Echo Burning jr-5

by Lee Child

  "I'll think about it," Alice said.

  "Twenty-five?" the guy said.

  "Twenty-five thousand dollars?"

  The guy nodded. "That's about as high as I can go, being fair to myself. I got to eat, after all."

  "Let me think about it," Alice said.

  "Well, don't think too long," the guy said. "The market might change. And I'm the only game in town. Piece like this, it'll scare anybody else."

  They stopped together on the sidewalk right outside the store. Alice was holding the ring like it was red hot. Then she opened her pocketbook and put it in a zippered compartment. Used her fingertips to push it all the way down.

  "Guy like that says twenty-five, it's got to be worth sixty," Reacher said. "Maybe more. Maybe a lot more. My guess is he's not the Better Business Bureaus poster boy."

  "A lot more than thirty dollars, anyway," Alice said. "A fake? Cubic zirconium? She's playing us for fools."

  He nodded, vaguely. He knew she meant playing you for a fool. He knew she was too polite to say it.

  "Let's go," he said.

  They walked west through the heat, back to the cheap part of town, beyond the courthouse, next to the railroad tracks. It was about a mile, and they spent thirty minutes on it. It was too hot to hurry. He didn't speak the whole way. Just fought his usual interior battle about exactly when to give up on a lost cause.

  He stopped her again at the door to the mission.

  "I want to try one last thing," he said.

  "Why?" she asked.

  "Because I'm from the army," he said. "First we double-check, then we triple-check."

  She sighed. A little impatience there. "What do you want to do?"

  "You need to drive me."

  "Where?"

  "There's an eyewitness we can talk to."

  "An eyewitness? Where?"

  "In school, down in Echo."

  "The kid?"

  He nodded. "Ellie. She's sharp as a tack."

  "She's six years old."

  "If it was happening, I'll bet she knows."

  Alice stood completely still for a second. Then she glanced in through the windows. The place was crowded with customers. They looked listless from the heat and beaten down by life.

  "It's not fair to them," she said. "I need to move on."

  "Just this one last thing."

  "I'll lend you the car again. You can go alone."

  He shook his head. "I need your opinion. You're the lawyer. And I won't get in the schoolhouse without you. You've got status. I haven't."

  "I can't do it. It'll take all day."

  "How long would it have taken to get the money from the rancher? How many billable hours?"

  "We don't bill."

  "You know what I mean."

  She was quiet for a moment.

  "O.K.," she said. "A deal's a deal, I guess."

  "This is the last thing, I promise."

  "Why, exactly?" she asked.

  * * *

  They were in the yellow VW, heading south on the empty road out of Pecos. He recognized none of the landmarks. It had been dark when he came the other way in the back of the police cruiser.

  "Because I was an investigator," he said.

  "O.K.," she said. "Investigators investigate. That, I can follow. But don't they stop investigating? I mean, ever? When they know already?"

  "Investigators never know," he said. "They feel, and they guess."

  "I thought they dealt in facts."

  "Not really," he said. "I mean, eventually they do, I suppose. But ninety-nine percent of the time it's ninety-nine percent about what you feel. About people. A good investigator is a person with a feel for people."

  "Feeling doesn't change black into white."

  He nodded. "No, it doesn't."

  "Weren't you ever wrong before?"

  "Of course I was. Lots of times."

  "But?"

  "But I don't think I'm wrong now."

  "So why, exactly?" she asked again.

  "Because I know things about people, Alice."

  "So do I," she said. "Like, I know Carmen Greer suckered you, too."

  He said nothing more. Just watched her drive, and locked at the view ahead. He could see mountains in the distance, where Carmen had chased the school bus. He had the FedEx packet on his knees. He fanned himself with it. Balanced it on his fingers. Turned it over and over, aimlessly. Stared down at the front and the back, at the orange and purple logo, at the label, at the meaningless little words all over it, sender, addressee, extremely urgent, commodity description, dimensions in inches, twelve-by-nine, weight in pounds, two-point-six, payment, recipient's contact information, overnight, no post office box number, shipper must check: this shipment does not contain dangerous goods. He shook his head and pitched it behind him, onto the backseat.

