Running Blind

cartons.”

YOU SIT THERE cold and sweating for an hour and at the end of it you know for certain you forgot to reseal the carton. You didn’t do it, and you didn’t make her do it. That’s a fact now, and it can’t be denied, and it needs dealing with.

Because resealing the cartons guaranteed a certain amount of delay. You know how investigators work. A just delivered appliance carton in the garage or the basement was going to attract no interest at all. It was going to be way down on the list of priorities. It would be just another part of the normal household clutter they see everywhere. Practically invisible. You’re smart. You know how these people work. Your best guess was the primary investigators would never open it at all. That was your prediction, and you were proved absolutely right three times in a row. Down in Florida, up in New Hampshire, down in California, those boxes were items on somebody’s inventory, but they hadn’t been opened. Maybe much later when the heirs came to clear out the houses they’d open them up and find all the empty cans, whereupon the shit would really hit the fan, but by then it would be way too late. A guaranteed delay, weeks or even months.

But this time, it would be different. They’d do a walk-through in the garage, and the flaps on the box would be up. Cardboard does that, especially in a damp atmosphere like they have up there. The flaps would be curling back. They’d glance in, and they wouldn’t see Styrofoam packaging and gleaming white enamel, would they?

THEY BROUGHT IN portable arc lights from the Suburban and arrayed them around the washing machine carton like it was a meteor from Mars. They stood there, bent forward from the waist like the whole thing was radioactive. They stared at it, trying to decode its secrets.

It was a normal-sized appliance carton, built out of sturdy brown cardboard folded and stapled the way appliance cartons are. The brown board was screenprinted with black ink. The manufacturer’s name dominated each of the four sides. A famous name, styled and printed like a trademark. There was the model number of the washing machine below it, and a crude picture representing the machine itself.

The sealing tape was brown, too. It had been slit along the top to allow the box to open. Inside the box was nothing at all except ten three-gallon paint cans. They were stacked in two layers of five. The lids were resting on the tops of the cans like they had been laid back into position after use. They were distorted here and there around the circumference where an implement had been used to lever them off. The rims of the cans each had a neat tongue-shaped run of dried color where the paint had been poured out.

The cans themselves were plain metal cylinders. No manufacturer’s name. No trademark. No boasts about quality or durability or coverage. Just a small printed label stenciled with a long number and the small words Camo/Green.

“These normal?” Blake asked.

Reacher nodded. “Standard-issue field supply.”

“Who uses them?”

“Any unit with vehicles. They carry them around for small repairs and touch-ups. Vehicle workshops would use bigger drums and spray guns.”

“So they’re not rare?”

Reacher shook his head. “The exact opposite of rare.”

There was silence in the garage.

“OK, take them out,” Blake said.

A crime scene technician wearing latex gloves leaned over and lifted the cans out of the carton, one by one. He lined them up on Alison Lamarr’s workbench. Then he folded the flaps of the carton back. Angled a lamp to throw light inside. The bottom of the box had five circular imprints pressed deep into the cardboard.

“The cans were full when they went in there,” the tech said.

Blake stepped back, out of the pool of blazing light, into the shadow. He turned his back on the box and stared at the wall.

“So how did it get here?” he asked.

Reacher shrugged. “Like you said, it was delivered, ahead of time.”

“Not by the guy.”

“No. He wouldn’t come twice.”

“So by who?”

“By a shipping company. The guy sent it on ahead. FedEx or UPS or somebody.”

“But appliances get delivered by the store where you buy them. On a local truck.”

“Not this one,” Reacher said. “This didn’t come from any appliance store.”

Blake sighed, like the world had gone mad. Then he turned back and stepped into the light again. Stared at the box. Walked all around it. One side showed damage. There was a shape, roughly square, where the surface of the cardboard had been torn away. The layer underneath showed through, raw and exposed. The angle of the arc lights emphasized its corrugated structure.

“Shipping label,” Blake said.

“Maybe one of those little plastic envelopes,” Reacher said. “You know, ‘Documents enclosed.’ ”

“So where is it? Who tore it off? Not the shipping company. They don’t tear them off.”

“The guy tore it off,” Reacher said. “Afterward. So we can’t trace it back.”

He paused. He’d said we. Not you. So we can’t trace it back. Not so you can’t trace it back. Blake noticed it too, and glanced up.

“But how can the delivery happen?” he asked. “In the first place? Say you’re Alison Lamarr, just sitting there at home, and UPS or FedEx or somebody shows up with a washing machine you never ordered? You wouldn’t accept the delivery, right?”

“Maybe it came when she was out,” Reacher said. “Maybe when she was up at the hospital with her dad. Maybe the driver just wheeled it into the garage and left it.”

“Wouldn’t he need a signature?”

Reacher shrugged again. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a washing machine delivered. I guess sometimes they don’t need a signature. The guy who sent it probably specified no signature required.”

“But she’d have seen it right there, next time she went in the garage. Soon as she stashed her car, when she got back.”

Reacher nodded. “Yes, she must have. It’s big enough.”

“So what then?”

'She calls UPS or FedEx or whoever. Maybe she tore off the envelope herself. Carried it into the house, to the phone, to give them the details.”

“Why didn’t she unpack it?”

Reacher made a face. “She figures it’s not really hers, why would she unpack it? She’d only have to box it up again.”

“She mention anything to you or Harper? Anything about unexplained deliveries?”

“No. But then she might not have connected it. Foul-ups happen, right? Normal part of life.”

Blake nodded. “Well, if the details are in the house, we’ll find them. Crime scene people are going to spend some time in there, soon as the coroner is through.”

“Coroner won’t find anything,” Reacher said.

Blake looked grim. “This time, he’ll have to.”

“So you’re going to have to do it differently,” Reacher said. He concentrated on the you. “You should take the whole tub out. Take it over to some big lab in Seattle. Maybe fly it all the way back to Quantico.”

“How the hell can we take the whole tub out?”

“Tear the wall out. Tear the roof off, use a crane.”

Blake paused and thought about it. “I guess we could. We’d need permission, of course. But this must be Julia’s house now, in the circumstances, right? She’s next of kin, I guess.”

Reacher nodded. “So call her. Ask her. Get permission. And get her to check the field reports from the other three places. This delivery thing might be a one-shot deal, but if it isn’t, it changes everything.”

“Changes everything how?”