Rodin didn't answer immediately. There was a short silence and then there was a knock at the door and the secretary came in with coffee. She had a silver tray with the works on it. A French press, two cups, two saucers, a sugar bowl, a tiny pitcher of cream, two silver spoons. The cups were fine china. Not government issue, Reacher thought. Rodin likes his coffee done right. The secretary put the tray on the edge of the desk, so that it was exactly halfway between the desk chair and the visitor chair.
"Thanks," Reacher said.
"You're most welcome," she said, and left the room.
"Help yourself," Rodin said. "Please. "
Reacher pushed the plunger down and poured himself a cup, no cream, no sugar. It smelled dark and strong. Coffee, done right.
"The case against James Barr is exceptionally good," Rodin said.
"Eyewitnesses?" Reacher asked.
"No," Rodin said. "But eyewitness testimony can be of random value. I'm almost glad we don't have eyewitnesses. Because what we've got instead is exceptional physical evidence. And science doesn't lie. It doesn't get confused. "
"Exceptional?" Reacher said.
"A complete rock-solid evidence trail that ties the man to the crime. "
"How solid?"
"As good as it gets. The best I've ever seen. I'm completely confident. "
"I've heard prosecutors say that before. "
"Not this one, Mr. Reacher. I'm a very cautious man. I don't prosecute capital cases unless I'm certain of the outcome. "
"Keeping score?"
Rodin gestured above and behind him at his trophy wall.
"Seven for seven," he said. "One hundred percent. "
"In how long?"
"In three years. James Barr will make it eight for eight. If he ever wakes up. "
"Suppose he wakes up damaged?"
"If he wakes up with any brain function at all, he's going to trial. What he did here can't be forgiven. "
"OK," Reacher said.
"OK what?"
"You've told me what I wanted to know. "
"You said you had information. From the army. "
"I'll keep it to myself for now. "
"You were a military policeman, am I right?"
"Thirteen years," Reacher said.
"And you knew James Barr?"
"Briefly. "
"Tell me about him. "
"Not yet. "
"Mr. Reacher, if you have exculpatory information, or anything to add at all, you really need to tell me now. "
"Do I?"
"I'll get it anyway. My daughter will submit it. She'll be looking for a plea bargain. "
"What does the A. A. stand for?"
"Excuse me?"
"Your initials. "
"Aleksei Alekseivitch. My family came from Russia. But a long time ago. Before the October Revolution. "
"But they keep up traditions. "
"As you can see. "
"What do people call you?"
"Alex, of course. "
Reacher stood up. "Well, thanks for your time, Alex. And the coffee. "
"Are you going to see my daughter now?"
"Is there any point? You seem pretty sure of yourself. "
Rodin smiled an indulgent smile.
"It's a matter of procedure," he said. "I'm an officer of the court, and you're on a witness list. I'm obliged to point out that you're obliged to go. Anything less would be unethical. "
"Where is she?"
"In the glass tower you can see from the window. "
"OK," Reacher said. "I guess I could drop by. "
"I still need whatever information you have," Rodin said.
Reacher shook his head.
"No," he said. "You really don't. "
He returned his visitor pass to the woman at the reception desk and headed back to the public plaza. Stood in the cold sun and turned a complete circle, getting a sense of the place. All cities are the same, and all cities are different. They all have colors. Some are gray. This one was brown. Reacher guessed the brick was made from local clay and had carried the color of old farmland into the facades. Even the stone was
flecked with tan, like it carried deposits of iron. There were accents of dark red here and there, like old barns. It was a warm place, not busy, but it was surviving. It would rebound after the tragedy. There was progress and optimism and dynamism. All the new construction proved it. There were work zones and raw concrete curbs everywhere. Lots of planning, lots of rebuilding. Lots of hope.
