Running Blind

by Child, Lee

  The start of fall, he’d transferred his energies inside the house. There were things to be done. But he’d done them all alone. Jodie had stayed in the city, working her way up the greasy pole. There were random nights together. But that was all. No trips anywhere, no ticket stubs, no hotel registers, no stamps in his passport. No alibis. He looked at the seven agents ranged against him.

  “I want my lawyer now,” he said.

  THE TWO LOCAL sentries took him back to the first room. His status had changed. This time they stayed inside with him, one standing on each side of the closed door. Reacher sat in the plastic garden chair and ignored them. He listened to the tireless fluttering of the ventilation inside the exposed trunking in the ceiling, and waited, thinking about nothing.

  He waited almost two hours. The two sentries stood patiently by the door, not looking at him, not speaking, never moving. He stayed in his chair, leaning back, staring at the ducts above his head. There were twin systems up there. One blew fresh air into the room and the other sucked stale air out. The layout was clear. He traced the flow with his eyes and imagined big lazy fans outside on the roof, turning slowly in opposite directions, making the building breathe like a lung. He imagined the spent breath from his body floating away into the Manhattan night sky and out toward the Atlantic. He imagined the damp molecules drifting and diffusing in the atmosphere, catching in the breeze. Two hours, they could be twenty miles offshore. Or thirty. Or forty. It would depend on the conditions. He couldn’t remember if it had been a windy night. He guessed not. He recalled the fog. Fog would blow away if there was a decent wind. So it was a still night, and therefore his spent breath was probably hanging sullenly in the air right above the lazy fans.

  Then there were people in the corridor outside and the door opened and the sentries stepped out and Jodie walked in. She blazed against the gray walls. She was wearing a pastel peach dress with a wool coat over it, a couple of shades darker. Her hair was still lightened from the summer sun. Her eyes were bright blue, and her skin was the color of honey. It was the middle of the night, and she looked as fresh as morning.

  “Hey, Reacher,” she said.

  He nodded and said nothing. He could see worry in her face. She stepped close and bent down and kissed him on the lips. She smelled like a flower.

  “You talk to them?” he asked her.

  “I’m not the right person to deal with this,” she said. “Financial law, yes, but criminal law, I’ve got no idea.”

  She waited in front of his chair, tall and slim, head cocked to one side, all her weight on one foot. Every new time he saw her, she looked more beautiful. He stood up and stretched, wearily.

  “There’s nothing to deal with,” he said.

  She shook her head. “Yes, there damn well is.”

  “I didn’t kill any women.”

  She stared at him. “Of course you didn’t. I know that. And they know that, or they’d have put you in handcuffs and leg irons and taken you straight down to Quantico, not dumped you in here. This must be about the other thing. They saw you do that. You put two guys in the hospital, with them watching.”

  “It’s not about that. They reacted too fast. This was set up before I even did the other thing. And they don’t care about the other thing. I’m not working the rackets. That’s all Cozo’s interested in, organized crime.”

  She nodded. “Cozo’s happy. Maybe more than happy. He’s got two punks off the street, no cost to himself. But it’s turned into a catch-22, don’t you see that? To convince Cozo, you had to make yourself out as a vigilante loner, and the more you made yourself out as a vigilante loner, the more you pushed yourself into this profile from Quantico. So whatever reason they brought you in for, you’re starting to confuse them.”

  “The profile is bullshit.”

  “They don’t think so.”

  “It has to be bullshit. It came up with me.”

  She shook her head. “No, it came up with somebody like you.”

  “Whatever, I should just walk out of here.”

  “You can’t do that. You’re in big trouble. Whatever else, they saw you beat on those guys, Reacher. FBI agents, on duty, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Those guys deserved it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they were picking on somebody who didn’t need picking on.”

  “See? Now you’re making their case for them. A vigilante, with his own code.”

  He shrugged and looked away.

  “I’m not the right person for this,” she said again. “I don’t do criminal law. You need a better lawyer.”

  “I don’t need any lawyer,” he said.

  “Yes, Reacher, you need a lawyer. That’s for damn sure. This is for real. This is the FBI, for God’s sake.”

  He was silent for a long moment.

  “You have to take this seriously,” she said.

  “I can’t,” he said. “It’s bullshit. I didn’t kill any women.”

  “But you made yourself fit the profile. And now proving them wrong is going to be tough. Proving a negative always is. So you need a proper lawyer.”

  “They said I’m damaging your career. They said I’m not an ideal corporate husband.”

  “Well, that’s bullshit too. And even if it was true, I wouldn’t care. I’m not saying get a different lawyer for my sake. I’m saying it for yours.”

  “I don’t want any lawyer.”

  “So why did you call me?”

  He smiled. “I thought you might cheer me up.”

  She stepped into his arms and stretched up and kissed him, hard.

  “I love you, Reacher,” she said. “I really do, you know that, right? But you need a better lawyer. I don’t even understand what this is about.”

  There was a long silence. Just ventilation flutter above their heads, the faint noise of air against metal, the quiet sound of time passing. He listened to it.

  “They gave me a copy of the surveillance report,” she said.

