The Midnight Line (15 page)

Bramall said, “She thinks we're Mormons.”

Reacher got out. He raised his hand. A universal gesture. Unarmed. Friendly. She moved her head, part responsive, part inquiring. Bramall got out. He and Reacher walked together and stopped a polite distance short of the porch.

Reacher said, “Ma'am, we're looking for a missing woman, who we think once stayed a spell with your neighbor Sy Porterfield. We wonder if you could tell us about that.”

“You should come in,” the woman said. “I have lemonade in a jug.”

Reacher and Bramall followed the woman inside. The walls were made of the same boards as the outside, but stained and polished, not weather-beaten. The kitchen was a low dark room. The woman poured lemonade into glasses. They sat down at her table.

“Are you private detectives?” she asked.

“I am,” Bramall said.

She looked at Reacher.

He said, “Military investigator.”

Which was true, in a historic sense.

She said, “Was it last year Sy died, or the year before?”

“Last year,” Reacher said. “The start of spring.”

“I didn't know him very well. Never really met him, except for once or twice. Seemed to be a solitary type of guy, always coming and going.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“None of us knew.”

“Us? Did you talk about him with other people?”

“That's what neighbors do. You don't like it, mister, go live on the moon.”

“What was the consensus opinion?”

“We all thought he was a solitary guy, always coming and going.”

“No one saw any sign of a woman living there?”

“Never,” she said.

Which sounded definitive.

Reacher said, “You ever heard the name Serena?”

“In my life?”

“Around here.”

“No,” she said.

“Or Rose?”

“No.”

“Or Sanderson?”

“No.”

Reacher said, “We found stuff in Porterfield's house.”

“What kind?”

“Random items of women's apparel and toiletries. Not much. Like very faint clues.”

The woman said nothing.

Then she said, “How faint?”

“We know the bathroom was used by two people,” Reacher said.

The woman said, “Huh.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I guess one time I wondered something. In the end I figured I made a mistake.”

“Wondered what?”

“I was on the dirt road, heading out to the turn at Mule Crossing. He was driving the other way. From the turn, heading home. It's rare to see another car. It kind of perks you up. It makes you get in your own lane, and so forth. You don't want to get in a collision. So we passed each other by. We kind of waved, I guess. No big deal. Except I was sure he had someone in the passenger seat beside him. I thought it was a girl. Just a glimpse. She was hunched down low, turned away from him, kind of pressing herself into the side of the seat. I couldn't see her face.”

“How old?”

“Not young. Not a kid. But quite small, and agile, I guess. She was all twisted around, hiding her face from him.”

“Weird.”

“And silvery, somehow. That's what I remember. A silvery color.”

“Also weird.”

“I thought so too. It stayed on my mind. So the next day I went over there. I took him a pie. Said I had one extra. But really to check. Back then there were all kinds of stories. Human trafficking, and custody disputes. Maybe he was into that kind of stuff. Or maybe she really was a genuine girlfriend. Who knew? Maybe they had been having a fight in the car. I figured they might be over it by then and he would introduce me.”

“What happened?”

“He acted weird. He was pleased about the pie. Very polite. But he wouldn't let me in the house. We talked on the porch. He pulled the door almost shut behind him and stood where I couldn't see through the gap. He didn't say much. I tried to introduce the subject. I said I was sorry the pie was too big for one. It was a natural opening. It gave him a chance to tell me he was planning to share it with his girlfriend. But he didn't. He said he would wrap the second slice in aluminum foil and eat it in a couple days.”

“What kind of pie was it?”

“Strawberry,” the woman said. “They had some nice ones at the market. Where I was going when I passed him on the road.”

“What happened next?”

“Nothing. That was it. It was kind of awkward, just standing there, so I said, OK, I guess I'll get going, and he said thanks again for the pie, and then he practically rushed me off his property.”

“What was your conclusion?”

“It was in the way he was standing. He was screening me off from the house. He was hiding something in there. Or someone. Then I got to wondering about when I saw them in the car. Maybe she was hiding her face from me, not him. Maybe he told her to. Like she was his secret.”

“But you never found out for sure?”

