The Jack Reacher Cases_A Man Made For Killing

by Dan Ames

  Pauling made no move to put on a life jacket, nor did Tallon. Of course, for all she knew, Tallon could have been a Navy SEAL. His Ball watch, the NEDU, meant Navy Experimental Dive Unit. Maybe there was more to that story than he’d indicated.

  “The best place is about a mile out. There’s some structure and the season’s right.”

  He had come out of the pilothouse, leaving the barge on some sort of autopilot, she guessed.

  “Have you done any diving?” he asked.

  “A little,” she said. “I was certified once awhile back on a Caribbean vacation.”

  “Well, the good thing is the water clarity out here is fantastic, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem.”

  He gave her a wet suit and they geared up.

  “What about the sharks?” she asked.

  Pauling still hadn’t decided if she was going to do this or not. A lot of it depended on Tallon’s answer.

  “They won’t bother you,” he said. “It’s the middle of the day and I’ve done this a thousand times. Now, if it was midnight, no, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

  Not exactly what she wanted to hear, but at least he sounded honest.

  They pulled out into the open ocean and occasionally Pauling glanced back at San Clemente. It already looked so small, she found it hard to believe she was living on it temporarily.

  Ahead, there was a large stone outcropping with a strange white cap. There were thousands of birds on the rock, or in the air above it.

  “Bird Shit Rock,” Tallon said.

  “Lovely,” Pauling replied.

  By the time they got most of the gear ready, Tallon glanced up and said, “Great, we’re here.”

  He shut the engines off and somewhere an anchor splashed into the water.

  They did tests for each other’s air and then dropped into the sea.

  Pauling was fascinated with the color of the water. And she was also terrified of the sharks she’d seen.

  Tallon led the way, swimming down to a structure covered in green. Pauling noticed Tallon had some sort of large glove on his hand.

  Suddenly, a lobster shot out of the structure and Tallon caught him expertly with the glove. He stuffed it into a bag on the side of his hip.

  He gestured toward Pauling and gave her the glove. She slipped it on, realizing it was some sort of hockey goalie’s glove.

  A lobster scooted out in front of her and she grabbed it with the glove, but it squirted out from her grasp and got away. She repeated this several times.

  Tallon made a gesture to her that looked like he was saying she needed to squeeze harder.

  The next lobster that came she did just that and this time, it stayed in the glove.

  Tallon slid it into his bag and she gave him the glove back. She had caught one. That was good enough for her.

  Pauling watched while Tallon caught a few more lobsters and then she was startled when a sea lion zipped between them, going for Tallon’s lobster catch.

  He was able to maneuver quickly enough to avoid the thief.

  They surfaced and climbed back onto the barge.

  “Well done, Pauling,” he said.

  “Thanks, you were pretty handy with that hockey glove. Although that sea lion almost had an easy feast.”

  “Yeah, it’s sort of a game with them. Sometimes I’ll feed them a couple for their troubles.”

  Pauling stripped out of her gear and helped Tallon stow the lobsters in a cooler filled with ice.

  Tallon pulled a couple bottles of beer from another cooler she hadn’t even noticed.

  They sat on the end of the barge, the warm sun blasting down on them and the chill she’d felt from the water quickly went away.

  She felt warm, safe and the beer was perfect.

  They clinked bottles.

  “To fresh lobster,” Pauling said.

  “And good company.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “You in the mood for a burger?” Ted asked her when she came back to the Nest after her lobster-diving expedition. By now, it was early evening and Pauling was tired from her day on the water.

  She was still thinking about Michael Tallon and what Janey had told her about Paige.

  “A burger?” she asked.

  “Yeah, at the Crab,” Ted said. His mop of black hair was hanging over his eyes and Pauling had a negative reply on the tip of her tongue.

  But she bit it back. She and Michael had grilled the lobsters on the boat and had them for lunch and she wasn’t really hungry.

  “Sure,” she said. “I just need a couple of minutes first, is that okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll grab a beer while I wait.”

  Pauling went back to her room and quickly changed her clothes.

  Something told her this was going to be different than her outing with Gabe. Gabe wore his heart on his sleeve and was consumed with lust.

  Ted was quiet. Bookish, almost.

  She joined him in a white jeep and they drove to the Salty Crab.

  Pauling was beginning to wonder how many more times she would have to go to the bar.

  But she wasn’t ready to completely write off the Crab just yet; besides, getting people to drink tended to help an investigation. The drunk man’s tongue speaks the sober man’s mind, right?

  Ted parked and they went inside.

  Pauling also understood the sensory deprivation that naturally occurs on San Clemente Island. It has to. There are no shopping malls. No row of restaurants. No residential neighborhoods with kids playing in the yard. All there is on the island is a foreign landscape, nearly completely devoid of trees, and beyond it, ocean.

  The Crab served a useful purpose. Seeing other human beings, talking to them.

  And fried food.

  They got a table near the kitchen, both ordered cheeseburgers with french fries.

  Pauling already felt vaguely ill. She hadn’t had a salad since her lunch with Tallon and her diet had become a steady supply of meat and carbs. And booze.

