by Lee Child
“We can move the truck if we need to. But we don’t need to often. Our processes have gotten very developed. Not much defeats us anymore.”
“Are you a chemist or a metallurgist or what?”
Thurman said, “I’m a born-again-Christian American and a businessman. That’s how I would describe myself, in that order of importance. But I hire the best talent I can find, at the executive level. Our research and development is excellent.”
Reacher nodded and said nothing. Thurman turned the wheel and steered a slow curve and headed back north, close to the east wall. The jaws of a giant crusher were closing on about ten wrecked cars at once. Beyond it a furnace door swung open and men ducked away from the blast of heat. A crucible moved slowly on an overhead track, full of liquid metal, all bubbling and crusting.
Thurman asked, “Are you born again?”
Reacher said, “Once was enough for me.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You should think about it.”
“My father used to say, why be born again, when you can just grow up?”
“Is he no longer with us?”
“He died a long time ago.”
“He’s in the other place, then, with an attitude like that.”
“He’s in a hole in the ground in Arlington Cemetery.”
“Another veteran?”
“A Marine.”
“Thank you for his service.”
“Don’t thank me. I had nothing to do with it.”
Thurman said, “You should think about getting your life in order, you know, before it’s too late. Something might happen. The Book of Revelation says, the time is at hand.”
“As it has every day since it was written, nearly two thousand years ago. Why would it be true now, when it wasn’t before?”
“There are signs,” Thurman said. “And the possibility of precipitating events.” He said it primly, and smugly, and with a degree of certainty, as if he had regular access to privileged insider information.
Reacher said nothing in reply.
They drove on, past a small group of tired men wrestling with a mountain of tangled steel. Their backs were bent and their shoulders were slumped. Not yet eight o’clock in the morning, Reacher thought. More than ten hours still to go.
“God watches over them,” Thurman said.
“You sure?”
“He tells me so.”
“Does he watch over you, too?”
“He knows what I do.”
“Does he approve?”
“He tells me so.”
“Then why is there a lightning rod on your church?”
Thurman didn’t answer that. He just clamped his mouth shut and his cheeks drooped lower than his jawbone. They arrived at the mouth of the cattle chute leading to the personnel gate. He stopped the truck and jiggled the stick into Park and sat back in his seat.
“Seen enough?” he asked.
“More than enough,” Reacher said.
“Then I’ll bid you goodbye,” Thurman said. “I imagine our paths won’t cross again.” He tucked his elbow in and offered his hand, sideways and awkwardly. Reacher shook it. It felt soft and warm and boneless, like a child’s balloon filled with water. Then Reacher opened his door and slid out and walked through the doglegged chute and back to the acres of parking.
Every window in Vaughan’s truck was smashed.
39
Reacher stood for a long moment and ran through his options and then unlocked the truck and swept pebbles of broken glass off the seats and the dash. He raked them out of the driver’s footwell. He didn’t want the brake pedal to jam halfway through its travel. Or the gas pedal. The truck was slow enough already.
Three miles back to town, twelve to the line, and then five to the center of Hope. A twenty-mile drive, cold and slow and very windy. Like riding a motorcycle without eye protection. Reacher’s face was numb and his eyes were watering by the end of the trip. He parked outside the diner a little before nine o’clock in the morning. Vaughan’s cruiser wasn’t there. She wasn’t inside. The place was three-quarters empty. The breakfast rush was over.
Reacher took the back booth and ordered coffee and breakfast from the day-shift waitress. The college girl was gone. The woman brought him a mug and filled it from a flask and he asked her, “Did Officer Vaughan stop by this morning?”
The woman said, “She left about a half-hour ago.”
“Was she OK?”
“She seemed quiet.”
“What about Maria? The girl from San Diego?”
“She was in before seven.”
“Did she eat?”
“Plenty.”
“What about Lucy? The blonde from LA?”
“Didn’t see her. I think she left town.”
“What does Officer Vaughan’s husband do?”
The waitress said, “Well, not much anymore,” as if it was a dumb question to ask. As if that particular situation should have been plain to everybody.
That particular situation wasn’t plain to Reacher.
He said, “What, he’s unemployed?”
The woman started to answer him, and then she stopped, as if she suddenly remembered that the situation wasn’t necessarily plain to everybody, and it wasn’t her place to make it plain. As if she was on the point of revealing something that shouldn’t be revealed, like private neighborhood business. She just shook her head with embarrassment and bustled away with her flask. She didn’t speak at all when she came back five minutes later with his food.
