Echo Burning (32 page)

He squared the reports together and slipped them back into the FedEx packet. Handed it to Reacher, who was nearest. Then he stood up and headed for the door.

“But there has to be something,” Walker said. “I don't believe this. The one time in my life I
want
Cowan Black to come up with something, and he can't.”

Black shook his head. “I learned a long time ago, sometimes they're just guilty.”

He sketched a brief gesture that was half-wave, half-salute, and walked slowly out of the office. The breeze from the air conditioners caught the door and crashed it shut behind him. Alice and Reacher said nothing. Just watched Walker at his desk. Walker dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes.

“Go away,” he said. “Just get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”

 

The air in
the stairwell was hot, and it was worse still out on the sidewalk. Reacher swapped the FedEx packet into his left hand and caught Alice's arm with his right. Stopped her at the curb.

“Is there a good jeweler in town?” he asked.

“I guess,” she said. “Why?”

“I want you to sign out her personal property. You're still her lawyer, as far as anybody knows. We'll get her ring
appraised. Then we'll find out if she's telling the truth about
anything.”

“You still got doubts?”

“I'm from the army. First we check, then we double-check.”

“O.K.,” she said. “If you want.” They turned around and walked down the alley and she took possession of Carmen's lizard skin belt and her ring by signing a form that specified both items as material evidence. Then they went looking for a jeweler. They walked away from the cheap streets and found one ten minutes later in a row of upmarket boutiques. The window display was too crowded to be called elegant, but judging by the price tags the owner had a feel for quality. Or for blind optimism.

“So how do we do this?” Alice asked.

“Make out it's an estate sale,” Reacher said. “Maybe it belonged to your grandmother.”

The guy in the store was old and stooped. He might have looked pretty sharp forty years ago. But he still acted sharp. Reacher saw a flash in his eyes.
Cops?
Then he saw him answer his own question in the negative. Alice didn't look like a cop. Neither did Reacher, which was a mistaken impression he'd traded on for years. Then the guy went into an assessment of how smart these new customers might be. It was transparent, at least to Reacher. He was accustomed to watching people make furtive calculations. He saw him decide to proceed with caution. Alice produced the ring and told him she'd inherited it from family. Told him she was thinking of selling it, if the price was right.

The guy held it under a desk lamp and put a loupe in his eye.

“Color, clarity, cut and carat,” he said. “The four Cs. That's what we look for.”

He turned the stone left and right. It flashed in the light. He picked up a slip of stiff card that had circular holes punched through it. They started small and got bigger. He fitted the stone in the holes until he found one that fit exactly.

“Two and a quarter carats,” he said. “Cut is real handsome. Color is good, maybe
just
on the yellow side of truly excellent. Clarity isn't flawless, but it's not very far off. This stone ain't bad. Not bad at all. How much do you want for it?”

“Whatever it's worth,” Alice said.

“I could give you twenty,” the guy said.

“Twenty what?”

“Thousand dollars,” the guy said.

“Twenty thousand dollars?”

The guy put up his hands, palms out, defensively.

“I know, I know,” he said. “Someone probably told you it's worth more. And maybe it is, retail, some big fancy store, Dallas or somewhere. But this is Pecos, and you're selling, not buying. And I have to make my profit.”

“I'll think about it,” Alice said.

“Twenty-five?” the guy said.

“Twenty-
five
thousand dollars?”

The guy nodded. “That's about as high as I can go, being fair to myself. I got to eat, after all.”

“Let me think about it,” Alice said.

“Well, don't think too long,” the guy said. “The market might change. And I'm the only game in town. Piece like this, it'll scare anybody else.”

 

They stopped together
on the sidewalk right outside the store. Alice was holding the ring like it was red hot. Then she opened her pocketbook and put it in a zippered compartment. Used her fingertips to push it all the way down.

“Guy like that says twenty-five, it's got to be worth sixty,” Reacher said. “Maybe more. Maybe a lot more. My guess is he's not the Better Business Bureau's poster boy.”

“A lot more than thirty dollars, anyway,” Alice said. “A fake? Cubic zirconium? She's playing us for fools.”

He nodded, vaguely. He knew she meant
playing you for a fool
. He knew she was too polite to say it.

“Let's go,” he said.

They walked west through the heat, back to the cheap part of town, beyond the courthouse, next to the railroad tracks. It was about a mile, and they spent thirty minutes on it. It was too hot to hurry. He didn't speak the whole way. Just fought his usual interior battle about exactly when to give up on a lost cause.

He stopped her again at the door to the mission.

“I want to try one last thing,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I'm from the army,” he said. “First we double-check, then we triple-check.”

She sighed. A little impatience there. “What do you want to do?”

“You need to drive me.”

“Where?”

“There's an eyewitness we can talk to.”

“An
eyewitness?
Where?”

“In school, down in Echo.”

“The
kid?”

He nodded. “Ellie. She's sharp as a tack.”

“She's six years old.”

“If it was happening, I'll bet she knows.”

Alice stood completely still for a second. Then she glanced in through the windows. The place was crowded with customers. They looked listless from the heat and beaten down by life.

“It's not fair to
them,”
she said. “I need to move on.”

“Just this one last thing.”

“I'll lend you the car again. You can go alone.”

He shook his head. “I need your opinion. You're the lawyer. And I won't get in the schoolhouse without you. You've got status. I haven't.”

“I can't do it. It'll take all day.”

“How long would it have taken to get the money from the rancher? How many billable hours?”

“We don't bill.”

“You know what I mean.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“O.K.,” she said. “A deal's a deal, I guess.”

“This is the last thing, I promise.”

 

“Why, exactly?” she
asked.