“I never saw him again. He was dead a month later. No one ever said anything about a widow or a partner or a girlfriend. Or a sex slave or a hostage. So in the end I figured I must have been wrong. Then I guess I forgot all about it. Time passes.”

“How long had he lived there?”

“Five years, maybe.”

“Did any of the neighbors ever take a wild-ass guess about what he did for money?”

“That would enter the realm of gossip.”

“I guess it would, technically.”

“We figured he already had plenty. We figured he was a rich guy from out of state, come to find himself. We get those, from time to time. Maybe they're writing a novel.”

At that moment three hundred miles away in Rapid City, South Dakota, the clerk behind the deli counter in the convenience store was finishing up making change for a BLT and a diet soda, and then picking up the phone, and dialing the police department.

He said, “Excuse me, I think you have a woman detective working for you. An Oriental person. Or Japanese-American. Or Asian, or whatever it's supposed to be now. I need to speak with her.”

The call was transferred, and a voice said, “Property, Nakamura.”

“This is the guy from the convenience store. On the corner by Arthur Scorpio's laundromat. I got something I figure I need to tell you before you find out for yourself and get mad at me.”

“What kind of something?”

“Arthur Scorpio just came in.”

“And?”

“He bought another phone.”

“How long ago?”

“Five minutes.”

“Which phone?”

“First one off the left peg.”

Also at that moment, Arthur Scorpio was dialing Billy in Wyoming again. Again there was no answer. Just voicemail.

Scorpio said, “Billy, this is Arthur. I need to hear from you. You're making me worried now. What's with not answering your phone all the time? And you got that guy coming. Plus maybe another guy. We just got a message from Montana. They sent a rider down especially. They have a Fed up there asking questions. He just left Billings. We don't know where he's headed next. Eyes open, OK? And call me back. Don't make me worried, Billy.”

He clicked off and dropped the phone in the trash basket.

Bramall's phone dinged. Reacher figured it was a text message. He was getting to where he could tell the difference. The woman in the faded red dress got up and started to gather the empty lemonade glasses.

Bramall read his message.

Twice.

He said, “Ma'am, the lemonade was delicious, but I'm afraid we really have to get going now.”

Then he just stood up and hustled out the door. Reacher shrugged at the woman, palms up, as if in puzzlement. Another universal gesture.
Yeah, I know, but I better go with my crazy friend
. He followed Bramall outside, and across the dirt, to the car.

He said, “What's up?”

Bramall said, “Mrs. Mackenzie is dissatisfied with progress so far, and informs me she's going to Wyoming to search certain places near the old family homestead herself. Apparently she's reconsidering her opinion her sister would never go back there.”

“Doesn't she know you're only sixty miles away?”

“No,” Bramall said. “I never tell clients where I am.”

“Why not?”

“I like to build up the mystery.”

“You can take the boy out of the FBI.”

“We need to get there first.”

“When is she leaving Chicago?”

“She'll charter a plane. She has a card. We should go there now. We should have gone there first. But I was told Sanderson would never return. Now we're saying maybe she did? Terrific. Maybe she's been there all along. It's a two-hour drive. Nothing for Porterfield to complain about.”

Sheriff Connelly had said a government agency would call him first, before entering on his territory. At least as a courtesy. Which is exactly what happened. He got back from his impromptu trip out to the old Porterfield place, and two minutes later his phone rang with a field agent from the federal DEA. The guy said he was heading south from Montana, and sooner or later was going to be passing through the county, nothing much in mind, maybe stopping in one or two places, but overall nothing for anyone to get concerned about. He said he didn't require assistance or any other courtesies, but thank you very much for asking. Then he hung up.

There was a big difference between crows flying and cars driving. To get across the Snowy Range, first they had to go back to the dirt road, and then back to Mule Crossing itself, and past the old post office and the bottle rocket store, and all the way back to Laramie, all in order to pick up a different westward route, which started with a left turn about four blocks north of the bar with the bullet hole in the mirror. Then the trip started all over again at zero. Still seventy miles to go. Reacher told Bramall to look on the bright side. More hours on the invoice. Bramall told a joke about about a lawyer who died and got to the pearly gates. Not fair, he said. I'm only forty-five. Saint Pete said no, we got a new system. Now we do it by billable hours. According to our records you're 153.

