by Child, Lee
“OK, that’ll do. Put the stick in the can. No mess.”
Scimeca pulled the stick out of the green water and shook it carefully. Reached back and stood it upright in the empty can.
“And the screwdriver.”
She stood the screwdriver next to the stick.
“Put the lid back on.”
She picked the lid up by the edge and laid it across the top of the can. It canted up at a shallow angle, because the stirring stick was too tall to let it go all the way down.
“You can turn the faucets off now.”
She turned back to the tub and shut off the water. The level was up to within six inches of the rim.
“Where did you store your carton?”
“In the basement,” she said. “But they took it away.”
The visitor nodded. "I know. But can you remember exactly where it was?”
Scimeca nodded in turn.
“It was there for a long time,” she said.
“I want you to put the can down there,” the visitor said. “Right where the carton was. Can you do that?”
Scimeca nodded.
“Yes, I can do that,” she said.
She raised the metal hoop. Eased it up alongside the unsteady lid. Carried the can out in front of her, one hand on the handle, the other palm down against the lid, securing it. She went down the stairs and through the hallway and down to the garage and through to the basement. Stood for a second with her feet on the cold concrete floor, trying to get it exactly right. Then she stepped to her left and placed the can on the floor, in the center of the space the carton had occupied.
THE TAXI WAS struggling on a long hill past a small shopping center. There was a supermarket, with rows of stores flanking it. A parking lot, mostly empty.
“Why are we here?” Harper asked.
“Because Scimeca is next,” Reacher said.
The taxi labored onward. Harper shook her head.
“Tell me who.”
“Think about how,” Reacher said. “That’s the absolute final proof.”
SCIMECA MOVED THE empty can an inch to the right. Checked carefully. Nodded to herself and turned and ran back upstairs. She felt she ought to hurry.
“Out of breath?” the visitor asked.
Scimeca gulped and nodded.
“I ran,” she said. “All the way back.”
“OK, take a minute.”
She breathed deeply and pushed her hair off her face.
“I’m OK,” she said.
“So now you have to get into the tub.”
Scimeca smiled.
“I’ll get all green,” she said.
“Yes,” the visitor said. “You’ll get all green.”
Scimeca stepped to the side of the tub and raised her foot. Pointed her toe and put it in the water.
“It’s warm,” she said.
The visitor nodded. “That’s good.”
Scimeca took her weight on the foot in the water and brought the other in after it. Stood there in the tub up to her calves.
“Now sit down. Carefully.”
She put her hands on the rim and lowered herself down.
“Legs straight.”
She straightened her legs and her knees disappeared under the green.
“Arms in.”
She let go of the rim and put her hands down beside her thighs.
“Good,” the visitor said. “Now slide down, slowly and carefully.”
She shuffled forward in the water. Her knees came up. They were stained green, dark and then pale where little rivulets of paint flowed over her skin. She lay back and felt the warmth moving up her body. She felt it lap over her shoulders.
“Head back.”
She tilted her head and looked up at the ceiling. She felt her hair floating.
“Have you ever eaten oysters?” the visitor asked.
She nodded. She felt her hair swirl in the water as she moved her head.
"Once or twice,” she said.
“You remember how it feels? They’re in your mouth, and you just suddenly swallow them whole? Just gulp them down?”
She nodded again.
“I liked them,” she said.
“Pretend your tongue is an oyster,” the visitor said.
She glanced sideways, puzzled.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“I want you to swallow your tongue. I want you to just gulp it down, real sudden, like it was an oyster.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Can you try?”
“Sure, I can try.”
“OK, give it a go, right now.”
She concentrated hard, and tried. Gulped it back, suddenly. But nothing happened. Just a noise in her throat.
“Doesn’t work,” she said.
“Use your finger to help,” the visitor said. “The others all had to do that.”
“My finger?”
The visitor nodded. “Push it back in there with your finger. It worked for the others.”
“OK.”