  He nodded. “I thought they would.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it eliminates me from the investigation,” he said.

  “How?”

  “Because this is not about two women,” he said.

  “It isn’t?”

  “No, it’s about three women. Has to be.”

  “Why?”

  “Because whoever’s killing them, he’s working to a timetable. You see that? He’s on a three-week cycle. Seven weeks ago, four weeks ago, so the next one has already happened, this past week. They put me under surveillance to eliminate me from the investigation.”

  “So why did they haul you in? If you’re eliminated?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Maybe the timetable fell apart. Maybe he stopped at two.”

  “Nobody stops at two. You do more than one, you do more than two.”

  “Maybe he fell ill and took a break. Could be months before the next one.”

  He was silent.

  “Maybe he was arrested for something else,” she said. “That happens, time to time. Something unconnected, you know? He could be in jail ten years. They’ll never know it was him. You need a good lawyer, Reacher. Somebody better than me. This isn’t going to be easy.”

  "You were supposed to cheer me up, you know that?”

  “No, I was supposed to give you advice.”

  He stared at her, suddenly uncertain.

  “There’s the other thing too,” she said. “The two guys. You’re in trouble for that, whatever.”

  “They should thank me for that.”

  “Doesn’t work that way,” she said.

  He was silent.

  “This is not the Army, Reacher,” she said. “You can’t just drag a couple of guys behind the motor pool and beat some sense into them anymore. This is New York. This is civilian stuff now. They’re looking at you for something bad and you can’t just pretend they’re not.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

&nb
sp; “Wrong, Reacher. You put two guys in the hospital. They watched you do it. Bad guys, for sure, but there are rules here. You broke them.”

  Then there were footsteps in the corridor outside, loud and heavy. Maybe three men, hurrying. The door opened. Deerfield stepped into the room. The two local boys crowded his shoulder. Deerfield ignored Reacher and spoke directly to Jodie.

  “Your client conference is over, Ms. Jacob,” he said.

  Deerfield led the way back to the room with the long table. The two local agents sandwiched Reacher between them and followed him. Jodie trailed the four of them through the door. She blinked in the glare of the lights. A second chair had been placed over on the far side. Deerfield stood and pointed at it, silently. Jodie glanced at him and moved around the end of the table and sat down with Reacher. He squeezed her hand under the cover of the shiny mahogany slab.

  The two local boys took up station against the walls. Reacher stared forward through the glare. The same lineup was ranged against him. Poulton, Lamarr, Blake, Deerfield, and then Cozo, sitting isolated between two empty chairs. Now there was a squat black audio recorder on the table. Deerfield leaned forward and pressed a red button. He announced the date and the time and the place. He identified the nine occupants of the room. He placed his hands in front of him.

  “This is Alan Deerfield speaking to the suspect Jack Reacher,” he said. “You are now under arrest on the following two counts.”

  He paused.

  “One, for aggravated assault and robbery,” he said. “Against two persons yet to be definitively identified.”

  James Cozo leaned forward. “Two, for aiding and abetting a criminal organization engaged in the practice of extortion.”

  Deerfield smiled. “You are not obliged to say anything. If you do say anything, it will be recorded and may be used as evidence against you in a court of law. You are entitled to be represented by an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you by the state of New York.”

  He leaned forward to the recording machine and pressed the stop button.

  “So did I get it right? Seeing as how you’re the big expert on Miranda?”

  Reacher said nothing. Deerfield smiled again and pressed the red button and the machine hummed back into life.

  “Do you understand your rights?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Reacher said.

  “Do you have anything to say at this point?”

  “No.”

  “That it?” Deerfield asked.

  “Yes,” Reacher said.

  Deerfield nodded. “Noted.”

  He reached forward and clicked the recording machine to off.

  “I want a bail hearing,” Jodie said.

  Deerfield shook his head.

  “No need,” he said. “We’ll release him on his own recognizance.”

  Silence in the room.

  “What about the other matter?” Jodie asked. “The women?”

  “That investigation is continuing,” Deerfield said. “Your client is free to go.”

  5

  HE WAS OUT of there just after three in the morning. Jodie was agitated, torn between staying with him and getting back to the office to finish her all-nighter. He convinced her to calm down and go do her work. One of the local guys drove her down to Wall Street. They gave him back his possessions, except for the wad of stolen cash. Then the other local guy drove him back to Garrison, hustling hard, fifty-eight miles in forty-seven minutes. He had a red beacon on the dash connected to the cigar lighter with a cord, and he kept it flashing the whole way. The beam swept through the fog. It was the middle of the night, dark and cold, and the roads were damp and slick. The guy said nothing. Just drove and then jammed to a stop at the end of Reacher’s driveway in Garrison and took off again as soon as the passenger door slammed shut. Reacher watched the flashing light disappear into the river mist and turned to walk down to his house.

