The Midnight Line

Chapter 28

The supe said, “Anything below the surface is locked down tight, but we know from Social Security and other unclassified sources that the Seymour Porterfield who died in Wyoming last year was an Ivy League postgrad who joined the Marine Corps the day after 9/11. He was the perfect recruit. A real poster boy. He went to Iraq in the first wave as a lieutenant in a rifle company. He didn’t last more than a month. He was an early casualty. The injury is unspecified. He was honorably discharged, and he returned to civilian life. Back then the Marines could still afford mental-health counseling during that type of separation. There’s a note that says Porterfield seemed happy to resume academic pursuits, and had realistic expectations of a future inheritance, both cash and real estate, such that no one had to worry very much, least of all the Marine Corps. Then he dropped off the government radar for a very long time.”

“Until?” Reacher said.

“Two years ago. Some office deep in the Pentagon got a brand new case. Something to do with Porterfield. We don’t know what. We think they dug up his original service file for background, and then sealed it. Which usually means something. Meanwhile they were also opening a second new file, about Porterfield and a woman. That’s what we can see so far. Three files, like you said.”

“Was Sanderson the woman?”

“We don’t know yet. That’s below the surface.”

“Are you still looking?”

“Discreetly,” the supe said. “I’ll be in touch.”

The phone went dead. Reacher passed it back to Bramall, who plugged it in to charge.

Mackenzie said, “Does this help us?”

Reacher said, “It might not be her.”

“Suppose it is.”

“It gives us a wounded Marine officer and a wounded army officer in the same place for six months. Such a thing could go either way. They could have been the worst addicts in the history of the world. Or they could have been doing better, with each other’s moral support. Or maybe they were never users at all. They were very impressive people, after all. Porterfield quit school and rushed to sign up. Rose was top ten at West Point and did five tours. Maybe they got together for peace and quiet with someone who understood.”

“Then where is she now?”

“That’s the problem. That question is also an answer.”

“Sadly,” she said. “It forces us to conclude that these days she’s more likely to be an addict than very impressive. Or she’d still be calling me.”

“Worst case.”

“You were leaning away.”

“Still am,” Reacher said. “Still hoping for the best. May I ask you a personal question?”

“I suppose,” she said.

“What kind of twins are you and Rose? Do you look exactly alike?”

She nodded. “We’re identical twins. Literally. More so than most.”

“Then we should stop by the hospital.”

“Why?”

“By now people are hurting. I guess some of them might have friends, who might be willing to share. I guess some of them will try to score in town. The rest will go to the emergency room. They’ll claim a raging toothache. Or a crippling backache. Whatever can’t be tested. But pain is a thing now, so the doctor has to take their word for it. He has to write a prescription for the good stuff. We should check if she’s been there. You’ll remind them of her. Like a human missing persons billboard.”

“I feel like I’m betraying her. I’m accepting she’s a junkie.”

“It’s a percentage game. We have to start somewhere.”

She was quiet a long moment.

Then she said, “OK, let’s go.”

Bramall started the big V8 motor, and steered a wide circle toward the head of the driveway. They turned their backs on the flat acre with the long view east, and the brown board house, with the ancient millwork and the old church pew. They settled in for three rough miles, and then the dirt road again.

But coming the other way out of the driveway right at that moment was the woman who had baked the strawberry pie. The woman who lived there. Home from the market, in her Jeep SUV. Bramall stopped and backed up to let her by. But she stopped, too, side by side, and buzzed her window down.

Bramall buzzed his window down.

So did Reacher.

The woman recognized them, from the day before, and she nodded cautiously, and then she peered beyond them at Mackenzie. Who she didn’t recognize. No sign at all. Nothing there. The exact replica. The human billboard.

A stranger.

The woman said, “Can I help you folks?”

Reacher said, “We came by to check a couple of things, connected to what we spoke about yesterday. We didn’t know you were out.”

“Yes you did. I passed you at the turn.”

“Perhaps we didn’t notice.”

“You’re private detectives. You’re supposed to notice.”

“We’re looking for a missing woman,” Reacher said. “Maybe we were preoccupied.”

“What things do you want to check?”

“About when you saw Porterfield,” Reacher said. “Was he disabled in any way?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Two arms and two legs?”

“Sure.”

“Was he limping at all?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Talking well and thinking straight?”

“He was very courteous and polite.”

“OK,” Reacher said. “Now about that one time on the dirt road, and what you saw in Porterfield’s car. Can you tell us about that again?”

“There was nothing in the car. I was wrong.”

“Suppose you were right. What did you see?”

She paused a beat.

“It was real quick,” she said. “Two cars passing, that’s all. The wind was up, like a dust storm.”

“Even so,” Reacher said. “What did you see?”

She paused again.

“A girl turning away,” she said. “And a silvery color.”

“It stuck in your mind.”

“It was weird.”

“Had you ever seen such a thing before?”

“Never.”

“Did you ever see such a thing again?”

“Never.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” Reacher said. “How about in a different car? All alone. Maybe driving in from west of here.”

“Never,” the woman said again. “Are you making fun of me?”

“No, I promise. Now here’s a different question. Do you let people use your driveway any old time they want to?”

“Apart from you?”

“Point taken,” Reacher said. “But is it generally OK for folks to drive in and use your forest trails?”

“No it is not.”

“You never allow that?”

“Why would I?”

“You ever see it happen nonetheless? By trespassers, maybe?”

“Never,” she said for the fourth time. “What’s going on?”

“The real reason we’re here is we followed a truck. It was kind of escaping. It drove up your driveway and out again on one of your trails. We don’t know which one.”

