most of the driveways, but they weren’t this year’s models.
They were clean, but a little tired. Nendick’s house was a long
low ranch with a khaki roof and a brick chimney. It was dark
except for the blue flicker of a television set in one of the
windows.
Froelich swung straight onto the driveway and parked in
front of the garage. They climbed out into the cold and walked
to the front door. Stuyvesant put his thumb on the bell and left
it there. Thirty seconds later a light came on in the hallway. It
blazed orange in a fan-shaped window above the door. A yellow
porch light came on over their heads. The door opened and
Nendick just stood in his hallway and said nothing. He was
wearing a suit, like he was just home from work. He looked
slack with fear, like a new ordeal was about to be piled on top of
an old one. Stuyvesant looked at him and paused and then
stepped inside. Froelich followed him. Then Reacher. Then
Neagley. She closed the door behind her and took up station in
front of it like a sentry, feet apart, hands clasped easy in the
small of her back.
Nendick still said nothing. Just stood there, slack and staring.
Stuyvesant put a hand on his shoulder and turned him round.
Pushed him towards the kitchen. He didn’t resist. Just
stumbled limply towards the back of his house. Stuyvesant
followed him and hit a switch and fluorescent tubes sputtered
to life above the countertops.
‘Sit,’ he said, like he was talking to a dog.
Nendick stepped over and sat on a stool at his breakfast bar.
Said nothing. Just wrapped his arms around himself like a man
chilled by fever.
‘Names,’ Stuyvesant said.
Nendick said nothing. He worked at saying nothing. He
stared forward at the far wall. One of the fluorescent lights
was faulty. It was struggling to kick in. Its capacitor put an
angry buzz into the silence. Nendick’s hands started shaking,
187
so he tucked them up under his arms to keep them still
and began to rock back and forth on the stool. It creaked
gently under his weight. Reacher glanced away and looked
around the kitchen. It was a pretty room. There were yellow
check drapes at the window. The ceiling was painted to match.
There were flowers in vases. They were all dead. There were
dishes in the sink. A couple of weeks’ worth. Some of them
were crusted.
Reacher stepped back to the hallway. Into the living room.
The television was a huge thing a couple of years old. It was
tuned to a commercial network. The programme seemed to be
made up of clips from police traffic surveillance videos several
years out of date. The sound was low. Just a constant murmur
suggesting extreme and sustained excitement. There was a
remote control balanced carefully on the arm of a chair opposite
the screen. There was a low mantel above the fireplace with a
row of six photographs in brass frames. Nendick and a woman
featured in all six of them. She was about his age, maybe
just lively enough and attractive enough not to be called plain.
The photographs followed the couple from their wedding day
through a couple of vacations and some other unspecified
events. There were no pictures of children. And this wasn’t a
house where children lived. There were. no toys anywhere. No
mess. Everything was frilly and considered and matched and
adult.
The remote on the arm of the chair was labelled Video, not
TV. Reacher glanced at the screen and pressed play. The cop
radio sound died instantly and the video machine clicked and
whirred and a second later the picture went black and was
replaced by an amateur video of a wedding. Nendick and his
wife smiled into the camera from several years in the past.
Their heads were close together. They looked happy. She was
all in white. He was wearing a suit. They were on a lawn. A
blustery day. Her hair was blowing and the soundtrack was
dominated by wind noise. She had a nice smile. Bright eyes.
She was saying something for posterity, but Reacher couldn’t