“What’s your interest here?” he asked.

“I crossed paths with Edward Lane,” Reacher said. “And I heard Patti’s story. So I want to know what I’m getting into. That’s all.”

“Crossed paths how?”

“Lane wants to hire me for something.”

“What’s your line of work?”

“I was in the army,” Reacher said.

“It’s a free country,” Brewer said. “You can work for whoever you want.”

Then he sat down on Patti Joseph’s sofa like he owned it. Reacher stayed away from the window. The light was on and he would be visible from the street. He leaned on the wall near the lobby and sipped his coffee.

“I was a cop once myself,” he said. “Military police.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?”

“Plenty of your guys came from the same place as me. Do they impress you?”

Brewer shrugged.

“I guess I can give you five minutes,” he said.

“Bottom line,” Reacher said. “What happened five years ago?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Brewer said. “Nobody in the NYPD can tell you that. If it was a kidnap, that’s FBI business, because kidnapping is a federal crime. If it was a straightforward homicide, then that’s New Jersey business, because the body was found on the other side of the George Washington Bridge, and it hadn’t been moved postmortem. Therefore it was never really our case. Therefore we never really developed an opinion.”

“So why are you here?”

“Community relations. The kid is hurting, and she needs an ear. Plus she’s cute and she makes good coffee. Why wouldn’t I be here?”

“Your people must have gotten copied in on the paperwork.”

Brewer nodded.

“There’s a file,” he said.

“What’s in it?”

“Cobwebs and dust, mostly. The only thing anyone knows for sure is that Anne Lane died five years ago in New Jersey. She was a month decomposed when they found her. Not a pretty sight, apparently. But there was a definitive dental identification. It was her.”

“Where was this?”

“A vacant lot near the Turnpike.”

“Cause of death?”

“Fatal GSW to the back of her head. Large-caliber handgun, probably a nine, but impossible to be precise. She was out in the open. Rodents had been in and out the bullet hole. And rodents aren’t dumb. They figure they’re going to get fat on the good stuff inside, so they widen the hole before they go in. The bone was gnawed. But it was probably a nine, probably jacketed.”

“I hope you didn’t tell Patti all of that.”

“What are you? Her big brother? Of course I didn’t tell her all of that.”

“Anything else at the scene?”

“There was a playing card. The three of clubs. Shoved down the neck of her shirt, from the back. No forensics worth a damn, nobody knew what it meant.”

“Was it like a signature?”

“Or a tease. You know, some random crap to make everyone go blind trying to figure it out.”

“So what do you think?” Reacher said. “Kidnap or murder?”

Brewer yawned. “No reason to look for complications. You hear hoof beats, you look for horses, not zebras. A guy calls in that his wife has been kidnapped, you assume it’s true. You don’t start assuming it’s a complex plot to do away with her. And it was all plausible. There were real phone calls, there was real cash money in a bag.”

“But?”

Brewer went quiet for a moment. Took a long pull on his mug of coffee, swallowed, exhaled, rested his head back on the sofa.

“Patti kinds of sucks you in,” he said. “You know? Sooner or later you have to admit it’s just as plausible the other way around.”

“Gut feeling?”

“I just don’t know,” Brewer said. “Which is a weird feeling in itself, for me. I mean, sometimes I’m wrong, but I always know.”

“So what are you doing about it?”

“Nothing,” Brewer said. “It’s an ice-cold case outside of our jurisdiction. Hell will freeze over before the NYPD voluntarily books another unsolved homicide.”

“But you keep on showing up here.”

“Like I said, the kid needs an ear. Grief is a long and complicated process.”

“You do this for all the relatives?”

“Only the ones that look like they belong in Playboy magazine.”

Reacher said nothing.

“What’s your interest here?” Brewer asked again.

“Like I said.”

“Bullshit. Lane was a combat soldier. Now he’s a mercenary. You’re not worried about whether he offed someone he shouldn’t have five years ago. Find me a guy like Lane who didn’t.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Something’s on your mind,” Brewer said.

Silence for a moment.

“One thing Patti told me,” Brewer said. “She hasn’t seen the new Mrs. Lane for a couple of days. Or the kid.”

Reacher said nothing.

Brewer said, “Maybe she’s missing and you’re looking for parallels in the past.”

Reacher stayed quiet.

Brewer said, “You were a cop, not a combat soldier. So now I’m wondering what kind of thing Edward Lane would want to hire you for.”

Reacher said nothing.

Brewer said, “Anything you want to tell me?”

“I’m asking,” Reacher said. “Not telling.”

More silence. A long hard look, cop to cop.

“As you wish,” Brewer said. “It’s a free country.”

Reacher finished his coffee and stepped into the kitchen. Rinsed his mug under the tap and left it in the sink. Then he leaned his elbows on the counter and stared straight ahead. The living room in front of him was framed by the pass-through. The high-backed chair was at the window. On the sill was the neat surveillance array. The notebook, the pen, the camera, the binoculars.

“So what do you do with the stuff she calls in? Just bury it?”

Brewer shook his head.

“I pass it on,” he said. “Outside the department. To someone with an interest.”

“Who?”

“A private detective, downtown. A woman. She’s cute, too. Older, but hey.”

“NYPD is working with private detectives now?”

“This one is in an unusual position. She’s retired FBI.”

“They’re all retired something.”

“This one was the lead agent on the Anne Lane case.”

Reacher said nothing.

Brewer smiled. “So like I said, this one has an interest.”

Reacher said, “Does Patti know?”

Brewer shook his head. “Better that Patti doesn’t. Better that Patti never finds out. It would make for a bad combination.”

“What’s this woman’s name?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Brewer said.

REACHER LEFT PATTI Joseph’s apartment with two business cards. One was Brewer’s official NYPD issue and the other was an elegant item with Lauren Pauling engraved at the top and Private Investigator under the name. Then: Ex-Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation. At the bottom was a downtown address, with 212 and 917 phone numbers for landline and cell, and e-mail, and a website URL. It was a busy card. But the whole thing looked crisp and expensive, professional and efficient. Better than Brewer’s NYPD card, and better even than Gregory’s OSC card.

Reacher tossed Brewer’s card in a Central Park West trash can and put Lauren Pauling’s in his shoe. Then he took a circuitous route back toward the Dakota. It was close to one o’clock in the morning. He circled the block and saw a cop car on Columbus Avenue. Cops, he thought. The word hung up in his mind the same way it had down in SoHo. The way a twig on a swirling current catches on a riverbank. He stopped walking and closed his eyes and tried to catch it. But it spun away again. He gave it up and turned onto 72nd Street. Turned in to the Dakota’s lobby. The night crew doorman was a dignified old guy. He called upstairs and inclined his head like an invitation to proceed. On five Gregory was out in the corridor with the door open and ready. Reacher followed him inside and Gregory said, “Nothing yet. But we’ve got seven more hours.”

The apartment was dead-of-night quiet and still smelled of Chinese food. Everyone was still in the living room. Except Burke. Burke wasn’t back yet. Gregory looked full of energy and Lane was upright in a chair but the others were slumped in various tired poses. The lights were low and yellow and the drapes were drawn and the air was hot.