Jack and Joe: Hunt for Jack Reacher Series (The Hunt for Jack Reacher Series Book 6) (17 page)

“We didn’t see Reacher,” I said before they squared off and started beaking each other like fighting cocks. “If that’s what you wanted to know, you could have asked me on the phone. Saved us a trip.”

“You didn’t see him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there,” Finlay replied. “Reacher could have killed Summer. Maybe Cooper thinks he did.”

“I don’t know what the Boss thinks and neither do you,” I said, as done with the Cooper/Finlay show as Gaspar was. “What’s going on here?”

“We’re not sure.” Finlay opened his palm toward a seating area. I moved to one of the chairs and Finlay sat across from me. Gaspar remained bent over the pastry tray. “The Inspector General has been investigating General Matthew Clifton for three years. We believe he’s involved in high-level corruption surrounding weapons-building for The Big War.”

“But they can’t prove it,” Gaspar said, derision as thick as the cream and sugar in his coffee.

“Not yet.”

“Is Thomas O’Connor involved?” I asked.

“We’re not sure. But you know his wife was Reacher’s sister-in-law?”

“Briefly. A long time ago. She doesn’t even know Joe Reacher is dead, she claims.”

Finlay remained silent, possibly waiting for us to formulate some conclusions on our own, or deciding what to reveal and what to withhold. Or maybe something else altogether. My mind-reading skills failed me yet again.

“How is Reacher involved in all of this?” I asked, a little irked at this point.

Gaspar laughed out loud. “Didn’t you hear the man? He’s not sure.”

Finlay smiled benignly at him. “You’d be dead now if it wasn’t for me,” he pointed out, not unreasonably. “Several times, in fact. And yet, such disrespect.”

Gaspar shrugged, but he didn’t argue.

“The Boss says you’re the dangerous one,” I said to Finlay. “Obviously, there’s no love lost between you.” I squared my shoulders and sat up as tall as a 4’11” woman can sit. “And we work for him. So why are we here?”

“You’re building this Reacher file. Or so you think.” Finlay rubbed a palm along one side of his mahogany face, which was almost the same color as Summers’ had been. A luminous shade of coppery brown. “Let me help you out. What do you know about Eunice Summer?”

“Not much,” Gaspar snapped. I glared at him, but he glared right back. I’d warned him about baiting Finlay, but he wouldn’t listen.

Finlay’s tone was even and, as always, unperturbed. “She and Reacher solved a corruption scandal that could have brought the weight of the entire world down on the Army’s top brass back in 1990. Not just internal squabbling. Internecine warfare, complete with assassinations and considerable collateral damage. Reacher got himself into some unrelated trouble and bailed out. She ran with the prosecution.”

“Yeah, we know all of that,” Gaspar said, fudging the truth, probably to appear unimpressed. He claimed a chair and slouched.

Finlay ignored him. “Since 1990, Summer has made it her business to investigate corruption complaints. If corruption is alleged, she chases it down until she’s satisfied. Then she pushes for courts-martial and makes sure the guilty ones are locked up forever.”

“That’s gotta make her popular at the Officer’s Club,” Gaspar said, munching and sipping. “Increases the suspect pool.”

“Actually, she built solid cases and then she took them up the chain of command and then the Army handled them—out of the spotlight, which the top brass did appreciate, believe me. They don’t like reading about their dirty laundry in the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post
and having it beamed across the world to our enemies.” He crossed his long legs and leaned back, open and easygoing. “But, sure, the ones who were prosecuted weren’t happy. Neither were their friends. She made enemies. Powerful ones.”

I leaned forward. “So she was working on a corruption case when she died. Same as most days. You’re suggesting someone killed her for that?” What he said rang true. There must have been a connection, but it was hard to see what that relationship might be. “And why would Reacher care about corruption in the Army now? He’s been out of that life for fifteen years.”