She raised her hand. Thin paint ran off her arm, with thicker globules where the mixing wasn’t perfect.
“Which finger?” she asked.
“Try the middle,” the visitor said. “It’s the longest.”
She extended her middle finger and folded the others. Opened her mouth.
“Put it right under your tongue,” the visitor said. “And push back hard.”
She opened her mouth wider and pushed back hard.
“Now swallow.”
She swallowed. Then her eyes jammed open in panic.
30
THE CAB PULLED up nose to nose with the police cruiser. Reacher was the first one out, partly because he was tense, and partly because he needed Harper to pay the driver. He stood on the sidewalk and glanced around. Stepped back into the street and headed for the cop’s window.
“Everything OK?” he asked.
“Who are you?” the cop said.
“FBI,” Reacher said. “Is everything OK here?”
“Can I see a badge?”
“Harper, show this guy your badge,” Reacher called.
The taxi backed off and pulled a wide curb-to-curb turn in the road. Harper put her purse back in her pocketbook and came out with her badge, gold on gold, the eagle on top with its head cocked to the left. The cop glanced across at it and relaxed. Harper put it back in her bag and stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the house.
“It’s all quiet here,” the cop said, through his window.
“She in there?” Reacher asked him.
The cop pointed at the garage door.
“Just got back from the store,” he said.
“She went out?”
“I can’t stop her from going out,” the cop said.
“You check her car?”
“Just her and two shopping bags. There was a padre came calling for her. From the Army, some counseling thing. She sent him away.”
Reacher nodded. “She would. She’s not religious.”
“Tell me about it,” the cop said.
“OK,” Reacher said. “We’re going inside.”
“Just don’t ask for the powder room,” the cop said.
“Why not?”
“She’s kind of touchy about being disturbed.”
“I’ll take the risk,” Reacher said.
“Well, can you give her this for me?” the cop asked.
He ducked down in his car and came back with an empty mug from the passenger footwell. Handed it out through the window.
“She brought me coffee,” he said. “Nice lady when you get to know her.”
“Yes, she is,” Reacher said.
He took the mug and followed Harper into the driveway. Up the looping path, up the porch steps, to the door. Harper pressed the bell. He listened to the sound echoing to silence off the polished wood inside. Harper waited ten seconds and pressed again. A burst of purring metallic noise, then echoes, then silence.
She hit the bell for the third time. Noise, echoes, silence. She looked at him, worried. He looked at the lock on the door. It was a big heavy item. Probably new. Probably carried all kinds of lifetime warranties and insurance discounts. Probably had a thick case-hardened latch fitted snugly into a steel receptacle chiseled neatly into the doorframe. The doorframe was probably Oregon pine felled a hundred years ago. The best construction timber in history, dried like iron over a century.
“Shit,” he said.
He stepped back to the edge of the porch and balanced the cop’s empty mug on the rail. Danced forward and smashed the sole of his foot against the lock.
“Hell are you doing?” Harper said.
He whirled back and hit the door again, once, twice, three times. Felt the timbers yield. He grasped the porch railings like a ski jumper and bounced twice and hurled himself forward. Straightened his leg and smashed his whole two hundred and thirty pounds into an area the size of his heel directly over the lock. The frame splintered and part of it followed the door into the hallway.
“Upstairs,” he gasped.
He raced up, with Harper crowding his back. He ducked into a bedroom. Wrong bedroom. Inferior linens, a cold musty smell. A guest room. He ducked into the next door. The right bedroom. A made bed, dimpled pillows, the smell of sleep, a telephone and a water glass on the nightstand. A connecting door, ajar. He stepped across the room and shoved it open. He saw a bathroom.
Mirrors, a sink, a shower stall.
A tub full of hideous green water.
Scimeca in the water.
And Julia Lamarr.
