“I don’t want it.”
Blake looked awkward. “Well, want it or not, you got it.”
She shook her head. “No, I need to stay on top of this. Let Poulton go first.”
“No arguments, Julia. We need to get organized.”
“But I’m fine. I need to work. And I couldn’t sleep now, anyway.”
“Twelve hours, Julia,” Blake said. “You’re entitled to time off anyway. Compassionate leave of absence, twice over.”
“I won’t go,” she said back.
“You will.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I need to be involved right now.”
She sat there, implacable. Resolution in her face. Blake sighed and looked away.
“Right now, you can’t be involved,” he said.
“Why not?”
Blake looked straight at her. “Because they just flew your sister’s body in for the autopsy. And you can’t be involved in that. I can’t let you.”
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She tried to answer. Her mouth opened and closed twice, but no sound came out. Then she blinked once and looked away. “So, twelve hours,” Blake said. She stared down at the table. “Will I get the data?” she asked quietly. Blake nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid you’ll have to,” he answered.
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Hlf> local Bureau team in Spokane had worked hard through the night and gotten good cooperation from a construction business and a crane-hire operation and a trucking crew and an air cargo operator. The construction workers tore Alison Lamarr’s bathroom apart and disconnected the plumbing. Bureau crime scene specialists wrapped the whole tub in heavy plastic while the builders took out the window and removed the end wall down to floor level. The crane crew fixed canvas slings under the wrapped tub and brought their hook in through the hole in the end of the building and eased the heavy load out into the night. It swung through the chill air and dropped slowly down to a wooden crate lashed to a flatbed truck idling on the road. The truckers pumped expanding foam into the crate to cushion the cargo and nailed the lid down tight and drove straight to the airport in Spokane. The crate was loaded into a waiting plane and flown direct to Andrews Air Force Base, where a helicopter collected it and took it on down to Quantico. Then it was off-loaded by a forklift and set down gently in a laboratory loading bay and left waiting there for an hour while the Bureau’s forensic experts figured out exactly how to proceed.
“At this point, the cause of death is all I want,” Blake said.
He was sitting on one side of a long table in the pathology conference room, three buildings and five floors away from the Behavioral Science facility. Harper was sitting next to him, and then Poulton next to her, and then Reacher at the end of the row. Opposite them was Quantico’s senior pathologist, a doctor called Stavely, which was a name Reacher thought he recognized from somewhere. Clearly the guy had some kind of a famous reputation. Everybody was
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treating him with deference. He was a large red-faced man, oddly cheerful. His hands were big and red and looked clumsy, although presumably they weren’t. Next to him was his chief technician, a quiet thin man who looked preoccupied.
“We read the stuff from your other cases,” Stavely said, and stopped.
“Meaning?” Blake asked.
“Meaning I’m not exactly filled with optimism,” Stavely said. “New Hampshire is a little remote from the action, I agree, but they see plenty down in Florida and California. I suspect if there was anything to find, you’d know about it by now. Good people, down there.”
“Better people up here,” Blake said.
Stavely smiled. “Flattery will get you anywhere, right?”
“It’s not flattery.”
Stavely was still smiling. “If there’s nothing to find, what can we do?”
“Got to be something,” Blake said. “He made a mistake this time, with the box.”
“O )”
So?
“So maybe he made more than one mistake, left something you’ll find.” Stavely thought about it. “Well, don’t hold your breath, is all I’m saying.” Then he stood up abruptly and knitted his thick fingers together and flexed
his hands. Turned to his technician. “So are we ready?”