One Shot (52 page)

'He paused after the sixth, too. For good.'

'He wouldn't wait that long. It could have gone
completely out of control by then. People could have
been jumping all over each other.' 'But they weren't.'

'He couldn't have predicted that'

'I agree,' Franklin said. 'A thing like that, you don't do it
with your first or your last shot.' Then his eyes lost
focus. He stared at the wall, like he wasn't seeing it.

'Wait,' he said.

He glanced at his screen.

'Something I forgot,' he said.

'What?' Reacher asked.

What you said about Rosemary Barr. Missing persons.'

He turned back to his mouse and his keyboard and
started clicking and typing.

Then he hit his enter key and sat forward intently, like
proximity would speed the process. 'Last chance,' he
said.

Reacher knew from television commercials that
computers operated at all kinds of gigahertz, which he
assumed was pretty fast. But even so, Franklin's screen
stayed blank for a long, long time. There was a little
graphic in the corner.

It was rotating slowly. It implied a thorough and patient
search through an infinite amount of data. It spun for
minutes. Then it stopped. There was an electrostatic
crackle from the monitor and the screen wiped down
and redrew into a densely printed document. Plain
computer font. Reacher couldn't read it from where he
was. The office went quiet.

Franklin looked up.

'OK,' he said. 'There you go. At last. Finally something
that isn't ordinary.

Finally we catch a break.' 'What?' Yanni said.

'Oline Archer reported her husband missing two
months ago.'

FIFTEEN

FRANKLIN PUSHED HIS CHAIR BACK TO MAKE

SPACE AND THE others all crowded round the screen
together. Reacher and Helen Rodin ended up shoulder
to shoulder. No more animosity. Just the thrill of pursuit.

Most of the document was taken up with coded headers
and source information. Letters, numbers, times,
origins.

The substantive message was short. Two months
previously Mrs Oline Anne Archer had made a missing
persons report concerning her husband. His name was
Edward Stratton Archer. He had left the marital home for
work early on a routine Monday and had not returned by
end of business on the Wednesday, which was when
the report was made. 'Is he still missing?' Helen asked.

'Yes,' Franklin said. He pointed to a letter A buried in
the code at the top of the screen. 'It's still active.'

'So let's go talk to Oline's friends,' Reacher said. 'We
need some background here.'

'Now?' Franklin said.

'We've only got twelve hours,' Reacher said. 'No time
to waste.'

Franklin wrote down names and addresses for Oline
Archer's coworker and neighbour. He handed the
paper to Ann Yanni, because she was paying his bill.

'I'll stay here,' he said. 'I'll see if the husband shows up
in the databases.

This could be a coincidence. Maybe he's got a wife in
every state. Wouldn't be the first time.'

'I don't believe in coincidences,' Reacher said. 'So
don't waste your time.

Find a phone number for me instead. A guy called
Cash. Former Marine. He owns the range where James
Barr went to shoot. Down in Kentucky. Call him for me.'

'Message?'

'Give him my name. Tell him to get his ass in his
Humvee. Tell him to drive up here, tonight. Tell him
there's a whole new Invitational going on.'

'Invitational?'

'He'll understand. Tell him to bring his M24. With a
night scope. And whatever else he's got lying around.'

Reacher followed Ann Yanni and Helen Rodin down
the stairs. They got into Helen's Saturn, the women in
the front and Reacher in the back. Reacher figured they
would all have preferred the Mustang, but it only had
two seats.

'Where first?' Helen asked.

"Which is closer?' Reacher asked back.

'The coworker.'

'OK, her first'

Traffic was slow. Roads were torn up and construction
traffic was lumbering in and out of work zones. Reacher
glanced between his watch and the windows.

Daylight was fading. Evening was coming. Time
ticking away.

The coworker lived in a plain heartland suburb east of
town. It was filled with a grid of straight residential
streets. The streets were lined on both sides by modest
ranch houses. The houses had small lots, flags on
poles, hoops over the garage doors, satellite dishes on
brick chimneys. Some of the sidewalk trees had faded
yellow ribbons tied round them. Reacher guessed they
symbolized solidarity with troops serving overseas.

Which conflict, he wasn't sure. What the point was, he
had no idea. He had served overseas for most of
thirteen years and had never met anyone who cared
what was tied to trees back home. As long as someone
sent pay cheques and food and water and bullets and
wives stayed faithful, then most guys were happy
enough. The sun was going down behind them and
Helen was driving slowly with her head ducked forward
so she could see the house numbers early. She spotted
the one she wanted and pulled into a driveway and
parked behind a small sedan. It was new. Reacher
recognized the brand name from his walk up the four-lane: America's Best Warranty! The coworker herself
was a tired and harassed woman of about thirty-five.

She opened her door and stepped out to the stoop and
pulled the door shut behind her to block out the noise
from what sounded like a dozen kids running riot inside.