They passed a sign that said the road would close pretty soon for the winter. And then it started to rise, into the mountains, up over ten thousand feet, into thin and glittering air. The Toyota slowed a little, but it kept on going, winding through rocky gaps and around sparse copses of wind-stunted trees, across what already felt like the roof of the world. Then the road held level through a wide half-mile curve, and started to fall again, through the same type of gaps and around the same type of trees, and the Toyota started rolling faster and faster, under its own weight, with no gas at all.

Thirty miles later the navigation screen showed a thin tracery of ranch roads, two on the north side, and two on the south. Beyond them was blank.

“Is that it?” Reacher asked.

“I think so,” Bramall said. “Apparently one of the ranches is bigger than the other three. That's the old homestead. The others came later.”

“Did the sisters inherit?”

“No, the place was sold when they were in college. The parents moved out. New owners moved in. And so on. The same with the other three places, I'm sure.”

“You think she's squatting in one of them?”

“I doubt a person who has to pawn her ring is paying rent.”

“Why would they be empty?”

“Rural real estate often is. Places shrivel and die. Especially when the neighborhood royalty moves out.”

“Is that your description, or Mrs. Mackenzie's?”

“A little of both. Their father was a judge, which back then in a place like this made him the most important man in the county. Everything came through the courts eventually. Mrs. Mackenzie seems aware of that.”

“Why did the parents move out?”

“Mrs. Mackenzie had a hard time explaining. I'm sure we could speculate. I'm sure as kids they both had ponies. On a judge's salary.”

“I'm sure all Wyoming kids have ponies. There are more ponies than kids.”

“It was a metaphor. For little arrangements that work great, until they don't. Then sometimes you need to get out of town and start over.”

“Is that how Mrs. Mackenzie remembers it?”

“She was in college at the time. In the end she credits George W. Bush. She claims it was an entrepreneurial thing. The old man was moving from the public sector to the private.”

“To do what exactly?”

“No one knew exactly, except they noticed it stopped the day after the banks crashed.”

“Where is the old boy now?”

“Dead soon after.”

“Mom?”

“Also dead. But much more recently. Still raw.”

“Hence the sudden worry about her semi-estranged twin.”

“Exactly,” Bramall said. “Now her semi-estranged twin is all she's got.”

They had no way of knowing which of the tracks led to the largest ranch, because they all ran far out of sight into the invisible distance, so they tried to judge by width or construction or other hint of architectural grandeur. In the end they agreed one track was wider than the others. Possibly the surface was better. There were piles of rocks that might once have been ceremonial gateposts. Like the archaeological remains of a once-mighty palace.

The Toyota turned in, and started climbing.

The old homestead was both old and a homestead. It was a classic piece of western real estate, with wide tawny pastures, and dark green conifer trees, and outcrops of rock, and bubbling blue water in streams through the bottoms. Way in the distance were the Rocky Mountains, just hints in the mist. The main house was a spreading log construction with all kinds of extra wings built out. There were log barns and log garages. A lot of logs, Reacher thought, and all of them old-school, huge and heavy, hard as a rock, smoothed by axes and joined by pegs.

Like an old-time travel poster on an airport wall.

Except for a new-model rental sedan parked at an angle, and a woman standing next to it.

The sedan was a handsome item with a Chevrolet grille, basic red, with barcodes in all the back windows. The woman was small and slender. Maybe five-two and a hundred pounds. She was wearing boots, and boot-cut blue jeans, and a gauzy white shirt under an open leather jacket. She had a purse on her shoulder. She had long thick hair, heaped and wild and tangled, most of it pale red, some of it bleached by the sun. Her face was like a picture in a book. Pale flawless skin, perfect bones, delicate features. Green eyes, frank and open. A red mouth, confident, in control, almost smiling. Radiant. Composed. She had to be thirty-something. But she looked brand new.

Like a movie star.

“Shit,” Bramall said. “That's Mrs. Mackenzie.”

