by Lee Child
Reacher went in through the door and spoke to a receptionist at a counter. Asked to see A. A. Rodin himself. “About what?” the receptionist asked, quietly but politely. She was middle-aged, well cared for, well turned out, wearing a clean white blouse. She looked like she had worked behind a desk all her life. A practiced bureaucrat. But stressed. She looked like she was carrying all the town’s recent troubles on her shoulders.
“About James Barr,” Reacher said.
“Are you a reporter?” the receptionist asked.
“No,” Reacher said.
“May I tell Mr. Rodin’s office your connection to the case?”
“I knew James Barr in the army.”
“That must have been some time ago.”
“A long time ago,” Reacher said.
“May I have your name?”
“Jack Reacher.”
The receptionist dialed a phone and spoke. Reacher guessed she was speaking to a secretary, because both he and Rodin were referred to in the third person, like abstractions. Can he see a Mr. Reacher about the case? Not the Barr case. Just the case. The conversation continued. Then the receptionist covered the phone by clamping it to her chest, below her collarbone, above her left breast.
“Do you have information?” she asked.
The secretary upstairs can hear your heart beating, Reacher thought.
“Yes,” he said. “Information.”
“From the army?” she asked.
Reacher nodded. The receptionist put the phone back to her face and continued the conversation. It was a long one. Mr. A. A. Rodin had an efficient pair of gatekeepers. That was clear. No way of getting past them without some kind of an urgent and legitimate reason. That was clear, too. Reacher checked his watch. Nine-forty in the morning. But there was no rush, under the circumstances. Barr was in a coma. Tomorrow would do it. Or the next day. Or maybe he could get to Rodin through the cop, if need be. What was his name? Emerson?
The receptionist hung up the phone.
“Please go straight up,” she said. “Mr. Rodin is on the third floor.”
I’m honored, Reacher thought. The receptionist wrote his name on a visitor pass and slipped it into a plastic sleeve. He clipped it on his shirt and headed for the elevator. Rode it to the third floor. The third floor had low ceilings and internal corridors lit by fluorescent tubes. There were three doors made of painted fiberboard that were closed and one set of double doors made of polished wood that were open. Behind those was a secretary at a desk. The second gatekeeper. She was younger than the downstairs lady but presumably more senior.
“Mr. Reacher?” she asked.
He nodded and she came out from behind her desk and led him to where the windowed offices started. The third door they came to was labeled A. A. Rodin.
“What’s the A. A. for?” Reacher asked.
“I’m sure Mr. Rodin will tell you if he wants to,” the secretary said.
She knocked on the door and Reacher heard a baritone reply from inside. Then she opened the door and stood aside for Reacher to go in past her.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re most welcome,” she said.
Reacher went in. Rodin was already on his feet behind his desk, ready to welcome his visitor, full of reflexive courtesy. Reacher recognized him from the TV. He was a guy of about fifty, fairly lean, fairly fit, gray hair cut short. In person he looked smaller. He was maybe an inch under six feet and a pound under two hundred. He was dressed in a summer-weight suit, dark blue. He had a blue shirt on, and a blue tie. His eyes were blue. Blue was his color, no doubt about it. He was immaculately shaved and wearing cologne. He was a very squared-away guy, no question. As opposed to me, Reacher thought. It was like a study in contrasts. Next to Rodin, Reacher was an unkempt giant. He was six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier. His hair was two inches longer and his clothes were a thousand dollars cheaper.
“Mr. Reacher?” Rodin said.
Reacher nodded. The office was government-basic, but neat. It was cool and quiet. No real view from the window. Just the flat roofs of the off-brand stores and the DMV office, with all the ductwork showing. The black glass tower was visible in the distance. There was a weak sun in the sky. At a right angle to the window there was a trophy wall behind the desk, with college degree certificates and photographs of Rodin with politicians. There were framed newspaper headlines reporting guilty verdicts in seven different cases. On another wall was a photograph of a blonde girl wearing a mortarboard and a gown and holding a degree scroll. She was pretty. Reacher looked at her for a moment longer than he needed to.
“That’s my daughter,” Rodin said. “She’s a lawyer, too.”
“Is she?” Reacher said.
“She just opened her own office here in town.”
There was nothing in his tone. Reacher wasn’t sure whether he was proud, or disapproving.
“You’re due to meet with her, I think,” Rodin said.
“Am I?” Reacher said. “Why?”
“She’s defending James Barr.”
“Your daughter? Is that ethical?”
“There’s no law against it. It might not be sensible, but it’s not unethical.”
He said sensible with emphasis, hinting at a number of meanings. Not smart to defend a notorious case, not smart for a daughter to take on her father, not smart for anyone to take on A. A. Rodin. He sounded like a very competitive guy.
“She put your name on her provisional witness list,” he said.
“Why?”
“She thinks you have information.”
“Where did she get my name?”
“I don’t know.”
“From the Pentagon?”
Rodin shrugged. “I’m not sure. But she got it from somewhere. Therefore people have been looking for you.”
