by Diane Capri
“Ten-four, Suzie Wong. I’m on it,” Gaspar replied with a laugh before he gave her another address and hung up.
She made her way through the snow to the SUV.
“Where to?” Smithers asked when they were settled in again.
“I’ve only got one more subject to interview and you’re welcome to come along,” she replied and supplied the address for Old Man Reacher.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Saturday, February 26
2:45 p.m.
Laconia, New Hampshire
Owen slowed his speed seeking an unmarked turnoff to a location two miles away from the motel. He’d been here twice before, but fresh snow had swept over the road like a broom since then.
When he found the tracks marking the drive, he swung wide and pulled into the ruts. A bumpy mile further along and his destination materialized.
A square two-story farmhouse and two outbuildings occupied the space at the end of the drive. The buildings were painted white once upon a time. There was enough of the white paint left to make the house hard to spot from a distance.
Functional shutters closed over dirty windows, keeping what little light existed inside away from prying eyes. There weren’t likely to be many eyes looking for the place. The farm had stopped producing decades ago and had been abandoned.
Owen drove in the tracks along the side of the house and parked in a flat spot around back. He put the transmission into park and looked at his brother in the rearview mirror. “Oscar, sit here. Keep the engine running. We won’t be long.”
Owen left the warm cabin and circled to the back of the SUV to open the hatch and retrieve the drone. By the time he’d closed the hatch, Oscar had moved from the back seat to the front, as instructed.
Trevor stepped out of the cabin. He felt the cold wind on his face and neck and turned his collar up. The temperature was dropping and another blizzard was headed this way from Canada. Weather reports said the blizzard had dropped four inches on Buffalo already. Today would be his only chance to gather data before the motel was blanketed in snow once more.
He followed Owen toward the ramshackle farmhouse.
“How solid is this guy? Will he keep his mouth shut?” Trevor asked as he mounted the steps to the back porch.
“I paid him enough.” Owen replied, “Besides, he’s a little paranoid. Not that chatty by nature. I doubt he knows anyone well enough to brag to.”
Trevor nodded because it didn’t matter much. The guy would be dead in an hour or less, either way.
At the top of the steps, Owen turned the handle and pushed the door open, calling out as he trespassed. “McCoy! It’s Owen! Are you in there?”
Whether McCoy replied or not, Trevor heard nothing but the whistling wind and the noisy generator in the yard near the porch. He followed Owen into the kitchen and closed the door behind him.
“McCoy! Are you here?” Owen continued to shout as he moved from room to room. “It’s Owen! Where are you?”
Trevor looked around the place while Owen attempted to flush McCoy out. The kitchen was furnished with a heavy farm table that was probably constructed on site back in the day. The top was gouged in some places and worn smooth in others.
Owen had left the drone and the extra battery on the table on his way through.
A tea kettle’s electric plug lay next to an extension cord. Next to that was a hot plate. There were no other appliances. Not surprising since the decrepit generator could only supply limited electricity. If McCoy needed refrigeration, all he had to do was walk outside and store cold items in the snow.
The next room was an open space, cold and drafty and unoccupied. Trevor went no further into the house. He had no reason to flush McCoy from his hiding place. Owen could keep trying, but the light was fading fast. Trevor had more important work to do.
He returned to the kitchen, picked up the drone and the remote, and took them outside. What remained of the scorched motel and its contents was two miles northeast from here. Trevor set up and launched the drone in that direction.
The drone fought the wind blowing in from Canada, but Trevor managed to keep it on course. The drone could have covered the distance easily in better wind conditions. Considering today’s wind gusts, Trevor reduced the flight speed to conserve power and allow the drone to stay airborne for at least thirty minutes.
The quadcopter was replaceable, but it would take too long to locate and ship in a second one. He wasn’t willing to crash it on the first flight. If the drone went down in these woods, it would likely be destroyed. He calculated eight minutes travel time to and from the motel site, and ten minutes for video, with a reasonable margin of error.
