One Shot (30 page)

'Happy?' he asked.

Reacher nodded. It looked OK, except that there was a
half inch margin all round where his skin was dead
white. He had had longer hair in Miami and the tan
hadn't penetrated. The barber brushed the clippings off
his collar and removed the towel. Reacher gave him his
seven bucks and tipped him a dollar.

Then he walked round the block. Nobody followed
him. He unlocked his room and washed his face and
shaved under his sideburns again. There was a new
half-inch of stubble there. The barber's clippers had
been a little blunt.

The Metropole interviews were finished by nine twenty
and they gave Emerson absolutely nothing at all. The
night porter swore blind that he knew nothing about the
girl. There were only eleven guests and none of them
was promising.

Emerson was an experienced and talented detective
and he knew that people sometimes tell the truth. And
he knew that accepting the truth was as important a part
of a detective's professional arsenal as rejecting lies. So
he conferred with Donna Bianca and together they
concluded they had just wasted the best part of three
hours on a faulty hunch. Then a guy named Gary called,
from the auto parts store.

Gary had got to work at eight and had found himself
really short-staffed.

There was still no sign of Jeb Oliver and Sandy didn't
show, either. At first he had been annoyed. He had
called her apartment and got no reply. On her way, he
had assumed. Late. But she never showed. Thereafter
he called every thirty minutes. By nine thirty the
annoyance had given way to worry and he started
thinking about auto wrecks. So he called the cops for
information. The desk guy told him there had been no
traffic accidents that morning. Then there was a
pregnant pause and the desk guy seemed to consider
another possibility and asked for a name and a
description. Gary said Alexandra Dupree, known as
Sandy, nineteen years old, white, petite, green and red.

Ten seconds after that Gary was speaking to a detective
called Emerson on a cell phone.

Gary agreed to close the store for the day and
Emerson sent a patrol car to pick him up. First stop was
the morgue. Gary identified the body and was white and
badly shaken when he arrived in Emerson's office.

Donna Bianca calmed him down and Emerson watched
him carefully. Statistics show that women get killed by
husbands, boyfriends, brothers, employers, and
workmates, in descending order of likelihood, well
before passing strangers show up on the list of
possible suspects. And sometimes a boyfriend and a
workmate can be the same guy. But Emerson knew that
Gary was in the clear. He was too shaken. No way could
a person fake that kind of sudden shock and surprise
over something he had already known about for eight or
ten hours.

So Emerson started in, gently, with all the usual cop
questions. Last time you saw her? Know anything
about her private life? Family? Boyfriends?

Ex-boyfriends? Weird phone calls? Did she have any
enemies? Problems? Money troubles?

And then, inevitably: Anything unusual over the last
couple of days?

And so by ten fifteen Emerson knew all about the
stranger who had come to the store the day before. Very
tall, heavily built, tan, aggressive, demanding, wearing
olive green pants and an olive green flannel shirt. He
had spent two mysterious sessions with Sandy in the
back office, and had borrowed her car, and had
demanded Jeb Oliver's address with menaces, and Jeb
Oliver was missing, too.

Emerson left Gary with Donna Bianca and went out to
the corridor and used his cell to call Alex Rodin in his
office.

'Your lucky day,' he said. We've got a nineteen-year-old
female homicide victim. Someone broke her neck.'

'How does that make me lucky?'

'Her last unexplained contact was yesterday, at her
place of work, with a guy that sounds a whole lot like
our pal Jack Reacher.'

'Really?'

'We got a pretty good description from her boss. And
her neck was busted by a single blow to the side of the
head, which ain't easy unless you're built like Reacher
is.' 'Who was the girl?'

'A redhead from the auto parts store out towards the
highway. There's also a boy missing from the same
store.' 'Where did this thing happen?'

'Outside the Metropole Palace Hotel.'

'Is that where Reacher is staying?'

'Not according to the register.'

'So is he a suspect or not?'

'Right now he looks pretty damn good for it.' 'So when
are you going to bring him in?'

'As soon as I find him.'

'I'll call Helen,' Alex Rodin said. 'She'll know where he
is.'

Rodin lied to his daughter. He told her that Bellantonio
needed to see Reacher to correct a possible
misunderstanding about part of the prosecution's
evidence. 'What part?' Helen asked.

'Just something they discussed. Probably nothing
important, but I'm playing this very cautiously. Don't
want to hand you grounds for an appeal.' The traffic
cone, Helen thought.

'He's on his way to the airport,' she said. 'Why?'

'To say hello to Eileen Hutton.'

'They know each other?'

'Apparently.'

'That's unethical.'

'To know each other?'

'To influence her testimony.'

'I'm sure he won't do that'

'When will he be back?'

'After lunch, I think.'

'OK,' Rodin said. 'It'll keep.'

But it didn't keep, of course. Emerson left for the
airport immediately. He had met Reacher twice face to
face and could pick him out of a crowd. Donna Bianca
went with him. They went in together through a
restricted area and found a security office that looked
out over the whole arrivals hall through one-way glass.