“Is that why I got in here?”
Rodin nodded.
“Yes, it is,” he said. “That’s exactly why. Generally I don’t encourage walk-ins.”
“Your staff seems to be on board with that policy.”
“I certainly hope so,” Rodin said. “Sit down, please.”
Reacher sat in the visitor chair and Rodin sat behind his desk. The window was on Reacher’s left and Rodin’s right. Neither man had the light in his eyes. It was an equitable furniture arrangement. Different from some prosecutors’ offices Reacher had known.
“Coffee?” Rodin asked.
“Please,” Reacher said.
Rodin made a call and asked for coffee.
“Naturally I’m interested in why you came to see me first,” he said. “The prosecution, I mean, rather than the defense.”
“I wanted your personal opinion,” Reacher said.
“On what?”
“On how strong a case you’ve got against James Barr.”
Rodin didn’t answer immediately. There was a short silence and then there was a knock at the door and the secretary came in with coffee. She had a silver tray with the works on it. A French press, two cups, two saucers, a sugar bowl, a tiny pitcher of cream, two silver spoons. The cups were fine china. Not government issue, Reacher thought. Rodin likes his coffee done right. The secretary put the tray on the edge of the desk, so that it was exactly halfway between the desk chair and the visitor chair.
“Thanks,” Reacher said.
“You’re most welcome,” she said, and left the room.
“Help yourself,” Rodin said. “Please.”
Reacher pushed the plunger down and poured himself a cup, no cream, no sugar. It smelled dark and strong. Coffee, done right.
“The case against James Barr is exceptionally good,” Rodin said.
“Eyewitnesses?” Reacher asked.
“No,” Rodin said. “But eyewitness testimony can be of random value. I’m almost glad we don’t have eyewitnesses. Because what we’ve got instead is exceptional physical evidence. And science doesn’t lie. It doesn’t get confused.”
“Exceptional?” Reacher said.
“A complete rock-solid evidence trail that ties the man to the crime.”
“How solid?”
“As good as it gets. The best I’ve ever seen. I’m completely confident.”
“I’ve heard prosecutors say that before.”
“Not this one, Mr. Reacher. I’m a very cautious man. I don’t prosecute capital cases unless I’m certain of the outcome.”
“Keeping score?”
Rodin gestured above and behind him at his trophy wall.
“Seven for seven,” he said. “One hundred percent.”
“In how long?”
“In three years. James Barr will make it eight for eight. If he ever wakes up.”
“Suppose he wakes up damaged?”
“If he wakes up with any brain function at all, he’s going to trial. What he did here can’t be forgiven.”
“OK,” Reacher said.
“OK what?”
“You’ve told me what I wanted to know.”
“You said you had information. From the army.”
“I’ll keep it to myself for now.”
“You were a military policeman, am I right?”
“Thirteen years,” Reacher said.
“And you knew James Barr?”
“Briefly.”
“Tell me about him.”
“Not yet.”
“Mr. Reacher, if you have exculpatory information, or anything to add at all, you really need to tell me now.”
“Do I?”
“I’ll get it anyway. My daughter will submit it. She’ll be looking for a plea bargain.”
“What does the A. A. stand for?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your initials.”
“Aleksei Alekseivitch. My family came from Russia. But a long time ago. Before the October Revolution.”
“But they keep up traditions.”
“As you can see.”
“What do people call you?”
“Alex, of course.”
Reacher stood up. “Well, thanks for your time, Alex. And the coffee.”
“Are you going to see my daughter now?”
“Is there any point? You seem pretty sure of yourself.”
Rodin smiled an indulgent smile.
“It’s a matter of procedure,” he said. “I’m an officer of the court, and you’re on a witness list. I’m obliged to point out that you’re obliged to go. Anything less would be unethical.”
“Where is she?”
“In the glass tower you can see from the window.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “I guess I could drop by.”
“I still need whatever information you have,” Rodin said.
Reacher shook his head.
“No,” he said. “You really don’t.”
He returned his visitor pass to the woman at the reception desk and headed back to the public plaza. Stood in the cold sun and turned a complete circle, getting a sense of the place. All cities are the same, and all cities are different. They all have colors. Some are gray. This one was brown. Reacher guessed the brick was made from local clay and had carried the color of old farmland into the facades. Even the stone was flecked with tan, like it carried deposits of iron. There were accents of dark red here and there, like old barns. It was a warm place, not busy, but it was surviving. It would rebound after the tragedy. There was progress and optimism and dynamism. All the new construction proved it. There were work zones and raw concrete curbs everywhere. Lots of planning, lots of rebuilding. Lots of hope.
