The Affair

I pulled the illicit Beretta from my Class A coat pocket and held it on him for a long moment. Just in case. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. But he didn’t move. No way could he. Maybe his eyelids. His neck was loose right at the top. He had taken no vertebrae with him. His skull was attached to the rest of him by nothing but skin.

I left him where he was for the time being and was about to step into the center of the room to start scoping things out when the door opened.

And in walked Frances Neagley.

She was in woodland-pattern BDUs and she was wearing latex gloves. She glanced around the room once, twice, and she said, “We need to move him near where the picture was.”

I just stood there.

“Quickly,” she said.

So I got myself going and I hauled him over to where he might plausibly have fallen while he was hanging the picture. He could have gone over backward and hit his head on the edge of the desk. The distances were about right.

“But why would he?” I said.

“He was banging in the nail,” Neagley said. “He flinched when he saw the claw coming at him on the backswing. Some knee-jerk reaction. A reflex. He couldn’t help it. He got his feet tangled up in the rug and over he went.”

“So where’s the nail now?”

She took it off the desk and dropped it at the base of the wall. It tinkled faintly against the gutter of tile beyond the edge of the rug.

“And where’s the hammer?”

“It’s near enough,” she said. “Time to go.”

“I have to erase my appointment.”

She showed me diary pages from her pocket.

“Already in the bag,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Neagley led me down two flights of stairs and through the corridors at a pace somewhere between moderate and brisk. We used the southeast entrance to get outside and then we headed straight for the parking lot, where we stopped among the reserved spaces, and where Neagley unlocked a large Buick sedan. It was a Park Avenue. Dark blue. Very clean. Maybe new.

Neagley said, “Get in.”

So I got in, onto soft beige leather. Neagley backed up and swung the wheel and headed for the exit, and then we were through the barrier, and pretty soon after that we were on a bunch of highway ramps, and then we were through the last of them and on a six-lane road heading south, just one car among a rolling thousand.

I said, “The inquiry desk has a record of me coming in.”

“Wrong tense,” Neagley said. “It had a record. It doesn’t anymore.”

“When did you do all that?”

“I figured you were OK as soon as you were one-on-one with the guy. Although I wish you hadn’t talked so much. You should have moved to the physical much sooner. You have talents, honey, but talking ain’t top of the list.”

“Why are you even here?”

“I got word.”

“What word?”

“The story of this crazy trap. Walking into the Pentagon like that.”

“Word from where?”

“From way down in Mississippi. From Sheriff Deveraux herself. She asked for my help.”

“She called you?”

“No, we had a séance.”

“Why would she call you?”

“Because she was worried, you idiot. As was I, as soon as I heard.”

“There was nothing to worry about.”

“There could have been.”

I asked, “What did she want you to do?”

“She wanted me to watch your back. To make sure you were OK.”

“I don’t think I told her what time the appointment was.”

“She knew what bus you were on. Her deputy told her what time he’d gotten you to Memphis, and so it was easy enough to figure out what line you would take.”

“How did that help you this morning?”

“It didn’t help me this morning. It helped me yesterday evening. I’ve been on you since you left the bus depot. Every minute. Nice hotel, by the way. If they ever catch up with me for the room service, you owe me big money.”

I said, “Whose car is this?”

“It belongs to the motor pool. As per procedure.”

“What procedure?”

“When a senior staff officer passes away, his Department-owned car is returned to the motor pool. Where it is immediately road tested to determine what remedial work needs to be done before it can be reissued. This is the road test.”

“How long will it last?”

“About two years, probably.”

“Who was the officer?”

“It’s a fairly new car, isn’t it? Must have been a fairly recent death.”

“Frazer?”

“It’s easier for the motor pool to do the paperwork first thing in the morning. We were all counting on you. If anything had gone wrong we’d all have had red faces.”

“I might have arrested him instead.”

“Same thing. Dead or busted, it makes no difference to the motor pool.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’re due on post. Garber wants to see you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s three hours away.”

“So sit back and relax. This might be the last rest you get for a spell.”

“I thought you didn’t like Deveraux.”

“Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t help her if she was worried. I think there’s something wrong with her, that’s all. How long have you known her?”

“Four days,” I said.

“And I bet you could already tell me four weird things about her.”

I said, “I should try to call her, if she’s worried.”

“I already tried,” Neagley said. “From the scheduler’s phone. While you were giving Frazer all that theoretical shit. I was going to tell her you were nearly home and dry. But she didn’t answer. A whole Sheriff’s Department, and no one picked up.”

“Perhaps they’re busy.”

“Perhaps they are. Because there’s something else you need to know. I checked a rumor from the sergeants’ network. The ground crew at Be

Chapter

68

I took Neagley’s advice and relaxed through the rest of the ride. It took a lot less than three hours. The Buick was much faster than a bus. And Neagley pushed it much harder than a bus driver would. I was back on post by three-thirty. I had been gone exactly twenty-four hours.

I went straight to my quarters and took off the fancy Class As and cleaned my teeth and took a shower. Then I put on BDUs with a T-shirt and went to see what Garber wanted.

Garber wanted to show me a confidential file from the Marine Corps. That was the purpose of his summons. But first came a short question-and-answer session. It didn’t go well. It was very unsatisfactory. I asked the questions, and he refused to answer them.

And he refused to make eye contact.

I asked, “Who did they arrest in Mississippi?”

He said, “Read the file.”

“I would like to know.”

“Read the file first.”

“Do they have a good case or is it bullshit?”

“Read the file.”

“Was it the same guy for all three women?”

“Read the file first.”

“Civilian, right?”

“Read the damn file, Reacher.”

He wouldn’t let me take the file away. It had to remain under his personal control at all times. Under his eye throughout, technically, but he didn’t follow the letter of the law on that point. He stepped out of his office and closed the door quietly and left me alone with it.

It was about a quarter of an inch thick, cased in a jacket that was a different shade of khaki than the army uses. Better quality, too. It was smooth and crisp, only a little scraped and scuffed by the passage of time. It had red chevrons on all four edges, presumably denoting some elevated level of secrecy. It had a white stick-on label with a USMC file number printed on it, and a date five years in the past.