think we’re dealing with a consistent MO, so all I did was look at the questions that the first three left behind. I mean, we all know what it
“It isn’t everything, far as we know,” Blake said.
“Right. No blunt trauma, no gunshots, no stab wounds, no poison, no strangulation.”
“So what is it?”
Stavely moved a complete circle around the table and sat down at an empty chair, on his own, three seats from Poulton and two from Reacher.
“Did she drown?” Poulton asked.
Stavely shook his head. “No, just like the first three didn’t. I took a look at her lungs, and they were completely clear.”
“So what is it?” Blake asked again.
“Like I told you,” Stavely said. “You stop the heart, or you deny oxygen to the brain. So first, I looked at her heart. And her heart was perfect. Completely undamaged. Same as the other three. And these were fit women. Great hearts. It’s easier to spot the damage on a good heart. An older person might have a bad heart, with preexisting damage, you know, furring or scarring from previous cardiac trouble, and that can hide new damage. But these were perfect hearts, like athletes. Any trauma, it would have stuck out a mile. But there wasn’t any. So he didn’t stop their hearts.”
“So?” Blake asked.
“So he denied them oxygen,” Stavely said. “It’s the only remaining possibility.”
“How?”
“Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it? Theoretically he could have sealed off the bathroom and pumped the oxygen out and replaced it with some inert gas.”
Blake shook his head. “That’s absurd.”
“Of course it is,” Stavely said. “He’d have needed equipment, pumps, tanks of gas. And we’d have found residue in the tissues. Certainly in the lungs. There aren’t any gases we wouldn’t have detected.”
“So?”
“So he choked off their airways. It’s the only possibility. ”
“You said there are no signs of strangulation.”
Stavely nodded. “There aren’t. That’s what got me interested. Strangulation normally leaves massive trauma to the neck. All kinds of bruising, internal bleeding. It sticks out a mile. Same for garroting.”
“But?”
“There’s something called gentle strangulation.”
“Gentle?” Harper said. “Awful phrase.”
“What is it?” Poulton asked.
“A guy with a big arm,” Stavely said. “Or a padded coat sleeve. Gentle consistent pressure, that will do it.”
“So is that it?” Blake asked.
Stavely shook his head. “No, it isn’t. No external marks, but to get far enough to kill them, you leave internal damage. The hyoid bone would be broken, for instance. Certainly cracked, at least. Other ligament damage too. It’s a very fragile area. The voice box is there.”
“And you’re going to tell me there was no damage, I guess,” Blake said.
“Nothing gross,” Stavely said. “Did she have a cold, when you met with her?”
He looked at Harper, but Reacher answered.
“No,” he said.
“Sore throat?”
“No.”
“Husky voice?”
“She seemed pretty healthy to me.”
Stavely nodded. Looked pleased. “There was some very, very slight swelling inside the throat. It’s what you’d get recovering from a head cold. Mucus drip might do it, or a very mild strep virus. Ninety-nine times in a hundred, I’d ignore it completely. But the other three had it too. That’s a little coincidental for me.”
“So what does it mean?” Blake asked.
“It means he pushed something down their throats,” Stavely said.
Silence in the room.
“Down their throats?” Blake repeated.
Stavely nodded. “That was my guess. Something soft, something which would slip down and then expand a little. Maybe a sponge. Were there sponges in the bathrooms?”
“I didn’t see one in Spokane,” Reacher said.
Poulton was back in the piles of paper. “Nothing on the inventories.”
“Maybe he removed them,” Harper said. “He took their clothes.”
“Bathrooms without sponges,” Blake said slowly. “Like the dog that didn’t bark.”
“No,” Reacher said. “There wasn’t a sponge
“You sure?” Blake asked.
Reacher nodded. “Totally.”
“Maybe he brings one with him,” Harper said. “The type he prefers.”
Blake looked away, back to Stavely. “So that’s how he’s doing it? Sponges down their throats?”
Stavely stared at his big red hands, resting on the tabletop.
“It has to be,” he said. “Sponges, or something similar. Like Sherlock Holmes, right? First you eliminate the impossible, and whatever you’re left with, however improbable, has
Blake nodded, slowly. “OK, so now we know.”
Stavely shook his head. “Well, no, we don’t. Because it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
Stavely just shrugged miserably.
“Come here, Harper,” Reacher said.
She looked at him, surprised. Then she smiled briefly and stood up and scraped her chair back and walked toward him.
“Show, don’t tell, right?” she said.
“Lie on the table, OK?” he asked.
She smiled again and sat on the edge of the table and swiveled into position. Reacher pulled Poulton’s pile of paper over and pushed it under her head.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
She nodded and fanned her hair and lay back like she was at the dentist. Pulled her jacket closed over her shirt.
“OK,” Reacher said. “She’s Alison Lamarr in the tub.”
He pulled the top sheet of paper out from under her head and glanced at it. It was the inventory from Caroline Cooke’s bathroom. He crumpled it into a ball.
“This is a sponge,” he said. Then he glanced at Blake. “Not that there was one in the room.”
“He brought it with him,” Blake said.
“Waste of time if he did,” Reacher said. “Because watch.”
He put the crumpled paper to Harper’s lips. She clamped them tight.
“How do I get her to open her mouth?” he asked. “In the full and certain knowledge that what I’m doing is going to kill her?”
He leaned close and used his left hand under her chin, his fingers and thumb up on her cheeks. “I could squeeze, I guess. Or I could clamp her nose until she had to breathe. But what would
“This,” Harper said, and threw a playful roundhouse right which caught Reacher high on the temple.
“Exactly,” he said. “Two seconds from now, we’re fighting, and there’s a gallon of paint on the floor. Another