The new parking garage extension anchored the north end of the downtown strip. It suggested commercial expansion. It was south and slightly west of the kill zone. Very close. Directly west and maybe twice as distant was a length of the raised highway. It ran free and clear through a curve for maybe thirty yards before curling in behind the library. Then it curled some more and passed behind the black glass tower. The tower was due north of the plaza. It had an NBC sign near the door, on a black granite slab. Ann Yanni's workplace, Reacher guessed, as well as Rodin's daughter's. East of the plaza was the office building with the DMV and the recruiting office. That was where the victims had come from. They had spilled out the door. What had Ann Yanni said? At the end of a long workweek? They had hustled west across the plaza toward their parked cars or the bus depot and had stumbled into a nightmare. The narrow walkway would have slowed them down and lined them up. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
Reacher walked the length of the empty ornamental pool to the revolving door at the base of the tower. He went in and checked the lobby for a directory. There was a glassed-in board made of ridged black felt with press-in white letters. NBC was on the second floor. Some of the other suites were empty, and Reacher guessed the rest changed hands fast enough to make it worth holding on to the press-in letter system. Law Offices of Helen Rodin was listed on four. The letters were a little misaligned and the spacing was off. Rockefeller Center it ain't, Reacher thought.
He waited for the elevator in a queue of two, him and a pretty blonde woman. He looked at her and she looked at him. She got out on two and he realized it was Ann Yanni. He recognized her from the broadcast. Then he figured all he needed to do was meet Emerson from the local PD and he would have brought the whole breaking-news tableau to life.
He found Helen Rodin's suite. It was at the front of the building. Her windows were going to overlook the plaza. He knocked. Heard a muffled reply and went in. There was an empty reception room with a secretary's desk. The desk was unoccupied. It was secondhand, but not recently used. No secretary yet, Reacher thought. Early days.
He knocked on the inner office door. Heard the same voice make a second reply. He went in and found Helen Rodin at another secondhand desk. He recognized her from her father's photograph. But face-to-face she looked even better. She was probably no more than thirty, quite tall, lightly built. Slim, in an athletic sort of a way. Not anorexic. Either she ran or played soccer or had been very lucky with her metabolism. She had long blonde hair and her father's blue eyes. There was intelligence behind them. She was dressed all in black, in a pantsuit with a tight stretch top under the coat. Lycra, Reacher thought. Can't beat it.
"Hello," she said.
"I'm Jack Reacher," he said.
She stared at him. "You're kidding. Are you really?"
He nodded. "Always have been, always will be. "
"Unbelievable. "
"Not really. Everybody's somebody. "
"I mean, how did you know to come? We couldn't find you. "
"I saw it on the TV. Ann Yanni, Saturday morning. "
"Well, thank God for TV," she said. "And thank God you're here. "
"I was in Miami," he said. "With a dancer. "
"A dancer?"
"She was Norwegian," he said.
He walked to the window and looked out. He was four stories up and the main shopping street ran away directly south, down a hill, emphasizing his elevation. The ornamental pool was placed with its long axis exactly lined up with the street. The pool was on the street, really, except they had blocked the street off to make the plaza. Someone returning from a long spell away would be surprised to find a big tank of water where once there had been roadway. The pool was much longer and narrower than it had looked from ground level. It looked sad and empty, with just a thin layer of mud and scum on the black tile. Beyond it and slightly to the right was the new parking structure. It was slightly downhill from the plaza. Maybe half a story's difference.
"Were you here?" Reacher asked. "When it happened?"
"Yes, I was," Helen Rodin said quietly.
"Did you see it?"
"Not at first. I heard the first three gunshots. They came very fast. The first, and then a tiny pause, and then the next two. Then another pause, a little longer, but just a split second, really. I stood up in time for the last three. Horrible. "
Reacher nodded. Brave girl, he thought. She hears gunshots, and she stands up. She doesn't dive under the desk. Then he thought: The first, and then a tiny pause. That was the sound of a skilled rifleman watching where his first cold shot went. So many variables. The cold barrel, the range, the wind, the zeroing, the sighting-in.
"Did you see people die?" he asked.
"Two of them," she said behind him. "It was awful. "
"Three shots and two people?"
"He missed once. Either the fourth or the fifth shot, they're not sure. They found the bullet in the pool. That's why it's empty. They drained it. "
Reacher said nothing.
"The bullet is part of the evidence," Helen said. "It ties the rifle to the crime. "
"Did you know any of the dead people?"