The woman looked all around.

She said, “It escaped through here?”

“You ever had that kind of a thing happen before?”

“Never,” the woman said again. “How could it happen? How would anyone know where my trails go anyway?”

West Point, Reacher thought. Back when reading maps was a lifesaving skill.

He said, “Where do your trails go, in fact?”

“All over,” she said. “You can get to Colorado if you want. Who were you chasing? They must have been panicking, to come through here.”

“We think the driver was a woman.”

“OK.”

“She looked kind of small, and she was turning away. We didn’t see her face.”

The woman said nothing.

“There was a silvery color.”

“Oh my god.”

“The same as you saw before.”

“Here?”

“We followed the truck right in.”

“You’re going to give me nightmares.”

They left her there, and drove back down the driveway, to the dirt road, and the two-lane, and Laramie. The hospital was out by the university. Perhaps it was connected. The emergency room had seven patients waiting. Two of them could have been suffering from Billy’s absence. They looked shaky and damp. A likely diagnosis. The other five could have been students. All seven looked up, like people do in waiting rooms. They checked out the new arrivals.

Including Mackenzie.

No hint of recognition.

Nor was there at the desk. Mackenzie asked after a patient named Rose Sanderson, and a helpful woman checked a screen, and smiled an encouraging smile, and said they had seen no one with that name, while all the time looking Mackenzie straight in the eye, in an open and frank and perfectly compassionate way.

Without a hint of recognition.

Mackenzie stepped away from the desk and said, “OK, either she’s got friends willing to share, or she’s in town right now, trying to score.”

They drove to the corner of Third and Grand, and checked block by block for the combination they wanted, which was two bad bars and a decent place to eat, all within sight of each other. They needed a meal, but Mackenzie didn’t want to burn surveillance time. She wanted to watch while she ate, at least two plausible places. So they found a café across the street from two cowboy bars, both with neon beer signs behind unwashed windows. They figured there might be business transacted in such places. Cowboys liked pain pills, the same as anyone else. Maybe more so. Because of rodeo accidents, and roping injuries, and other random falls off horses.

The café was a new-age place, with all kinds of healing juices, and sandwiches Reacher figured had been put together by a blind man. All kinds of random ingredients. Huge seeds in the bread. Like sawdust mixed with ball bearings.

Bramall went to wash up, leaving Mackenzie and Reacher alone at the table. She took off her jacket, and turned left and right to hang it on the frame of her chair. She looked back at him. Pale flawless skin, perfect bones, delicate features. Green eyes, full of sorrow.

She said, “I apologize.”

He said, “For what?”

“When we first met. I said you were a weird obsessive, two soldiers short of a squad.”

“I think it was me who said that.”

“Only because you knew I was thinking it.”

“You had a good reason.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But now I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I should pay you what I pay Mr. Bramall. The same daily rate.”

“I don’t want to be paid,” Reacher said.

“You think virtue is its own reward?”

“I don’t know much about virtue. I just want to find out what happened. I can’t charge money for a private satisfaction.”

Bramall came back, and they ate, and they watched out the window.

They saw nothing.

Mackenzie paid.

Reacher said, “There’s another bar we could look at.”

“Like these?” Bramall said.

“A little better, maybe. There might be a guy we could talk to.”

He led them a block over, toward the railroad tracks, and two blocks down, to the bar with the bullet hole in the mirror. The same guy was at the same table, with the same kind of long-neck bottle. The helpful guy, or the busybody into everyone’s business, or the local expert full of specialist knowledge, or the mixture of all three. His table was only a two-top, so Mackenzie sat down across from him, and Bramall and Reacher stood behind her.

The guy said, “You’re the gentleman who asked me about Mule Crossing.”

“Correct,” Reacher said.

“Did you find it? Or did you blink and miss it?”

He was talking to Reacher, but he was looking at Mackenzie. Hard not to. The mass of hair, and the face, and the eyes, and the small slender form under the thin white blouse.

No hint of recognition.

“I found it,” Reacher said. “In fact I heard a story down there. A year and a half ago someone got eaten by a bear.”

The guy took a long pull on his bottle.

He wiped foam off his lip.

He said, “Seymour Porterfield.”

“You knew him?”

“My buddy’s friend was the guy who fixed his roof when it leaked. Which was about every winter, because it was built all wrong. So I heard things. I know about the land from way back. Those were railroad acres, even though the track was nowhere near. Some old scam, more than a hundred years ago. Every once in a while some rich guy back east would inherit a deed, and come on out and build a cabin. In Porterfield’s case it was his father. He built a modern style, which I guess is why the roof was leaking. Then later he died and Porterfield got the title in his will. I guess he decided he liked the simple life, because he moved in full-time.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“He was on the phone all the time, and he drove around a lot. Doing what, no one seemed to know exactly. Maybe a hobby. He had all his daddy’s money. Some kind of old fortune back east. Maybe ironworks, hence the railroad connection.”

“What kind of a guy was he?”

“He was a college boy and a former Marine. But the old-money kind of both.”

“How was his health?”

The guy paused a beat.

He said, “Weird you should ask that.”

“Why?”

“His health looked fine from the outside. You could have put him on a movie poster. But he had economy packs of surgical dressings in his house, and also his medicine cabinet was jammed with pills.”

“Your buddy’s friend would check a thing like that?”

“You know, in passing.”

“Was there ever any trouble there? Any strangers showing up unannounced? Any kind of weird shit going on?”

The guy shook his head.

“No strangers,” he said. “No trouble, either. And nothing weird, until the secret girlfriend showed up.”