One Shot (Page 35)
"I don’t remember anything," Barr said.
"You sure?"
"It’s all blank."
"You clear on what I’ll do to you if you’re bullshitting me?"
"I can guess."
"Triple it," Reacher said.
"I’m not bullshitting," Barr said. "I just can’t remember anything." His voice was quiet, helpless, confused. Not a defense, not a complaint. Not an excuse. Just a statement of fact, like a lament, or a plea, or a cry.
"Tell me about the ballgame," Reacher said.
"It was on the radio."
"Not the TV?"
"I prefer the radio," Barr said. "For old times’ sake. That’s how it always was. When I was a kid. The radio, all the way from St. Louis. All those miles. Summer evenings, warm weather, the sound of baseball on the radio."
He went quiet.
"You OK?" Reacher said.
"My head hurts real bad. I think I had an operation."
Reacher said nothing.
"I don’t like baseball on the TV," Barr said.
"I’m not here to discuss your media preferences."
"Do you watch baseball on TV?"
"I don’t have a TV," Reacher said.
"Really? You should get one. You can get them for a hundred bucks. Maybe less, for a small one. Look in the Yellow Pages."
"I don’t have a phone. Or a house."
"Why not? You’re not still in the army."
"How would you know?"
"Nobody’s still in the army. Not from back then."
"Some people are," Reacher said, thinking about Eileen Hutton.
"Officers," Barr said. "Nobody else."
"I was an officer," Reacher said. "You’re supposed to be able to remember stuff like that."
"But you weren’t like the others. That’s what I meant."
"How was I different?"
"You worked for a living."
"Tell me about the ballgame."
"Why don’t you have a house? Are you doing OK?"
"You worried about me now?"
"Don’t like it when folks aren’t doing so well."
"I’m doing fine," Reacher said. "Believe me. You’re the one with the problem."
"Are you a cop now? Here? I never saw you around."
Reacher shook his head. "I’m just a citizen."
"From where?"
"From nowhere. Out in the world."
"Why are you here?"
Reacher didn’t answer.
"Oh," Barr said. "To nail me."
"Tell me about the ballgame."
"It was the Cubs at the Cardinals," Barr said. "Close game. Cards won, bottom ninth, walk-off."
"Home run?"
"No, an error. A walk, a steal, then a groundout to second put the runner on third, one out. Soft grounder to short, check the runner, throw to first, but the throw went in the dugout and the run scored on the error. The winning run, without a hit in the inning."
"You remember it pretty well."
"I follow the Cards. I always have."
"When was this?"
"I don’t even know what day it is today."
Reacher said nothing.
"I can’t believe that I did what they say," Barr said. "Just can’t believe it."
"Plenty of evidence," Reacher said.
"For real?"
"No question."
Barr closed his eyes.
"How many people?" he asked.
"Five."
Barr’s chest started moving. Tears welled out of his closed eyes. His mouth opened in a ragged oval. He was crying, with his head in a vise.
"Why did I do it?" he said.
"Why did you do it the first time?" Reacher said.
"I was crazy then," Barr said.
Reacher said nothing.
"No excuses," Barr said. "I was a different person then. I thought I’d changed. I was sure I had. I was good afterward. I tried real hard. Fourteen years, reformed."
Reacher said nothing.
"I would have killed myself," Barr said. "You know, back then. Afterward. I came close, a couple of times. I was so ashamed. Except those four guys from KC turned out to be bad. That was my only consolation. I clung on to it, like redemption."
"Why do you own all those guns?"
"Couldn’t give them up. They were reminders. And they keep me straight. Too hard to stay straight without them."
"Do you ever use them?"
"Occasionally. Not often. Now and then."
"How?"
"At a range."
"Where? The cops checked."
"Not here. I go across the line to Kentucky. There’s a range there, cheap."
"You know the plaza downtown?"
"Sure. I live here."
"Tell me how you did it."
"I don’t remember doing it."
"So tell me how you would do it. Theoretically. Like a recon briefing."
"What would the targets be?"
"Pedestrians. Coming out of the DMV building."
Barr closed his eyes again. "That’s who I shot?"
"Five of them," Reacher said.
Barr started crying again. Reacher moved away and pulled a chair from against a wall. He turned it around and sat down on it, backward.
"When?" Barr said.
"Friday afternoon."
Barr stayed quiet for a long time.
"How did they catch me?" he asked.
"You tell the story."
"Was it a traffic stop?"
"Why would it be?"
"I would have waited until late. Maybe just after five. Plenty of people then. I would have stopped on the highway behind the library. Where it’s raised. Sun in the west, behind me, no reflection off the scope. I would have opened the passenger window and lined it all up and emptied the mag and hit the gas again. Only way to get caught would be if a state trooper pulled me over for speeding and saw the rifle. But I think I would have been aware of that. Wouldn’t I? I think I would have hidden the rifle and driven slow. Not fast. Why would I have risked standing out?"
Reacher said nothing.
"What?" Barr said. "Maybe a trooper stopped to help me right there. Was that it? While I was parked? Maybe he thought I had a flat. Or I was out of gas."
"Do you own a traffic cone?" Reacher asked.
"A what?"
"A traffic cone."
Barr started to say no, but then he stopped.
"I guess I’ve got one," he said. "Not sure if I own it, exactly. I had my driveway blacktopped. They left a cone on the sidewalk to stop people driving on it. I had to leave it there three days. They never came back for it."
"So what did you do with it?"
"I put it in the garage."
"Is it still there?"
"I think so. I’m pretty sure."
"When was this driveway work done?"
"Start of spring, I think. Months ago."
"You got receipts?"
Barr tried to shake his head. Winced at the pressure from the clamp.
"It was a gypsy crew," he said. "I think they stole the blacktop from the city. Probably from where they were starting to fix First Street. I paid cash, quick and dirty."
"You got any friends?"
"A few."
"Who are they?"
"Just guys. One or two."
"Any new friends?"
"I don’t think so."
"Women?"
"They don’t like me."