Running Blind

“I never heard of her,” he said. “I never served in Utah.”

Blake nodded. “Somewhere we can talk?”

“We’re talking here, right?”

“Somewhere we can sit?”

Reacher nodded and pushed off the counter and led the way into the living room. He set his mug on the side table and pulled up the blinds to reveal pitch dark outside. The windows faced west over the river. It would be hours until the sun got high enough to lighten the sky out there.

There were three sofas in a rectangle around a cold fireplace full of last winter’s ash. The last cheery blazes Jodie’s father had ever enjoyed. Blake sat facing the window and Reacher sat opposite and watched Lamarr as she fought her short skirt and sat down facing the hearth. Her skin was the same color as the ash.

“We stand by our profile,” she said.

“Well, good for you.”

“It was somebody exactly like you.”

“You think that’s plausible?” Blake asked.

“Is what plausible?” Reacher asked back.

“That this could be a soldier?”

“You’re asking me if a soldier could be a killer?”

Blake nodded. “You got an opinion on that?”

“My opinion is it’s a really stupid question. Like asking me if I thought a jockey could ride a horse.”

There was silence. Just a muffled whump from the basement as the furnace caught, and then rapid creaking as the steam pipes heated through and expanded and rubbed against the floor joists under their feet.

“So you were a plausible suspect,” Blake said. “As far as the first two went.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Hence the surveillance,” Blake said.

“Is that an apology?” Reacher asked.

Blake nodded. “I guess so.”

“So why did you haul me in? When you already proved it wasn’t me?”

Blake looked embarrassed. “We wanted to show some progress, I guess.”

“You show progress by hauling the wrong guy in? I don’t buy that.”

“I already apologized,” Blake said.

More silence.

“You got anybody who knew all three?” Reacher asked.

“Not yet,” Lamarr said.

“We’re thinking maybe previous personal contact isn’t too significant,” Blake said.

“You were thinking it was, couple of hours ago. You were telling me how I was this big friend of theirs, I knock on the door, they let me right in.”

“Not you,” Blake said. “Somebody like you, is all. And now we’re thinking maybe we were wrong. This guy is killing by category, right? Female harassment complainants who quit afterward? So maybe he’s not personally known to them, maybe he’s just in a category known to them. Like the military police.”

Reacher smiled. “So now you think it was me again?”

Blake shook his head. “No, you weren’t in California. ”

“Wrong answer, Blake. It wasn’t me because I’m not a killer.”

“You never killed anybody?” Lamarr said, like she knew the answer.

“Only those who needed it.”

She smiled in turn. “Like I said, we stand by our profile. Some self-righteous son of a bitch just like you.”

Reacher saw Blake glance at her, half supportive, half disapproving. The light from the kitchen was coming through the hallway behind her, turning her thin hair to a wispy halo, making her look like a death’s-head. Blake sat forward, trying to force Reacher’s attention his way. “What we’re saying is, it’s possible this guy is or was a military policeman.”

Reacher looked away from Lamarr and shrugged.

“Anything’s possible,” he said.

Blake nodded. “And, you know, we kind of understand that maybe your loyalty to the service makes that hard to accept.”

“Actually, common sense makes that hard to accept. ”

“In what way?”

“Because you seem to think trust and friendship is important to the MO in some way. And nobody in the service trusts an MP. Or likes them much, in my experience. ”

“You told us Rita Scimeca would remember you as a friend.”

“I was different. I put the effort in. Not many of the guys did.”

Silence again. The fog outside was dulling sound, like a blanket over the house. The water forcing through the radiators was loud.

“There’s an agenda here,” Blake said. “Like Julia says, we stand behind our techniques, and the way we read it, there’s an Army involvement. The victim category is way too narrow for this to be random.”

“So?”

“As a rule, the Bureau and the military don’t get along too well.”

“Well, there’s a big surprise. Who the hell do you guys get along with?”

Blake nodded. He was in an expensive suit. It made him look uncomfortable, like a college football coach on alumni day.

“Nobody gets on with anybody,” he said. “You know how it is, with all the rivalries. When you were serving, did you ever cooperate with civilian agencies? ”

Reacher said nothing.

“So you know how it is,” Blake said again. “Military hates the Bureau, the Bureau hates CIA, everybody hates everybody else.”

There was silence.

“So we need a go-between,” Blake said.

“A what?”

“An adviser. Somebody to help us.”

Reacher shrugged. “I don’t know anybody like that. I’ve been out too long.”

Silence. Reacher drained his coffee and set the empty mug back on the table.

“You could do it,” Blake said.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You still know your way around, right?”

“No way.”

“Why not?”

Reacher shook his head. “Because I don’t want to.”

“But you could do it.”

“I could, but I won’t.”

“We got your record. You were a hell of an investigator, in the service.”

“That’s history.”

“Maybe you still got friends there, people who remember you. Maybe people who still owe you favors.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“You could help us.”

“Maybe I could, but I won’t.”

He leaned back into his sofa and spread his arms wide across the tops of the cushions and straightened his legs.

“Don’t you feel anything?” Blake asked. “For these women getting killed? Shouldn’t be happening, right?”