Her case.

She got in the back of the deputy’s car with the eyewitness. No reason to haul the poor guy out into the cold. Goodman got in the front and the deputy twisted around behind the wheel. It was a regular little conference, two and two, separated by the bulletproof shield.

The eyewitness was a man of about fifty, whiskery, not well groomed, dressed in winter farm clothes. He ran through his story with the kind of imprecision Sorenson expected. She was well aware of the limitations of eyewitness testimony. As a Quantico trainee she had been sent to interview a doctor suspected of Medicare fraud. She had waited for her appointment in his crowded waiting room. A guy had burst in to rob the place for drugs, firing a handgun, rushing here, rushing there, rushing out. Afterwards, of course, she found out the whole thing was staged. The doctor was an actor, the robber was an actor, the handgun rounds were blanks, and everyone in the waiting room was a law enforcement trainee. There was no consensus on what the robber looked like. Absolutely none at all. Short, tall, fat, thin, black, white, no one really remembered. Since that morning Sorenson had taken eyewitness testimony with a pinch of salt.

She asked, ‘Did you see the man in the green coat arrive?’

The guy said, ‘No. I saw him on the sidewalk, that’s all, heading for the old pumping station, right there.’

‘Did you see the red car arrive?’

‘No. It was already there when I looked.’

‘Were the two men in the black suits in it?’

‘No, they were on the sidewalk too.’

‘Following the other man?’

The guy nodded. ‘About ten feet back. Maybe twenty.’

‘Can you describe them?’

‘They were just two guys. In suits.’

‘Old? Young?’

‘Neither. They were just guys.’

‘Short? Tall?’

‘Average.’

‘Black or white?’

‘White.’

‘Fat or thin?’

‘Average.’

Sorenson asked, ‘Any distinguishing marks?’

The guy said, ‘I don’t know what that is.’

‘Anything special about their faces? Beards, scars, piercings? Tattoos? Like that.’

‘They were just guys.’

‘What about the colour of their hair? Was it light or dark?’

‘Their hair?’ the guy said. ‘I don’t know. It was hair-coloured, I guess.’

Sorenson asked, ‘Did you see a knife when they went in?’

‘No,’ the guy said.

‘Did you see a knife when they came out?’

‘No.’

‘Did they have blood on them?’

‘I guess one of their suit jackets looked wet in a couple of spots. But it was black, not red. Like it could have been water. On a black suit, I mean.’

Sorenson said, ‘The street lights are yellow.’

The guy glanced out his window, as if to confirm it, and said, ‘Yes.’

‘So blood might have looked black, in the yellow light.’

‘I guess.’

Sorenson asked, ‘Did the red car belong to the two men?’

The guy said, ‘They got in it, lady.’

‘But how did they look when they got in it? Like they were totally familiar with it? Or did they fumble around?’

Goodman looked a question from the front seat. Sorenson said, ‘The dead guy had nothing in his pockets. Including no car keys. So how did he get here? Maybe the red car was his.’

Goodman said, ‘Then how did the two men get here? They didn’t walk. It’s cold, and they weren’t wearing coats.’

‘Maybe they all came together.’

The eyewitness said, ‘I don’t know, lady. They got in the car and drove away. That’s all I saw.’

So Goodman let the eyewitness make his way home to bed, and then he drove Sorenson north, to let her take a look at the abandoned red car.

NINE

REACHER’S EYES WERE closed and his nose wasn’t working, so taste and touch and hearing were taking up the sensory slack. He could taste copper and iron in his mouth, where blood was leaking down the back of his throat. He could feel the rear bench’s mouse-fur upholstery under his right hand fingertips, synthetic and dense and microscopically harsh. His left hand was in his lap, and he could feel the rough cotton of his pants, thick and fibrous and still slick with the manufacturer’s pre-wash treatments. He could hear the loud zing of concrete sections under the tyres, and the hum of the motor, and the whine of its drive belts, and the rush of air against the windshield pillars and the door mirrors. He could hear the give and take of seat springs as he and the others floated small quarter-inches with the ride. He could hear Don McQueen breathing slow and controlled as he concentrated, and Karen Delfuenso a little anxious, and Alan King changing to a shorter, sharper rhythm. The guy was thinking about something. He was coming up to a decision. Reacher heard the scrape of cloth against a wrist. The guy was checking his watch.

Then King turned around, and Reacher opened his eyes.

King said, ‘I really want to get to Chicago before dawn.’

Suits me, Reacher thought. Plenty of morning departures from Chicago. South through Illinois, east through Kentucky, and then Virginia is right there. He said, ‘That should be possible. We’re going fast. It’s wintertime. Dawn will be late.’

King said, ‘Plan was Don drives the first half, and I drive the second half. Now I’m thinking we should split it into thirds. You could drive the middle third.’

‘Not Karen?’ Reacher said.

No response from Delfuenso.

‘Karen doesn’t drive,’ King said.

‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m always happy to help.’

‘Safer that way.’

‘You haven’t seen my driving yet.’

‘It’s an empty road, straight and wide.’

‘OK,’ Reacher said again.

‘We’ll switch next time we stop for gas.’

‘Which will be when?’

‘Soon.’

‘Why?’ Reacher asked. ‘You’ve been driving for three hours but the tank is still three-quarters full. At that rate we could get halfway to New York before we need gas. Maybe more.’

King paused a beat. Blinked. Said, ‘You’re an observant man, Mr Reacher.’

Reacher said, ‘I try to be.’

‘This is my car,’ King said. ‘I think you can trust me to know its quirks and its foibles. The gas gauge is faulty. There’s a malfunction. All the action is in the first little bit. Then it falls off a cliff.’

Reacher said nothing.

King said, ‘Believe me, we’ll have to stop soon.’

The two deputies securing the area behind the cocktail lounge had parked their cruisers at matching angles, pretty far from the red Mazda, as if the car was dangerous in itself. As if it was radioactive, or liable to explode. Goodman nosed his Crown Vic into the implied no-go triangle and stopped twenty feet from the target. Sorenson said, ‘No witnesses came forward here, I assume?’

‘Today isn’t my birthday,’ Goodman said. ‘It’s not all my Christmases rolled into one, either.’

‘Is this lounge abandoned too?’

‘No, but it closes at midnight. It’s a respectable place.’

‘Compared to what?’

‘The other lounges up here.’

‘What time would the red car have gotten here?’

‘Earliest? Not before twenty past midnight. Too late for witnesses.’

‘I’m guessing you never worked in a bar, did you?’ Sorenson asked.

‘No,’ Goodman said. ‘I never did. Why?’

‘Just because the customers go home at midnight, it doesn’t mean the staff does too. You can be sure some poor dumb waitress will have been here for a little while afterwards. Do you know the owner?’

‘Sure.’

‘So call him.’

‘Her,’ Goodman said. ‘Missy Smith. She’s been here for ever. She’s a well-known character. She won’t be pleased if I wake her up.’

Sorenson said, ‘I won’t be pleased if you don’t.’

So Goodman dialled his cell and stumped around near his own car while Sorenson went to take a look at the Mazda. It had North Carolina plates, and a little barcode strip on the rear window, and it looked neat and clean and fresh inside. She called in the plates and the VIN to her Omaha office, and she saw Sheriff Goodman writing on his palm with a ballpoint pen, with his phone trapped up between his ear and his shoulder. She saw him put his pen away and click off his call, and then he said to her, ‘Missy Smith left here at midnight exactly with the last of the customers.’