The twin sister. An exact replica. Army minimum for women was four-ten and ninety-one pounds. Sanderson would have gotten in comfortably. But everything else would have been twice as hard. From that point onward. Especially with the face. It was drop-dead spectacular.

Bramall got out of the car. He took a couple of steps, and stopped. So did she. Then Reacher got out. He heard Bramall say, “Mrs. Mackenzie, I didn't expect to see you so soon.”

She said, “One of those things. The text didn't send till we landed. You thought I was leaving Chicago. Actually I was leaving the Hertz office in Laramie.”

“I was close by.”

“Of course you were. For which I apologize most sincerely. Fact and logic brought you to Wyoming, but I wouldn't let you get all the way here. I told you it was impossible she would come back.”

“What changed?”

“You should introduce me to your friend.”

Reacher stepped up and said his name and shook her hand. It felt like a dove's wing in a gorilla's paw.

“What changed?” Bramall said again.

“Now I'm afraid nothing has changed,” Mackenzie said. “This place is empty. I think I made a mistake. I wasted a day. I apologize.”

“Why would she come back here?”

“Suddenly I thought familiarity might be important to her. I try to think like her. We had some good times here. Eighteen years of stability. Since then she's had none. I thought it might be something she's craving.”

Reacher looked up at the house.

He asked, “How long has it been empty?”

She said, “I think it's just someone's summer house now.”

“It's still summer.”

“They must have skipped this year.”

“Do you remember who bought it?”

Mackenzie shook her head. “I'm not sure we ever knew. I was away in school, and Rose was at West Point.”

“You call her Rose?”

“We insisted. Jane and Rose.”

“How did you feel when you found out your folks had sold the place?”

“May I know the root of your interest in my family's affairs?”

So Reacher ran through the story one more time, from the bus out of Milwaukee all the way to the there and then across the Snowy Range. But some kind of instinct made him smooth it out as he went. He stayed strictly on the poignant pawned-ring track, and didn't mention either Scorpio or Billy, or speculate about anyone's specific occupation. He ended with the meager trove of evidence from Sy Porterfield's hall closet, and his living room sofa, and his master bathroom, and his laundry room.

Mackenzie was quiet a beat.

Then she said, “What size were the boots?”

“Six,” Reacher said.

“OK.”

He looked at her hair. Heaped, wild, tangled. Untamed was the word. Must take forever to wash.

An exact replica.

He said, “Show me your comb.”

She paused again.

Then she said, “Yes, I see.”

She dug in her bag and came out with a pink plastic comb. All the teeth were widely spaced. Not half and half, like a regular comb.

Reacher said, “Have you always used that brand?”

“It's the only kind that works.”

“It's the same.”

“The boots fit too.”

He took the ring from his pocket and balanced it on his palm. She picked it up, carefully, between delicate fingers.

West Point 2005
.

The gold filigree, the black stone, the tiny size.

She read the engraving.

She selected a finger and pulled off a designer bauble as thick and gold as a false tooth. In its place she slipped her sister's trophy. Fourth finger, right hand. It sat there like it should. The perfect fit. The perfect size. Prominent, like it should be, and proud, like it should be, but not as big as a carnival prize. Reacher pictured the same hand, but maybe worn down a bit leaner, with a darker tan, and a couple of nicks and cuts healed white.

He pictured the same face, the same way.

Mackenzie said, “You mentioned that you bought the ring.”

“Correct,” Reacher said.

“May I buy it back from you?”

“It's not for sale. It's a gift for your sister.”

“I could give it to her.”

“So could the lady at West Point. Eventually.”

“You feel a need to hand it over personally?”

“I need to know she's OK.”

“You never met her.”

“Makes no difference. Should it? I don't know. You tell me.”

Mackenzie took the ring off. She handed it back.

Some kind of look on her perfect face.

Reacher said, “I know.”

“You know what?”

“I know what you're thinking. You're here because it's family, and Mr. Bramall is here because he's getting paid. Why am I here? I'm giving you the impression I'm some kind of a weird obsessive. Maybe a couple soldiers short of a squad. I don't mean to. But I get it. I'm making you feel uncomfortable.”

“Not at all.”

“You're very polite.”

“I assume it's an honor thing. Rose was in a world I didn't understand.”

