Lee Child - One Shot

So, no hints to Alex Rodin. No call-me contingencies.

So… what, exactly?

He decided to stick around for twenty-four hours. Maybe there would be a clearer prognosis on Barr’s condition after that. Maybe somehow he could check with Emerson and get a better feel for the evidence. Then maybe he could feel OK about leaving things with Alex Rodin’s office, on a kind of forensic autopilot. If there were problems down the road maybe he would read about them in a newspaper somewhere, far in the future, on a beach or in a bar, and then he could come all the way back again.

So, twenty-four hours in a small heartland city.

He decided to go see if there was a river.

There was a river. It was a broad, slow body of water that moved west to east through an area south of downtown. Some tributary that fed the mighty Ohio, he guessed. Its north bank was straightened and strengthened with massive stone blocks along a three-hundred-yard stretch. The blocks might have weighed fifty tons each. They were immaculately chiseled and expertly fitted. They made a quayside. A wharf. They had tall fat iron mushrooms set into them, to tie off ropes. Stone paving slabs made the wharf thirty feet deep. All along its length were tall wooden sheds, open on the river side, open on the street side. The street was made of cobbles. A hundred years ago there would have been huge river barges tied up and unloading. There would have been swarms of men at work. There would have been horses and carts clattering on the cobbles. But now there was nothing. Just absolute stillness, and the slow drift of the water. Scabs of rust on the iron mushrooms, clumps of weeds between the stones.

Some of the sheds still had faded names on them. McGinty Dry Goods. Allentown Seed Company. Parker Supply . Reacher strolled the three hundred yards and looked at all of them. They were still standing, strong and square. Ripe for renovation, he guessed. A city that put an ornamental pool with a fountain in a public plaza would spruce up the waterfront. It was inevitable. There was construction all over town. It would move south. They would give someone tax breaks to open a riverside café. Maybe a bar. Maybe with live music, Thursday through Saturday. Maybe with a little museum laying out the history of the river trade.

He turned to walk back and came face-to-face with Helen Rodin.

“You’re not such a hard man to find,” she said.

“Evidently,” he said.

“Tourists always come to the docks.”

She was carrying a lawyer-size briefcase.

“Can I buy you lunch?” she said.

She walked him back north to the edge of the new gentrification. In the space of a single dug-up block the city changed from old and worn to new and repainted. Stores changed from dusty mom-and-pop places with displays of vacuum cleaner bags and washing machine hoses to new establishments showing off spotlit hundred-dollar dresses. And shoes, and four-dollar lattes, and things made of titanium. They walked past a few such places and then Helen Rodin led him into an eatery. It was the kind of place he had seen before. It was the kind of place he usually avoided. White walls, some exposed brick, engine-turned aluminum tables and chairs, weird salad combinations. Random ingredients thrown together and called inventive.

She led him to a table in the far back corner. An energetic kid came by with menus. Helen Rodin ordered something with oranges and walnuts and Gorgonzola cheese. With a cup of herbal tea. Reacher gave up on reading his menu and ordered the same thing, but with coffee, regular, black.

“This is my favorite place in town,” Helen said.

He nodded. He believed her. She looked right at home. The long straight hair, the black clothes. The youthful glow. He was older and came from a different time and a different place.

“I need you to explain something,” she said.

She bent down and opened her briefcase. Came out with the old tape player. Placed it carefully on the table. Pressed Play . Reacher heard James Barr’s first lawyer say: Denying it is not an option . Then he heard Barr say: Get Jack Reacher for me .

“You already played that for me,” he said.

“But why would he say it?” Helen asked.

“That’s what you want me to explain?”

She nodded.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Logically you’re the last person he should have asked for.”

“I agree.”

“Could he have been in any doubt about how you felt? Fourteen years ago?”

“I don’t think so. I made myself pretty clear.”

“Then why would he ask for you now?”

Reacher didn’t answer. The food came, and they started eating. Oranges, walnuts, Gorgonzola cheese, all kinds of leaves and lettuces, and a raspberry vinaigrette. It wasn’t too bad. And the coffee was OK.

“Play me the whole tape,” he said.

She put her fork down and pressed the Rewind key. Kept her hand there, one fingertip on each key, like a pianist. She had long fingers. No rings. Polished nails, neatly trimmed. She pressed Play and picked up her fork again. Reacher heard no sound for a moment until the blank leader cleared the tape head. Then he heard a prison acoustic. Echoes, distant metallic clattering. A man breathing. Then he heard a door open and the thump of another man sitting down. No scraping of chair legs on concrete. A prison chair, bolted to the floor. The lawyer started talking. He was old and bored. He didn’t want to be there. He knew Barr was guilty. He made banal small talk for a while. Grew frustrated with Barr’s silence. Then he said, full of exasperation: I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself . There was a long, long pause, and then Barr’s voice came through, agitated, close to the microphone: They got the wrong guy . He said it again. Then the lawyer started up again, not believing him, saying the evidence was all there, looking for a reason behind an indisputable fact. Then Barr asked for Reacher, twice, and the lawyer asked if Reacher was a doctor, twice. Then Barr got up and walked away. There was the sound of hammering on a locked door, and then nothing more.

Helen Rodin pressed the Stop key.

“So why?” she asked. “Why say he didn’t do it and then call for a guy who knows for sure he did it before?”

Reacher just shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. But he saw in Helen’s eyes that she had an answer.

“You know something,” she said. “Maybe you don’t know you know it. But there’s got to be something there. Something he thinks can help him.”

“Does it matter? He’s in a coma. He might never wake up.”

“It matters a lot. He could get better treatment.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Are you sure? Was there a psychiatric evaluation made back then?”

“It never got that far.”

“Did he claim insanity?”

“No, he claimed a perfect score. Four for four.”

“Did you think he was nuts?”

“That’s a big word. Was it nuts to shoot four people for fun? Of course it was. Was he nuts, legally? I’m sure he wasn’t.”

“You must know something, Reacher,” Helen said. “It must be way down in there. You’ve got to dredge it up.”

He kept quiet for a moment.

“Have you actually seen the evidence?” he asked.

“I’ve seen a summary.”

“How bad is it?”

“It’s terrible. There’s no question he did it. This is about mitigation, nothing more. And his state of mind. I can’t let them execute an insane person.”

“So wait until he wakes up. Run some tests.”

“They won’t count. He could wake up like a fruitcake and the prosecution will say that was caused by the blows to the head in the jailhouse fight. They’ll say he was perfectly sane at the time of the crime.”