This farmhouse was suitable for a single flight. Once McCoy was dead, Trevor wouldn’t return unless there were no alternative locations from which to launch the drone next time. He watched the camera’s video display on his phone as the quadcopter covered the distance, looking for a second location.
As the drone approached the motel site, Trevor’s first impression was that the place had been used as some sort of military target in a training exercise. Equally plausible that it had been destroyed by a film crew making a disaster movie.
The charred remains of the motel and outbuildings were nothing but black on white images. He engaged the zoom lens on the camera to keep the drone a safe distance from the FBI technicians on the ground where it was less likely to be noticed.
Using the zoom, the video captured everything effectively. Trevor would study it on larger screens later. For now, he moved the quadcopter in a wide circle around the site to capture images from alternative viewpoints. The drone’s battery life was waning. The return flight would be somewhat easier because the drone would be pushed by tail winds. Still, Trevor refused to engage unnecessary risks.
He’d maneuvered the quadcopter around to complete its wide circle when he noticed movement in the trees and saw the two heavy lumps on the ground nearby. The movement was a black bear, making steady progress toward the lumps, at least a mile from the motel and deep into the woods from the two lane back road.
He figured today’s hard winds had blown the last of the snow cover aside, leaving both lumps visible and carrion-aromatic enough to catch the bear’s attention. If the bear was moving around instead of hibernating, it was likely because he’d had sufficient food this winter. Trevor shuddered.
Given the size and shape of each black lump, they had to be human bodies. They were far enough from the motel site to have avoided damage from the fires. They’d been exposed to the elements and hungry wildlife for at least eighteen months and perhaps longer. They were no doubt gruesome from a closer viewpoint.
Had either of those bodies once been his partner, Casper Lange? If Lange had died here, was his body identifiable? How much longer would Lange’s status, quick or dead, remain unknown? How much time did Trevor have to get what he came for and get out?
His questions couldn’t be answered from the drone’s video feed. He maneuvered the quadcopter to return to the farmhouse as he considered what to do next.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Saturday, February 26
3:15 p.m.
Laconia, New Hampshire
Laconia wasn’t such a big place. The GPS system led Smithers directly to Old Man Reacher’s home in record time. They parked and walked through a decorative gate into an interior courtyard with neat three-story town homes around it. Old Man Reacher lived in the house on the left.
Kim walked up and rang the doorbell. She looked through a pebbled glass pane set into the door. Inside the long, narrow space was a distorted view of calm cream colors and pictures on the walls.
A woman came into view. She was stooped and gray and somewhat unsteady on her feet, even with her gnarled hands gripping the walker.
She came slowly closer and closer, pushing the walker in front of her. It was bright orange with four aluminum wheels, and a fabric seat built into the design so she could sit when she got tired.
“Just a minute
,” she called in a frail voice. She fiddled with the deadbolt and then rolled the walker aside. Finally, she opened the door and a blast of warm air spilled out.
Kim showed her badge wallet and said, “Good afternoon, ma’am. We’re looking for Mr. Reacher. Does he still live here?”
The woman moved her walker backward slowly as she said, “Please come inside. It’s too cold to talk here.”
While they waited for her to move away from the door, Smithers’s phone vibrated. He turned his back and picked up the call.
“Yeah…Okay…Canada?…Right…Got it…Okay. Keep me posted. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” He ended the call and dropped the phone into his pocket just as Kim walked inside. She shot him an inquisitive look over her shoulder and he shook his head as he followed close behind and closed the door.
The woman pushed the walker deeper into the foyer until she reached a bench placed along the north wall. She turned herself carefully and sat in the walker’s seat. She gestured toward the bench. “Please sit down. It’s not comfortable for me to peer up at you.”
The bench wasn’t large or sturdy enough to hold Smithers, but Kim perched as requested. “We’re with the FBI, ma’am. We need to ask Mr. Reacher a few questions.”
