Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(49)

“Does he remember people?”

“He claims to. I interviewed him about the tin. I asked him about kids who got sick. He came up with a list of names. But they were just regular childhood ailments. Nothing conclusive.”

“That was eight years ago. Maybe his memory got worse.”

“Possible.”

“Why tomorrow?”

“He’s in a home. Deep in the countryside. Visiting hours are limited.”

“I would need a motel tonight.”

“You should go to Laconia. It would be safer. More people around. You would be harder to find.”

“Maybe I prefer the rural ambience.”

“There’s a place twenty miles north of here. It’s supposed to be good. But maybe not for you. It’s deep in the woods. No bus. Too far to walk. You would be much better off in Laconia.”

Reacher said nothing.

The guy said, “Better still if you moved on altogether. I could drive you somewhere, if you like. As a way of saying thank you for rescuing me back there.”

“That was my fault anyway,” Reacher said. “I persuaded you to come. I got you in trouble.”

“I would still drive you somewhere.”

“Drive me to Laconia,” Reacher said. “Then make the arrangements with the old guy.”

—

Reacher got out on a downtown corner, and the guy with the ponytail drove away. Reacher looked left and right and got his bearings. He smiled. He was halfway between where two separate twenty-year-olds had been discovered unconscious on the sidewalk, seventy-five years apart. He checked the passersby. There were a few folks who could have been up from Boston. But none of them looked wrong. Couples, mostly. Some gray hair. Shoppers, probably, looking for end-of-season bargains on whatever it was Laconia had to offer. Nothing suspicious. Not yet. Tomorrow, Shaw had said. The chief of detectives. He should know.

Reacher took a side street, where he had seen an inn, no better or worse than all the others. It was another narrow three-floor building, painted an artful faded color. He paid for a room, and went up to take a look at it. The window faced out back. Which he was happy about. It decreased the effective radius. He might get a quiet night. A raccoon or a coyote, maybe, looking for trash in the alley. Or a neighbor’s dog. But nothing worse.

Then he went out again, because it was still full daylight. He was hungry. He had skipped lunch. He should have been eating it about the time he was gazing at the fragment of old kitchen tile. All that remained. Not a large room. Probably not well equipped. Therefore a simple menu for lunch. Peanut butter, maybe, or grilled cheese. Or something out of a can. A tin can.

He found a coffee shop a block away which offered all-day breakfast, which in his experience usually implied all-day everything. He went inside. There were five booths. Four were occupied. The first three by what looked like out-of-town shoppers refreshing themselves after an exhausting spree, and the fourth by a familiar face.

Detective Brenda Amos.

She was deep in a salad. No doubt a long-awaited meal much delayed by ongoing chaos. Reacher had been a cop. He knew what it was like. Running here, running there, phones ringing, eat when you can, sleep when you can.

She looked up.

At first she looked surprised, just for a second, and then she looked dismayed. He shrugged and sat down on the bench across from her.

He said, “Shaw told me I’m legal until tomorrow.”

She said, “He told me you agreed to move on.”

“If I found Ryantown.”

“Didn’t you?”

“Apparently there’s a guy I should talk to. A very old man. Same age my father would be. An exact contemporary.”

“Are you going to talk to him today?”

“Tomorrow.”

“This is exactly what we were afraid of. You’re going to be here forever.”

“Look on the bright side. Maybe no one is coming. The kid was an asshole. Maybe they think he deserved it. Tough love, or whatever they call it now.”

“No chance whatsoever.”

“The very old man I should talk to had cousins in Ryantown. He used to visit on a regular basis. Maybe they all got up a game in the street. All the neighborhood kids. Stickball, or whatever. Maybe they played catch across the stream.”

“With all due respect, major, do you really care about that stuff?”

“I guess a little bit,” Reacher said. “Enough to stick around one more night, anyway.”

“We don’t want trouble here.”

“Always best avoided.”

“They have the rest of the day to plan. They’ll mobilize before midnight. They’ll be here by morning. The distances are not great. They’ll have your description with them. Therefore Shaw is going to dial it up to eleven before first light. He’s going to treat this place like a war zone. Where does this very old man live?”

“In a home somewhere out of town. A guy I met is going to pick me up.”

“What guy?”

“Eight years ago he thought the water was contaminated.”

“Was it?”

“Apparently not. It’s a sore point.”

“Where is he going to pick you up?”

“Where he let me out.”

“At an agreed-upon time?”