A Wanted Man

FORTY-EIGHT

THEY FOUND GOODMAN where he had fallen, on his back, hard up against the front wheel of his car. His eyes were full of rainwater. New drops splashed into the tiny pools and overflowed down his cheeks like tears. His mouth was open and water was pooling in his throat. His clothes were soaked. He looked like a drowned man. His skin was already ice cold. He had no pulse. He looked slack and collapsed and empty, like only dead people can. All the invisible thousand muscular tensions of the living were gone.

He’s an old man and he’s been awake for a long time.

Not any more, Reacher thought.

‘How old was he?’ he asked.

‘Late sixties,’ Sorenson said. ‘Maybe early seventies. Too young to die, anyway. He was a nice man. A good man, like his name. Was it a heart attack?’

‘Probably,’ Reacher said. ‘Stress, exhaustion, and worry. That kind of thing. Not good for a person. Cops should get paid more.’

‘No argument from me on that point.’

‘Did he tell us what we need to know?’

‘I don’t think he knew what we need to know.’

‘I guess we should call it in.’

So they got back in Sorenson’s car, and she dialled the department’s switchboard number on her cell. The woman behind the counter answered, and Sorenson broke the news. The woman cried. Sorenson clicked off and they waited, wet, cold, and tired, staring ahead through the windshield, not seeing much, and not saying anything.

Next on scene was a very large thirty-five-year-old man in a deputy’s car. He was fair-haired and bulky and red-faced, and he was wearing a padded nylon jacket open over a uniform. The jacket had a sergeant’s stripes on the sleeves. The guy came to Sorenson’s window and bent down. The jacket fell open and Reacher saw a black plate with the name Puller over one shirt pocket and a sheriff’s department star over the other. The star had the words Chief Deputy on it. The guy knocked on the window with fat red knuckles. Sorenson didn’t lower her glass. She just pointed. The guy walked towards his chief’s car with short nervous steps, like he was approaching a fortified position. Like he was expecting an armed enemy to open fire. He made it around to the passenger side and stopped. He looked down. Then he staggered away to the shoulder and bent double and threw up in the mud.

Reacher noticed the rain had stopped.

A long moment later the guy named Puller straightened up a little and stared out over the open land. He was green in the face. Not sentimental about the old man, but upset by the sight of a corpse. Reacher got out of the car. The road was still streaming, but the air felt suddenly fresh and dry. Sorenson got out on her side. The guy named Puller started back towards them and they all met as a threesome in the space between the cars.

Sorenson asked, ‘Are you the department’s second in command?’

Puller said, ‘I guess so.’

‘Then you guess wrong. As of now you’re the chief. Acting chief, anyway. And you’ve got things to do. You need to bring us up to speed, for instance.’

‘With what?’

‘There’s a missing kid here.’

‘I didn’t really keep up with that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I do traffic mostly. To and from the Interstate. Up beyond Sin City. You know, with the radar gun.’

‘Were you briefed on what happened here last night?’

‘We all were.’

‘But you didn’t keep up with it?’

‘I do traffic mostly.’

‘Didn’t Sheriff Goodman take you off your normal duties?’

‘He took us all off.’

‘So why didn’t you pay attention?’

‘He didn’t really tell me what to do.’

Reacher asked, ‘Were you dropped on the head as a baby?’

The guy named Puller didn’t answer.

Sorenson said, ‘Call your dispatcher and arrange for an ambulance to take the body away.’

‘OK.’

‘Then call Sheriff Goodman’s family.’

‘OK.’

‘Then call the funeral home.’

‘From where?’

‘From a telephone. Any telephone. Just make sure it’s nowhere near me.’

The guy named Puller walked back to his cruiser and Reacher and Sorenson walked up Delfuenso’s neighbour’s driveway.

Delfuenso’s neighbour was a woman not much more than thirty. Her daughter was a ten-year-old version of the same person, still straight and slender and unlined. Her name was Paula. She was camped out in the back room. No view of the road. No view of anything, except mud. She had an electronic box hooked up to the TV. All kinds of things were happening on the screen. Explosions, mostly. Tiny cartoon figures were getting vaporized in sudden puffs of smoke smaller than golf balls.

The neighbour said, ‘I had to go to work. I’m sorry.’