She recognized Ann Yanni immediately. Even glanced
beyond her, looking for a camera crew. 'Yes?' she said.

'We need to talk about Oline Archer,' Helen Rodin said.

The woman said nothing. She looked conflicted, like
she knew she was supposed to think it was tasteless to
talk about victims of tragedy to journalists. But
apparently Ann Yanni's celebrity status overcame her
reluctance. 'OK,' she said. 'What do you want to know?

Oline was a lovely person and all of us at the office miss
her terribly.' The nature of randomness, Reacher
thought.

Random slayings always involved people described
as lovely afterwards. Nobody ever said she was a rat-faced fink and I'm glad she's dead. Whoever it was did
us all a favour. That never happened. 'We need to know
something about her husband,' Helen said.

'I never met her husband,' the woman said.

'Did Oline talk about him?'

'A little, I guess. Now and then. His name is Ted, I
think.'

'What does he do?'

'He's in business. I'm not sure what kind of business.'

'Did Oline say anything about him being missing?'

'Missing?'

'Oline reported him missing two months ago.'

'I know she seemed very worried. I think he was
having problems with his business. In fact I think he'd
been having problems for a year or two. That's why
Oline went back to work.'

'She didn't always work?'

'Oh, no, ma'am. I think she did way back, and then she
gave it up. But she had to come back. Because of
circumstances. Whatever the opposite of rags to riches
is.' 'Riches to rags,' Reacher said.

'Yes, like that,' the woman said. 'She needed her job,
financially. I think she was embarrassed about it' 'But
she didn't give you details?' Ann Yanni asked.

'She was a very private person,' the woman said.

'It's important'

'She would get kind of distracted. That wasn't like her.

About a week before she was killed she was gone most
of one afternoon. That wasn't like her either.' 'Do you
know what she was doing?'

'No, I really don't.'

'Anything you remember about her husband would
help us.'

The woman shook her head. 'His name is Ted. That's
all I can say for sure.'

'OK, thanks,' Helen said.

She turned and headed back to her car. Yanni and
Reacher followed her. The woman on the stoop stared
after them, disappointed, like she had failed an audition.

Ann Yanni said, 'Strike one. But don't worry. It always
happens that way.

Sometimes I think we should just skip the first person
on the list. They never know anything.' Reacher was
uncomfortable in the back of the car. His pants pocket
had got underneath him and a coin was digging edge-on into his thigh.

He squirmed round and pulled it out. It was a quarter,
new and shiny. He looked at it for a minute and then he
put it in the other pocket. 'I agree,' he said. We should
have skipped her. My fault. Stands to reason a coworker wouldn't know much. People are cagey around
coworkers. Especially rich people fallen on hard times.'

'The neighbour will know more,' Yanni said.

We hope,' Helen said.

They were caught in cross-town traffic. They were
headed from the eastern suburbs to the western, and it
was a slow, slow ride. Reacher was glancing between
his watch and the windows again. The sun was low on
the horizon ahead of them. Behind them it was already
twilight. Time ticking away.

Rosemary Barr moved in her chair and struggled
against the tape binding her wrists.

'We know it was Charlie who did it,' she said.

'Charlie?' the Zee repeated.

'My brother's so-called friend.'

'Chenko,' the Zee said. 'His name is Chenko. And yes,
he did it. Tactically it was his plan. He did well. Of
course, his physique helped. He was able to wear his
own shoes inside your brother's. He had to roll the
pants and the raincoat sleeves.' 'But we know,'

Rosemary said.

'But who knows? And what exactly do they bring to
the party?'

'Helen Rodin knows.'

'You'll dismiss her as your lawyer. You'll terminate the
representation.

She'll be unable to repeat anything she learned while
your relationship was privileged. Linsky, am I right?'

Linsky nodded. He was six feet away, on the sofa,
propped at an odd angle to rest his back.

'That's the law,' he said. 'Here in America.'

'Franklin knows,' Rosemary said. 'And Ann Yanni.'

'Hearsay,' the Zee said. 'Theories, speculation, and
innuendo. Those two have no persuasive evidence. And
no credibility, either. Private detectives and television
journalists are exactly the kind of people who peddle
ridiculous and alternative explanations for events like
these. It's to be expected. Its absence would be
unusual. Apparently a president was killed in this
country more than forty years ago and people like them
still claim that the real truth has not yet been
uncovered.' Rosemary said nothing.

'Your deposition will be definitive,' the Zee said. 'You'll
go to Rodin and you'll give sworn testimony about how
your brother plotted and planned. About how he told
you what he was intending. In detail. The time, the place,
everything. You'll say that to your sincere and
everlasting regret you didn't take him seriously.

Then some poor excuse for a public defender will take
one look at your evidence and plead your brother guilty
and the whole thing will be over.'

'I won't do it,' Rosemary said.