They scanned the waiting faces carefully. No sign of
Reacher. Not here yet. So they settled down to wait.

NINE

REACHER DIDN'T GO TO THE AIRPORT. HE KNEW

BETTER. SENIOR military personnel spend a lot of time
flying small aircraft, either fixed wing or rotary, and they
don't like it. Outside of combat more military personnel
die in plane crashes than from any other single cause.

Therefore given a choice a smart brigadier general like
Eileen Hutton wouldn't ride a puddle jumper down from
Indianapolis. She would be happy enough with a big jet
out of Washington National, but she wouldn't
contemplate a twin-prop for the final leg of her journey.

No way. She would rent a car instead.

So Reacher walked south and east to the library.

Asked the subdued woman at the desk where the
Yellow Pages were stored. He went where she pointed
and hauled the book out onto a table. Opened it to H for
Hotels. Started looking.

Almost certainly some JAG Corps office grunt had
done the equivalent thing the previous day, but
remotely, probably on-line. Hutton would have told him
to book her a room. He would have been anxious to
please, so he would have turned first to the street map
and found the courthouse and the road in from the
north. Then he would have chosen a decent place
convenient for both. Somewhere with parking, for the
rental car. Probably a chain, with an established
government rate accessible by a code number.

The Marriott Suites, Reacher thought. That's where
she'll be headed. Off the highway, south towards town,
an obvious left turn east, and there it was, three blocks
north of the courthouse, an easy walk, breakfast
included. The office grunt had probably printed out
driving directions from the Internet and clipped them to
her itinerary. Anxious to please. Hutton had that effect
on people. He memorized the Marriott's number and put
the book away. Then he walked out to the lobby and
dialled the pay phone. 'I want to confirm a reservation,'

he said.

'Name?'

'Hutton.' "Yes, we've got that. Tonight only, a suite.'

'Thank you,' Reacher said, and put the phone down.

She would take an early flight out of D.C. After two
decades in uniform she would be up at five, in a cab at
six, boarding at seven. She would be in Indianapolis by
nine, latest. Out of the Hertz lot by nine thirty. It was a
two and a half hour drive. She would arrive at noon. In
about an hour. He stepped out of the lobby and looped
through the plaza and headed north and east through a
thin crowd of people, past the far side of the recruiting
office, past the back of the courthouse. He found the
Marriott easily enough and took a corner table in its
coffee shop and settled down to wait.

Helen Rodin called Rosemary Barr at work. She wasn't
there. The receptionist sounded a little embarrassed
about it. So Helen tried Rosemary's home number, and
got her after the second ring. 'Did they let you go?' she
asked.

'Unpaid leave,' Rosemary said. 'I volunteered for it.

Everyone was acting awkward around me.'

'That's awful.'

'It's human nature. I need to make a plan. I might have
to move.'

'I need a list of your brother's friends,' Helen said.

'He doesn't have any. The true test of friendship is
adversity, isn't it? And nobody's visited him. Nobody's
even tried. Nobody's called me to ask how he is.' 'I
meant before,' Helen said. 'I need to know who he saw,
who he hung out with, who knew him well. Especially
anyone new.' 'There wasn't anyone new,' Rosemary
said. 'Not that I'm aware of.' 'Are you sure?'

'Pretty sure.'

'What about old?'

'Have you got a big piece of paper?'

'I've got a whole yellow pad.'

'Well, you aren't going to need it. A matchbook cover
would do it. James is a very self-sufficient person.' 'He
must have buddies.'

'A couple, I guess,' Rosemary said. 'There's a guy
called Mike from the neighbourhood. They talk about
lawns and baseball, you know, guy stuff.'

Mike, Helen wrote. Guy stuff. 'Anyone else?'

There was a long pause.

'Someone called Charlie,' Rosemary said.

'Tell me about Charlie,' Helen said.

'I don't know much about him. I never really met him.'

'How long has James known him?'

Tears.'

'Including the time you lived there?'

'He never came around when I was in. I only ever saw
him once. He was leaving as I was coming in. I said, who
was that? James said, that was Charlie, like he was an
old pal.' "What does he look like?'

'He's small. He's got weird hair. Like a black toilet
brush.' 'Is he local?'

'I guess so.'

"What was their point of contact?'

Another long pause.

'Guns,' Rosemary said. 'They shared an interest'

Charlie, Helen wrote. Guns.

Donna Bianca spent some time on her cell phone and
mapped out the flight schedules between D.C. and
Indianapolis. She knew the onward connecting flights
then left on the hour and took thirty-five minutes. She
figured a person with a courthouse appointment at four
o'clock wouldn't aim to arrive on anything later than the
two thirty-five. Which meant leaving Indianapolis at two,
which meant getting in there at about one thirty, latest,
to allow for the walk between gates. Which meant
leaving Washington National at eleven thirty or twelve,
latest. Which wasn't possible. The last direct flight from
National to Indianapolis was at nine thirty. There was a
morning cluster and an evening cluster. Nothing in
between.