Julia Lamarr, turning and rising and twisting off her perch on the rim of the tub, whirling around to face him. She was wearing a sweater and pants and black leather gloves. Her face was white with hate and fear. Her mouth was half-open. Her crossed teeth were bared in panic. He seized her by the front of the sweater and spun her around and hit her once in the head, a savage abrupt blow from a huge fist powered by blind anger and crushing physical momentum. It caught her solidly on the side of the jaw and her head snapped back and she bounced off the opposite wall and went down like she was hit by a truck. He didn’t see her make it to the floor because he was already turning back to the tub. Scimeca was arched up out of the slime, naked, rigid, eyes bulging, head back, mouth open in agony.
Not moving.
Not breathing.
He put a hand under her neck and held her head up and straightened the fingers on his other hand and stabbed them into her mouth. Couldn’t reach her tongue. He balled his hand and punched and forced his knuckles all the way inside. Her mouth made a giant ghastly O around his wrist and the skin of his hand tore against her teeth and he scrabbled in her throat and hooked a finger around her tongue and hauled it back. It was slippery, like a live thing. It was long and heavy and muscular. It curled tight against itself and eased up out of her throat and flopped back into her mouth. He pulled his hand free and tore more skin. Bent down to blow air into her lungs but as his face got near hers he felt a convulsive exhalation from her and a desperate cough and then her chest started heaving. Giant ragged breaths sucked in and out. He cradled her head. She was wheezing. Tortured cracked sounds in her throat.
“Set the shower running,” he screamed.
Harper ran to the stall and turned on the water. He slid his hand under Scimeca’s back and pulled the stopper out of the drain. The thick green water eddied away around her body. He lifted her under the shoulders and the knees. Stood up and stepped back and held her in the middle of the bathroom, dripping green slime everywhere.
“Got to get this stuff off of her,” he said, helplessly.
“I’ll take her,” Harper said gently.
She caught her under the arms and backed herself into the shower, fully dressed. Jammed herself into a corner of the stall and held the limp body upright like a drunk. The shower turned the paint light green, and then reddened skin showed through as it rinsed away. Harper held her tight, two minutes, three, four. She was soaked to the skin and her clothes were smeared with green. She moved around in a bizarre halting dance, so the shower could catch every part of Scimeca’s body. Then she maneuvered carefully backward until the water was rinsing the sticky green out of her hair. It kept on coming, endlessly. Harper was tiring. The paint was slick. Scimeca was sliding out of her grasp.
“Get towels,” she gasped. “Find a bathrobe.”
They were on a row of hooks, directly above where Lamarr was lying inert. Reacher took two towels and Harper staggered forward out of the stall. Reacher held a towel in front of him and Harper passed Scimeca to him. He caught her through the thickness of the towel and wrapped her in it. Harper turned off the hissing water and took the other towel. Stood there in the sudden silence, breathing hard, wiping her face. Reacher lifted Scimeca off her feet and carried her out of the bathroom, into the bedroom. Laid her down gently on the bed. Leaned over her and wiped the wet hair off her face. She was still wheezing hard. Her eyes were open, but they were blank.
“Is she OK?” Harper called.
“I don’t know,” Reacher said.
He watched her breathing. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, urgently, like she had just run a mile.
“I think so,” he said. “She’s breathing.”
He caught her wrist and felt for the pulse. It was there, strong and fast.
“She’s OK,” he said. “Pulse is good.”
“We should get her to the hospital,” Harper called.
“She’ll be better here,” Reacher said.
“But she’ll need sedation. This will have blown her mind.”
He shook his head. “She’ll wake up, and she won’t remember a thing.”
Harper stared at him. “Are you kidding?”
He looked up at her. She was standing there, holding a bathrobe, soaked to the skin and smeared with paint. Her shirt was olive green and transparent.
“She was hypnotized,” he said.
He nodded toward the bathroom.
“That’s how she did it all,” he said. “Everything, every damn step of the way. She was the Bureau’s biggest expert.”
“Hypnosis?” Harper said.