  Her mind briefly drifted back to Michael Tallon. She wondered where he was and what he was doing.

  “Christ, I’m so hungry,” Ted said. The food was delivered in red plastic baskets. Again, it reminded Pauling of greasy spoons back in the day.

  Pauling ate her burger and had to agree with Ted, it was good. But she couldn’t eat like this much longer.

  Someone bumped into her from behind.

  Pauling turned and looked into the sweaty, greasy face of a woman. At first, she thought it was a man. But when the woman looked down at her and said, “Fuck outta my way,” Pauling could tell it was a woman.

  Her arms were huge, and one of them sported a barbed wire tattoo around the impressive bicep.

  The woman sat down a few tables away from Pauling and Ted.

  “Uh-oh,” Ted said.

  Pauling and Ted tried to focus on their cheeseburgers. Pauling’s was only half-eaten. Ted had demolished his but was picking at his fries. Pauling drank some of her beer when a shadow fell across the table. She looked up and saw the woman who had bumped into her staring down at her.

  "Who the hell are you?” the woman asked. Pauling could smell the alcohol on her breath and her pupils were totally dilated. She was clearly drunk.

  "My name is Pauling. What's yours?"

  “Oh great, another little birdie to fly around and bug the shit out of me," the woman said, ignoring Pauling’s question.

  "Look, we're just trying to have some cheeseburgers and a beer and then we're gonna get out of here," Ted said. "No need for any problem here.”

  "You goddamn right there's not gonna be a problem,” the woman said, her voice thick and slurry. “In the future, you bitches stay away from me."

  She left and went back to her table. There was a guy at her table. He was big with a bulging pot belly and a dirty t-shirt.

  "I think those are the construction people," Ted said. “They tend to be kind of rough. A lot of times they're worse than the military guys."


  "Yeah, why did she have such a problem with me?" Pauling said.

  "Because you’re competition," Ted said. “I have a feeling that when the guys are drunk, even on this island where there's hardly any women and the guys are all horny, she probably still has problems getting laid.”

  “Shocking with that winning personality of hers,” Pauling said.

  “And look at her,” Ted said, glancing over Pauling’s shoulder.

  “I’d rather not.”

  “What you lookin’ at?” The man with the big gut stood up and pointed at Ted.

  “Holy shit,” Ted said.

  The man’s chair scraped across the floor.

  “Hey, come on guys!” a voice called from another table. A man stood and Pauling recognized him as the pilot from the plane that brought her out to the island. He was sitting with his co-pilot and a military guy she hadn’t seen before.

  “Give me a round for that table!” he shouted at the bartender and then walked over to Pauling’s table. He stuck out his hand.

  “Brock Jamison, I flew you out here. Along with my partner over there, Josh Troyer.”

  He nodded at the table with the construction couple, who’d suddenly gone quiet.

  “It’s kind of like that Asian philosophy of how if you save someone’s life you’re responsible for them,” Jamison said. “That’s how I see it. When I fly you out here, my job isn’t over.”

  He laughed and Pauling was glad he was there. She and Ted were probably no match for those two.

  “Come on, Jamison, quit trying to be a hero,” Troyer said, and approached the table. “It doesn’t suit you very well.”

  He looked at Pauling. “I remember you. Didn’t we just fly out here a couple days ago? And you’re causing problems already?” He winked at her.

  Brock Jamison had returned from the bar with a tray of tequila shots. He took them over to the construction workers’ table and they spoke quietly.

  Pauling glanced over and they were looking at her, scowling. But the big guy had sat back down.

  Jamison returned to their table.

  “You can either come and sit with us or you’ve probably got about ten minutes before those new shots of tequila wear off and they start looking for a fight again.”

  Ted stood. “I think we’re going to go,” he said.

  Pauling decided not to push her luck.

  “Thank you for that,” she said to Jamison and nodded her head toward the loud-mouthed drunkards.

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  Pauling and Ted headed for the door. As they veered wide around the construction workers’ table the woman looked up at Pauling.

  “Watch it, birdie or you’ll fly away forever.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Pauling decided to go for a walk, although it wasn’t really possible to go for a true, aimless walk. Not unless you wanted to get shot by a sniper or step on a land mine.

  No, she had to settle for walking around the birders’ compound.

  She said good night to Ted and walked around behind the main building. The cheeseburger, even though she’d eaten only half of it due to the interruption by the manly female construction worker, sat heavy in her stomach.

  When she got off this island, she was going to eat nothing but salads of mixed greens for a month straight. And plenty of green tea. Plus, she would work out every damn day. Hardcore.

  She walked under a sky filled with stars, an absolutely windless night and the sound of the surf pounding below. As she walked, she thought about Paige.

  The first image that came to mind was that of Paige getting her ass kicked by the woman Pauling had just met at the Salty Crab. She made a note to find out who the woman was, her name, and talk to her, preferably when the woman wasn’t drunk and belligerent. She didn’t know if the woman was never not drunk or belligerent, but she would find out.

  She walked past the herbarium, past the maintenance shed with the trucks and the gas pumps. The road sloped down and she followed it, careful not to re-emerge onto the road. That was definitely not the place to be. Here, on the south side of the complex, she knew the military generally didn’t train.