  "She had no money with her," he said.

  Alice said nothing back. Just drove on, piloting the tiny car fast and economically. He could feel her pitying him. It was suddenly coming off her in waves.

  "What?" he said.

  "We should turn around," she said. "This is a complete waste of time."

  "Why?"

  "Because exactly what is Ellie going to tell us? I mean, I can follow your thinking. If Carmen really did get a broken arm, then she must have been wearing a plaster cast for six weeks. And Ellie's a smart kid, so she'll recall it. Same for the jaw thing. Broken jaw, you're all wired up for a spell. Certainly a kid would remember that. If any of this really happened, and if it happened recently enough that she can remember anything at all."

  "But?"

  "But we know she was never in a cast. We know she never had her jaw wired. We've got her medical records, remember? They're right here in the car with us. Everything she ever went to the hospital for. Or do you think setting bones is a do-it-yourself activity? You think the blacksmith did it in the barn? So the very best Ellie can do is confirm what we already know. And most likely she won't remember anything anyway, because she's just a kid. So this trip is a double waste of time."

  "Let's do it anyway," he said. "We're halfway there already. She might recall something useful. And I want to see her again. She's a great kid."

  "I'm sure she is," Alice said. "But spare yourself, O.K.? Because what are you going to do? Adopt her? She's the one with the raw end of this deal, so you might as well accept it and forget all about her."

  They didn't speak again until they arrived at the crossroads with the diner and the school and the gas station. Alice parked exactly where Carmen had and they got out together into the heat.

  "I better come with you," Reacher said. "She knows me. We can bring her out and talk in the car."

  They went through the wire gate into the yard. Then through the main door into the schoolhouse itself, into the school smell. They were out again a minute later. Ellie Greer wasn't there, and she hadn't been there die day before, either.

  "Understandable, I guess," Alice said. "Traumatic time for her."

  Reacher nodded. "So let's go. It's only another hour south."

  "Great," Alice said.

  They got back in the VW and drove the next sixty miles of parched emptiness without talking. It took a little less than an hour, because Alice drove faster than Carmen had wanted to. Reacher recognized the landmarks. He saw the old oil field, on the distant horizon off to the left. Greer Three.

  "It's coming up," he said.

  Alice slowed. The red-painted picket fence replaced the wire and the gate swam into view through the haze. Alice braked and turned in under it. The small car bounced uncomfortably across the yard. She stopped it close to the bottom of the familiar porch steps and turned off the motor. The whole place was silent. No activity. But people were home, because all the cars were lined up in the vehicle barn. The white Cadillac was there, and the Jeep Cherokee, and the new pick-up, and the old pick-up. They were all crouched there in the shadows.

  They got out of the car and stood for a second behind the open doo
rs, like they offered protection from something. The air was very still, and hotter than ever. Easily a hundred and ten degrees, maybe more. He led her up the porch steps into the shadow of the roof and knocked on the door. It opened almost immediately. Rusty Greer was standing there. She was holding a .22 rifle, one-handed. She stayed silent for a long moment, just looking him over. Then she spoke.

  "It's you," she said. "I thought it might be Bobby."

  "You lost him?" Reacher said.

  Rusty shrugged. "He went out. He isn't back yet."

  Reacher glanced back at the motor barn.

  "All the cars are here," he said.

  "Somebody picked him up," Rusty said. "I was upstairs. Didn't see them. Just heard them."

  Reacher said nothing.

  "Anyway," Rusty said. "I didn't expect to see you again, ever."

  "This is Carmen's lawyer," Reacher said.

  Rusty turned and glanced at Alice. "This is the best she could do?"

  "We need to see Ellie."

  "What for?"

  "We're interviewing witnesses."

  "A child can't be a witness."

  "I'll decide that," Alice said.

  Rusty just smiled at her.