Twenty minutes later Reacher got back in the damaged truck and drove south and crossed Third Street, and Fourth, and turned left on Fifth. Way ahead of him he could make out Vaughan’s cruiser parked at the curb. He drove on and pulled up behind it, level with the mailbox with the perfectly aligned letters. He idled in the middle of the traffic lane for a moment. Then he got out and walked ahead and put a palm on the Crown Vic’s hood. It was still very warm. She had left the diner nearly an hour ago, but clearly she had driven around a little afterward. Maybe looking for her Chevy, or looking for him. Or neither, or both. He got back in the truck and backed up and swung the wheel and bumped up onto her driveway. He parked with the grille an inch from her garage door and slid out. Didn’t lock up. There didn’t seem to be much point.
He found the winding path and followed it through the bushes to her door. He hooked her keyring on his finger and tapped the bell, briefly, just once. If she was awake, she would hear it. If she was asleep, it wouldn’t disturb her.
She was awake.
The door opened and she looked out of the gloom straight at him. Her hair was wet from the shower and combed back. She was wearing an oversized white T-shirt. Possibly nothing else. Her legs were bare. Her feet were bare. She looked younger and smaller than before.
She said, “How did you find me?”
He said, “Phone book.”
“You were here last night. Looking. A neighbor told me.”
“It’s a nice house.”
She said, “I like it.”
She saw the truck keys on his finger. He said, “I have a confession to make.”
“What now?”
“Someone broke all the windows.”
She pushed past him and stepped out to the path. Turned to face the driveway and studied the damage and said, “Shit.” Then it seemed to dawn on her that she was out in the yard barefoot in her nightwear and she pushed back inside.
“Who?” she asked.
“One of a thousand suspects.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Where?”
“I stopped by the metal plant.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll pay for the glass.” He slipped the keys off his finger and held them out. She didn’t take them. Instead she said, “You better come in.”
The house was laid out the way he had guessed. Right to left it went garage
, mudroom, kitchen, living room, bedrooms. The kitchen seemed to be the heart of the home. It was a pretty space with painted cabinets and a wallpaper border at the top of the walls. The dishwasher was running and the sink was empty and the counters were tidy but there was enough disarray to make the room feel lived in. There was a four-place table with only three chairs. There were what Reacher’s mother had called “touches.” Dried flowers, bottles of virgin olive oil that would never be used, antique spoons. Reacher’s mother had said such things gave a room personality. Reacher himself had been unsure how anything except a person could have personality. He had been a painfully literal child. But over the years he had come to see what his mother had meant. And Vaughan’s kitchen had personality.
Her personality, he guessed.
It seemed to him that one mind had chosen everything and one pair of hands had done everything. There was no evidence of compromise or dueling tastes. He knew that way back a kitchen was considered a woman’s domain. Certainly it had been that way in his mother’s day, but she had been French, which had made a difference. And since then he had been led to believe that things had changed. Guys cooked now, or at least left six-packs lying around, or put oil stains on the linoleum from fixing motorcycle engines.
There was no evidence of a second person in the house. None at all. Not a trace. From his position by the sink Reacher could see into the living room through an arch that was really just a doorway with the door taken out. There was a single armchair in there, and a TV set, and a bunch of moving boxes still taped shut.
Vaughan said, “Want coffee?”
“Always.”
“Did you sleep last night?”
“No.”
“Don’t have coffee, then.”
“It keeps me awake until bedtime.”
“What’s the longest you ever stayed awake?”
“Seventy-two hours, maybe.”
“Working?”
He nodded. “Some big deal, twenty years ago.”
“A big MP deal?”
He nodded again. “Somebody was doing something to somebody. I don’t recall the details.”
Vaughan rinsed her coffee pot and filled her machine with water. The machine was a big steel thing with Cuisinart embossed on it in large letters. It looked reliable. She spooned coffee into a gold basket and hit a switch. She said, “Last night the deputies from Despair headed home after an hour.”
“They found me in the bar,” Reacher said. “They flushed me west with the phone call and then came after me. It was a trap.”
“And you fell for it.”
“They fell for it. I knew what they were doing.”
“How?”
“Because twenty years ago I used to stay up for seventy-two hours at a time dealing with worse folks than you’ll ever find in Despair.”
“What happened to the deputies?”
“They joined their full-time buddies in the infirmary.”
“All four of them?”
“All six of them. They added some on-site moral support.”
“You’re a one-man crime wave.”
“No, I’m Alice in Wonderland.”
Now Vaughan nodded.
“I know,” she said. “Why aren’t they doing anything about it? You’ve committed assault and battery on eight individuals, six of them peace officers, and you’ve wrecked two police cars. And yet you’re still walking around.”
“That’s the point,” Reacher said. “I’m still walking around, but in Hope, not in Despair. That’s weirdness number one. All they ever want to do is keep people out of there. They’re not interested in the law or justice or punishment.”
“What’s weirdness number two?”
“They came at me six against one and I walked away with two bruises and sore knuckles from pounding on them. They’re all weak and sick. One of them even had to call it quits so he could find time to throw up.”
“So what’s that about?”
“The clerk at my motel figures they’re breaking environmental laws. Maybe there’s all kinds of poisons and pollution out there.”
