to.”
“An eyewitness? Where?”
“In school, down in Echo.”
“The kid?”
He nodded. “Ellie. She’s sharp as a tack.”
“She’s six years old.”
“If it was happening, I’ll bet she knows.”
Alice stood completely still for a second. Then she glanced in through the windows. The place was crowded with customers. They looked listless from the heat and beaten down by life.
“It’s not fair to them,” she said. “I need to move on.”
“Just this one last thing.”
“I’ll lend you the car again. You can go alone.”
He shook his head. “I need your opinion. You’re the lawyer. And I won’t get in the schoolhouse without you. You’ve got status. I haven’t.”
“I can’t do it. It’ll take all day.”
“How long would it have taken to get the money from the rancher? How many billable hours?”
“We don’t bill.”
“You know what I mean.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“O.K.,” she said. “A deal’s a deal, I guess.”
“This is the last thing, I promise.”
“Why, exactly?” she asked.
They were in the yellow VW, heading south on the empty road out of Pecos. He recognized none of the landmarks. It had been dark when he came the other way in the back of the police cruiser.
“Because I was an investigator,” he said.
“O.K.,” she said. “Investigators investigate. That, I can follow. But don’t they stop investigating? I mean, ever? When they know already?”
“Investigators never know,” he said. “They feel, and they guess.”
“I thought they dealt in facts.”
“Not really,” he said. “I mean, eventually they do, I suppose. But ninety-nine percent of the time it’s ninety-nine percent about what you feel. About people. A good investigator is a person with a feel for people.”
“Feeling doesn’t change black into white.”
He nodded. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Weren’t you ever wrong before?”
“Of course I was. Lots of times.”
“But?”
“But I don’t think I’m wrong now.”
“So why, exactly?” she asked again.
“Because I know things about people, Alice.”
“So do I,” she said. “Like, I know Carmen Greer suckered you, too.”
He said nothing more. Just watched her drive, and looked at the view ahead. He could see mountains in the distance, where Carmen had chased the school bus. He had the FedEx packet on his knees. He fanned himself with it. Balanced it on his fingers. Turned it over and over, aimlessly. Stared down at the front and the back, at the orange and purple logo, at the label, at the meaningless little words all over it, sender, addressee, extremely urgent, commodity description, dimensions in inches, twelve-by-nine, weight in pounds, two-point-six, payment, recipient’s contact information, overnight, no post office box number, shipper must check: this shipment does not contain dangerous goods. He shook his head and pitched it behind him, onto the backseat.
“She had no money with her,” he said.
Alice said nothing back. Just drove on, piloting the tiny car fast and economically. He could feel her pitying him. It was suddenly coming off her in waves.
“What?” he said.
“We should turn around,” she said. “This is a complete waste of time.”
“Why?”
“Because exactly what is Ellie going to tell us? I mean, I can follow your thinking. If Carmen really did get a broken arm, then she must have been wearing a plaster cast for six weeks. And Ellie’s a smart kid, so she’ll recall it. Same for the jaw thing. Broken jaw, you’re all wired up for a spell. Certainly a kid would remember that. If any of this really happened, and if it happened recently enough that she can remember anything at all.”
“But?”
“But we know she was never in a cast. We know she never had her jaw wired. We’ve got her medical records, remember? They’re right here in the car with us. Everything she ever went to the hospital for. Or do you think setting bones is a do-it-yourself activity? You think the blacksmith did it in the barn? So the very best Ellie can do is confirm what we already know. And most likely she won’t remember anything anyway, because she’s just a kid. So this trip is a double waste of time.”
“Let’s do it anyway,” he said. “We’re halfway there already. She might recall something useful. And I want to see her again. She’s a great kid.”
“I’m sure she is,” Alice said. “But spare yourself, O.K.? Because what are you going to do? Adopt her? She’s the one with the raw end of this deal, so you might as well accept it and forget all about her.”
They didn’t speak again until they arrived at the crossroads with the diner and the school and the gas station. Alice parked exactly where Carmen had and they got out together into the heat.
“I better come with you,” Reacher said. “She knows me. We can bring her out and talk in the car.”
They went through the wire gate into the yard. Then through the main door into the schoolhouse itself, into the school smell. They were out again a minute later. Ellie Greer wasn’t there, and she hadn’t been there the day before, either.