He took the bathrobe from her and laid it over Scimeca’s passive form. Tucked it tight around her. Bent his head and listened to her breathing. It was still strong, and it was slowing down. She looked like a person in a deep sleep, except her eyes were wide open and staring at nothing.
“I don’t believe it,” Harper said.
Reacher used the corner of the towel and dried Scimeca’s face.
“That’s how she did it all,” he said again.
He used his thumbs and closed Scimeca’s eyes. It seemed like the right thing to do. She breathed lower and turned her head an inch. Her wet hair dragged on the pillow. She turned her head the other way, scrubbing her face into the pillow, restlessly, like a sleeping woman confused by her dreams. Harper stared at her, immobile. Then she turned around and stared and spoke to the bathroom door.
“When did you know?” she asked.
“For sure?” he said. “Last night.”
“But how?” she said.
Reacher used the towel again, where thin green fluid was leaking down out of Scimeca’s hair.
“I just went around and around,” he said. “Right from the beginning, for days and days, thinking, thinking, thinking, driving myself crazy. It was a real what if thing. And then it turned into a so what else thing.”
Harper stared at him. He pulled the bathrobe higher on Scimeca’s shoulder.
“I knew they were wrong about the motive,” he said. “I knew it all along. But I couldn’t understand it. They’re smart people, right? But they were so wrong. I was asking myself why? Why? Had they gotten dumb all of a sudden? Were they blinded by their professional specialty? That’s what I thought it was, at first. Small units inside big organizations are so defensive, aren’t they? Innately? I fi
gured a bunch of psychologists paid to unravel very complex things wouldn’t be too willing to give it up and say no, this is something very ordinary. I thought it might be subconscious. But eventually I passed on that. It’s just too irresponsible. So I went around and around. And in the end the only answer left was they were wrong because they wanted to be wrong.”
“And you knew Lamarr was driving the motive,” Harper said. “Because it was her case, really. So you suspected her.”
He nodded.
“Exactly,” he said. “Soon as Alison died, I had to think about Lamarr doing it, because there was a close connection, and like you said, close family connections are always significant. So then I asked myself what if she did them all? What if she’s camouflaging a personal motive behind the randomness of the first three? But I couldn’t see how. Or why. There was no personal motive. They weren’t best buddies, but they got along OK. There were no family issues. No unfairness about the inheritance, for instance. It was going to be equal. No jealousy there. And she couldn’t fly, so how could it be her?”
“But?”
“But then the dam broke. Something Alison said. I remembered it much later. She said her father was dying but sisters take care of each other, right? I thought she was talking about emotional support or something. But then I thought what if she meant it another way? Like some people use the phrase? Like you did, when we had coffee in New York and the check came and you said you’d take care of it? Meaning you’d pay for me, you’d treat me? I thought what if Alison meant that she’d take care of Julia financially? Share with her? Like she knew the inheritance was all coming her way and Julia was getting nothing and was all uptight about it? But Julia had told me everything was equal, and she was already rich, anyway, because the old man was generous and fair. So I suddenly asked myself what if she’s lying about that? What if the old guy wasn’t generous and fair? What if she’s not rich?”
“She was lying about that?”
Reacher nodded. “Had to be. Suddenly it made a lot of sense. I realized she doesn’t look rich. She dresses very cheap. She has cheap luggage.”
“You based it on her luggage?”
He shrugged. “I told you it was a house of cards. But in my experience if somebody’s got money outside of their salary, it shows up somewhere. It might be subtle and tasteful, but it’s there. And with Julia Lamarr, it wasn’t there. So she was poor. So she was lying. And Jodie told me her firm has this so what else thing. If they find a guy lying about something, they ask themselves so what else? What else is he lying about? So I thought what if she’s lying about the relationship with her sister too? What if she still hates her and resents her, like when she was a little kid? And what if she’s lying about the equal inheritance? What if there’s no inheritance for her at all?”