“Is that what they’re hiding?”
“Possibly,” Reacher said. “But it’s kind of odd that the victims would help to hide the problem.”
“People worry about their jobs,” Vaughan said. “Especially in a company town, because they don’t have any alternatives.” She opened a cabinet and took out a mug. It was white, perfectly cylindrical, four inches high, and two and a half inches wide. It was made of fine bone china as thin as paper. She filled it from the pot and immediately from the aroma Reacher knew it was going to be a great one. She glanced at the living room but carried the mug to the kitchen table instead, and placed it down in front of one of the three chairs. Reacher glanced at the boxes and the lone armchair in the living room and said, “Just moved in?”
“A year and a half ago,” Vaughan said. “I guess I’m a little slow unpacking.”
“From where?”
“Third Street. We had a little cottage with an upstairs, but we decided we wanted a ranch.”
“We?”
“David and I.”
Reacher asked, “So where is he?”
“He’s not here right now.”
“Should I be sorry about that?”
“A little.”
“What does he do?”
“Not so much anymore.” She sat in one of the chairs without the mug in front of it and tugged the hem of her T-shirt down. Her hair was drying and going wavy again. She was naked under the shirt, and confident about it. Reacher was sure of that. She was looking straight at him, like she knew he knew.
He sat down opposite her.
She asked, “What else?”
“My motel clerk figures the plant makes way too much money.”
“That’s common knowledge. Thurman owns the bank, and bank auditors gossip. He’s a very rich man.”
“My motel clerk figures he’s smuggling dope or something with his little airplane.”
“Do you think he is?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s your conclusion?”
“Not entirely.”
“So what else?”
“A quarter of the plant is screened off. There’s a secret area. I think he’s got a contract to recycle military scrap. Hence the wealth. A Pentagon contract is the fastest way on earth to get rich these days. And hence the MP unit down the road. Thurman is breaking up classified stuff back there, and people would be interested in it. Armor thickness, materials, construction techniques, circuit boards, all that kind of stuff.”
“So that’s all? Legitimate government business?”
“No,” Reacher said. “That’s not all.”
40
Reacher took the first sip of his coffee. It was perfect. Hot, strong, smooth, and a great mug. He looked across the table at Vaughan and said, “Thank you very much.”
She said, “What else is going on there?”
“I don’t know. But there’s a hell of a vigilante effort going on about something. After the PD ended up depopulated I went to see the local judge about getting sworn in as a deputy.”
“You weren’t serious.”
“Of course not. But I pretended I was. I wanted to see the reaction. The guy panicked. He went crazy. He said he’d deputize the whole population first. They’re totally serious about keeping strangers out.”
“Because of the military stuff.”
“No,” Reacher said. “That’s the MPs’ job. Any hint of espionage, Thurman’s people would get on the radio and the MPs would lock and load and about a minute later the whole town would be swarming with Humvees. The townspeople wouldn’t be involved.”
“So what’s going on?”
“At least two other things.”
“Why two?”
“Because their responses are completely incoherent. Which means there are at least two other factions in play, separate and probably unaware of each other. Like this mor
ning, Thurman had me checked out. He saw that my paper trail went cold ten years ago, and therefore I was no obvious danger to him, and then he ran your plate and saw that I was in some way associated with a cop from the next town, and therefore in some way untouchable, so he played nice and gave me a guided tour. But meanwhile without all that information someone else was busy busting your windows. And nobody busts a cop’s windows for the fun of it. Therefore the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”
“Thurman gave you a tour?”
“He said he’d show me everything.”
“And did he?”
“No. He stayed away from the secret area. He said it was just a junkyard.”
“Are you sure it isn’t?”
“I saw activity in there earlier. Smoke and sparks. Plus it’s carefully screened off. Who does that, for a junkyard?”
“What are the two other factions?”
“I have no idea. But these young guys are involved somehow. Lucy Anderson’s husband and the dead guy. And Lucy Anderson’s husband is another example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. They sheltered him and moved him on but threw his wife out of town like a pariah. How much sense does that make?”
“He moved on?”
“I saw him at the rooming house at three o’clock and he was gone by seven. No trace of him, and nobody would admit he had ever been there.”
“The plane flies at seven,” Vaughan said. “Is that connected?”
“I don’t know.”
“No trace at all?”
“No physical sign, and a lot of zipped lips.”
“So what’s going on?”
“When was the last time any normal person entered Despair and stayed as long as he wanted and left of his own accord? To your certain knowledge?”
“I don’t know,” Vaughan said. “Months, certainly.”
“There was an entry in the hotel register from seven months ago.”
“That sounds about right.”
“I met the new girl last night,” Reacher said. “Sweet kid. Her name is Maria. I’m pretty sure the dead guy was her boyfriend. She showed me his picture. His name was Raphael Ramirez.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
