Lee Child - The Midnight Line

“To what? Soap powder?”

“Surveillance should tell us.”

“We’ve never seen anything that looks like privileged access to something. Never. Nothing goes in or out.”

“Billy might not agree. Whoever Billy is.”

“Bigfoot is going to walk right into trouble. We should call someone.”

Her lieutenant said, “Play the voicemail again.”

She did. He’s got to go, because he’s a random loose end. Easier for you to deal with out there than it would be for me here. So get it done .

“He’s ordering a homicide,” she said again.

Her lieutenant said, “Can we ID Billy from his phone number?”

Nakamura shook her head. “Another drugstore burner.”

“Where is Mule Crossing exactly?”

“In a county measuring seven thousand square miles. Which is run by a sheriff’s department likely no bigger than two men and a dog.”

“You think we should play the Good Samaritan?”

“I think we have a duty.”

“OK, call them in the morning. Fingers crossed the men answer, not the dog. Tell them the story. Ask them if they know a guy named Billy, with a deer rifle and a tree.”

—

The ramshackle building looked like a post office. Something about the shape, and the size. It was plain and bureaucratic, but also prideful. As if it was saying the mail could be carried anywhere, even into empty and inhospitable regions. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds . All that good stuff. But not anymore. A car passed by on the road and in the wash of its lights Reacher saw less-faded wood where twenty years before stern metal letters had been pried out of the siding: United States Post Office, Mule Crossing, Wyo . Below that was a replacement message, hand-painted in gaudy multicolored foot-high letters: Flea Market .

The market itself had a sign in the window saying it was closed. It was dark inside. The door was locked. No knocker, no bell. Reacher walked back to where he could see the lit-up window. Below it in the end wall of the building was a door, with a shallow stoop, which had a boot scraper on one side and a garbage can on the other. All very domestic. The entrance to the residence, presumably. To the foot of a staircase direct to the second floor. Where the lit window was. Living above the store, literally.

There was no doorbell.

Reacher knocked, hard and loud. Then waited. No response. He knocked again, harder and louder. He heard a voice.

It roared, “What?”

A man, not young, not delighted at being disturbed.

“I want to talk to you,” Reacher called back.

“What?”

“I need to ask you a question.”

“What?”

Reacher said nothing. He just waited. He knew the guy would come down. He had been an MP for thirteen years. He had knocked on a lot of doors.

The guy came down. He opened the door. He was a white man, maybe seventy years old, tall but stooping, with not much flesh over a solid frame.

He said, “What?”

Reacher said, “I was told only five or six people live here. I’m looking for one of them. Which makes it about an eighteen percent chance that person is you.”

“Who are you looking for?”

“Tell me your name first.”

“Why?”

“Because if you’re the guy, you’ll deny it. You’ll pretend you’re someone else and send me on a wild goose chase.”

“You think I would do that?”

“If you’re the guy,” Reacher said again. “It’s been known to happen.”

“You a cop?”

“Once upon a time. In the army.”

The guy went quiet.

He said, “My son was in the army.”

“What branch?”

“Rangers. He was killed in Afghanistan.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not as much as I am. So remind me again, how may I help the army tonight?”

“I’m not here for the army,” Reacher said. “I’ve been out a long time. This is a purely private matter. Purely personal. I’m looking for a man I was told was from Mule Crossing, Wyoming.”

“But you won’t tell me his name till I tell you mine. Because if I’m him, I’ll lie about it. Have I got that straight?”

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

“If I was the sort of guy other guys came looking for, wouldn’t I lie anyway?”

Reacher nodded.

He said, “This whole thing would go better if I saw ID.”

“You got some nerve, you know that?”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

The guy stood still for a second, deciding, and then he shook his head and smiled and hauled a wallet out of his back pants pocket. He flipped it open and held it out. There was a Wyoming driver’s license behind a scratched plastic window. The photograph was right. The address was right. The name was John Ryan Headley.

Reacher said, “Thank you, Mr. Headley. My name is Reacher. I’m pleased to meet you.”

The guy clapped his wallet shut and put it back in his pocket.

He said, “Am I the man you’re looking for, Mr. Reacher?”

“No,” Reacher said.

“I thought not. Why would anyone look for me?”

“I’m looking for a guy named Seymour Porterfield. Apparently people call him Sy.”

“You’re a little late for Sy, I’m afraid.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s dead.”

“Since when?”

“About eighteen months ago, I guess. Around the start of spring last year.”

“Someone told me he was seen in South Dakota six weeks ago.”

“Then someone was lying to you. There’s no doubt about it. It was a big sensation. He was found in the hills, mostly eaten up. Killed by a bear, they thought. Maybe waking up after hibernation. They’re hungry then. Other folks thought a mountain lion. His guts were all ripped out, which is what mountain lions do. Then the ravens came, and the crows, and the raccoons. He was scattered all over the place. They made the ID with his teeth. And the keys in his pocket. April, I think. April last year.”

“How old was he?”

“He could have been forty.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“Come on in,” Headley said. “I’ve got coffee brewing.”

Reacher followed him up a narrow stair, to a long A-shaped attic that had been paneled with pine boards, and boxed off into separate rooms. There was an aluminum percolator thumping away on the stove. All the furniture was small. No sofas. The staircase was too narrow and the turns too tight to get them in. Headley poured two cups and handed one over. The coffee was thick and inky and smelled a little scorched.

“What did Porterfield do for a living?” Reacher asked again.

“No one knew for sure,” Headley said. “But he always had money in his pocket. Not a whole lot, but a little more than made any kind of sense.”

“Where did he live?”

“He had a log house up in the hills,” Headley said. “Twenty miles away, maybe, on one of the old ranches. All by himself. He was pretty much a loner.”

“West of here?”

Headley nodded. “Follow the dirt road. I guess his place is empty now.”

“Who else lives out in that direction?”

“Not sure. I see folks driving by. I don’t necessarily know who they are. This ain’t the post office anymore.”

“Were you here when it was?”

“Man and boy.”

“How many folks do you see driving by?”

“Could be ten or twenty total.”

“I was told four or five.”

“Who pay their taxes and sign their names. But there are plenty of abandoned places. Plenty of unofficial residents.”

Reacher said, “You know a woman, also ex-army, very small, name of Serena Sanderson?”

Headley said, “No.”

“You sure?”