Reacher smiled. Bad luck and trouble, been my only friends.
“Sit down, Hack,” he said.
Walker paused a second. Then he threaded his way around all the chairs and sat down next to Rusty Greer. Candlelight lit his face. The lantern glowed to his left.
“You got something for me?” he asked.
Reacher sat opposite. Laid his hands palm-down on the wood.
“I was a cop of sorts for thirteen years,” he said.
“So?”
“I learned a lot of stuff.”
“Like?”
“Like, lies are messy. They get out of control. But the truth is messy, too. So any situation you’re in, you expect rough edges. Anytime I see anything that’s all buttoned up, I get real suspicious. And Carmen’s situation was messy enough to be real.”
“But?”
“I came to see there were a couple of edges that were just too rough.”
“Like what?”
“Like, she had no money with her. I know that. Two million in the bank, and she travels three hundred miles with a single dollar in her purse? Sleeps in
the car, doesn’t eat? Leapfrogs from one Mobil station to the next, just to keep going? That didn’t tie up for me.”
“She was playacting. That’s who she is.”
“You know who Nicolaus Copernicus is?”
“Was,” Walker said. “Some old astronomer. Polish, I think. Proved the earth goes around the sun.”
Reacher nodded. “And much more than that, by implication. He asked us all to consider how likely is it that we’re at the absolute center of things? What are the odds? That what we’re seeing is somehow exceptional? The very best or the very worst? It’s an important philosophical point.”
“So?”
“So if Carmen had two million bucks in the bank but traveled with a single dollar just in case she bumped into a guy as suspicious as me, then she is undoubtedly the number-one best-prepared con artist in the history of the world. And old Copernicus asks me, how likely is that? That I should by chance happen to bump into the best con artist in the history of the world? His answer is, not very likely, really. He says the likelihood is, if I bump into a con artist at all, it’ll be a very average and mediocre one.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying it didn’t tie up for me. So it got me thinking about the money. And then something else didn’t tie up.”
“What?”
“Al Eugene’s people messengered Sloops financial stuff over, right?”
“This morning. Feels like a long time ago.”
“Thing is, I saw Al s office. When I went to the museum. It’s literally within sight of the courthouse. It’s a one-minute walk. So how likely is it they would messenger something over? Wouldn’t they just walk it over? For a friend of Al’s? Especially if it was urgent? It would take them ten times as long just to dial the phone for the courier service.”
The candlelight danced and flickered. The red room glowed.
“People messenger things all the time,” Walker said. “It’s routine. And it was too hot for walking.”
Reacher nodded. “Maybe. It didn’t mean much at the time. But then something else didn’t tie up. The collarbone.”
“What about it?”
Reacher turned to face Alice. “When you fell off your inline skates, did you break your collarbone?”
“No,” Alice said.
“Any injuries at all?”
“I tore up my hand. A lot of road rash.”
“You put your hand out to break your fall?”
“Reflex,” she said. “It’s impossible not to.”
Reacher nodded. Turned back through the candlelit gloom to Walker.
“I rode with Carmen on Saturday,” he said. “My first time ever. My ass got sore, but the thing I really remember is how high I was. It’s scary up there. So the thing is, if Carmen fell off, from that height, onto rocky dirt, hard enough to bust her collarbone, how is it that she didn’t get road rash, too? On her hand?”
“Maybe she did.”
“The hospital didn’t write it up.”
“Maybe they forgot.”
“It was a very detailed report. New staff, working hard. I noticed that, and Cowan Black did, too. He said they were very thorough. They wouldn’t have neglected lacerations to the palm.”