"No. They were just people, I guess. In the wrong place at the wrong time. "
Reacher said nothing.
"I saw flames from the gun," Helen said. "Way over there, in the shadows, in the dark. Little spits of flame. "
"Muzzle flashes," Reacher said.
He turned back from the window. She held out her hand.
"I'm Helen Rodin," she said. "I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself properly. "
Reacher took her hand. It was warm and firm.
"Just Helen?" he said. "Not Helena Alekseyovna or something?"
She stared at him again. "How the hell did you know that?"
"I met your dad," he said, and let go of her hand.
"Did you?" she said. "Where?"
"In his office, just now. "
"You went to his office? Today?"
"I just left there. "
"Why did you go to his office? You're my witness. He shouldn't have seen you. "
"He was very keen to talk. "
"What did you tell him?"
"Nothing. I asked questions instead. "
"What questions?"
"I wanted to know how strong his case was. Against James Barr. "
"I'm representing James Barr. And you're a defense witness. You should have been talking to me, not him. "
Reacher said nothing.
"Unfortunately the case against James Barr is very strong," she said.
"How did you get my name?" Reacher asked.
"From James Barr, of course," she said. "How else?"
"From Barr? I don't believe it. "
"Well, listen," she said.
She turned away to the desk and pressed a key on an old-fashioned cassette player. Reacher heard a voice he didn't recognize say: Denying it is not an option. Helen touched the Pause key and kept her finger on it.
"His first lawyer," she said. "We changed representation yesterday. "
"How? He was in a coma yesterday. "
"Technically my client is James Barr's sister. His next of kin. "
Then she let go of the Pause key and Reacher heard room sounds and hiss and then a voice he hadn't heard for fourteen years. It was exactly how he remembered it. It was low, and tense, and raspy. It was the voice of a man who rarely spoke. It said: Get Jack Reacher for me.
He stood there, stunned.
Helen Rodin pressed the Stop key.
"See?" she sai
d.
Then she checked her watch.
"Ten-thirty," she said. "Stick around and join in the client conference. "
She unveiled him like a conjurer on a stage. Like a rabbit out of a hat. First in was a guy Reacher immediately took for an ex-cop. He was introduced as Franklin, a freelance investigator who worked for lawyers. They shook hands.
"You're a hard man to find," Franklin said.
"Wrong," Reacher said. "I'm an impossible man to find. "
"Want to tell me why?" There were instant questions in Franklin's eyes. A cop's questions. Like, How much use is this guy going to be as a witness? What is he? A felon? A fugitive? Will he have credibility on the stand?
"Just a hobby," Reacher said. "Just a personal choice. "
"So you're cool?"
"You could skate on me. "
Then a woman came in. She was in her mid- to late thirties, probably, dressed for an office, and stressed and sleepless. But behind the agitation she wasn't unappealing. She looked like a kind and decent person. Even pretty. But she was clearly James Barr's sister. Reacher knew that even before they were introduced. She had the same coloring and a softer, feminized, older version of the same face.
"I'm Rosemary Barr," she said. "I'm so glad you found us. It feels providential. Now I really feel we're getting somewhere. "
Reacher said nothing at all.
The law offices of Helen Rodin didn't run to a conference room. Reacher figured that would come later. Maybe. If she prospered. So all four people crowded into the inner office. Helen sat at her desk. Franklin perched on a corner of it. Reacher leaned on the windowsill. Rosemary Barr paced, nervously. If there had been a rug, she would have worn holes in it.
"OK," Helen said. "Defense strategy. At the minimum we want to pursue a medical plea. But we'll aim higher than that. How high we eventually get will depend on a number of factors. In which connection, first, I'm sure we all want to hear what Mr. Reacher has to say. "
"I don't think you do," Reacher said.
"Do what?"
"Want to hear what I've got to say. "
"Why wouldn't we?"
"Because you jumped to the wrong conclusion. "
"Which is?"
"Why do you think I went to see your father first?"
"I don't know. "
"Because I didn't come here to help James Barr. "
Nobody spoke.
"I came here to bury him," Reacher said.
They all stared.
"But why?" Rosemary Barr asked.
"Because he's done this before. And once was enough. "