They drove the same sixty miles he had covered the other way in the white Cadillac, back to the crossroads hamlet with Ellie’s school and the gas station and the old diner. The sergeant stuck to a lazy fifty-five all the way, and it took an hour and five minutes. When they got there, everything was closed up tight. There were lights burning in two of the houses, and nothing else. Then they drove the stretch where Carmen had chased the school bus. Nobody talked. Reacher sprawled sideways on the vinyl bench and watched the darkness. Another twenty minutes north he saw the turn where Carmen had come down
out of the hills. They didn’t take it. They just kept on going, heading for the main highway, and then Pecos beyond it.
They never got there. The radio call came in a mile short of the county line. An hour and thirty-five minutes into the ride. The call was bored and laconic and loud with static. A woman dispatcher’s voice.
“Blue Five, Blue Five” it said.
The trooper unhooked the microphone and stretched the cord and clicked the switch.
“Blue Five, copy, over,” he said.
“Required at the Red House Ranch immediately, sixty miles south of north Echo crossroads, domestic disturbance reported, over.”
“Copy, nature of incident, over?”
“Unclear at this time, believed violent, over. ”
“Well, shit,” the sergeant said.
“Copy, on our way, out,” the trooper said. He replaced the microphone. Turned around. “So she understood your Spanish. I guess your accent wasn’t too far off, after all.”
Reacher said nothing. The sergeant turned his head.
“Look on the bright side, pal,” he said. “Now we can do something about it.”
“I warned you,” Reacher said. “And you should have damn well listened to me. So if she’s hurt bad, it’s on you. Pal.”
The sergeant said nothing to that. Just jammed on the brakes and pulled a wide slow turn across the whole of the road, shoulder to shoulder. Got it pointing straight south again and hustled. He got it up to a hundred on the straightaways, kept it at ninety on the curves. He didn’t use the lights or the siren. Didn’t even slow at the crossroads. He didn’t need to. The chances of meeting traffic on that road were worse than winning the lottery.
They were back again exactly two hours and thirty minutes after they left. Ninety-five minutes north, fifty-five minutes south. First thing they saw was the sheriff’s secondhand cruiser, dumped at an angle in the yard, door open, light bar flashing. The sergeant slewed through the dirt and jammed to a stop right behind it.
“Hell’s he doing here?” he said. “It’s his day off.”
There was nobody in sight. The trooper opened his door. The sergeant shut down the motor and did the same.
“Let me out,” Reacher said.
“No dice, pal,” the sergeant said back. “You stay right there.”
They got out and walked together to the porch steps. They went up. Across the boards. They pushed the door. It was open. They went inside. The door swung shut behind them. Reacher waited. Five minutes. Seven. Ten. The car grew warm. Then hot. There was silence. No sound at all beyond random static from the radio and the ticking of the insects.
The trooper came out alone after about twelve minutes. Walked slowly back to his side of the car and opened his door and leaned in for the microphone.
“Is she O.K.?” Reacher asked.
The guy nodded, sourly.
“She’s fine,” he said. “At least physically. But she’s in a shitload of trouble.”
“Why?”
“Because the call wasn’t about him attacking her. It was the other way around. She shot him. He’s dead. So we just arrested her.”
Chapter 10
The trooper clicked the microphone and called in for backup and an ambulance. Then he dictated an interim report to the dispatcher. He used the words gunshot wounds twice and homicide three times.
“Hey,” Reacher called to him. “Stop calling it homicide on the radio.”
“Why?”
“Because it was self-defense. He was beating her. We all need to get that straight, from the start.”
“Not for me to say. You, either.”