Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(36)

Reacher got a mile beyond the old edge-of-town gas station, around a long New England curve through woods as deep as a fairytale setting. Then behind him he heard tires on the blacktop. He heard them slow to a walk. He heard them keep pace, ten yards back.

He stopped and turned around.

He saw a dark sedan. Medium in size and crisp in appearance. But poverty spec. There was paint where chrome might have been, and plain hubs, and mouse-fur upholstery. There was a sprung antenna on the trunk lid. An unmarked squad car. In it was Jim Shaw, of the Laconia Police Department. Chief of detectives. The guy from the police station lobby, the day before, with Brenda Amos. The redheaded Irish guy. In action he looked brisk and confident. He was alone at the wheel. He let his window down. Reacher walked closer, but stopped six feet away.

He said, “Can I help you?”

Shaw said, “Brenda told me you were headed this way.”

“You going to offer me a ride?”

“If I do it will be back to town.”

“How so?”

“The house-to-house turned up a woman who lives in the alley. She works in a cocktail bar in Manchester. Which is half owned by the folks the kid’s father works for. We asked a lot of pointed questions and eventually she told us exactly what happened last night. From beginning to end. Soup to nuts. Everything except a physical description of her savior. She claims she was so stressed her mind has gone blank.”

“That can happen, I guess,” Reacher said.

“She’s lying. Why wouldn’t she? She’s protecting someone who did her a favor. But we have other evidence. She was saved real good, believe me. The kid looks like he was run over by a freight train. Therefore we’re not looking for a small guy. We’re looking for a big guy. Probably right-handed. Probably woke up this morning with damage to his knuckles. Got to be something. A hit like that leaves a mark, believe me.”

“I scraped my hand on a wall,” Reacher said.

“Brenda told me.”

“Just one of those things.”

“A smarter man than me might start putting it all together. The woman from the cocktail bar gets home in the middle of the night, at an exactly predictable time, because of no nighttime traffic, and the kid is waiting there for her, so she yells for help, which wakes a guy up, within a certain narrow radius, who then gets out of bed and goes to check, and who ends up dragging the kid away and smacking him around.”

“You told me she already said all that. Soup to nuts. You don’t need to put it together.”

“The interesting part is the narrow radius. How close would the guy need to be, for the sound to travel clearly, and for him to get there as fast as he did? Pretty close, we think. The woman said she didn’t yell real loud. The kid was trying to get his hand over her mouth at the time. It was definitely not a scream. So the guy asleep had to be close by. He was on the scene more or less immediately. Maximum one block, we think.”

“I’m sure there are many variables involved,” Reacher said. “Maybe it’s all down to how well people hear and how fast they get dressed. Maybe there’s a link between the two. You could conduct a series of experiments. You could get the university involved. You could write a paper for a criminology journal.”

Shaw said, “Common sense would indicate a woman’s low-volume cry for help would be heard only through windows over the street. On a one-block radius. The house-to-house lists only six such rooms as occupied last night. A lot of apartments are offices now. Empty during the night. But still, we had six people to look at. And what did we find?”

“I have no way of knowing.”

“Five were ruled out immediately, two for being women and three of the men for age and infirmity and slightness of build. One of the men was over ninety. Two of them were over sixty. None of them could have hit that kid. Not the way it must have happened.”

“I was asleep at five o’clock,” Reacher said.

“Brenda told me. And because once upon a time you were a brother cop, we believe you. And because the kid was a scumbag, we don’t care anyway. Not even enough to point out that five o’clock doesn’t matter anymore. The woman from the cocktail bar got home at three o’clock. She told Brenda the same thing happened the night before. You told Brenda you woke up the night before. At three o’clock. But we don’t care. Except Brenda also told me she told you the scumbag’s father is obliged to react.”

“She did.”

“That’s my point. You should think carefully. OK, maybe the kid really is woozy. Maybe he truly can’t remember his attacker. But you can’t rely on that. If we can figure it out without eyewitness testimony, so can they. They’ll be looking for a big guy with a damaged hand. You can’t beat their forensics by rubbing your knuckles on a wall, not because they don’t have walls, but because they don’t have forensics. They have other methods. They’re going to send whoever it takes to get this job done. We don’t want trouble here.”

“Has the kid called his father yet?”

“First he called his lawyer. No doubt the lawyer called his father. By now they’ve known for thirty minutes. They’re scrambling. Burner phones are burning up in more than one state, at this very moment, believe me. Presumably nothing is decided yet. But it won’t be long. They’ll be arriving soon. Better if they didn’t find you here. Better if you took a look at the old homestead, and then kept on walking. Better if you didn’t come back.”