Lee Child - One Shot

“From James Barr himself.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I didn’t believe it, either. But I do now.”

“Why?”

“We should have lunch. We really need to talk. Because I think there’s someone else out there who knows.”

Emerson and Bianca called it quits at twelve-fifty. Reacher never showed. The feeder flight came in on time. Nobody that could have been a female Brigadier General from the Pentagon got off. The two cops waited until the arrivals hall emptied out and went quiet. Then they got in their car and drove back to town.

Reacher and Hutton had lunch. A waitress came over, happy to get some business out of her corner table at last. The menu was coffee-shop-basic. Reacher ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and coffee. Hutton went with chicken Caesar and tea. They ate and talked. Reacher ran through the details of the case. Then he ran through his theory. The perverse choice of location, the presumed coercion. He told Hutton about Niebuhr’s theory of the new and persuasive friend. Told her that Barr claimed he had no new friends, and very few old ones.

“Can’t be a new friend anyway,” Hutton said. “Because this is a multilayered setup. There’s the contemporaneous evidence, and the historical parallels. Second story of a parking garage fourteen years ago in KC, second story of a parking garage here and now. Virtually the same rifle. Boat tail sniper ammunition. And the desert boots. I never saw them before Desert Shield. They’re suggestive. Whoever scripted this for him knew all about his past. Which means it isn’t a new friend. It can’t be. It would take years and years before Barr would feel like sharing anything about KC.”

Reacher nodded. “But obviously he did, eventually. Which is why I said there’s someone else out there who knows.”

“We need to find that person,” Hutton said. “The mission is to keep the lid on this thing.”

“Not my mission. I don’t care if this Petersen guy gets his fourth star.”

“But you do care that a quarter million veterans don’t get their reputations trashed. The scandal would taint all of them. And they were good people.”

Reacher said nothing.

“It’s easy enough,” Hutton said. “If James Barr doesn’t have many friends, you don’t have a very big pool to search through. One of them has to be the guy.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Two birds with one stone,” Hutton said. “You get to the puppet master and the army gets to relax.”

“So why doesn’t the army do it for me?”

“We can’t afford to draw attention.”

“I’ve got operational problems,” Reacher said.

“No jurisdiction?”

“Worse than that. I’m about to get arrested.”

“For what?”

“For killing that girl behind the hotel.”

“What?”

“The puppet master doesn’t like me being here. He already tried something on Monday night, with that same girl as bait. So I went to see her yesterday, twice. And now they killed her and I’m sure I’m her last unexplained contact.”

“Have you got an alibi?”

“Depends on the exact timing, but probably not. I’m sure the cops are already looking for me.”

“Problem,” Hutton said.

“Only temporary,” Reacher said. “Science is on my side. If her neck was broken by a single blow to her right temple, then her head rotated a little, counterclockwise, which means the punch was thrown by a left-hander. And I’m right-handed. If I had hit her in the right temple I would have knocked her out for sure, but I wouldn’t have broken her neck. I would have had to do that separately, afterward.”

“You sure?”

Reacher nodded. “I used to do this stuff for a living, remember.”

“But will they believe you? Or will they figure you’re big enough to have done it with your weak hand?”

“I’m not going to risk finding out.”

“You’re going to run?”

“No, I’m going to stick around. But I’m going to have to stay out of their way. Which will slow me down some. A lot, in fact. Which is why I said I’ve got operational problems.”

“Can I help?”

Reacher smiled.

“It’s good to see you, Hutton,” he said. “It really is.”

“How can I help?”

“My guess is there’ll be a cop called Emerson waiting for you after you’re done with your deposition. He’ll ask you about me. Just play dumb. Just say I never showed up, you didn’t see me, you don’t know where I am, all that kind of stuff.”

She was quiet for a spell.

“You’re upset,” she said. “I can tell.”

He nodded. Rubbed his face, like he was washing without water.

“I don’t care much about James Barr,” he said. “If someone wanted to set him up so he took the punishment he should have taken fourteen years ago, that was OK with me. But this thing with the girl is different. It’s way out of line. She was just a sweet dumb kid. She meant no harm.”

Hutton was quiet for a moment longer.

“Are you sure about the threat to Barr’s sister?” she asked.

“I don’t see any other leverage.”

“But there’s no sign of a threat. As a prosecutor I couldn’t see entering it as a separate charge.”

“Why else would Barr have done what he did?”

Hutton didn’t answer.

“Will I see you later?” she asked.

“I’ve got a room not far away,” he said. “I’ll be around.”

“OK,” she said.

“Unless I’m already in jail.”

The waitress came back and they ordered dessert. Reacher asked for more coffee and Hutton got more tea. They kept on talking. Random subjects, random questions. They had fourteen years to catch up on.

Helen Rodin searched through the six cartons of evidence and found a crisp photocopy of a sheet of paper that had been found next to James Barr’s telephone. It was as close as he had gotten to a personal phone book. It had three numbers on it, written in neat and careful handwriting. Two were for his sister Rosemary, one at her condo and the other at work. The third number was for Mike. The neighborhood guy. Nothing for anyone called Charlie.

Helen dialed Mike’s number. It rang six times and cut to an answering machine. She left her office number and asked for a return call on a matter of great importance.

Emerson spent an hour with a sketch artist and came up with a pretty good likeness of Jack Reacher’s face. The drawing was then scanned into a computer and colorized. Dirty-blond hair, ice-blue eyes, medium-to-dark tan. Emerson then typed the name, and estimated the height at six-five, the weight at two-fifty, the age between thirty-five and forty-five. He put the police department’s phone number on the bottom line. Then he e-mailed it all over the place and set the printer to churn out two hundred color copies. He told every prowl car driver to take a sheaf and give one to every hotel clerk and barman in town. Then he added: every restaurant, diner, lunch counter, and sandwich shop, too.

James Barr’s friend Mike called Helen Rodin back at three o’clock in the afternoon. She asked for his address and got him to agree to a face-to-face interview. He said he was home for the rest of the day. So she called a cab and headed out. Mike lived on James Barr’s street, twenty minutes from downtown. Barr’s house was visible from Mike’s front yard. Both houses were similar. All the houses on the street were similar. They were 1950s ranches, long and low. Helen guessed they had all started out identical. But a half-century’s worth of adding on and reroofing and re-siding and ongoing landscaping had made them diverge in appearance. Some looked upmarket and some still looked basic. Barr’s place looked worn. Mike’s place looked manicured.

Mike himself was a tired fifty-something who worked the morning shift at a paint wholesaler. His wife arrived home while Helen was still introducing herself. She was also a tired fifty-something. Her name was Tammy, which didn’t suit her. She was a part-time dental nurse. She worked two mornings a week for a downtown dentist. She ushered Helen and Mike into the living room and then went away to make coffee. Helen and Mike sat down and started out with an awkward initial silence that lasted minutes.