But somehow in advance.
Chapter 34
Ten minutes later Reacher dialed Amos again. She answered. She sounded out of breath.
He said, “What’s up?”
“False alarm,” she said. “We got a maybe on Carrington. But it was two hours old and nothing came of it. We still can’t find him.”
“Did you find Elizabeth Castle?”
“Her neither.”
“I should come back to town,” Reacher said.
Amos paused a beat.
“No,” she said. “We’re still in the game. The computer is watching the red light cameras. Nothing that came in from the south in the second wave this morning has gone back out again yet. We think Carrington is still in the area.”
“Which is why you need me there. No point coming back after they take him away.”
“No,” she said again.
“What was the maybe?”
“Allegedly he was seen entering the county offices. But no one else remembers him, and he isn’t there now.”
“Was he alone, or with Elizabeth Castle?”
“It was hard to say. It was a busy time of day. Lots of people. Hard to say who was with who.”
“Was it the census archive?”
“No, something else. The county has offices all over town.”
“Did you get a minute for ancient history?”
She paused again.
“It was longer than a minute,” she said.
“What did you find?”
“I need advice before I tell you. From Carter Carrington, ironically.”
“Why?”
“You asked for unsolved cases. I found one. It has no statute of limitations.”
“You found an unsolved homicide?”
“Therefore technically it’s still an open case.”
“When was it?”
“Within the dates you specified.”
“I wasn’t born yet. I can’t be a witness. Certainly I can’t be a perpetrator. Talking to me is no legal hazard.”
“It has implications for you.”
“Who was the victim?”
“You know who the victim was.”
“Do I?”
“Who else could it be?”
“The kid,” Reacher said.
“Correct,” Amos said. “Last seen face down on the sidewalk, late one September evening in 1943. Then later he shows up again, now twenty-two years old, just as much of an asshole as he was before, and he gets killed. The two files were never connected. I guess there was a lot going on back then. It was wartime. Detectives came and went. They didn’t have computers. But today’s rules say the first file makes a material difference to the second file. Which it does, no question. We can’t pretend we haven’t seen it. Therefore we’re obliged to re-open the homicide as a cold case. Just to see where it goes. Before we close it again.”
“How did the kid get killed?”
“He was beaten to death with a pair of brass knuckles.”
Reacher paused a beat.
He said, “Why wasn’t it solved?”
“There were no witnesses. The victim was an asshole. No one cared. Their only suspect had disappeared without a trace. It was a time of great chaos. Millions and millions of people were on the move. It was right after VJ Day.”
“August 1945,” Reacher said. “Did the cops have a name for the suspect?”
“Only a kind of nickname. Secondhand, overheard, all very mysterious. A lot of it was hearsay, from the kind of people who pick things up from casual conversations on the street.”
“What was the nickname?”
“It’s why we have to re-open the case. We can’t ignore the link. I’m sure you understand. All we’re going to do is type out a couple new paragraphs.”
“What was the name?”
“The birdwatcher.”
“I see,” Reacher said. “How soon do you need to type out your paragraphs?”
“Wait,” she said.
He heard a door, and a step, and the rustle of paper.
A message.
He heard a step, and a door, and on the phone she said, “I just got an alert from the license plate computer.”
She went quiet.
Then she breathed out.
“Not what I thought it was,” she said. “No one left town. Not yet. Carrington is still here.”
“I need you to do something for me,” Reacher said.
He could still hear the paper. She was reading it.
“More ancient history?” she said.
“Current events,” he said. “A professor at the university told me that thirty years ago an old man named Reacher came home to New Hampshire after many years on foreign shores. As far as I know he has been domiciled here ever since. As far as I know he lives with the granddaughter of a relative. I need you to check around the county. I need you to see if you can find him. Maybe he’s registered to vote. Maybe he still has a driver’s license.”
“I work for the city, not the county.”
“You found out all about the Reverend Burke. He doesn’t live in the city.”
He could still hear the paper.
“I called in favors,” she said. “What is the old man’s first name?”
“Stan.”
“That’s your father.”
“I know.”
“You told me he was deceased.”
“I was at the funeral.”
“The professor is confused.”
“Probably.”
“What else could he be?”
“The funeral was thirty years ago. Which was also when the guy showed up in New Hampshire after a lifetime away.”
“What?”
“It was a closed casket. Maybe it was full of rocks. The Marine Corps and the CIA worked together from time to time. I’m sure all kinds of secret squirrelly shit was going on.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You never heard of a thing like that?”
“It’s like a Hollywood movie.”
“Based on a true story.”
“One in a million. I’m sure most CIA stories were very boring. I’m damn sure most Marine Corps stories were.”
“Agreed,” Reacher said. “One in a million. But that’s my point. The odds are better than zero. Which is why I want you to check. Call it due diligence on my part. I would be failing in my duty. You’re about to re-open a cold case with no statute of limitations, with a one-in-a-million possibility your main suspect is still alive, living in your jurisdiction, and is related to me. I figured I should clarify things beforehand. In case I need to call him. Hey, pops, get a lawyer, you’re about to be arrested. That kind of thing.”
“That’s crazy,” Amos said again.
“The odds are better than zero,” Reacher said again.
“Wait,” she said again.
He could still hear the paper.
She said, “This is a weird coincidence.”
“What is?”
“Our new software. Mostly it counts who enters and who leaves, using license plate recognition technology. But apparently it’s running a couple extra layers underneath. It’s looking for outstanding warrants, and tickets, and then it’s running a page for general remarks.”
“And?”
“The van we saw this morning was illegal.”
“Which van?”
“The Persian carpet cleaners.”
“Illegal how?”
“It should have been showing dealer plates.”
“Why?”
“Because its current owner is a dealer.”
“Not a carpet cleaner?”
“They went out of business. The van was repossessed.”
Patty and Shorty went back to the bathroom, but gave up on it pretty soon. The smashed tile and the powdered wall board made half of it uninhabitable. They drifted back to the bed again and sat side by side, facing away from the window. They didn’t care if the blind was up or down. They didn’t care who was watching. They whispered to each other, short and quiet, nodding and shrugging and shaking their heads, using hand signals, discussing things as fast and as privately as they could. They had revised their basic assumptions. They had refined their mental model. Some things were clearer. Some things were not. They knew more, but understood less. Clearly the six men who had looked in the window were the opposition team. Their task was to win a game of tag. In thirty square miles of forest. Presumably in the dark. Presumably with three of the assholes out in the woods with them, as referees, or umpires, or marshals, for a total of nine quad-bikes, with the fourth and final asshole stuck in the house, watching the cameras and listening to the microphones and doing whatever the hell else they did in there. That was their current prediction.