whatever, Marshall stayed the night with Vassell and Coomer at
the Jefferson Hotel. I’m sure of it.’
‘OK, so?’
‘Marshall was at the hotel, and his car was in valet parking.
And you know what? I checked our bill from Paris. They
charged an arm and a leg for everything. Especially the phone
calls. But not all the phone calls. The room-to-room calls
we made didn’t show up at all. You called me at six, about
dinner. Then I called you at midnight, because I was lonely.
Those calls didn’t show up anywhere on the bill. Hit three for
another room, and it’s free. Dial nine for a line, and it triggers
the computer. There were no calls on Vassell and Coomer’s bill
and therefore we thought they had made no calls. But they had made calls. It’s obvious. They made internal calls. Room to
room. Vassell took the message from XII Corps in Germany,
and then he called Coomer’s room to discuss what the hell to do
about the situation. And then one or other of them picked
up the phone and called Marshall’s room. They called their
blue-eyed gofer and told him to run downstairs and jump in his
car.’
‘Marshall did it?’
I nodded. ‘They sent him out into the night to clean up their
mess.’
‘Can we prove it?’
‘We can make a start,’ I said. ‘I’ll bet you three things.
First, we’ll call the Jefferson Hotel and we’ll find a booking in
Marshall’s name for New Year’s Eve. Second, Marshall’s file
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will tell us he once lived in Sperryville, Virginia. And third, his
file will tell us he’s tall and heavy and right-handed.’
She went quiet. Her eyelids started moving.
‘Is it enough?’ she said. ‘Is Mrs Kramer enough of a result to
get us off the hook?’
‘There’s more to come,’ I said.
It was like being in a parallel universe, watching Summer
driving slow. We drifted down the highway with the world
going half-speed outside our windows. The big Chevy engine
was loafing along a little above idle. The tyres were quiet. We
passed all our familiar landmarks. The state police facility, the
spot where Kramer’s briefcase had been found, the rest area,
the spur to the small highway. We crawled off at the cloverleaf
and I scanned the gas station and the greasy spoon and the
lounge parking and the motel. The whole place was full of
yellow light and fog and black shadow but I could see well
enough. There was no sign of a set-up. Summer turned into the
lot and drove a long slow circuit. There were three eighteen
wheelers parked like beached whales and a couple of old
sedans that were probably abandoned. They had the look. They
had dull paint and soft tyres and they were low on their springs.
There was an old Ford pick-up truck with a baby seat strapped
to the bench. I guessed that was my sergeant’s. There was
nothing else. Six forty in the morning, and the world was dark
and still and quiet.
We put the car out of sight behind the lounge bar and walked
across the lot to the diner. Its windows were misted by the
cooking steam. There was hot white light inside. It looked like a Hopper painting. My sergeant was alone at a booth in back. We
walked in and sat down beside her. She hauled a grocery bag
up off the floor. It was full of stuff.
‘First things first,’ she said.
She put her hand in the bag and came out with a bullet. She stood it upright on the table in front of me. It was a
standard nine-millimetre Parabellum. Standard NATO load.
Full metal jacket. For a sidearm or a sub-machine gun. The
shiny brass casing had something scratched on it. I picked
it up. Looked at it. There was a word engraved there. It was
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rough and uneven. It had been done fast and by hand. It said: Reacher.
‘A bullet with my name on it,’ I said.
‘From Delta,’ my sergeant said. ‘Hand delivered, yesterday.’
‘Who by?’
‘The young one with the beard.’
‘Charming,’ I said. ‘Remind me to kick his ass.’