late in the evening. In spring or summer.’
Reacher looked ahead to his right. The Memorial crouched
low among the bare trees and was reflected perfectly in the still
water.
‘I loved him, you know,’ Froelich said.
Reacher said nothing. Just looked at her hand resting on the
wheel. And her wrist. It was slim. The skin was perfect. There
was a trace of a faded summer tan.
‘And you’re very like him,’ she said.
‘Where did he live?’
She glanced at him. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘I don’t think he ever told me.’
Silence in the idling car.
‘He had an apartment in the Watergate,’ she said.
‘Rented?’
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She nodded. ‘It was very bare. Like it was only temporary.’
‘It would be. Reachers don’t own property. I don’t think we
ever have.’
‘Your mother’s family did. They had estates in France.’
‘Did they?’
‘You don’t know that either?’
He shrugged. ‘I know they were French, obviously. Not sure I
ever heard about their real-estate situation.’
Froelich eased her foot off the brake and glanced in the
mirror and gunned the motor and rejoined the traffic stream.
‘You guys had a weird idea of family,’ she said. Fhat’s for damn sure.’
‘Seemed normal at the time,’ he said. ‘We thought every
family was like that.’
Her cell phone rang. A low electronic trill in the quiet of the
car. She flipped it open. Listened for a moment and said, ‘OK,’
and closed it up.
‘Neagley,’ she said. ‘She’s finished with the cleaners.’
‘She get anything?’
‘Didn’t say. She’s meeting us back at the office.’
She looped round south of the Mall and drove north on 14th
Street. Her phone rang again. She fumbled it open one-handed
and listened as she drove. Said nothing and snapped it shut.
Glanced at the traffic ahead on the street.
‘Armstrong’s ready to get back,’ she said. ‘I’m going to go try
and make him ride with me. I’ll drop you in the garage.’
She drove down the ramp and stopped long enough for
Reacher to jump out. Then she turned round in the crowded
space and headed back up to the street. Reacher found the door
with the wired-glass porthole and walked up the stairs to the
lobby with the single elevator. Rode it to the third floor and
found Neagley waiting in the reception area. She was sitting
upright on a leather chair.
‘Stuyvesant around?’ Reacher asked her.
She shook her head. ‘He went next door. To the White
House.’
‘I want to go look at that camera.’
They walked together past the counter towards the rear of
the floor and came out in the square area outside Stuyvesant’s
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office. His secretary was at her desk with her purse open. She
had a tiny tortoiseshell mirror and a stick of lip gloss in her
hands. The pose made her look human. Efficient, for sure, but
like an amiable old soul, too. She saw them coming and put her
cosmetic equipment away fast, like she was embarrassed to be
caught with it. Reacher looked over her head at the surveillance
camera. Neagley looked at Stuyvesant’s door. Then she glanced
at the secretary.
‘Do you remember the morning the message showed up in
there?’ she asked.
‘Of course I do,’ the secretary said.
‘Why did Mr Stuyvesant leave his briefcase out here?’
The secretary thought for a moment. ‘Because it was a Thursday.’
‘What happens on a Thursday? Does he have an early meeting?’
‘No, his wife goes to Baltimore, Tuesdays and Thursdays.’
‘How is that connected?’
‘She volunteers at a hospital there.’
Neagley looked straight at her. ‘How does that affect her
husband’s briefcase?’
‘She drives,’ the secretary said. ‘She takes their car. They
only have one. No department vehicle either, because Mr
Stuyvesant isn’t operational any more. So he has to come to
work on the Metro.’
Neagley looked blank. I’he subway?’
The secretary nodded. ‘He has a special briefcase for Tuesdays
and Thursdays because he’s forced to place it on the floor
of the subway car. He won’t do that with his regular briefcase,
because he thinks it gets dirty.’
Neagley stood still. Reacher thought back to the video tapes,
Stuyvesant leaving late on Wednesday evening, returning early