  "Ellie's not here," she said.

  "Well, where is she?" Reacher said. "She's not in school."

  Rusty said nothing.

  "Mrs. Greer, we need to know where Ellie is," Alice said.

  Rusty smiled again. "I don't know where she is, lawyer girl."

  "Why not?" Alice asked.

  "Because Family Services took her, that's why not."

  "When?"

  "This morning. They came for her."

  "And you let them take her?" Reacher said.

  "Why wouldn't I? I don't want her. Now that Sloop is gone."

  Reacher stared at her. "But she's your granddaughter."

  Rusty made a dismissive gesture. The rifle moved in her hand.

  "That's a fact I was never thrilled about," she said.

  "Where did they take her?"

  "An orphanage, I guess," Rusty said. "And then she'll get adopted, if anybody wants her. Which they probably won't. I understand half-breeds are very difficult to place. Decent folk generally don't want beaner trash."

  There was silence. Just the tiny sounds of dry earth baking in the heat.

  "I hope you get a tumor," Reacher said.

  He turned around and walked back to the car without waiting for Alice. Got in and slammed the door and sat staring forward with his face burning and his massive hands clenching and unclenching. She got in beside him and fired up the motor.

  "Get me out of here," he said. She took off in a cloud of dust. Neither of them spoke a single word, all the way north to Pecos.

  * * *

  It was three in the afternoon when they got back, and the legal mission was half empty because of the heat. There was the usual thicket of messages on Alice's desk. Five of them were from Hack Walker. They made a neat little sequence, each of them more urgent than the last.

  "Shall we go?" Alice asked.

  "Don't tell him about the diamond," Reacher said.

  "It's over now, don't you see?"

  And it was. Reacher saw it right away in Walker's face. There was relaxation there. Some kind of finality. Closure. Some kind of peace. He was sitting behind his desk. His desk was all covered with papers. They were arranged in two piles. One was taller than the other.

  "What?" Reacher asked.

  Walker ignored him and handed a single sheet to Alice.

  "Waiver of her Miranda rights," he said. "Read it carefully. She's declining legal representation, and she's declaring that it's entirely voluntary. And she adds that she refused your representation from the very start."

  "I doubted her competence," Alice said.

  Walker nodded. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But there's no doubt now. So you're here purely as a courtesy, O.K.? Both of you."

  Then he handed over the smaller pile of papers. Alice took them and fanned them out and Reacher leaned to his right to look at them. They were computer printouts. They were all covered in figures and dates. They were bank records. Balance statements and transaction listings. Credits and debits. There seemed to be five separate accounts. Two were regular checking accounts. Three were money-market deposits. They were titled Greer Non-Discretionary Trust, numbers one through five. The balances were healthy. Very healthy. There was a composite total somewhere near two million dollars.

  "Al Eugene's people messengered them over," Walker said. "Now look at the bottom sheets."

  Alice riffed through. The bottom sheets were paper-clipped together. Reacher read over her shoulder. There was a lot of legal text. It added up to the formal minutes of a trust agreement. There was a notarized deed attached. It stated in relatively straightforward language that for the time being a single trustee was in absolute sole control of all Sloop Greets funds. That single trustee was identified as Sloop Greer's legal wife, Carmen.

  "She had two million bucks in the bank," Walker said. "All hers, effectively."

  Reacher glanced at Alice. She nodded.

  "He's right," she said.

  "Now look at the last clause of the minutes," Walker said.

  Alice turned the page. The last clause concerned reversion. The trusts would become discretionary once again and return the funds to Sloop's own control at a future date to be specified by him. Unless he first became irreversibly mentally incapacitated. Or died. Whereupon all existing balances would become Carmen's sole property, in the first instance as a matter of prior agreement, and in the second, as a matter of inheritance.

  "Is all of that clear?" Walker asked.

  Reacher said nothing, but Alice nodded.

  Then Walker passed her the taller pile.

  "Now read this," he said.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "A transcript," Walker said. "Of her confession."

  There was silence.