They were in the yellow VW, heading south on the empty road out of Pecos. He recognized none of the landmarks. It had been dark when he came the other way in the back of the police cruiser.

“Because I was an investigator,” he said.

“O.K.,” she said. “Investigators investigate. That, I can follow. But don't they
stop
investigating? I mean, ever? When they
know
already?”

“Investigators never know,” he said. “They feel, and they guess.”

“I thought they dealt in facts.”

“Not really,” he said. “I mean, eventually they do, I suppose. But ninety-nine percent of the time it's ninety-nine percent about what you
feel
. About people. A good investigator is a person with a feel for people.”

“Feeling doesn't change black into white.”

He nodded. “No, it doesn't.”

“Weren't you ever wrong before?”

“Of course I was. Lots of times.”

“But?”

“But I don't think I'm wrong now.”

“So why, exactly?” she asked again.

“Because I know things about people, Alice.”

“So do I,” she said. “Like, I know Carmen Greer suckered you, too.”

He said nothing more. Just watched her drive, and looked at the view ahead. He could see mountains in the distance, where Carmen had chased the school bus. He had the FedEx packet on his knees. He fanned himself with it. Balanced it on his fingers. Turned it over and over, aimlessly. Stared down at the front and the back, at the orange and purple logo, at the label, at the meaningless little words all over it, sender, addressee,
extremely urgent,
commodity description, dimensions in inches, twelve-by-nine, weight in pounds, two-point-six, payment, recipient's contact information, overnight, no post office box number, shipper must check:
this shipment does not contain dangerous goods
. He shook his head and pitched it behind him, onto the backseat.

“She had no money with her,” he said.

Alice said nothing back. Just drove on, piloting the tiny car fast and economically. He could feel her pitying him. It was suddenly coming off her in waves.

“What?” he said.

“We should turn around,” she said. “This is a complete waste of time.”

“Why?”

“Because exactly what is Ellie going to tell us? I mean, I can follow your thinking. If Carmen really
did
get a broken arm, then she must have been wearing a plaster cast for six weeks. And Ellie's a smart kid, so she'll recall it. Same for the jaw thing. Broken jaw, you're all wired up for a spell. Certainly a kid would remember
that. If
any of this really happened, and
if
it happened recently enough that she can remember anything at all.”

“But?”

“But we
know
she was never in a cast. We
know
she never had her jaw wired. We've got her medical records, remember? They're right here in the car with us. Everything she ever went to the hospital for. Or do you think setting bones is a do-it-yourself activity? You think the blacksmith did it in the barn? So the very best Ellie can do is confirm what we already know. And most likely she won't remember anything anyway, because she's just a kid. So this trip is a
double
waste of time.”

“Let's do it anyway,” he said. “We're halfway there already. She might recall something useful. And I want to see her again. She's a great kid.”

“I'm sure she is,” Alice said. “But spare yourself, O.K.? Because what are you going to do? Adopt her? She's the one with the raw end of this deal, so you might as well accept it and forget all about her.”

They didn't speak again until they arrived at the crossroads with the diner and the school and the gas station. Alice parked exactly where Carmen had and they got out together into the heat.

“I better come with you,” Reacher said. “She knows me. We can bring her out and talk in the car.”

They went through the wire gate into the yard. Then through the main door into the schoolhouse itself, into the school smell. They were out again a minute later. Ellie Greer wasn't there, and she hadn't been there the day before, either.

“Understandable, I guess,” Alice said. “Traumatic time for her.”

Reacher nodded. “So let's go. It's only another hour south.”

“Great,” Alice said.

They got back in the VW and drove the next sixty miles of parched emptiness without talking. It took a little less than an hour, because Alice drove faster than Carmen had wanted to. Reacher recognized the landmarks. He saw the old oil field, on the distant horizon off to the left. Greer Three.

“It's coming up,” he said.

Alice slowed. The red-painted picket fence replaced the wire and the gate swam into view through the haze. Alice braked and turned in under it. The small car bounced uncomfortably across the yard. She stopped it close to the bottom of the familiar porch steps and turned off the motor. The whole place was silent. No activity. But people were home, because all the cars were lined up in the vehicle barn. The white Cadillac was there, and the Jeep Cherokee, and the new pick-up, and the old pick-up. They were all crouched there in the shadows.

They got out of the car and stood for a second behind the open doors, like they offered protection from something. The air was very still, and hotter than ever. Easily a hundred and ten degrees, maybe more. He led her up the porch steps into the shadow of the roof and knocked on the door. It opened almost immediately. Rusty Greer was standing there. She was holding a .22 rifle, one-handed. She stayed silent for a long moment, just looking him over. Then she spoke.

“It's you,” she said. “I thought it might be Bobby.”

“You lost him?” Reacher said.

Rusty shrugged. “He went out. He isn't back yet.”

Reacher glanced back at the motor barn.

“All the cars are here,” he said.

“Somebody picked him up,” Rusty said. “I was upstairs. Didn't see them. Just heard them.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Anyway,” Rusty said. “I didn't expect to see you again, ever.”

“This is Carmen's lawyer,” Reacher said.

Rusty turned and glanced at Alice. “This is the best she could do?”

“We need to see Ellie.”

“What for?”

“We're interviewing witnesses.”

“A child can't be a witness.”

“I'll decide that,” Alice said.

Rusty just smiled at her.

“Ellie's not here,” she said.

“Well, where is she?” Reacher said. “She's not in school.”

Rusty said nothing.

“Mrs. Greer, we need to know where Ellie is,” Alice said.

Rusty smiled again. “I don't know where she is, lawyer girl.”

“Why not?” Alice asked.

“Because Family Services took her, that's why not.”