“Black is all I got,” he called. “No milk or sugar in the house, I’m afraid.”
“Black is fine,” Blake said.
He was in the kitchen doorway, moving sideways, staying close to the hallway, unwilling to trespass. Lamarr was moving alongside him, looking around the kitchen with undisguised curiosity.
“Nothing for me,” she said.
“Drink some coffee, Julia,” Blake said. “It’s been a long night.”
The way he said it was halfway between an order and paternalistic concern. Reacher glanced at him, surprised, and filled three mugs. He took his own and leaned back on the counter, waiting.
“We need to talk,” Blake said.
“Who was the third woman?” Reacher asked.
“Lorraine Stanley, She was a quartermaster sergeant.”
“Where?”
“She served in Utah someplace. They found her dead in California, this morning.”
“Same MO?”
Blake nodded. “Identical in every respect.”
“Same history?”
Blake nodded again. “Harassment complainant, won her case, but quit anyway.”
50
l”C!M
“When?”
“The harassment thing was two years ago, she quit a year ago. So that’s three out of three. So the Army thing is not a coincidence, believe me.”
Readier sipped his coffee. It tasted weak and stale. The machine was obviously all furred up with mineral deposits. There was probably a procedure for cleaning it out.
“I never heard of her,” he said. “I never served in Utah.”
Blake nodded. “Somewhere we can talk?”
“We’re talking here, right?”
“Somewhere we can sit?”
Reacher nodded and pushed off the counter and led the way into the living room. He set his mug on the side table and pulled up the blinds to reveal pitch dark outside. The windows faced west over the river. It would be hours until the sun got high enough to lighten the sky out there.
There were three sofas in a rectangle around a cold fireplace full of last winter’s ash. The last cheery blazes Jodie’s father had ever enjoyed. Blake sat facing the window and Reacher sat opposite and watched Lamarr as she fought her short skirt and sat down facing the hearth. Her skin was the same color as the ash.
“We stand by our profile,” she said.
“Well, good for you.”
“It was somebody exactly like you.”
“You think that’s plausible?” Blake asked.
“Is what plausible?” Reacher asked back.
“That this could be a soldier?”
“You’re asking me if a soldier could be a killer?”
Blake nodded. “You got an opinion on that?”
“My opinion is it’s a really stupid question. Like asking me if I thought a jockey could ride a horse.”
There was silence. Just a muffled whump from the basement as the furnace caught, and then rapid creaking as the steam pipes heated through and expanded and rubbed against the floor joists under their feet.
“So you were a plausible suspect,” Blake said. “As far as the first two went.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Hence the surveillance,” Blake said.
“Is that an apology?” Reacher asked.
Blake nodded. “I guess so.”
ifu/i/U/M filing 51
“So why did you haul me in? When you already proved it wasn’t me?”
Blake looked embarrassed. “We wanted to show some progress, I guess.”
“You show progress by hauling the wrong guy in? I don’t buy that.”
“I already apologized,” Blake said.
More silence.
“You got anybody who knew all three?” Reacher asked.
“Not yet,” Lamarr said.
“We’re thinking maybe previous personal contact isn’t too significant,” Blake said.
“You were thinking it was, couple of hours ago. You were telling me how I was this big friend of theirs, I knock on the door, they let me right in.”
“Not you,” Blake said. “Somebody like you, is all. And now we’re thinking maybe we were wrong. This guy is killing by category, right? Female harassment complainants who quit afterward? So maybe he’s not personally known to them, maybe he’s just in a category known to them. Like the military police.”
Reacher smiled. “So now you think it was me again?”
Blake shook his head. “No, you weren’t in California.”
“Wrong answer, Blake. It wasn’t me because I’m not a killer.”
“You never killed anybody?” Lamarr said, like she knew the answer.
“Only those who needed it.”
She smiled in turn. “Like I said, we stand by our profile. Some self-righteous son of a bitch just like you.”