  "She confessed?" Alice said.

  "We videotaped it," Walker said.

  "When?"

  "Noon today. My assistant went to see her as soon as the financial stuff came in. We tried to find you first, but we couldn't. Then she told us she didn't want a lawyer anyway. So we had her sign the waiver. Then she spilled her guts. We brought her up here and videotaped the whole thing over again. It's not pretty."

  Reacher was half-listening, half-reading. It wasn't pretty. That was for damn sure. It started out with all the usual assurances about free will and absolute absence of coercion. She stated her name. Went all the way back to her L.A. days. She had been an illegitimate child. She had been a hooker. Street stroller, she called it. Some odd barrio expression, Reacher assumed. Then she came off the streets and started stripping, and changed her title to sex worker. She had latched onto Sloop, just like Walker had claimed. My meal ticket, she called him. Then it became a story of impatience. She was bored witless in Texas. She wanted out, but she wanted money in her pocket. The more money the better. Sloop's IRS trouble was a godsend. The trusts were tempting. She tried to have him killed in prison, which she knew from her peers was possible, but she found out that a federal minimum-security facility wasn't that sort of a place. So she waited. As soon as she heard he was getting out, she bought the gun and went recruiting. She planned to leverage her marks with invented stories about domestic violence. Reacher's name was mentioned as the last pick. He had refused, so she did it herself. Having already fabricated the abuse claims, she intended to use them to get off with self-defense, or diminished responsibility, or whatever else she could manage. But then she realized her hospital records would come up blank, so she was confessing and throwing herself on the mercy of the prosecutor. Her signature was scrawled on the bottom of every page.

  Alice was a slow reader. She came to the end a full minute after him.

  "I'm sorry, Reacher," she said.

  There was silence for a moment.

  "What about the election?" Reacher as
ked. The last hope.

  Walker shrugged. "Texas code says it's a capital crime. Murder for remuneration. We've got enough evidence to choke a pig. And I can't ignore a voluntary confession, can I? So, couple hours ago I was pretty down. But then I got to thinking about it. Fact is, a voluntary confession helps me out. A confession and a guilty plea, saves the taxpayer the cost of a trial. Justifies me asking for a life sentence instead. The way I see it, with a story like that, she's going to look very, very bad, whoever you are. So if I back off the death penalty, I'll look magnanimous in comparison. Generous, even. The whites will fret a little, but the Mexicans will eat it up with a spoon. See what I mean? The whole thing is reversed now. She was the good guy, I was the heavy hand. But now she's the heavy hand, and I'm the good guy. So I think I'm O.K."

  Nobody spoke for another minute. There was just the omnipresent roar of the air conditioners.

  "I've got her property," Alice said. "A belt and a ring."

  "Take them to storage," Walker said. "We'll be moving her, later."

  "Where?"

  "The penitentiary. We can't keep her here anymore."

  "No, where's storage?"

  "Same building as the morgue. Make sure you get a receipt."

  * * *

  Reacher walked with her over to the morgue. He wasn't aware of taking a single step. Wasn't aware of the heat, or the dust, or the noise, or the traffic, or the smells of the street. He felt like he was floating an inch above the sidewalk, insulated inside some kind of sensory-deprivation suit. Alice was talking to him, time to time, but he was hearing nothing that she said. All he could hear was a small voice inside his head that was saying you were wrong. Completely wrong. It was a voice he had heard before, but that didn't make it any easier to hear again, because he had built his whole career on hearing it fewer times than the next guy. It was like a box score in his mind, and his average had just taken some serious damage. Which upset him. Not because of vanity. It upset him because he was a professional who was supposed to get things right.

  "Reacher?" Alice was saying. "You're not listening, are you?"

  "What?" he said.

  "I asked you, do you want to get a meal?"

  "No," he said. "I want to get a ride."

  She stopped walking. "What now? Quadruple-check?"

  "No, I mean out of here. I want to go somewhere else. A long way away. I hear Antarctica is nice, this time of year."