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cleaners spent fifteen minutes in an office that was already very
clean.’
ey were resting?’ Neagley said.
Reacher shook his head again. Froelich smiled suddenly.
‘Doing something to make themselves dishevelled?’ she
said.
Reacher smiled back. ‘Like what?’
‘Like having sex?’
Stuyvesant went pale. ‘I sincerely hope not,’ he said. ‘And
there were three of them, anyway.’
ff’hreesomes aren’t unheard of,’ Neagley said.
if’hey live together,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘They want to do that,
they can do it at home, can’t they?’
‘It can be an erotic adventure,’ Froelich said. ‘You know,
making out at work.’
‘Forget the sex,’ Reacher said. Fhink about the dishevelment.
What exactly created that impression for us?’
Everybody shrugged. Stuyvesant was still pale. Reacher
smiled.
‘Something else on the tape,’ he said. ‘Going in, the garbage
bag is reasonably empty. Coming out, it’s much fuller. So was
there a lot of trash in the office?’
‘No,’ Stuyvesant said, like he was offended. ‘I never leave
trash in there.’
Froelich sat forward. ‘So what was in the bag?’
Frash,’ Reacher said.
‘I don’t understand,’ Froelich said.
‘Fifteen minutes is a long time, people,’ Reacher said. if’hey
worked efficiently and thoroughly in the secretarial area and
had it done in nine minutes. That’s a slightly bigger and slightly
more cluttered area. Things all over the place. So compare the
two areas, compare the complexity, assume they work just as
hard everywhere, and tell me how long they should have spent
in the office.’
Froelich shrugged. ‘Seven minutes? Eight? About that long?’
Neagley nodded. ‘I’d say nine minutes, tops.!
‘I like it clean,’ Stuyvesant said. ‘I leave instructions to that
effect. I’d want them in there for ten minutes, at least.’
‘But not fifteen,’ Reacher said. Fhat’s excessive. And we
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asked them about it. We asked them, why so long in there? And
what did they say?’
if’hey didn’t answer,’ Neagley said. ‘Just looked puzzled.’
‘Then we asked them whether they spent the same amount of
time in there every night. And they said yes, they did.’
Stuyvesant looked to Neagley for confirmation. She nodded.
‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘We’ve boiled it down. We’re looking at
fifteen particular minutes. You’ve all seen the tapes. Now tell me
how they spent that time.’
Nobody spoke.
Fwo possibilities,’ Reacher said. ‘Either they didn’t, or they
spent the time growing their hair.’
‘What?’ Froelich said.
qhat’s what makes them look dishevelled. Julio especially.
His hair is a little longer coming out than going in.’
‘How is that possible?’
‘It’s possible because we weren’t looking at one night’s
activities. We were looking at two separate nights spliced
together. Two halves of two different nights.’
Silence in the room.
Fwo tapes,’ Reacher said. I’he tape change at midnight is the
key. The first tape is kosher. Has to be, because early on it
shows Stuyvesant and his secretary going home. That was the
real thing. The real Wednesday. The cleaners show up at eleven
fifty-two. They look tired, because maybe that’s the first night in
their shift pattern. Maybe they’ve been up all day doing normal
daytime things. But it’s been a routine night at work so far.
They’re on time. No spilled coffee anywhere, no huge amount of
trash anywhere. The garbage bag is reasonably empty. My
guess is they had the office finished in about nine minutes.
Which is probably their normal speed. Which is reasonably fast.
Which is why they were puzzled when we claimed it was slow.
My guess is in reality they came out at maybe one minute past
midnight and spent artother nine minutes on the secretarial
station and left the area at ten past midnight.’
‘But?’ Froelich asked.
‘But after midnight we were looking at a different night
altogether. Maybe from a couple of weeks ago, before the guy
got his latest haircut. A night when they arrived in the area
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later, and therefore left the area later. Because of some earlier
snafu in some other office. Maybe some big pile of trash that
filled up their bag. They looked more energetic coming out
because they were hurrying to catch up. And maybe it was a
night in the middle of their work week and they’d adjusted to
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