“The important thing for you to know is that Cooper believes Reacher cares. Probably because of Summer. Reacher has a tendency to be protective of his friends and deadly to his enemies.” Finlay looped one leg over the other and kicked back. I’ve seen men discussing weekend sports get a lot more agitated than Finlay discussing murder and mayhem. Might have been an act, but my gut said he was exactly as calm as he appeared.

Gaspar said, “You sound like you’ve got firsthand knowledge. What are you to Reacher? Friend or enemy?”

Finlay ignored him. To me, he said, “Cooper thought you’d find Reacher. That’s why he sent you to Fort Bird. So you could sniff Reacher out.”

Yeah, tell me something I don’t know
. The tension in my neck and shoulders made it hard to move my head. “And this interests you because?”

Gaspar had refilled his coffee. “Because Finlay doesn’t want Cooper to find Reacher before he does. Plain as the nose on his face.”

I shook my head. “That’s not quite right, is it, Finlay? You’d rather Reacher wasn’t found at all, I’m guessing.”

Finlay revealed his teeth, but the expression wasn’t a smile. Not even remotely. “My reasons are my own. All you need to know is that Cooper’s using you. And it could get you killed.”

“Yeah, well, that’s old news, too,” Gaspar assured him.

“You’re worried, aren’t you?” I stood and faced Finlay. “If Cooper wants us to flush Reacher out, which we all suspect is exactly what he wants, then you want the same thing. Only you want to get to Reacher first.”

“Not quite.” Finlay shook his head slightly. “I’d be fine with Reacher staying off the grid for the rest of his life. But I don’t want Cooper to find him.”

“Why do you care?” Gaspar asked.

“The sniper who killed Summer had to be military trained. Probably Army or Marines. Reacher has both types of training. Garden variety snipers couldn’t have done it. The circumstances of that shoot were not impossible, but well beyond merely difficult. He pulled it off.” He paused and bent his head in a brief, single nod. “Be afraid, Otto. If you won’t trust me to help you, fear is the only thing that might keep you alive.”

He’d confirmed one thing for sure. Any of the more than a million active and inactive Army co-workers could have had reasons to want Eunice Summer dead. A twenty-five-year career chasing Army crimes would have put a target on her back many times over. Narrowing the suspect pool would be a challenge for an entire task force. Gaspar and I would never manage it if we used conventional techniques.

Finlay stood and shot the stiff cuffs of his white shirt. Gleaming gold cufflinks caught the light. He smoothed his tie over his plank-flat stomach and buttoned his jacket.

“This is a two-bedroom suite,” he said. “It’s yours for the night. Order dinner. Get some sleep. Think about what I’ve said.”

After he had left, Gaspar picked up the room service menu. He grinned. “This is a lot nicer than ordering stale sandwiches from the truck stop delivered to the New Haven Grand Lodge by an exotic dancer.”

I swiped a room key off the table. “Let’s go get your pajamas.”

On the way back from the car, I used my personal cell phone to dial Sheriff Randy Taylor and arranged to meet him at the morgue tomorrow. I wanted to see Summer’s body for myself and I didn’t care who knew I was coming.

CHAPTER 23

The suite at the Four Seasons was more than a few classes up from the New Haven Grand Lodge, for sure. Each bedroom was larger than my apartment and furnished with a king bed and a desk. The only downside was the near certainty that the Boss could see and hear everything that went on inside.

Unless of course Finlay had disabled the security and probably his own while he was here. He might have returned all systems to normal by now.

Either way, the safe assumption was that anything we said or did here would be like simultaneously broadcasting on television, radio, and the Internet.

But then, both Finlay and Cooper already knew more than we did about whatever was going on here, so unless we came up with something remarkable, in theory, there was nothing to worry about.

Neither of us was dressed for the Four Seasons’ dining room, so we ordered room service off the menu. While we waited for delivery, I unpacked and washed off the road grime in a shower large enough for a party. Afterward, I felt almost human again.

A doorbell chimed. Gaspar was talking on the phone in his room, probably to Marie, so I answered it. Room service delivered and set up and left and never asked me to sign anything. Finlay’s doing, I imagined. The paperwork would never show we were here.