She pulled her badge wallet out again and held it open while the woman’s rheumy brown eyes, magnified by her glasses, studied Kim’s ID thoroughly.
“He’s had a few TIAs recently. You know what those are?” Before they had a chance to answer the question, she said, “Mini-strokes, some call them. But the doctors say they’re a warning he might have a major stroke. He’s ninety-four, you know. He needs to take it easy, they said. He can’t talk long.”
Smithers knelt down to her eye level. “Are you his wife, ma’am?”
“Just a friend. I’m Myrna Fredericks. Before you ask, he’s got no family, either. Never married, as far as I know. No kids. Nobody but me.” She smiled and shook her head.
“How do you and Mr. Reacher know each other?” Kim asked.
“Known him since our birdwatching days. A person gets to be our age, we don’t have a lot of contemporaries to share our experiences with any more.” She paused to catch her breath. “When he started having the TIAs a few months ago, he asked me to leave the assisted living place and move in here. I told him if anything happened, the only thing I could do to help was call the ambulance. But he said that would be enough.”
“I’m sure it will.” Smithers gave her a warm smile. He was good with witnesses, Kim noticed.
“We just have a few questions. We won’t take too much of his time,” Kim said.
Myrna grinned, showing a gold tooth in front. “Oh, he’d love to talk to you all day long. He’s very chatty. Always has been. So it’ll be up to you to keep it brief. Can I trust you to do that?”
“Of course.” Kim nodded. “Can we see him now?”
“My rooms are upstairs. We moved his bed down here to the first floor when the elevator became too much for him to manage.” Myrna pointed a gnarled finger, oversized knuckles swollen by arthritis, toward a closed wood panel door across the narrow hallway. “I’ll wait here. It’s easier for him if there aren’t so many people to entertain all at once, you know?”
Myrna pulled a tattered paperback from the side pouch on her walker. “I’ll just read until you come back so I can lock the door after you leave.”
“We won’t be long,” Kim replied.
The door to Old Man Reacher’s room was four feet away. Smithers followed behind her, heavy footfalls marking his progress on the hardwood floor. She approached, knocked, and turned the knob. The old hinges creaked as she pushed the door open.
Reacher was seated in a green leather armchair staring into a pleasant fire with a blanket over his legs. His feet were propped up on a matching ottoman. Only his head and hands were exposed. Translucent skin covered his bones like parchment showing his veins and abundant brown age spots. Wispy gray hairs danced across his skull.
“Mr. Reacher?” Kim said on her way into the cozy room.
“Yes,” he said, his voice stronger than she’d expected in the quiet space. He cleared his phlegmy throat and took a sip of water from a glass on his side table.
“Myrna said it was okay to come in for a quick chat,” Kim said.
He nodded and waved her closer to the armchair across from his. She shook his icy cold hand before she perched on the seat.
The walls featured framed photographs and lithographs of common and exotic birds. He might have spent his entire lifetime accumulating those birdwatching experiences.
“You came to talk about the birds?” he asked, hope in his voice, as if too few people came to talk about the birds these days.
“I’m afraid I don’t know much about birds, sir,” Kim replied, sorry to see his eagerness fade at her reply.
“People are too busy for bird watching nowadays, I guess. There’s other ways to watch from a bird’s eye view.” He’d warmed to his subject and needed little encouragement to continue. “A young man came by last week to show me video captured by a drone flying high over Laconia and Ryantown, where I grew up. It was a chance for me to see what the birds were watching all those years when I was watching them, you know?”
Smithers replied, “Indeed. We don’t need to imagine ourselves as birds. Eyes in the sky come in all different forms now, don’t they?”
Reacher smiled as if he’d found a kindred spirit. “We always had binoculars. But they weren’t as good as watching with the naked eye. You get the whole picture. With binoculars, you’re focused too close. All you see is the closeup beauty.”
