Echo Burning
"Why north? Why on the left side?"
"I’d have driven way north first. Turned back and scouted the nearside shoulder. Picked my place and measured a couple of miles backward, turned around again and set up and waited for him."
"Conceivable," she said. "But the Sloop thing? That’s impossible. They went down to that house? In Echo, in the middle of nowhere? Hid out and crept in? While she was in the shower?"
"I could have done it," he said. "And I’m assuming they’re as good as me. Maybe they’re better than me. They certainly shoot better."
"You’re crazy," she said.
"Maybe," he said.
"No, for sure," she said. "Because she confessed to it. Why would she do that? If it was really nothing at all to do with her?"
"We’ll figure that out later. First, we wait an hour."
* * *
He left Alice with work to do and went back out into the heat. Decided he’d finally take a look at the Wild West museum. When he got there, it was closed. Too late in the day. But he could see an alley leading to an open area in back. There was a locked gate, low enough for him to step over. Behind the buildings was a collection of rebuilt artifacts from the old days. There was a small one-cell jailhouse, and a replica of Judge Roy Bean’s courthouse, and a hanging tree. The three displays made a nice direct sequence. Arrest, trial, sentence. Then there was Clay Allison’s grave. It was well tended, and the headstone was handsome. Clay was his middle name. His first name was Robert. Robert Clay Allison, born 1840, died 1887. Never killed a man that did not need killing. Reacher had no middle name. It was Jack Reacher, plain and simple. Born 1960, not dead yet. He wondered what his headstone would look like. Probably wouldn’t have one. There was nobody to arrange it.
He strolled back up the alley and stepped over the gate again. Facing him was a long low concrete building, two stories. Retail operations on the first floor, offices above. One of them had ALBERT E. EUGENE, ATTORNEY AT LAW painted on the window in old-fashioned gold letters. There were two other law firms in the building. The building was within sight of the courthouse. These were the cheap lawyers, Reacher guessed. Separated geographically from the free lawyers in Alice’s row and the expensive lawyers who must be on some other street. Although Eugene had driven a Mercedes Benz. Maybe he did a lot of volume. Or maybe he was just vain and had been struggling with a heavy lease payment.
He paused at the crossroads. The sun was dropping low in the west and there were clouds stacking up on the southern horizon. There was a warm breeze on his face. It was gusting strong enough to tug at his clothes and stir dust on the sidewalk. He stood for a second and let it flatten the fabric of his shirt against his stomach. Then it died and the dull heat came back. But the clouds were still there in the south, like ragged stains on the sky.
He walked back to Alice’s office. She was still at her desk. Still facing an endless stream of problems. There were people in her client chairs. A middle-aged Mexican couple. They had patient, trusting expressions on their faces. Her stack of paperwork had grown. She pointed vaguely at his chair, which was still placed next to hers. He squeezed in and sat down. Picked up the phone and dialed the Abilene number from memory. He gave his name as Chester Arthur and asked for Sergeant Rodriguez.
He was on hold a whole minute. Then Rodriguez picked up and Reacher knew right away they had found Eugene’s body. There was a lot of urgency in the guy’s voice.
"We need your client’s name, Mr. Arthur," Rodriguez said.
"What did your people find?" Reacher asked.
"Exactly what you said, sir. Mile and a half north, on the left, in a deep limestone crevasse. Shot once through the right eye."
"Was it a .22?"
"No way. Not according to what I’m hearing. Nine millimeter, at least. Some big messy cannon. Most of his head is gone."
"You got an estimated time of death?"
"Tough question, in this heat. And they say the coyotes got to him, ate up some of the parts the pathologist likes to work with. But if somebody said Friday, I don’t think we’d argue any."
Reacher said nothing.
"I need some names," Rodriguez said.
"My guy’s not the doer," Reacher said. "I’ll talk to him and maybe he’ll call you."
Then he hung up before Rodriguez could start arguing. Alice was staring at him again. So were her clients. Clearly they spoke enough English to follow the conversation.
"Which president was Chester Arthur?" Alice asked.
