Lee Child: Small Wars (The new Jack Reacher short story)

“He might. But does he use it?”

“Think I should ask him? What else is he going to say?”

“Did you match the footwear?”

“It was raining again almost immediately. Photographs were all we got. No casts. Not that we could have gotten casts anyway. Wrong kind of mud. More like liquid peat. Too spongy. I apologize on behalf of the state of Georgia for the poor quality of our mud. Not what you expect, I know. But spongy or not, we measured the prints with a ruler. They were size fifteen. Just like the boots he was wearing when they brought him in.”

“So you can’t match the tires either. Not exactly. For nicks or wear.”

“The photograph is clear as to brand.”

“Has he said where he was at the time?”

“Home alone. No witnesses.”

“So it’s a closed case?”

“The State Police is expressing considerable satisfaction in the outcome. But no case is closed until the grand jury says so.”

“Are they still looking?”

“Not as hard. What’s your problem, major?”

“This guy lives alone in a cabin. You know why that is? People are scared to look at him. He’s repellent. That’s all he’s ever heard, ever since he was a little kid. These growth things start early. So when it came time to earn some coin, why would he choose the role of smooth-talking conman, lulling passing drivers into a false sense of security? Why would he expect to succeed at that, given the way he’s been looked at all his life? I think he’s ugly, but I think he’s innocent. In fact I think he’s innocent because he’s ugly.”

“Lots of people look a little funny. Doesn’t stop them working.”

“Does this happen often? Is it a big thing here? Sticking people up by faking breakdowns?”

“I never heard of it before.”

“So this guy invented it, too?”

“He’s got the feet and the gun and the tires,” the county guy said. “That’s a rare combination.”

They gave Reacher Caroline Crawford’s room, in the Fort Smith visiting officers’ quarters. The MPs had taken all her possessions out, as part of the investigation, and the stewards had cleaned the place up. Some of the surfaces were still damp. Neagley was in NCO accommodation. They met first thing the next morning in her mess for coffee and breakfast, and then they headed to the MP office to look at maps. The local commander was a captain named Ellsbury. He was a squared-away individual running a tight ship, and rightly proud of it. He produced every kind of map there was, including the government surveys they had seen before, plus large-scale topographical sheets bound into an atlas, and even a Triple-A giveaway of the southern part of the state.

Reacher started at the far end of a random potential journey, at what the government survey labeled a bar, and what the much older topographical sheets called a Negro Night Club. It was about thirty miles out. An hour by car, probably, given the prevailing conditions. There was no really direct way to get there. An intending patron departing Fort Smith would have to leave the county road at the first fork, and then thread through the woods on any one of ten potential routes, all looping and curving, none obviously better than another. The road Crawford had used had nothing to recommend it. Not in terms of efficiency. It might even have added unnecessary distance. A mile or two.

Reacher said, “Why would the guy with the big feet set up there? He could go days without seeing traffic. And nine times out of ten what traffic he saw would be soldiers. From here. What kind of a business plan is that? He decides to make a living by mugging Delta Force and Army Rangers? Good luck with that career choice.”

“Why would anyone set up there?” Ellsbury said. “But we know someone did.”

“You think the guy they got did it? Two to the chest and one to the head? That’s a learned technique. Center mass, skip left, center mass again, skip up, one to the head just in case they get over the chest wounds. It’s relatively precise. It’s been practiced.”

“They practice it here. But no one is unaccounted for ahead of when she left. It wasn’t one of ours lying in wait.”

“And I doubt it was a guy with a skeletal disorder that probably hurts his fine motor control, either.”

“He’s got the tires and the gun and the feet. He’s a weird black guy who lives alone in a hut. This is 1989, but it’s Georgia. Sometimes it’s still 1959. This guy will do. He won’t be the first and he won’t be the last.”

“I want to see that road for myself,” Reacher said.

Neagley drove, with Reacher in the front and Ellsbury in the back. Off the county road at the first fork, into the capillary network, and then finally onto a not-quite two-lane blacktop ribbon through the trees, mostly straight and sunlit, bordered by fine black mud washed smooth again by the rain. Ellsbury peered ahead between the seats, and pointed Neagley to a spot about three hundred yards after a slight bend. He said, “That’s the scene.”

There was plenty of scope for a threat assessment. Neagley pretended to see the broken-down vehicle, and lifted off and coasted, and she could have stopped two hundred yards out, or a hundred, or fifty, or wherever she wanted. She came to rest right where Ellsbury said it happened. There was nothing to see. The mud was dull and flat and uniform, lightly pocked by rain spatter. But the marks in the photographs had told the story. A vehicle had been parked right there, across the not-quite two traffic lanes, and a guy had gotten out and waited near the front, probably pretending to look under the hood.

They all got out, making fresh marks in the mud, deep and oozing where it was thick, and spongy and blotted where it wasn’t. The air smelled of rain and sun and earth and pine. Reacher looked back, and looked ahead.

He said, “OK, I’ve seen enough.”

Then he looked ahead again.

A car was coming. Black and white. A cop car. State Police. A spotlight on the pillar, and a bubble on the roof, like a little red hat. One guy behind the wheel. Otherwise empty.

The car came to a stop symmetrical with Neagley’s, nose to nose in the other traffic lane. The trooper climbed out. A young guy, with fair hair and a red face. Built like a side of beef. He had small deep-set eyes. They made him look mean.

He said, “The army is supposed to inform us before interfering with the crime scene.”

Reacher said, “Are you working this case?”

“Just taking a look, out of curiosity.”

“Then get lost.”

“Get what?”

“Lost.”

The guy stepped closer and looked at Reacher’s chest. U.S. Army. Reacher . He said, “You’re the boy who don’t like our work.”

Reacher said, “I’m the boy?”

“You think we got the wrong guy.”

“You think you got the right guy?”

“Sure I do. It’s scientific. Plenty of people have Firestone tires, and plenty have nine-millimeter ammunition, but not many have size fifteen feet, so when you put it all together it’s like three cherries on a slot machine.”

“Will the guy get a lawyer?”

“Of course. The public defender.”

“Does the public defender have a pulse?”

“Of course.”

“Doesn’t that worry you? You think the three-cherries argument will stand up to the slightest scrutiny? Were you out sick the day they taught thinking?”

“Now you’re being unpleasant.”

“Not yet,” Reacher said. “You’ll notice the difference.”

“This is a public road. I could arrest you.”

“Theoretically possible. Like I could get a date with Miss America.”

“You planning to resist?”

“Maybe I’ll arrest you instead.”

“For what?”

“I’m sure we could figure something out. A bit of this, and a bit of that. We could get three cherries of our own.”