While I waited for Gaspar, I set up my laptop and connected to the secure satellite. Nothing pending from the Boss. Which might be okay if he hadn’t seen the Summer autopsy report yet. If he had seen the report, then failing to send it to us was not okay at all.

I wrote up my notes for the results of our assignment so far and uploaded them to my secure personal server along with a copy of the autopsy report. Paying my insurance premium, I call it. Just in case something goes wrong down the line. My gut said that day was coming. I could feel it the way an arthritic feels a coming storm.

Gaspar was still on the phone and my stomach was growling. To distract myself and simply for practice, I checked the suite for electronic eavesdropping equipment. Which was when I noticed another flat manila envelope. This one was resting on the chair Finlay had occupied earlier. Had he left it there?

It had my name on the front in the now familiar printing. Still flat, but a bit heftier than the last one. I found a butter knife to slit the bottom seal open.

Inside were several photographs. I turned the envelope upside down and poured eight eight-by-ten photos onto my bed. Using a tissue, I arranged them in what seemed like chronological order.

I was still studying them when Gaspar finished his call and yelled from the other room, “Aren’t you hungry?”

When I didn’t answer, he came through the open doorway. “What do you have there?”

“I’m not sure.”

Gaspar joined me at the side of the bed and we both stared down at the photos.

Six of the photos were stills from a closed-circuit video system. The poor quality of the images suggested older equipment. There was no date or time stamp. The seventh photo was an outdoor shot of a residential neighborhood. The eighth was a crime scene.

Each of the first six images was a man and a woman. The man was huge. The woman was petite.

In the first photo, the scene was a hotel lobby. The man and woman faced the registration desk. Both were dressed in BDUs. The clerk was totally obscured by the man’s oversized body, which probably meant the clerk was female. A sign behind and above the desk clerk’s head said “Georges V.”

The second photo was the man and woman coming out of the elevator. She must have been talking because his head was bent as if to hear her. His face was obscured. Hers was clear enough to recognize. Eunice Summer. I imagined the colors, copper behind the deep mahogany of her skin, coal-black eyes, and delicate jaw. She was beautiful and young. Maybe about twenty-five years old.

The third photo was the pair walking into the hotel through the front entrance. A man with a top hat held the door open. Each carried a Samaritaine shopping bag, presumably filled with the BDUs because now they wore civilian clothes. Black shoes, black pencil skirt, gray and white sweater, and a gray wool jacket for her. He’d donned jeans, a light blue sweatshirt, and a black bomber jacket. He was still wearing his Army boots, presumably because he couldn’t find shoes large enough. Both wore jaunty berets. Again, his head was tilted down as if to hear her words and his face was obscured.

I studied the fourth photo for a while. They were exiting the elevator again. They wore smiles and the civilian clothes, minus the berets. This time, both faces were identifiable. Summer’s companion was Jack Reacher. No question. Travel documents could confirm, if we needed confirmation.

Aside from his formal Army headshot and some grainy outdoor video, this was the first time I’d seen a full frontal image. He was handsome in a rugged, weathered way. Fair hair was cut short in the Army style. Blue eyes with a few squint lines at the corners like he’d spent a lot of time outdoors in the sunshine.

He carried himself squared away, like the model for a child’s action figure doll. Tall, broad-shouldered, well-muscled. Huge hands and feet. Overall, he looked young and happy and world-weary, all at the same time.

The fifth photo was the pair returning to the hotel again. The man with the top hat held the door. Reacher and Summer held hands. Hers was invisible inside his giant paw.

The sixth photo was the one paparazzi would call the money shot. It was edited from video captured by a corridor camera.

Reacher was standing just inside the open door to her room, still wearing the jeans and a blue sweatshirt. Barefoot. Summer was dressed in her civilian clothes, too. They were kissing. The kind of kissing that usually led to a lot more intimate contact. In an old-fashioned movie, this would be the part where he’d kick the door closed, leaving us to imagine the rest. Not that much imagination was required.