No Plan B

Chapter 15

Sam Roth’s apartment building looked just like all the others on its block. Two stories. Stone fronted. Solid but plain. Nice but ordinary. There was nothing to suggest a man had died there within the last thirty-six hours.

Maybe from natural causes.

Maybe not.

Detective Harewood said Roth’s death was caused by a heart attack. There was nothing suspicious about that. People die from heart disease all the time. Nearly seven hundred thousand people every year in the United States. More than the population of Vermont. More than one every forty-six seconds.

If heart disease had been the only factor Reacher might not have been so skeptical. If Roth had not been fit and accustomed to exercise. If Harewood’s lieutenant had not been lazy. If Roth had not died hours before he was due to meet Angela St. Vrain. If Angela had not been murdered…

Too many ifs, Reacher thought. And too few answers.

The buildings fronted onto a wide, leafy street but the entrances were around back on a strip that was too small to be called a road but too nice to be called an alley. It was neatly paved. Clean and tidy. There were trees and shrubs. Most of the homes had sun terraces or decks on that side. Roth’s building had two terraces, covered for shade, with a pair of doors between them. Both were painted blue. The same shade of navy. There was a parking space on each side. Both were occupied. One by a truck, all red paint and chrome and black glass. The other by a small hatchback. It was silver and sleek and a thick cable snaked from a flap on its rear wing to a box on the wall by the left-hand door.

Roth’s apartment was on the right, according to the address Harewood had provided. Reacher knocked on the door to the left. He almost hoped no one would answer. Breaking the news that somebody’s loved one was dead was a miserable job. Reacher knew from experience. He also knew that suggesting somebody’s loved one might have been murdered was almost as bad.

The door jerked open after two long minutes. A woman stood in the entrance. She was wearing three-quarter-length white pants and a plain blue T-shirt. She had nothing on her feet. Her hair was blond, streaked with a little gray, maybe shoulder length. She had it pulled back and tied in a ponytail with a plain elastic band. Her face was ghostly pale except for the deep red circles under her eyes. Reacher figured she would be in her mid-forties, although the circumstances made it hard to judge.

The woman took a moment to size Reacher up then said, “Sam’s not here. He’s…”

“I know,” Reacher said. “I’m not looking for Sam. I need to talk to you.”

The woman looked blank. “About Sam. You see, something happened and, Sam, he’s…”

“It’s OK. I know about Sam. Are you Hannah? Hannah Hampton?”

The woman blinked, then nodded. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Reacher.”

“What do you want?”

“Do you know a woman called Angela St. Vrain?”

“Angela? Oh God. I should tell her about Sam.”

“You do know her?”

“Know her? Knew her? Haven’t seen her for years. She moved to Mississippi. Oh God, Danny. I should tell him, too.”

“Danny?”

“Danny Peel. He moved out there, too. He got Angela her job.”

“Did Sam know Angela?”

“Of course. They worked together. A few years ago. Sam was her boss. More of a mentor, really.”

“Did Sam know Danny?”

Hannah nodded.

Reacher said, “Did they keep in touch?”

“Danny, not so much. Angela, off and on. She sometimes reaches out to Sam for advice. With work, mainly. Why all these questions?”

“Had Sam and Angela been in touch recently?”

Hannah paused. “Over the weekend. She sent him some stuff on email.”

“Work stuff? Or personal?”

“Work.”

“Did Sam say what it was?”

“Some dumb accounting thing. Angela didn’t know what to do about it. She was in a state. She was often in a state. Sam shouldn’t have gotten involved this time. I said to him, tell her to figure it out for herself. He had more than enough on his plate. But no. That was Sam. He would never turn his back on a friend.”

“What kind of accounting thing?”

“I don’t know. Something about a number that didn’t add up. Sam didn’t go into detail.” Hannah was silent for a moment. “Wait. What’s all this about? You’re starting to freak me out. What’s going on with Angela? And what’s it to you? Tell me or I’m done answering questions.”

Reacher paused. “Hannah, I have some news. About Angela. It’s not good news. Is there somewhere we could sit?”

Hannah took a step back. “Who are you, again?”

“My name’s Reacher. Do you remember Detective Harewood? You spoke with him yesterday after you found Sam. I’m sure he left you a card. Call him. He’ll vouch for me.”

The door closed, and two minutes later it opened again. Hannah gestured for Reacher to come inside. He followed her into the apartment’s main living space. There was a lounge area, all pale wood furniture with soft-colored fabrics plus a couple of low bookcases and a small TV in the corner. Then an oval glass dining table surrounded by white leather chairs. And a kitchen at the far end, tucked away behind a breakfast bar. There were two high stools next to it. Hannah made her way across and perched on one. Reacher followed and took the other.

