Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(63)

“We were all nice enough kids. We wouldn’t break into a store. But we wouldn’t ask too many questions either. Not if something came our way. Nice kids got nothing otherwise. I suppose the thought of anything worse would have been in our heads because of his father. Whichever one was Stan. We all thought Mr. Reacher the mill foreman was a bit dubious. So I guess we went ahead and assumed like father, like son. Even though I didn’t know exactly who Stan was. I suppose that’s the power of rumor. I was only a visitor. It felt like local knowledge.”

“What kind of dubious?”

“Everyone was scared of him. He was always yelling and screaming and throwing punches and knocking people down. Looking back on it, I suppose he drank. He thought people didn’t like him because he was the foreman at the mill. He was half right. All he got wrong was the reason. I guess we other kids imputed all kinds of villainy to him. Like in a storybook at school. Like Blackbeard or something. No offense. You asked the question.”

“Did he have a beard?”

“No one had a beard. It would catch on fire in the mill.”

“Do you remember when Stan left to join the Marines?”

Mortimer shook his head.

“I never heard about that,” he said. “I guess I’m a year or two older. I was already drafted.”

“Where did you serve?”

“New Jersey. They didn’t need me. It was the end of the war. They had too many people already. They canceled the draft soon after that. I never did anything. I felt like a fraud, every July Fourth parade.”

He shook his head, and looked away.

Reacher said, “Any other memories of Ryantown?”

“Nothing very exciting. It was a hardscrabble place. People worked all day and slept all night.”

“What about Elizabeth Reacher? James Reacher’s wife?”

“She would be your grandmother.”

“Yes.”

“She sewed things,” Mortimer said. “I remember that.”

“Do you remember what she was like?”

Mortimer was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, “That’s a difficult question to answer.”

“Is it?”

“I wouldn’t want to be discourteous.”

“Would you need to be?”

“Perhaps I should say she kept to herself, and leave it at that.”

“I never met her,” Reacher said. “She was dead long before I was born. I don’t care either way. We don’t need to walk on eggs.”

“Talking about your grandfather is one thing. He was a public figure. Being foreman at the mill. Talking about your grandmother is different.”

“How bad was she?”

“She was a hard woman. Cold. I never saw her smile. I never heard her say a nice thing. She always looked cross. Kind of sour. They deserved each other, that Mr. and Mrs.”

Reacher nodded.

He said, “Anything else you can tell me?”

Mortimer went quiet so long Reacher thought maybe he had fallen into a geriatric coma. Or died. But then he moved. He raised the same bent and bony hand. This time not a warning. This time an appeal for attention. Like a comedian calming a crowd, ahead of a punch line.

“I can tell you one thing,” he said. “Since you jogged my memory. And since your dad might have been involved. I remember one time there was a big hoo-hah about a rare bird. Some big deal. First time it was ever seen in New Hampshire. Or some such thing. The birdwatching boys wrote it up for the birdwatching club. For the minutes of the meeting. Or the report on proceedings. Whatever you call it. One of them was club secretary by then. Can’t say which one. The report was about all the things going on that might influence the bird being there, or not. It was very impressive. I believe it got picked up for a hobby magazine. The Associated Press said it was the first time Ryantown was ever mentioned outside the county.”

“What bird?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Pity,” Reacher said. “It must have been a big sensation.”

Mortimer’s hand came up again.

Excitement.

“You could find out,” he said. “Because of the birdwatching club. All their old ledgers will be in the library. They have a collection. All of those old clubs and societies. Part of history, they tell me. Part of the culture. Personally I thought television was better, when it arrived.”

“Which library?” Reacher asked.

“Laconia,” Mortimer said. “That’s where those clubs were.”

Reacher nodded.

“Probably takes three months to find anything,” he said.

“No, it’s all right there,” Mortimer said. “There’s a big room downstairs, with shelves like the spokes of a wheel. The reference section. They get anything you want. You should go. You could find out about the bird. Maybe it was your father who wrote the note. It’s a fifty-fifty chance, after all. Him or the other kid.”

“The downtown branch of the library?”

“That’s the only branch there is.”

—

They left old Mr. Mortimer in his wipe-clean armchair and walked the long pleasant corridor back to the desk. They signed out. The cheerful woman accepted their departure with grace and equanimity. They walked back to the ancient Subaru.