  He had inherited the house from Leon Garber, who was Jodie’s father and his old commanding officer. It had been a week of big surprises, both good and bad, back at the start of the summer. Meeting Jodie again, finding out she’d been married and divorced, finding out old Leon was dead, finding out the house was his. He had been in love with Jodie for fifteen years, since he first met her, on a base in the Philippines. She had been fifteen herself then, right on the cusp of spectacular womanhood, and she was his CO’s daughter, and he had crushed his feelings down like a guilty secret and never let them see the light of day. He felt they would have been a betrayal of her, and of Leon, and betraying Leon was the last thing he would have ever done, because Leon was a rough-and-ready prince among men, and he loved him like a father. Which made him feel Jodie was his sister, and you don’t feel that way about your sister.

  Then chance had brought him to Leon’s funeral, and he had met Jodie again, and they had sparred uneasily for a couple of days before she admitted she felt the exact same things and was concealing her feelings for the exact same reasons. It was a thunderclap, a glorious sunburst of happiness in a summer week of big surprises.

  So meeting Jodie again was the good surprise and Leon dying was the bad one, no doubt about it. But inheriting the house was both good and bad. It was a half-million-dollar slice of prime real estate standing proudly on the Hudson opposite West Point, and it was a comfortable building, but it represented a big problem. It anchored him in a way which made him profoundly uncomfortable. Being static disconcerted him. He had moved around so often in his life it confused him to spend time in any one particular place. And he had never lived in a house before. Bunkhouses and service bungalows and motels were his habitat. It was ingrained.

  And the idea of property worried him. His whole life, he had never owned more than would fit into his pockets. As a boy he had owned a baseball and not much else. As an adult he had once gone seven whole years without owning anything at all except a pair of shoes he preferred to the Defense Department issue. Then a woman bought him a wallet with a clear plastic window with her photograph in it. He lost touch with the woman and junked the photograph, but kept the wallet. Then he went the remaining six years of his service life with just the shoes and the wallet. After mustering out he added a toothbrush. It was a plastic thing that folded in half and clipped into his pocket like a pen. He had a wristwatch. It was Army issue, so it started out theirs and became his when they didn’t ask for it back. And that was it. Shoes on his feet, clothes on his back, small bills in his pants, big bills in his wallet, a toothbrush in his pocket, and a watch on his wrist.

  Now he had a house. And a house is a complicated thing. A big, complicated, physical thing. It started with the basement. The basement was a huge dark space with a concrete floor and concrete walls and floor joists exposed overhead like bones. There were pipes and wires and machines down there. A furnace. Buried outside somewhere was an oil tank. There was a well for the water. Big round pipes ran through the wall to the septic system. It was a complex interdependent machine, and he didn’t know how it worked.

  Upstairs looked more normal. There was a warren of rooms, all of them amiably shabby and unkempt. But they all had secrets. Some of the light switches didn’t work. One of the windows was jammed shut. The range in the kitchen was too complicated to use. The whole place creaked and cracked at night, reminding him it was real and there and needed thinking about.

  And a house has an existence beyond the physical. It’s also a bureaucratic thing. Something had come in the mail about title. There was insurance to consider. Taxes. Town tax, school tax, inspection, assessment. There was a bill to pay for garbage collection. And something about a scheduled propane delivery. He kept all that kind of mail in a drawer in the kitchen.

  The only thing he had bought for the house was a gold-colored filter cone for Leon’s old coffee machine. He figured it was easier than always running to the store to buy the paper kind. Ten past four that morning, he filled it with coffee from a can and added water and set the machine going. Rinsed out
a mug at the sink and set it on the counter, ready. Sat on a stool and leaned on his elbows and watched the dark liquid sputtering into the flask. It was an old machine, inefficient, maybe a little furred up inside. It generally took five minutes to finish. Somewhere during the fourth of those five minutes, he heard a car slowing on the road outside. The hiss of damp pavement. The crunch of tires on his asphalt drive. Jodie couldn’t stand to stay at work, he thought. That hope endured about a second and a half, until the car came around the curve and the flashing red beam started sweeping over his kitchen window. It washed left to right, left to right, cutting through the river mist, and then it died into darkness and the motor noise died into silence. Doors opened and feet touched the ground. Two people. Doors slammed shut. He stood up and killed the kitchen light. Looked out of the window and saw the vague shapes of two people peering into the fog, looking for the path that led up to his front door. He ducked back to the stool and listened to their steps on the gravel. They paused. The doorbell rang.

  There were two light switches in the hallway. One of them operated a porch light. He wasn’t sure which one. He gambled and got it right and saw a glow through the fanlight. He opened the door. The bulb out there was a spotlight made of thick glass tinted yellow. It threw a narrow beam downward from high on the right. The beam caught Nelson Blake first, and then the parts of Julia Lamarr that weren’t in his shadow. Blake’s face was showing nothing except strain. Lamarr’s face was still full of hostility and contempt.

  “You’re still up,” Blake said. A statement, not a question.

  Reacher nodded.

  “Come on in, I guess,” he said.

  Lamarr shook her head. The yellow light caught her hair.

  “We’d rather not,” she said.

  Blake moved his feet. “There someplace we can go? Get some breakfast?”

  “Four thirty in the morning?” Reacher said. “Not around here.”

  “Can we talk in the car?” Lamarr asked.