  However, she had no intention of taking a chance.

  In the distance, she heard the high-pitched howl of what she assumed was a fox. They had once been extremely prevalent on the island, but had seen their numbers dwindle over the years. The population was stable, though, and in no danger of extinction.

  Pauling walked on, wanting to walk faster but aware that she had a limited range of travel. She would have to do laps–

  Slap.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  The sound of something hitting flesh. It sounded like a hand. Like someone had slapped someone’s face.

  She waited.

  Slap.

  It was to her left. Past the maintenance buildings, toward a tiny shed used for storage. Now, she saw a small light visible only from this side of the building.

  She walked toward it, careful not to make a sound.

  Slap.

  Pauling walked ahead, her ears straining for any voices.

  In the corner of her vision, just around the edge of the tiny shed, she saw a foot. Its laces were pressed into the ground, as if the owner was kneeling.

  Pauling widened her approach, and the scene came into view.

  Dr. Sirrine was on his knees behind Janey, his pants down and his naked ass exposed to the moon.

  Janey’s lower half was naked, her buttocks visible as Dr. Sirrine thrust into her and slapped her naked ass.

  Pauling stood, frozen.

  “You like that, don’t you?” Dr. Sirrine said, his voice a growl.

  “Yes, harder,” Janey said.

  Pauling had seen enough.

  She turned and tripped over a discarded set of plumbing pipes. She fell on her face in the long grass.

  Pauling heard the sound of feet scraping in the dirt and the rattle of a belt buckle. She ran toward the Nest, ducking around the larger maintenance building and then beelining it for the Nest.

  She made it inside and hurried to her room, let herself in and shut the door.

  She left the light off.

  It was a strange sense of guilt, but she simply didn’t want Dr. Sirrine and Janey to know that she had seen them. But it made her head spin. She’d figured there would be some cases of romance between the men and women who worked at the Nest, but she never would have figured on Dr. Sirrine and Janey. The age difference. The personalities.

  But most importantly, she wondered how it affected her investigation of what happened with Paige.

  Had Dr. Sirrine, who made every effort to appear morally superior, made advances on Paige? He’d clearly made them, and succeeded, with Janey.

  There was no way Paige would have acquiesced to Dr. Sirrine.

  But again, Pauling knew when it came to human beings, one could never really be sure of anything.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  In the morning, Pauling grabbed a cup of coffee and the keys to one of the pickup trucks.

  She no longer felt the need to ask. As she drove, she thought about island fever, that feeling of claustrophobia some people succumbed to. She wasn’t there yet, but the sense of isolation was strong.

  Now, she drove ahead past the cafeteria building and around the administration building to where she’d been told by Gabe the maintenance staff was housed.

  The maintenance department most likely included the construction workers.

  Pauling smiled at the idea of waking up the construction woman from the night before. It would be great payback for the woman’s boorish behavior. Pauling hoped she was hungover and feeling terrible.

  She would have some fun with it, she decided.

  There was an open two-story aluminum-sided garage set back from a driveway with a sign that read “Maintenance.”

  Pauling pulled the truck into the driveway, parked it and went inside.

  The smell of diesel fuel was str
ong, and she heard the clang of metal.

  There appeared to be no one in the front half of the garage. She walked toward the back, eventually seeing a desk with an ancient computer sitting on top of it.

  Her friend from the bar was sprawled on a couch that had been pushed up against the wall.

  Her face was pale and she had a Gatorade in her hand.

  She looked up at Pauling. Her bloodshot eyes narrowed.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I’d like to talk to you.”

  The woman shook her head.

  “I’ve got nothing to say,” she said, her voice sounding like sandpaper. “If I said something last night you don’t like, go ahead and complain to my supervisor.”

  The guy from the Crab with the pot belly and dirty t-shirt stepped into the space from a doorway off to the left. He still had on the same shirt.

  “There he is now,” the woman said.

  He had a giant iron wrench in his hand.

  Pauling smiled.

  “No complaints about last night,” Pauling said. “I had fun. I actually wanted to ask you about Paige Jones. She worked with the Bird Conservatory here.”

  “She the dead girl?”

  “What’s your name, by the way?” Pauling asked.

  “I’m Deb. And no, I don’t remember her.”

  “Shit, you don’t remember anything,” the guy said.

  “What’s your name?” Pauling asked him.

  “The hell should I tell you?” he said. His eyebrow was raised and he was hefting the wrench with apparent pleasure.

  “Why not?” Pauling answered.

  He nodded as if that was a good enough response for him. “I’m Donnie. I don’t remember her, but I heard one of the birdies died. Was that her? And that’s why you’re asking around?”

  “Paige was a very beautiful girl, dark hair.” Pauling produced the photo of Paige that she’d brought along.

  “Shit yeah, I remember her,” Donnie said. “Great ass. Those military guys ate her up.”

  “Literally,” Deb said. She and Donnie high-fived.

  “Did you ever threaten her like you did me?” Pauling asked.

  Donnie dropped his hands by his side like he was about to brawl. Deb’s head popped up and she winced, as if the movement hurt her.