Sorenson said, ‘I understand,’ like she meant it. Reacher understood too. He read the papers. He heard people talking. He knew jobs were easy to lose, and hard to get back.

The neighbour said, ‘I told them not to answer the door.’

Sorenson looked at the kid and asked, ‘Paula, why did you?’

The kid said, ‘I didn’t.’

‘Why did Lucy?’

‘Because the man called her name.’

‘He called Lucy’s name?’

‘Yes. He said, Lucy, Lucy.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘I didn’t hear.’

‘Are you sure? You must have heard something.’

The kid didn’t answer.

Sorenson waited.

The kid asked, ‘Am I in trouble?’

Sorenson hesitated.

Reacher said, ‘Yes, kid, you are. Quite a lot of trouble, to be honest. But you can get out of all of it if you tell us everything you heard and everything you saw this morning. You do that, and you’ll be completely free and clear.’

A plea bargain. An incentive. A stick and a carrot. A time-honoured system. Reacher had gone that route many times, back in the day. A ten-year stretch reduced to a three-to-five, probation instead of jail time, charges dropped in exchange for information. The system worked with twenty-year-olds and thirty-year-olds. It worked just fine. Reacher saw no reason why it wouldn’t work just as well with a ten-year-old.

The kid said nothing.

Reacher said, ‘And I’ll give you a dollar for candy, and my friend will give you a kiss on the head.’

Bribery worked, too.

The kid said, ‘The man said he knew where Lucy’s mom was.’

‘Did he?’

The kid nodded, earnestly. ‘He said he would take Lucy to her mom.’

‘What did the man look like?’

The kid was squeezing her fingers, like she could wring the answer out of her hands.

She said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘But you peeked a little bit, right?’

The kid nodded again.

Reacher asked, ‘How many men did you see at the door?’

‘Two.’

‘What did they look like?’

‘Like you see on the TV.’

‘Did you see their car?’

‘It was big and low.’

‘A regular car? Not a pick-up truck or a four wheel drive?’

‘Regular.’

‘Was it muddy?’

‘No, it was shiny.’

‘What colour was it?’

The kid was wringing her hands again.

She said, ‘I don’t know.’

Sorenson’s phone rang. She checked the window and mouthed, ‘Omaha.’

Reacher shook his head. Sorenson nodded, but she didn’t look happy. She let it ring. Eventually it stopped and Reacher looked back at the kid and said, ‘Thanks, Paula. You did great. You’re not in trouble any more. You’re totally free and clear.’ He dug in his pocket and peeled a buck off his roll of bills. He handed it over. Sorenson’s phone trilled once. Voice mail. Reacher said, ‘Now the pretty lady will give you a kiss on the forehead.’

The kid giggled. Sorenson looked a little shy about it, but she went ahead and bent down and did the deed. The kid went back to her on-screen explosions. Reacher looked at her mom and said, ‘We need to borrow the key to Karen’s house.’

The woman got it from a drawer in the hallway. It was a regular house key, on a fob with a crystal pendant. Just like the car key. Reacher wondered what kind of temperature would melt crystal glass. A lower temperature than regular glass, probably. Because of whatever they put in it to make it sparkle. So the car key fob was gone for ever. It was a smear of trace elements on the Impala’s burned-out floor, or a tiny cloud of vapour already halfway to Oregon on the wind.

He took the key and said, ‘Thanks,’ and then he and Sorenson stepped out the door. Goodman’s car was still there, but the ambulance had been and gone with the body. Puller’s car was gone. And the clouds had gone too. The sky had brightened up. A watery winter sun was visible, high overhead.

Sorenson paused on the driveway and checked her voice mail list. Reacher said, ‘No need to listen to it. You already know what it says.’

‘I’m going to have to call in,’ she said. ‘The situation has changed. There’s still a missing kid here and now there’s no local law enforcement. Nothing competent, anyway. Not any more.’

‘Call later,’ Reacher said. ‘Not yet.’ He looped around the wet grass and started up Delfuenso’s driveway, with the door key in his hand.

Sorenson asked, ‘What do you expect to find in there?’

‘Beds,’ Reacher said. ‘Or sofas, at least. We need to take naps. Right now we’re no good to anyone. And we don’t want to end up like Goodman.’