The Affair

Total elapsed time, a minute and fifteen seconds.

There were trees to my left and trees to my right and trees ahead of me. A lonely spot, even in the bright daylight. I mimed supporting a body’s weight, cutting the wrist straps, cutting the ankle ties, carrying the body to the car, lowering it into the trunk. I fiddled around four more times, taking off imaginary pads and straps and belts and scarves from two wrists and two ankles. I stepped back to the trestle and picked up an imaginary bucket of blood and heaved it over to the car and wedged it in the trunk alongside the body.

I closed the trunk lid and got back in the driver’s seat.

Total elapsed time, three minutes and ten seconds.

I backed up and turned and drove the length of the driveway again and headed back to Main Street. I drove the same two hundred yards I had driven before and stopped on the curb between the hardware store and the pharmacy. Right at the mouth of the alley.

Total elapsed time, four minutes and twenty-five seconds.

Plus one minute to put the blood in the alley.

Plus another minute to put Janice May Chapman in the alley.

Plus fifteen seconds to get back where I started.

Total elapsed time, six minutes and forty seconds.

Touch and go.

Maybe long enough to stick in someone’s mind, in a social situation, or maybe not.

I rewound the clock in my head to four minutes and twenty-five seconds and drove on north and then east, to the railroad crossing. I came to a stop right on top of it. New total, four minutes and fifty-five seconds. Plus a minute to carry Rosemary McClatchy to the ditch, and thirty seconds to get back to the car, and twenty seconds to get back where I started.

Total elapsed time, six minutes and forty-five seconds.

Fractionally longer, but in the same ballpark.

I didn’t drive up to where Shawna Lindsay had been dumped, on the pile of gravel. No point. That destination was in a whole different category. That was a twenty-minute excursion, right there. It was the sole exception to the hurry-up rule. Therefore it had been undertaken under different circumstances. No company. No social situation. Plenty of time to thread cautiously along dark dirt roads between ditches, turning right, turning left, doing the deed, and then coming back again, just as slow, just as cautious.

But what was interesting about Shawna Lindsay’s resting place was the car that carried her there. What kind of car could get through that neighborhood twice, without attracting notice or comment? What kind of car was entitled to be there at that time of night?

I sat in the Buick for a spell and then I parked it outside the diner and went in and bought a new roll of quarters for the phone. I tried Neagley first and found her at her desk.

I said, "You’re late to work today."

She said, "But not by much. I’ve been here half an hour."

"I’m sorry about the bus."

"It was OK," she said. Public transportation was tough for Neagley. Too much chance of inadvertent human contact.

I asked, "Did you get a message from Stan Lowrey?"

"Yes, and I already traced the name for you."

"In half an hour?"

"It was easy, I’m afraid. Paul Evers died a year ago."

"How?"

"Nothing dramatic. It was an accident. A helicopter crashed at Lejeune. It was in the newspaper, actually. A Sea Hawk lost a rotor blade. Two pilots and three passengers died, one of which was Evers."

I said, "OK, plan B. The other name I want is Alice Bouton." I spelled it out. I said, "She’s been a civilian for the last five years. She was discharged from the Corps without honor. So you better call Stan back. He’s better than you at this kind of stuff."

"The only thing Lowrey has that I don’t is a friend at a bank."

"Exactly," I said. "That’s why you need to call him. Corporations know about civilians better than we do."

"Why are we doing this?"

"I’m checking a story."

"No, you’re clutching at straws. That’s what you’re doing."

"You think?"

"Elizabeth Deveraux is as guilty as sin, Reacher."

"You’ve seen the file?"

"Only the carbons."

I said, "But with a thing like this, you have to flip a coin."

"As in?"

"As in, maybe she did it, maybe she didn’t. We don’t know yet."

"We know, Reacher."

"Not for sure."

Neagley said, "It’s a good thing you don’t own a car."

I hung up with her and before I was a step away the phone rang on the wall, with the first good news of the day.

77

It was Munro on the phone, and he wanted to tell me he had had a cup of coffee. Or more specifically he wanted to tell me he had talked to the steward who had brought him the cup of coffee. The conversation had been on the subject of the day’s upcoming festivities, and Munro said the stewards expected to be very busy until after dinner, but no later than that, because the mess bar would be deserted all evening, because the last time the senator visited he had hosted everybody in town, at Brannan’s bar, because politically it seemed more authentic, and no doubt the old guy would do the same thing again.

"OK," I said. "That’s good. Riley will come to me after all. And his father. What time will dinner finish?"

"Scheduled to be over by eight o’clock, according to the steward."

"OK," I said again. "I’m sure father and son will leave the base together. I want you on them from the moment they drive through the gate. But unobtrusively. Can you do that?"

"Could you?"

"Probably."

"Then what makes you doubt I could?"

"Innate skepticism, I suppose," I said. "But whatever, keep your ear to the ground until eight tonight, and use this phone number as a contact if you need me. I’ll be in and out of this diner all day long."

"OK," Munro said. "I’ll see you later. But whether or not you’ll see me is a different question altogether."

I hung up with Munro, and I asked the waitress to answer the phone for me if it rang again. I asked her to write down the callers’ names on her order pad. Then it was all about waiting. For information, and for face to face encounters, and for decisive conclusions. I stepped out to the Main Street sidewalk and stood in the sun. Across the street the guy from the shirt store was doing the same thing. Taking a break, and tasting the air. On my left two old guys were on a bench outside the pharmacy, four hands piled on two canes between two sets of knees. Apart from the four of us the town was deserted. No hustle, no bustle, no traffic.

All quiet.

Until the goon squad from Kelham showed up.

There were four of them in total. They were Kelham’s own local version of Senate Liaison, I guessed, preparing the ground the same way a Secret Service advance team prepares the ground ahead of a presidential visit. They came out of the mouth of the alley beyond the two old guys on the bench. I guessed they had just called on the Brannan brothers and alerted them to what was going to happen that night. Maybe they had made invoicing arrangements. In which case I wished the Brannan brothers the very best of luck. I imagined billing a Senate office was a long and frustrating experience.

The four guys were all officers. Two lieutenants, a captain, and a light colonel in the lead. He was fiftyish and fat. He was the kind of soft staff officer who looks ludicrous in battledress uniform. Like a civilian at a fancy dress party. He stopped on the sidewalk and put his knuckles on his hips. He looked all around. He saw me. I was in battledress uniform too. On the face of it, I was one of his. He spoke over his shoulder to a lieutenant behind him. Too far to hear his voice, but I could read his lips. He said, Tell that man to get his ass over here double-quick. I guessed he would want to know why I wasn’t back on the base, getting myself ready for hundred-percent participation in the hoopla.