Smithers nodded. “That’s kind of how life is, too, isn’t it? We live it up close, but we don’t often get the panoramic wide shots, you know?”
“Exactly. You should try bird watching, Smithers. You’d like it.” Reacher paused, smiled broadly, and turned his gaze to Kim. “Now, how can I help you? If you’re looking for something important, we’d best get to it. A guy like me, doctors say I could go any time now and you’d lose your chance.”
Kim wanted to protest his gallows humor, which would have been the polite thing to do. But he seemed to be enjoying himself, so she didn’t argue.
“Mr. Reacher, I’m trying to locate two men who might be related to you. Do you know Mark Reacher? He grew up in this area,” Kim said.
“Sorry,” he replied, shaking his head. “I don’t know him. Never met him as far as I recall.”
“He was David Reacher’s brother,” Kim said to jog his memory, which had seemed perfectly fine until now.
“I knew David. Sad thing when a man that young dies while an old man like me hangs on and on, way past the day when I should have kicked the bucket. Really tough on his boy, too,” Reacher said sorrowfully.
“Jake?” Smithers said.
“Yeah. Good kid in his own way.”
“What do you mean?” Smithers asked.
“Jake’s had more than his share of trouble over the years. Nice kid, but he has a strong sense of right and wrong that not everybody agrees with. He thinks you’ve done something wrong, he makes it his business to make sure you never do it again.”
“Kids like that usually end up spending some time in jail,” Smithers said.
Reacher shrugged, “He’s got himself under control now. But underneath, he’s a bomb waiting to go off. You do the wrong thing and Jake’s going to hunt you down and make you sorry. And he’s a good fighter. Kid shows no fear. I’m not sure he feels any.”
“Which means he’s done some damage to others,” Smithers said.
Reacher nodded. “Some. But he’s the one I told you about. He showed me the drone video.”
“Why did he bring it to you?”
“His mother has an interest in birdwatching, and he’d come around here from time to time to talk with me about it when he was a kid, before he went off to college. I had plenty of time on my hands and his folks were both working.” He shrugged. “You know how it goes.”
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“We’d like to meet Jake. Do you know where he is?” Kim asked.
Reacher shook his head. “He’s driving across the country. Headed to San Diego.”
“Do you know why?”
“Yeah. I’m afraid I’m to blame. He’s looking for a guy,” Reacher explained. “Thinks he might be in that area somewhere.”
She knew who he meant. Kim’s gut clenched. The hair on the back of her neck stood up sending tremors along her spine. She’d developed a sixth sense when it came to Jack Reacher.
“Mark Reacher? We were told he is working in Europe somewhere and his family hasn’t heard from him in a while,” Smithers replied.
“Not Mark. Told you I’d never met him and don’t know anything about the guy. He and his brother hadn’t been in touch for years.” Reacher shook his head. “The guy Jake’s looking for is Jack Reacher. He came through here a while back. He said he was headed to San Diego for the winter. Jake thinks it might be a regular thing. Like he spends winters there or something.”
Smithers opened his mouth to follow up and Kim cleared her throat as a signal to remind Smithers to let her take the lead. “Why was Jack Reacher here? Did he say?”
“Told me he was looking for his father’s birthplace.”
“Did he find it?”
Reacher shook his head. “No record that he was born in or around Laconia or any of the other little burgs in this area back then.”
“Why is Jake looking for Jack Reacher?” Kim asked.
Reacher shrugged. “He’s got it in his head that the guy might be related to him somehow. I’m not sure why exactly. I mean, Jake and I have the same last name and we’re not related, unless it’s way back.”
“How do you think that happened?” Kim asked.
“I always heard about a distant cousin who got rich back around the end of the first world war. He had a bunch of kids and grandkids and cousins and such. So maybe we’re all related, in a sense.” He paused as if he’d given this idea quite a bit of thought at some point. Then he shrugged again. “One of those small world things, you know?”
