Small Wars
A woman. Maybe sixty years old, and careworn. A housedress. Knuckles like walnuts. A hard worker. She said, “Yes?”
Reacher said, “Ma’am, we’re from the U.S. Army, and we need to know Mr. and Mrs. Crawford’s current location.”
“Does it concern their daughter?”
“At this point, until I know their whereabouts, I’m not at liberty to say what it concerns.”
The woman said, “You better come in and speak to my husband.”
Who was not the butler. Not if the shows Reacher had seen on TV were true. This was a hangdog fellow, thin and bent over from labor, with big rough hands. A gardener, maybe.
Reacher said, “What’s your phone number?”
They told him, and Neagley nodded. Reacher said, “Are you the only people here at the moment?”
They said yes, and Reacher said, “So I believe the army has already called you. For some reason yours is the only number we have.”
The hangdog guy said, “The family is away.”
“Where?”
The woman said, “We should know what this is about.”
“You can’t filter their news. You don’t have that right.”
“So it is about their daughter. It’s bad news, isn’t it?”
The room was small and cramped. The ceiling was low, because of the eaves. The furniture was plain, and not generous in quantity. Storage was inadequate, clearly. Essential paperwork was stacked on the dining table. Bills, and mail. The floor was bare board. There was a television set. There was a shelf with three books, and a toy frog painted silver. Or an armadillo. Something humped. Maybe two inches long. Something crouching.
“Excuse me,” Reacher said.
He stepped closer.
Not a frog. Not an armadillo. A toy car. A sports coupe. Painted silver. A Porsche.
Reacher stepped over to the dining table. Picked up a piece of opened mail.
A bank statement. A savings account. Almost a hundred dollars in it.
It was addressed to H & R Crawford, at the address the army had, and the phone number was the same.
Not filtering the news.
Reacher said, “Sir, ma’am, I very much regret it’s my duty on behalf of the Commander in Chief to inform you your daughter was the victim of an off-post homicide two evenings ago. The circumstances are still being investigated, but we do know her death must have been instantaneous and she can have felt no pain.”
—
Like most MPs Reacher and Neagley had delivered death messages before, and they knew the drill. Not touchy-feely like neighbors. The army way was appropriately grim, but with the stalwart radiation of wholesome sentiments such as courage and service and sacrifice. Eventually the parents started asking them questions, and they answered what they could. Career good, luck bad. Then Neagley said, “Tell us about her,” which Reacher assumed was a hundred percent professional interest, but which also played well in the psychological context.
The woman told the story. The mother. It came right out of her. She was the cook. The hangdog guy was a groundskeeper. The father. Caroline was their daughter. An only child. She had grown up right there, above the garages. She hadn’t enjoyed it. She wanted what was in the big house. She was ten times smarter than them. Wasn’t fair.
Reacher said, “She gave the impression she had family money.”
The hangdog guy said, “No, that was all hers. She gets paid a fortune. It’s a government job. Those people look after each other. Pensions, too, I expect. All kinds of benefits.”
“No legacies? No inheritances?”
“We gave her thirty-five dollars when she went to West Point. It was all we had saved. That’s all she ever got. Anything else, she earned.”
Reacher said, “May I use your phone?”
They said yes, and he dialed the Pentagon. A number on a desk outside an office with a window. Answered by a sergeant.
Reacher said, “Is he there? It’s his brother.”
Joe’s voice came on the line.
Reacher said, “Name a good steakhouse in Alexandria open late.”
Joe did.
Reacher said, “I’ll meet you there at nine o’clock tonight.”
“Why?”
“To keep you in the loop.”
“With Crawford? Is there something weird?”
“Many things. I need to run an idea by you.”
—
Neagley drove. Back on I-95. Hundreds of miles. As far as from Fort Smith to Myrtle Beach, all over again. They stayed on the left of the Potomac and got to Alexandria ninety minutes after dark. They were five minutes late to the restaurant. There was a guy near the door, doing nothing. Plain clothes. Almost convincing.
Neagley went in and got a table for one. Then Reacher went in and sat with Joe. White linen, dim candlelight, ruby wines, a hushed atmosphere. There was another guy in plain clothes all alone at a table, on the other side of the room from Neagley. Symmetrical.
Joe said, “I see you brought your attack dog with you.”
Reacher said, “I see you brought two of yours.”
“Crawford is serious shit. Immediate action might be required.”
“That’s why Neagley is here.”
They ordered. Onion soup and a rib-eye for Reacher, foie gras and a filet mignon for Joe. Fries for both, red wine for Joe, coffee for Reacher. Plus tap water. No small talk.
Reacher said, “I was worried about the road from the beginning. It doesn’t go anywhere. Stupid place to set a trap. Can’t have been random. But deliberate makes no sense either. She had a choice of three or four destinations, and about forty different ways of getting there. Then I figured it out. A truly smart guy would ignore the destinations. He wouldn’t try to predict how she would get from A to B or C or D. He would figure all roads were equal. At least in terms of transportation. But not equal in other ways. Not emotionally, for instance. Sometimes I forget that normal people like driving more than I do. So a smart guy would ask, which road would she use just for the hell of it? A young woman with a brand-new sports car? No contest. That was a great road. Straightaways, nice bends, trees, sunshine, the smell of fresh air. Great noise, too, probably. A windows-down kind of a road. A smart guy would be able to predict it.”
Joe said, “A smart guy with military training.”
“Because of the triple shot? I agree. It’s a high-stress moment. That was automatic. Muscle memory. Years at the gun range. The guy was one of ours.”
“But which one of ours, and why?”
“This is where it gets highly speculative. She wasn’t rich. I know that now. I should have known long ago. It was right there in the fine print from the autopsy. She had recent cosmetic dentistry. A rich girl would have had it years before. As a teenager. So, no family money. I met her parents. They had thirty-five dollars in her college fund. There are no rich uncles. They think she earned it all. Government job. They think she earned a fortune. But we know she didn’t. Ten light colonels couldn’t afford a brand-new Porsche. But she got one. With what?”
“You tell me.”
“She was in War Plans. Suppose she was selling information to a foreign government? Iraq, maybe. They’d pay a fortune. She’s writing the plan. They’d be getting it straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“Possible,” Joe said. “Theoretically. As a worst-case scenario.”
“Are we going to have a problem with Iraq?”