The new parking garage extension anchored the north end of the downtown strip. It suggested commercial expansion. It was south and slightly west of the kill zone. Very close. Directly west and maybe twice as distant was a length of the raised highway. It ran free and clear through a curve for maybe thirty yards before curling in behind the library. Then it curled some more and passed behind the black glass tower. The tower was due north of the plaza. It had an NBC sign near the door, on a black granite slab. Ann Yanni’s workplace, Reacher guessed, as well as Rodin’s daughter’s. East of the plaza was the office building with the DMV and the recruiting office. That was where the victims had come from. They had spilled out the door. What had Ann Yanni said? At the end of a long workweek? They had hustled west across the plaza toward their parked cars or the bus depot and had stumbled into a nightmare. The narrow walkway would have slowed them down and lined them up. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
Reacher walked the length of the empty ornamental pool to the revolving door at the base of the tower. He went in and checked the lobby for a directory. There was a glassed-in board made of ridged black felt with press-in white letters. NBC was on the second floor. Some of the other suites were empty, and Reacher guessed the rest changed hands fast enough to make it worth holding on to the press-in letter system. Law Offices of Helen Rodin was listed on four. The letters were a little misaligned and the spacing was off. Rockefeller Center it ain’t, Reacher thought.
He waited for the elevator in a queue of two, him and a pretty blonde woman. He looked at her and she looked at him. She got out on two and he realized it was Ann Yanni. He recognized her from the broadcast. Then he figured all he needed to do was meet Emerson from the local PD and he would have brought the whole breaking-news tableau to life.
He found Helen Rodin’s suite. It was at the front of the building. Her windows were going to overlook the plaza. He knocked. Heard a muffled reply and went in. There was an empty reception room with a secretary’s desk. The desk was unoccupied. It was secondhand, but not recently used. No secretary yet, Reacher thought. Early days.
He knocked on the inner office door. Heard the same voice make a second reply. He went in and found Helen Rodin at another secondhand desk. He recognized her from her father’s photograph. But face-to-face she looked even better. She was probably no more than thirty, quite tall, lightly built. Slim, in an athletic sort of a way. Not anorexic. Either she ran or played soccer or had been very lucky with her metabolism. She had long blonde hair and her father’s blue eyes. There was intelligence behind them. She was dressed all in black, in a pantsuit with a tight stretch top under the coat. Lycra, Reacher thought. Can’t beat it.
“Hello,” she said.
“I’m Jack Reacher,” he said.
She stared at him. “You’re kidding. Are you really?”
He nodded. “Always have been, always will be.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Not really. Everybody’s somebody.”
“I mean, how did you know to come? We couldn’t find you.”
“I saw it on the TV. Ann Yanni, Saturday morning.”
“Well, thank God for TV,” she said. “And thank God you’re here.”
“I was in Miami,” he said. “With a dancer.”
“A dancer?”
“She was Norwegian,” he said.
He walked to the window and looked out. He was four stories up and the main shopping street ran away directly south, down a hill, emphasizing his elevation. The ornamental pool was placed with its long axis exactly lined up with the street. The pool was on the street, really, except they had blocked the street off to make the plaza. Someone returning from a long spell away would be surprised to find a big tank of water where once there had been roadway. The pool was much longer and narrower than it had looked from ground level. It looked sad and empty, with just a thin layer of mud and scum on the black tile. Beyond it and slightly to the right was the new parking structure. It was slightly downhill from the plaza. Maybe half a story’s difference.
“Were you here?” Reacher asked. “When it happened?”
“Yes, I was,” Helen Rodin said quietly.
“Did you see it?”
“Not at first. I heard the first three gunshots. They came very fast. The first, and then a tiny pause, and then the next two. Then another pause, a little longer, but just a split second, really. I stood up in time for the last three. Horrible.”
Reacher nodded. Brav
e girl, he thought. She hears gunshots, and she stands up. She doesn’t dive under the desk. Then he thought: The first, and then a tiny pause. That was the sound of a skilled rifleman watching where his first cold shot went. So many variables. The cold barrel, the range, the wind, the zeroing, the sighting-in.
“Did you see people die?” he asked.
“Two of them,” she said behind him. “It was awful.”
“Three shots and two people?”
“He missed once. Either the fourth or the fifth shot, they’re not sure. They found the bullet in the pool. That’s why it’s empty. They drained it.”
Reacher said nothing.
“The bullet is part of the evidence,” Helen said. “It ties the rifle to the crime.”
“Did you know any of the dead people?”
“No. They were just people, I guess. In the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Reacher said nothing.
“I saw flames from the gun,” Helen said. “Way over there, in the shadows, in the dark. Little spits of flame.”
“Muzzle flashes,” Reacher said.
He turned back from the window. She held out her hand.
“I’m Helen Rodin,” she said. “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself properly.”
Reacher took her hand. It was warm and firm.
“Just Helen?” he said. “Not Helena Alekseyovna or something?”
She stared at him again. “How the hell did you know that?”
“I met your dad,” he said, and let go of her hand.
“Did you?” she said. “Where?”
“In his office, just now.”
“You went to his office? Today?”
“I just left there.”
“Why did you go to his office? You’re my witness. He shouldn’t have seen you.”
“He was very keen to talk.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. I asked questions instead.”
“What questions?”
“I wanted to know how strong his case was. Against James Barr.”
“I’m representing James Barr. And you’re a defense witness. You should have been talking to me, not him.”