“Understandable, I guess,” Alice said. “Traumatic time for her.”
Reacher nodded. “So let’s go. It’s only another hour south.”
“Great,” Alice said.
They got back in the VW and drove the next sixty miles of parched emptiness without talking. It took a little less than an hour, because Alice drove faster than Carmen had wanted to. Reacher recognized the landmarks. He saw the old oil field, on the distant horizon off to the left. Greer Three.
“It’s coming up,” he said.
Alice slowed. The red-painted picket fence replaced the wire and the gate swam into view through the haze. Alice braked and turned in under it. The small car bounced uncomfortably across the yard. She stopped it close to the bottom of the familiar porch steps and turned off the motor. The whole place was silent. No activity. But people were home, because all the cars were lined up in the vehicle barn. The white Cadillac was there, and the Jeep Cherokee, and the new pick-up, and the old pick-up. They were all crouched there in the shadows.
They got out of the car and stood for a second behind the open doors, like they offered protection from something. The air was very still, and hotter than ever. Easily a hundred and ten degrees, maybe more. He led her up the porch steps into the shadow of the roof and knocked on the door. It opened almost immediately. Rusty Greer was standing there. She was holding a .22 rifle, one-handed. She stayed silent for a long moment, just looking him over. Then she spoke.
“It’s you,” she said. “I thought it might be Bobby.”
“You lost him?” Reacher said.
Rusty shrugged. “He went out. He isn’t back yet.”
Reacher glanced back at the motor barn.
“All the cars are here,” he said.
“Somebody picked him up,” Rusty said. “I was upstairs. Didn’t see them. Just heard them.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Anyway,” Rusty said. “I didn’t expect to see you again, ever.”
“This is Carmen’s lawyer,” Reacher said.
Rusty turned and glanced at Alice. “This is the best she could do?”
“We need to see Ellie.”
“What for?”
“We’re interviewing witnesses.”
“A child can’t be a witness.”
“I’ll decide that,” Alice said.
Rusty just smiled at her.
“Ellie’s not here,” she said.
“Well, where is she?” Reacher said. “She’s not in school.”
Rusty said nothing.
“Mrs. Greer, w
e need to know where Ellie is,” Alice said.
Rusty smiled again. “I don’t know where she is, lawyer girl.”
“Why not?” Alice asked.
“Because Family Services took her, that’s why not.”
“When?”
“This morning. They came for her.”
“And you let them take her?” Reacher said.
“Why wouldn’t I? I don’t want her. Now that Sloop is gone.”
Reacher stared at her. “But she’s your granddaughter.”
Rusty made a dismissive gesture. The rifle moved in her hand.
“That’s a fact I was never thrilled about,” she said.
“Where did they take her?”
“An orphanage, I guess,” Rusty said. “And then she’ll get adopted, if anybody wants her. Which they probably won’t. I understand half-breeds are very difficult to place. Decent folk generally don’t want beaner trash.”
There was silence. Just the tiny sounds of dry earth baking in the heat.
“I hope you get a tumor,” Reacher said.
He turned around and walked back to the car without waiting for Alice. Got in and slammed the door and sat staring forward with his face burning and his massive hands clenching and unclenching. She got in beside him and fired up the motor.
“Get me out of here,” he said. She took off in a cloud of dust. Neither of them spoke a single word, all the way north to Pecos.
It was three in the afternoon when they got back, and the legal mission was half empty because of the heat. There was the usual thicket of messages on Alice’s desk. Five of them were from Hack Walker. They made a neat little sequence, each of them more urgent than the last.
“Shall we go?” Alice asked.
“Don’t tell him about the diamond,” Reacher said.
“It’s over now, don’t you see?”
And it was. Reacher saw it right away in Walker’s face. There was relaxation there. Some kind of finality. Closure. Some kind of peace. He was sitting behind his desk. His desk was all covered with papers. They were arranged in two piles. One was taller than the other.
“What?” Reacher asked.
Walker ignored him and handed a single sheet to Alice.
“Waiver of her Miranda rights,” he said. “Read it carefully. She’s declining legal representation, and she’s declaring that it’s entirely voluntary. And she adds that she refused your representation from the very start.”
