“OK,” Harper said. “Let’s go get our asses chewed.”
Readier nodded. Killed the motor and the lights and sat in the silence for a beat. Then they looked at each other and slid out of the car and stepped to the doors. Took a deep breath. But the atmosphere inside the building was very calm. It was quiet. Nobody was around. Nobody was waiting for them. They went down in the elevator to Blake’s underground office. Found him sitting in there at his desk with one hand resting on the telephone and the other holding a curled sheet of fax paper. The television was playing silently, political cable, men in suits at an impressive table. Blake was ignoring it. He was staring at a spot on his desk equidistant from the fax paper and the phone and his face was totally blank. Harper nodded to him, and Reacher said nothing.
“Fax in from UPS,” Blake said. His voice was gentle. Amiable, even benign. He looked crestfallen, adrift, confused. He looked beaten.
“Guess who sent the paint to Alison Lamarr?” he said.
“Lorraine Stanley,” Reacher said.
Blake nodded.
“Correct,” he said. “From an address in a little town in Utah, that turned out to be a self-storage facility. And guess what else?”
“She sent all of it.”
Blake nodded again. “UPS has got eleven consecutive consignment numbers showing eleven identical cartons going to eleven separate addresses, including Stanley’s own place in San Diego. And guess what else?”
“What?”
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“She didn’t even have her own place when she first put the paint in the storage facility. She waited the best part of a year until she was settled, then she went back up to Utah and dispatched it all. So what do you make of that?”
“I don’t know,” Readier said.
“Neither do I,” Blake said.
Then he picked up the phone. Stared at it. Put it down again.
“And Poulton just called,” he said. “From Spokane. Guess what he had to say?”
“What?”
“He just got through interviewing the UPS driver. The guy remembers pretty well. Isolated place, big heavy box, I guess he would.”
“And?”
“Alison was there when he called. She was listening to the ball game too, radio on in the kitchen. She asked him inside, gave him coffee, they heard the grand slam together. A little hollering, a little dancing around, another coffee, he tells her he’s got a big heavy box for her.”
“And?”
“And she says oh, good. He goes back out and wheels it off the tail lift on a hand truck, she clears a space for it in the garage, he brings it in, he dumps it, and she’s all smiles about it.”
“Like she was expecting it?”
Blake nodded. “That was the guy’s impression. And then what does she do?”
“What?”
“She tears off the ‘Documents enclosed’ thing and carries it back to the kitchen with her. He follows, to finish up his mug of coffee. She pulls the delivery note out of the plastic, and she shreds it up into small pieces, and she dumps them in the trash, along with the plastic.”
“Why?”
Blake shrugged. “Who the hell knows? But this guy worked UPS four years, and six times out of ten people were home for him, and he never saw such a thing before.”
“Is he reliable?”
“Poulton thinks so. Says he’s a solid guy, clear, articulate, ready to swear the whole damn thing on a stack of Bibles.”
“So what’s your take?”
Blake shook his head. “I had any idea, you’d be the first to know.”
Nighttime silence in the office.
^utinitM (filing 299
“I apologize,” Reacher said. “My theory led us nowhere.”
Blake made a face. “Don’t think twice. It was our call. It was worth a try. We wouldn’t have let you go, otherwise.”
“Is Lamarr around?”
“Why?”
“I should apologize to her, too.”
Blake shook his head. “She’s at home. She hasn’t been back. Says she’s a wreck, and she’s right. Can’t blame her.”
Reacher nodded. “A lot of stress. She should get away.”
Blake shrugged. “Where to? She won’t get on a damn plane. And I don’t want her driving anyplace, the state she’s in.”