"After Garfield, before Grover Cleveland," Reacher replied. "One of two from Vermont."
"Who was the other?"
"Calvin Coolidge."
"So they found Eugene," she said.
"Sure did."
"So now what?"
"Now we go warn Hack Walker."
"Warn him?"
Reacher nodded. "Think about it, Alice. Maybe what we’ve got here is two out of two, but I think it’s more likely to be two out of three. They were a threesome, Hack and Al and Sloop. Carmen said they all worked together on the deal. She said Hack brokered it with the feds. So Hack knew what they knew, for sure. So he could be next."
Alice turned to her clients.
"Sorry, got to go," she said, in English.
* * *
Hack Walker was packing up for the day. He was on his feet with his jacket on and he was latching his briefcase closed. It was after six o’clock and his office windows were growing dim with dusk. They told him that Eugene was dead and watched the color drain out of his face. His skin literally contracted and puckered under a mask of sweat. He clawed his way around his desk and dumped himself down in his chair. He said nothing for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly.
"I guess I always knew," he said. "But I was, you know, hoping."
He turned to look down at the photograph.
"I’m very sorry," Reacher said.
"Do they know why?" Walker asked. "Or who?"
"Not yet."
Walker paused again. "Why did they tell you about it before me?"
"Reacher figured out where they should look," Alice said. "He told them, effectively."
Then she went straight into his two-for-three theory. The deal, the dangerous knowledge. The warning. Walker sat still and listened to it. His color came back, slowly. He stayed quiet, thinking hard. Then he shook his head.
"Can’t be right," he said. "Because the deal was really nothing at all. Sloop caved in and undertook to pay the taxes and the penalties. That was all. Nothing more. He got desperate, couldn’t stand the jail time. It happens a lot. Al contacted the IRS, made the offer, they didn’t bat an eye. It’s routine. It was handled at a branch office. By junior-grade personnel. That’s how routine it was. The federal prosecutor needed to sign off on it, which is where I came in. I hustled it through, is all, a little faster than it might have gone without me. You know, the old boys’ club. It was a routine IRS matter. And believe me, nobody gets killed over a routine IRS matter."
He shook his head again. Then he opened his eyes wide and went very still.
"I want you to leave now," he said.
Alice nodded. "We’re very sorry for your loss. We know you were friends."
But Walker just looked confused, like that wasn’t what he was worrying about.
"What?" Reacher said.
"We shouldn’t talk anymore, is what," Walker said.
"Why not?"
"Because we’re going around in a circle, and we’re finishing up in a place where we don’t want to be."
"We are?"
"Think about it, guys. Nobody gets killed over a routine IRS matter. Or do they? Sloop and Al were fixing to take the trust money away from Carmen and give most of it to the government. Now Sloop and Al are dead. Two plus two makes four. Her motive is getting bigger and better all the time. We keep talking like this, I’ve got to think conspiracy. Two deaths, not one. No choice, I’ve got to. And I don’t want to do that."
"There was no conspiracy," Reacher said. "If she’d already hired people, why did she pick me up?"
Walker shrugged. "To confuse the issue? Distance herself?"
"Is she that smart?"
"I think she is."
"So prove it. Show us she hired somebody."
"I can’t do that."
"Yes, you can. You’ve got her bank records. Show us the payment."
"The payment?"
"You think these people work for free?"
Walker made a face. Took keys from his pocket and unlocked a drawer in his desk. Lifted out the pile of financial information. Greer Non-Discretionary Trust, numbers 1 through 5. Reacher held his breath. Walker went through them, page by page. Then he squared them together again and reversed them on the desk. His face was blank.
Alice leaned forward and picked them up. Leafed through, scanning the fourth column from the left, which was the debit column. There were plenty of debits. But they were all small and random. Nothing bigger than two hundred and ninety-seven dollars. Several below a hundred.
"Add up the last month," Reacher said.
She scanned back.
"Nine hundred, round figures," she said.
Reacher nodded. "Even if she hoarded it, nine hundred bucks doesn’t buy you much. Certainly doesn’t buy you somebody who can operate the way we’ve seen."
Walker said nothing.