Page 9 (1/2)

27

The guy was finally pronounced dead thirty minutes later, at one o&039;clock in the afternoon, when the doctor showed up with Pellegrino Pellegrino was in his cruiser and the doctor was in a fifth-handout of a history book I guessed it was a riff on a 1960s hearse, but built on a Chevrolet platfor s or other funereal hoo-hah of any kind It was like a half-height panel van, painted dirty white

Merriam checked pulse and heartbeat and poked around the wound for a h his feunshot" Which was obvious, but then he added souy&039;s pants leg and said, "Wet denim is not easy to cut Someone used a very sharp knife"

I helped Merriaurney, and then we loaded him in the back of the truck Merriam drove him away, and Deveraux spent five rino He didn&039;t say anything, and neither did I Then Deveraux got out of her car again and sent him about his business He drove away, and Deveraux and I were alone once more, except for the blasted tree and a patch of dark tone on the ground, where the dead guy&039;s blood had soaked into the soil

Deveraux said, "Butler claiate at any ti"

I said, "Who&039;s Butler?"

"My other deputy Pellegrino&039;s opposite number I&039;ve had hi, in case they cancel the lockdown There&039;s going to be all kinds of tension People are very upset about Chapman"

"But not about the first two?"

"Depends who you ask, and where But the soldiers never stop short of the tracks The bars are all on the other side"

I said nothing

She said, "There ot to be, what? Thirty ? And it&039;s fifty years old Got to be weak spots Someone came out somewhere, that&039;s for sure"

"And went back in again," I said "If you&039;re right, that is Someone went back in bloody to the elboith a dirty knife, and at least one round short in his ht," she said

"I never heard of a quarantine zone before," I said "Not inside the United States, anyway I just don&039;t buy it"

"I buy it," she said

So in her face

I said, "What? Did the Marines do this once?"

"It was no big thing"

"Tell me all about it"

"Classified information," she said

"Where was it?"

"I can&039;t tell you that"

"When was it?"

"I can&039;t tell you that either"

I paused a beat and asked, "Have you spoken to Munro yet? The guy they sent to the base?"

She nodded "He called and left a ave me a number to reach him"

"Good," I said "Because now I need to speak to hiether, across Clancy&039;s land, out his gate, south on the washboard two-lane, then west through the black half of toay from Kelham, toward the railroad I saw the same old women on the same front porches, and the sa sloeen unknown starting points and unknown destinations The houses leaned and sagged There were abandoned work sites Slabs laid, with no structures built on theles of rusted rebar Weedy piles of bricks and sand All around was flat tilled dirt and trees There was a kind of hopeless crushed torpor in the air, like there probably had been every day for the last hundred years

"My people," Deveraux said "My base They all voted for me I mean it, practically a hundred percent Because offor him, really"

I asked, "How did you do with the white folks?"

"Close to a hundred percent with thee, on both ends of the deal Unless I get some answers for all concerned"

"Tell me about the first tomen"

Her response to that was to brake sharply and twist in her seat and back up twenty yards Then she nosed into the turning she had just passed It was a dirt track, well smoothed and well scoured It had a huht It ran straight north, and was lined on both sides hat ht once have been slave shacks Deveraux passed by the first ten or so, passed by a gap where one had burned out, and then she turned into a yard I recognized froirl&039;s house The unadorned neck and ears The anized the shade tree she had been sitting under, and the white wall that had reflected the setting sun softly and obliquely into her face

We parked on a patch of grass and got out A dog barked somewhere, and its chain rattled We walked under the limbs of the shade tree and knocked on the back door The house was ser than a cabin, but it ell tended The white siding was not new, but it had been frequently painted It was stained auburn at the bottom, the color of hair, where heavy rains had bounced up out of the mud

The back door was opened by a woman not much older than either Deveraux or me She was tall and thin and she uor, and with the kind of iron stoicisned smile at Deveraux, and shook her hand, and asked her, "Any news about my baby?"

Deveraux said, "We&039;re still working on it We&039;ll get there in the end"

The bereaved mother was too polite to respond to that She just sain and turned to me She said, "I don&039;t believe we&039;ve met"

I said, "Jack Reacher, ma&039;am," and shook her hand She said, "I&039;hted towith the Sheriff&039;s Department?"

"The army sent me to help"

"Now they did," she said "Not nine o"

I didn&039;t answer that

The woman said, "I have some deer meat in the pot And some tea in the pitcher Would you two care to join me for lunch?"

