Lee Child - A Wanted Man

Sorenson asked, ‘Are you the department’s second in command?’

Puller said, ‘I guess so.’

‘Then you guess wrong. As of now you’re the chief. Acting chief, anyway. And you’ve got things to do. You need to bring us up to speed, for instance.’

‘With what?’

‘There’s a missing kid here.’

‘I didn’t really keep up with that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I do traffic mostly. To and from the Interstate. Up beyond Sin City. You know, with the radar gun.’

‘Were you briefed on what happened here last night?’

‘We all were.’

‘But you didn’t keep up with it?’

‘I do traffic mostly.’

‘Didn’t Sheriff Goodman take you off your normal duties?’

‘He took us all off.’

‘So why didn’t you pay attention?’

‘He didn’t really tell me what to do.’

Reacher asked, ‘Were you dropped on the head as a baby?’

The guy named Puller didn’t answer.

Sorenson said, ‘Call your dispatcher and arrange for an ambulance to take the body away.’

‘OK.’

‘Then call Sheriff Goodman’s family.’

‘OK.’

‘Then call the funeral home.’

‘From where?’

‘From a telephone. Any telephone. Just make sure it’s nowhere near me.’

The guy named Puller walked back to his cruiser and Reacher and Sorenson walked up Delfuenso’s neighbour’s driveway.

Delfuenso’s neighbour was a woman not much more than thirty. Her daughter was a ten-year-old version of the same person, still straight and slender and unlined. Her name was Paula. She was camped out in the back room. No view of the road. No view of anything, except mud. She had an electronic box hooked up to the TV. All kinds of things were happening on the screen. Explosions, mostly. Tiny cartoon figures were getting vaporized in sudden puffs of smoke smaller than golf balls.

The neighbour said, ‘I had to go to work. I’m sorry.’

Sorenson said, ‘I understand,’ like she meant it. Reacher understood too. He read the papers. He heard people talking. He knew jobs were easy to lose, and hard to get back.

The neighbour said, ‘I told them not to answer the door.’

Sorenson looked at the kid and asked, ‘Paula, why did you?’

The kid said, ‘I didn’t.’

‘Why did Lucy?’

‘Because the man called her name.’

‘He called Lucy’s name?’

‘Yes. He said, Lucy, Lucy.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘I didn’t hear.’

‘Are you sure? You must have heard something.’

The kid didn’t answer.

Sorenson waited.

The kid asked, ‘Am I in trouble?’

Sorenson hesitated.

Reacher said, ‘Yes, kid, you are. Quite a lot of trouble, to be honest. But you can get out of all of it if you tell us everything you heard and everything you saw this morning. You do that, and you’ll be completely free and clear.’

A plea bargain. An incentive. A stick and a carrot. A time-honoured system. Reacher had gone that route many times, back in the day. A ten-year stretch reduced to a three-to-five, probation instead of jail time, charges dropped in exchange for information. The system worked with twenty-year-olds and thirty-year-olds. It worked just fine. Reacher saw no reason why it wouldn’t work just as well with a ten-year-old.

The kid said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘And I’ll give you a dollar for candy, and my friend will give you a kiss on the head.’

Bribery worked, too.

The kid said, ‘The man said he knew where Lucy’s mom was.’

‘Did he?’

The kid nodded, earnestly. ‘He said he would take Lucy to her mom.’

‘What did the man look like?’

The kid was squeezing her fingers, like she could wring the answer out of her hands.

She said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘But you peeked a little bit, right?’

The kid nodded again.

Reacher asked, ‘How many men did you see at the door?’

‘Two.’

‘What did they look like?’

‘Like you see on the TV.’

‘Did you see their car?’

‘It was big and low.’

‘A regular car? Not a pick-up truck or a four wheel drive?’

‘Regular.’

‘Was it muddy?’

‘No, it was shiny.’

‘What colour was it?’

The kid was wringing her hands again.

She said, ‘I don’t know.’

Sorenson’s phone rang. She checked the window and mouthed, ‘Omaha.’

Reacher shook his head. Sorenson nodded, but she didn’t look happy. She let it ring. Eventually it stopped and Reacher looked back at the kid and said, ‘Thanks, Paula. You did great. You’re not in trouble any more. You’re totally free and clear.’ He dug in his pocket and peeled a buck off his roll of bills. He handed it over. Sorenson’s phone trilled once. Voice mail. Reacher said, ‘Now the pretty lady will give you a kiss on the forehead.’

The kid giggled. Sorenson looked a little shy about it, but she went ahead and bent down and did the deed. The kid went back to her on-screen explosions. Reacher looked at her mom and said, ‘We need to borrow the key to Karen’s house.’

The woman got it from a drawer in the hallway. It was a regular house key, on a fob with a crystal pendant. Just like the car key. Reacher wondered what kind of temperature would melt crystal glass. A lower temperature than regular glass, probably. Because of whatever they put in it to make it sparkle. So the car key fob was gone for ever. It was a smear of trace elements on the Impala’s burned-out floor, or a tiny cloud of vapour already halfway to Oregon on the wind.

He took the key and said, ‘Thanks,’ and then he and Sorenson stepped out the door. Goodman’s car was still there, but the ambulance had been and gone with the body. Puller’s car was gone. And the clouds had gone too. The sky had brightened up. A watery winter sun was visible, high overhead.

Sorenson paused on the driveway and checked her voice mail list. Reacher said, ‘No need to listen to it. You already know what it says.’

‘I’m going to have to call in,’ she said. ‘The situation has changed. There’s still a missing kid here and now there’s no local law enforcement. Nothing competent, anyway. Not any more.’

‘Call later,’ Reacher said. ‘Not yet.’ He looped around the wet grass and started up Delfuenso’s driveway, with the door key in his hand.

Sorenson asked, ‘What do you expect to find in there?’

‘Beds,’ Reacher said. ‘Or sofas, at least. We need to take naps. Right now we’re no good to anyone. And we don’t want to end up like Goodman.’

DELFUENSO’S HOUSE WAS identical to her neighbour’s in practically every respect. Same exact layout, same kitchen, same windows and floors and doors. Same handles, same knobs, same bathrooms. A cookie-cutter development. There were three small bedrooms. One was clearly Delfuenso’s, and one was clearly her daughter’s, and one was clearly a guest room.

‘Your pick,’ Reacher said. ‘The guest bed, or the living room sofa.’

‘This is crazy,’ Sorenson said. ‘I just ignored two calls from my field office. Probably from my boss personally. So I’m effectively a fugitive now. And you think I should sleep?’

‘It’s an efficiency issue. Like you said, there’s a missing kid. Your people aren’t going to do anything about her. The locals are useless now. Therefore we’ll have to deal with it. Which we can’t do if we’re dead on our feet from fatigue.’

‘They’ll come after me. I’ll be a sitting duck, asleep in bed.’

‘They’re two hours away. A two-hour nap is better than nothing.’

‘We can’t deal with it anyway. We have no idea what’s going on. We have no resources.’