THE BUREAU'S OWN Learjet had ferried Blake and his team from Andrews direct to Spokane and he had sent it over to Sea-Tac to collect Harper and Reacher. It was waiting on the apron right next to the Continental gates, and the same guy as before had been hauled out of the Seattle Field Office to meet them at the head of the jetway and point them down the external stairs and outside. It was raining lightly, and cold, so they ran for the Lear's steps and hustled straight inside. Four minutes later, they were back in the air.
Sea-Tac to Spokane was a lot faster in the Lear than it had been in the Cessna. The same local guy in the same car was waiting for them. He still had Alison Lamarr's address written on the pad attached to his windshield. He drove them the ten miles east toward Idaho and then turned north onto the narrow road into the hills. Fifty yards in, there was a roadblock with two parked cars and yellow tape stretched between trees. Above the trees in the far distance were the mountains. It was raining and gray on the western peaks, and in the east the sun was slanting down through the edge of the clouds and gleaming off the tiny threads of snow in the high gullies.
The guy at the roadblock looped the tape off the trees and the car crawled through. It climbed onward, past the isolated houses every mile or so, all the way to the bend before the Lamarr place, where it stopped.
"You need to walk from here," the driver said.
He stayed in the car, and Harper and Reacher stepped out and started walking. The air was damp, full of a kind of suspended drizzle that wasn't really rain but wasn't dry weather either. They rounded the curve and saw the house on the left, crouching low behind its fence and its wind-battered trees, with the road snaking by on the right. The road was blocked by a gaggle of cars. There was a local police black-and-white with its roof lights flashing aimlessly. A pair of plain dark sedans and a black Suburban with black glass. A coroner's wagon, standing with all its doors open. The vehicles were all beaded with raindrops.
They walked closer and the front passenger door on the Suburban opened up and Nelson Blake slid out to meet them. He was in a dark suit with the coat collar turned up against the damp. His face was nearer gray than red, like shock had knocked his blood pressure down. He was all business. No greeting. No apologies, no pleasantries. No I-was-wrong-and-you-were-right.
"Not much more than an hour of daylight left, up here," he said. "I want you to walk me through what you did the day before yesterday, tell me what's different. "
Reacher nodded. He suddenly wanted to find something. Something important. Something crucial. Not for Blake. For Alison. He stood and gazed at the fence and the trees and the lawn. They were cared for. They were just trivial rearrangements of an insignificant portion of the planet's surface, but they were motivated by the honest tastes and enthusiasms of a woman now dead. Achieved by her own labors.
"Who's been in there already?" he asked.
"Just the local uniformed guy," Blake said. "The one that found her. "
"Nobody else?"
"Nobody. "
"Not even you guys or the coroner?"
Blake shook his head. "I wanted your input first. "
"
So she's still in there?"
"Yes, I'm afraid she is. "
The road was quiet. Just a hiss of breeze in the power lines. The red and blue light from the police cruiser's light bar washed over the suit on Blake's back, rhythmically and uselessly.
"OK," Reacher said. "The uniformed guy mess with anything?"
Blake shook his head again. "Opened the door, walked around downstairs, went upstairs, found his way to the bathroom, came right out again and called it in. His dispatcher had the good sense to keep him from going back inside. "
"Front door was unlocked?"
"Closed, but unlocked. "
"Did he knock?"
"I guess. "
"So his prints will be on the knocker, too. And the inside door handles. "
Blake shrugged. "Won't matter. Won't have smudged our guy's prints, because our guy doesn't leave prints. "
Reacher nodded. "OK. "
He walked past the parked vehicles and on past the mouth of the driveway. He walked twenty yards up the road.
"Where does this go?" he called.
Blake was ten yards behind him. "Back of beyond, probably. "
"It's narrow, isn't it?"
"I've seen wider," Blake allowed.
Reacher strolled back to join him. "So you should check the mud on the shoulders, maybe up around the next bend. "
"What for?"
"Our guy came in from the Spokane road, most likely. Cruised the house, kept on going, turned around, came back. He'd want his car facing the right direction, before he went in and got to work. A guy like this, he'll have been thinking about the getaway. "
Blake nodded. "OK. I'll put somebody on it. Meantime, take me through the house. "
He called instructions to his team and Reacher joined Harper in the mouth of the driveway. They stood and waited for Blake to catch up with them.
"So walk me through it," he said.
"We paused here for a second," Harper said. "It was awful quiet. Then we walked up to the door, used the knocker. "
"Was the weather wet or dry?" Blake asked her.
She glanced at Reacher. "Dry, I guess. A little sunny. Not hot. But not raining. "
"The driveway was dry," Reacher said. "Not dusty dry, but the shale had drained. "
"So you wouldn't have picked up grit on your shoes?"
"I doubt it. "
"OK. "
They were at the door.
"Put these on your feet," Blake said. He pulled a roll of large-sized food bags from his coat pocket. They put a bag over each shoe and tucked the plastic edges down inside the leather.
"She opened up, second knock," Harper said. "I showed her my badge in the spyhole. "
"She was pretty uptight," Reacher said. "Told us Julia had been warning her. "
Blake nodded sourly and nudged the door with his bagged foot. The door swung back with the same creak of old hinges Reacher remembered from before.
"We all paused here in the hallway," Harper said. "Then she offered us coffee and we all went through to the kitchen to get it. "
"Anything different in here?" Blake asked.
Reacher looked around. The pine walls, the pine floors, the yellow gingham curtains, the old sofas, the converted oil lamps.
"Nothing different," he said.
"OK, kitchen," Blake said.
They filed into the kitchen. The floor was still waxed to a shine. The cabinets were the same, the range was cold and empty, the machines under the counter were the same, the gadgets sitting out were undisturbed. There were dishes in the sink and one of the silverware drawers was open an inch.
"The view is different," Harper said. She was standing at the window. "Much grayer today. "
"Dishes in the sink," Reacher said. "And that drawer was closed. "
They crowded the sink. There was a single plate, a water glass, a mug, a knife and a fork. Smears of egg and toast crumbs on the plate, coffee mud in the mug.
"Breakfast?" Blake said.
"Or dinner," Harper answered. "An egg on toast, that could be dinner for a single woman. "
Blake pulled the drawer with the tip of his finger. There was a bunch of cheap flatware in there, and a random assortment of household tools, small screwdrivers, wire strippers, electrical tape, fuse wire.
"OK, then what?" Blake asked.
"I stayed here with her," Harper said. "Reacher looked around. "
"Show me," Blake said.
He followed Reacher back to the hallway.
"I checked the parlor and the living room," Reacher said. "Looked at the windows. I figured they were secure. "
Blake nodded. "Guy didn't come in the windows. "
"Then I went outside, checked the grounds and the barn. "
"We'll do the upstairs first," Blake said.
"OK. "
Reacher led the way. He was very conscious of where he was going. Very conscious that maybe thirty hours ago the guy had followed the same path.
"I checked the bedrooms. Went into the master suite last. "
"Let's do it," Blake said.
They walked the length of the master bedroom. Paused at the bathroom door.
"Let's do it," Blake said again.