Deveraux said, "Emmeline, I&039;m sure that&039;s your dinner, not your lunch We&039;ll be OK We&039;ll eat in town But thanks anyway"

It was the answer the woain and backed away into the gloom behind her We walked back to the car Deveraux backed out to the street, and we drove away Further down the roas a shack ns in the s A bar of soh a matrix of dirt streets I saw another abandoned construction project Knee-high foundation walls had been built out of cinder blocks, and four vertical wooden posts had been raised at the corners But that was all Building materials were scattered around the rest of the lot in untidy piles There were surplus cinder blocks, there were bricks, there was a pile of sand, there was a stack of bagged ceid with dew and rain

There was also a pile of gravel

I turned and looked at it as we drove past Maybe two yards of it, the sray kind they mix with sand and cement to make into concrete The pile had spread and wandered into a low hues It had pockmarks and divots in its top surface, as if kids had walked on it

I didn&039;t say anything Deveraux&039;s mind was already made up She drove on and turned left into a broader street Bigger houses, bigger yards Picket fences, not hurricane wire Cement paths to the doors, not beaten earth She slowed and then eased to a stop outside a place twice the size of the shack we had just left A decent one-story house Expensive, if it had been in California But shabby The paint was peeling and the gutters were broken-backed The roof was asphalt and some of the tiles had slipped There was a boy in the yard,nothing Just watching us

Deveraux said, "This is the other one Shawna Lindsay was her na at us"

The baby brother was no oil painting He had lucked out with the genetic lottery That was for da at all He had fallen out of the ugly tree, and hit every branch He had a head like a bowling ball, and eyes like the finger holes, and about as close together

I asked, "Are we going in?"

Deveraux shook her head "Shawna&039;s mom told me not to come back until I could tell her who slit her first-born&039;s throat Those were her words And I can&039;t bla Especially for people like this Not that they thought their girls would grow up to be models and buy the truly specialelse, ever"

The boy was still staring Quiet, baleful, and patient

"So let&039;s go," I said "I need to use the phone"

28

Deveraux let me use the phone in her office Not a de there She found the number Munro had left for her, and she dialed it for me, and she told whoever answered that Sheriff Elizabeth Deveraux was on the line for Major Duncan Munro Then she handed the receiver to me and vacated her chair and the roo but dead air in my ear and the remnant of her body heat on my back I waited The silence hissed at me The army did not play hold music Not back in 1997 Then a minute later there was a plastic click and clatter as a handset was scooped up off a desk, and a voice said, "Sheriff Deveraux? This is Major Munro How are you?"

The voice was hard, and brisk, and hyper-coood cheer in it But then, I figured anyone would be happy to get a call from Elizabeth Deveraux

I said, "Munro?"

He said, "I&039; Elizabeth Deveraux"

"Well, sadly you didn&039;t get her," I said "My naht now I&039;m with the 396th, currently TDY with the 110th We&039;re of equal rank"

Munro said, "Jack Reacher? I&039;ve heard of you, of course How can I help you?"

"Did Garber tell you he was sending an undercover guy to town?"

"No, but I guessed he would That would be you, right? Tasked to snoop on the locals? Whichfrom the sheriff&039;s phone Which must be fun, in a way People here say she&039;s a real looker Although they also say she&039;s a lesbian You got an opinion on any of that?"

"That stuff is none of your business, Munro"

"Call me Duncan, OK?"

"No, thanks I&039;ll call you Munro"

"Sure How can I help you?"

"We&039;ve got shit happening out here There was a guy shot to death this , close to your fence, northwestern quadrant Unknown assailant, but probably a military round, and definitely a half-assed atte"

"What, soave him first aid? Sounds like a civilian accident toto be that predictable How do you explain the round and the dressing?"

"Reuys were beat up before that, by someone they sas a soldier"

"Not a soldier based at Kelham"

"Really? How many Kelham personnel can you vouch for? In ter?"

"All of them," Munro said

"Literally?"

"Yes, literally," he said "We&039;ve got Alpha Coot everyone else confined to quarters, or else sitting in the ood MP staff here, and they&039;re watching everyone, while also watching each other I can guarantee no one left the base this ot here, for thatprocedure?"

"It&039;s , no television, no nothing Sooner or later someone talks, out of sheer boredo days are over I learned that tiain," I said "This is very important You&039;re absolutely sure no one left the base this ht? Not even under secret orders, on? I&039;m serious here And don&039;t bullshit a bullshitter"

"I&039;rave I kno to do this stuff, you know Give me that, at least"

"OK," I said

Munro asked, "Who was the dead guy?"

"No ID at this time Civilian, almost certainly"

"Near the fence?"

"Saot beat up Like a quarantine zone"

"That&039;s ridiculous That&039;s not happening I know that for sure"

We both went quiet for a second, and then I asked, "What else do you know for sure?"