“Callan was separated, no kids. Cooke had boyfriends, no kids. Stanley was a loner, no attachments.”
“You look at Callan’s husband?”
“Obviously. Any homicide, first thing we do is look at family. Any married woman, we look at the husband. But he was alibied, nothing suspicious. And then with Cooke, the pattern became clear. So we knew it wasn’t a husband or a boyfriend.”
“No, I guess it wasn’t.”
“First problem is how he gets in. No forced entry. He just walks in the door.”
“You think there was surveillance first?”
She shrugged. “Three victims is not a large number, so I’m wary of drawing conclusions. But yes, I think he must have been watching them. He needed them to be alone. He’s efficient and organized. I don’t think he would have left
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anything to chance. But don’t overestimate the surveillance. It would be pretty obvious pretty quickly that they were alone during the day.”
“Any evidence of a stakeout? Cigarette butts and soda cans piled up under a nearby tree?”
She shook her head. “This guy is leaving no evidence of anything.”
“Neighbors see anything?”
“Not so far.”
“And all three were done during the day?”
“Different times, but all during daylight hours.”
“None of the women worked?”
“Like you don’t. Very few of you ex-Army people seem to work. It’s a snippet I’m going to file away.”
He nodded and glanced at the weather. The roadway was streaming. The rain was a mile ahead.
“Why don’t you people work?” she asked.
“Us people?” he repeated. “In my case because I can’t find anything I want to do. I thought about landscape gardening, but I wanted a challenge, not something that would take me a second and a half to master.”
She went silent again and the car hissed into a wall of rain. She set the wipers going and switched on the headlights and backed off the speed a little.
“Are you going to insult me all the time?” she asked.
“Making a little fun of you is a pretty small insult compared to how you’re threatening my girlfriend. And how you’re so ready and willing to believe I’m the type of guy could kill two women.”
“So was that a yes or a no?”
“It was a maybe. I guess an apology from you would help turn it into a no.”
“An apology? Forget about it, Reacher. I stand by my profile. If it wasn’t you, it was some scumbag just like you.”
The sky was turning black and the rain was intense. Up ahead, brake lights were shining red through the deluge on the windshield. The traffic was slowing to a crawl. Lamarr sat forward and braked sharply.
“Shit,” she said.
Reacher smiled. “Fun, right? And right now your risk of death or injury is ten thousand times higher than flying, conditions like these.”
She made no reply. She was watching her mirror, anxious the people behind her should slow down as smartly as she had. Ahead, the brake lights made a red
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chain as far as the eye could see. Readier found the electric switch on the side of his seat and racked it back. He stretched out and got comfortable.
“I’m going to take a nap,” he said. “Wake me up when we get someplace.”
“We’re not through talking,” Lamarr said. “We have a deal, remember? Think about Petrosian. I wonder what he’s doing right now.”
Reacher glanced to his left, looking across her and out her window. Manhattan lay in that direction, but he could barely see the far shoulder of the highway.
“OK, we’ll keep on talking,” he said.
She was concentrating, riding the brake, crawling forward into the deluge.
“Where were we?” she said.
“He’s staked them out sufficient to know they’re alone, it’s daylight, somehow he walks right in. Then what?”
“Then he kills them.”
“In the house?”
“We think so.”
“You think so? Can’t you tell?”
“There’s a lot we can’t tell, unfortunately.”
“Well, that’s wonderful.”
“He leaves no evidence,” she said. “It’s a hell of a problem.”
He nodded. “So describe the scenes for me. Start with the plantings in their front yards.”
“Why? You think that’s important?”