Hannah rested her elbow on the countertop. “You’re going to tell me Angela’s dead, too.”

Reacher said, “How did you know?”

“Detective Harewood told me you used to be a cop. In the army. Well, a cop shows up at your door? He asks about someone, then says he has bad news? Doesn’t take a genius. What happened to her?”

“She got hit by a bus.”

“Seriously?”

Reacher nodded.

“I’m sorry. That’s awful. Was it an accident?”

“No.”

“Wait. Was it … She didn’t…”

“Jump? No.”

“She was murdered? That’s terrible. I told her not to move to Mississippi. People are crazy there, you know.”

“It happened right here. In Gerrardsville.”

“No. I don’t believe it. When?”

“Yesterday.”

“What was Angela doing in Gerrardsville yesterday?”

“The police think she came to see Sam.”

“Why? He was helping her with that accounting thing, but on the phone. And on email. There was no need for her to come all this way.”

“The police think there was something between them.”

“What, like romantically?”

Reacher nodded.

Hannah shook her head. “Not a chance.”

“Are you sure?”

“A thousand percent. See, one, if Sam was interested in someone, he’d tell me. And two, if he was looking for romance, you’d be more his cup of tea than Angela.”

“Was that common knowledge?”

“He worked in a prison. He started when he was eighteen. Thirty years ago that wasn’t the kind of thing you broadcast. Not in that environment, anyway.”

“Is that why you got divorced?”

“It’s why we got married. Things were different back then. For both of us. We worked together. Kind of. He was a corrections officer. I worked for a charity that helps ex-cons adjust to normal life. Still do, on a casual basis. So it made sense. But gradually attitudes changed. They improved. Or so we thought.”

“I hear you. But here’s the strange thing. I saw a bunch of emails between Sam and Angela. They went back weeks. And they wound up by setting a meeting for yesterday.”

Angela straightened up. “You hacked into Sam’s email?”

“No. I saw printouts. They came from Angela’s employer.”

Hannah thought for a moment. “Sam wasn’t scheduled to work yesterday. He mentioned he was planning to go out. If Angela was in town it’s conceivable they were going to meet. But not to hook up. Trust me.”

“So what about the emails I saw?”

“Could someone have impersonated Sam, online, to lure Angela here? If they wanted to kill her? Pedophiles do that kind of thing all the time. With kids, anyway. And Angela already knew Sam. She trusted him. It would be easier to use his identity to trick her than to invent a new one.”

“Good in theory, but no. Angela initiated everything. Said she wanted to rekindle an old flame.”

“But there wasn’t any old flame. There couldn’t have been.”

“Maybe the accounting thing they were dealing with was more serious than Sam let on. Maybe they set up a meeting to talk about it. Maybe Angela was going to bring some documents for him to see. Or some other kind of evidence. But someone found out. Decided to stop them. And replaced the genuine emails between them with fake ones.”

“Who would do that?”

“A co-worker with light fingers. A boss paying bribes. A supplier ripping off Angela’s employer. Plenty of candidates.”

“OK.” Hannah shrugged. “But I don’t know about planting fake emails. Why would anyone go to the trouble? Why not just delete the real ones?”

“To cover their asses. The last fake email from Angela hinted that if Sam didn’t take her back, she would kill herself. The guy who killed her made it look like she jumped under that bus. Add those things together and the police have no reason to dig any deeper.”

“If Sam hadn’t had his heart attack, he’d have gone to meet Angela. Waited around for a while. And when she didn’t show, and he was told she killed herself, what would he have done? Figured the stress of the whole thing had gotten too much for her? Maybe.”

“Hannah, did you notice anyone hanging around here recently? Anyone you didn’t recognize? On Sunday? Maybe Monday? Maybe in a car?”

“Wait. I’m still thinking through your idea. It might have flown. Worth a shot, I guess. As long as Sam bought Angela’s death as suicide. That’s the key because he wouldn’t have seen whatever evidence she was bringing. And he wouldn’t have known about the bogus emails because they wouldn’t have shown up on his computer. They couldn’t have, or he’d have been, like, What the hell?”

“The bogus emails couldn’t have shown up, but what about the real ones? What would have happened to those?”

“They’ll still be on his computer, I guess.”

“You have a key to his apartment?”

“Sure. Why?”

Reacher stood up. “I need to see that computer. Right now.”