“What we need now is solid information. Are you confident this place is empty?”

“There are dust sheets everywhere and the water is off.”

“So where would Rose go, if not here?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“What is?” Reacher said.

“I should be on a psychiatrist's couch to answer these questions.”

“Why?”

“We participated in a fantasy. OK? We were required to. As if we were lords of the manor and owned the whole valley. As if when the neighbors built, we were practically giving them almshouses out of sheer benevolence. Obviously later on we discovered Father had to sell some acres. But it was like we still owned them. Like slave quarters. We lorded it over the poor people. We were in and out anytime we wanted.”

“Which of the three would she go to now?”

“Any of them.”

“You want a ride? In the front, if you like. You're paying the bills, after all.”

Reacher got in the back, and got comfortable. Mackenzie took his place in the passenger seat. Bramall drove, but not back to the road. Mackenzie showed him different tracks. The ways they went as kids. Easy enough for a slip of a girl to skip along. Harder for the car. But it made it, bending saplings, all four tires grabbing, like a ponderous cat. The nearest neighbor slid into view. Not a trophy cabin. Built before the word existed. The product of a more innocent age, when a vacation house could be a plain and simple thing. The view was a picture postcard.

Bramall and Mackenzie went to the door.

They knocked.

It opened.

A guy stood there. Same kind of age as the guy in the Mule Crossing post office. Same kind of tired-out stoop. Bramall said something to him, then Mackenzie, and the old guy nodded and made to let them in. Bramall turned and waved to Reacher, and Reacher got out of the car, and walked over to join them. They went inside, and the old guy said yes, all those years ago he had bought the land and built the house. For family vacations. Now he came alone. Which was borne out by the evidence. Reacher looked around and saw one of everything, and felt the quiet patient air of a lonely place.

The guy said he remembered the twins coming by. Way back they were wild-haired little girls in country dresses. They visited all the time, until they were ten or twelve, then not so much, until they were fifteen or so, and then hardly at all after that.

Mackenzie said, “Have you seen Rose recently?”

The old guy said, “Where would I see her?”

“Around here, maybe.”

“I guess it's a dumb question to ask what she looks like now.”

Mackenzie smiled. “Maybe a bit more tan than me. Maybe a bit more toned. She would claim she's been working harder. She might have cut her hair. Or dyed it. She might have gotten tattoos.” She looked a question at Bramall. “Anything else we should consider?”

Bramall looked a question at Reacher.

Is this where we tell her she was wounded?

“No,” Reacher said. “I'm sure the gentleman knows what she looks like.”

“I haven't seen her,” the old guy said.

They used the old guy's driveway, and crossed the road, and took the driveway opposite. It came out on another idyllic scene, but smaller, a quarter-sized version of the old homestead, with a newer house and no active stream.

The house was closed up and empty. Locked doors, shaded windows, no broken glass. No burglars, no squatters. No feral Rose Sanderson, going to earth in a place she remembered.

They moved off again, on another rough trail Mackenzie seemed half to know and half to imagine. The Toyota squeezed between trees, and rode up and down dips and hollows, and bucked and nodded. Bramall stayed calm behind the wheel. He drove most of the way one-handed.

The last house came into view.

It was the same kind of thing as before, an unpretentious A-framed cabin, with a lot of glass on a spectacular view. Bramall looped around to the driveway, as if he had been on it all along, and he parked a respectful distance from the house.

The front door opened.

A woman stood in the shadow.

She must have heard their tires.

She took a hopeful step forward, into the sun.

She looked like Porterfield's neighbor, but wound up way tighter. Upset about something. She was staring all around, and then staring at the car.

Bramall got out.

She watched him.

Mackenzie got out.

She watched her.

Reacher got out.

She watched him.

No one else got out.

She staggered back, like she had been hit in the head. She leaned on the frame of the door.

She said, “Have you guys seen Billy?”

Bramall didn't answer.

The woman said, “I thought maybe you were him. Maybe he got a new car. He's supposed to be coming.”

“For what?” Reacher said.

“Have you seen him?”

Mackenzie said, “Who is Billy?”

Reacher said, “We'll get to that.”

To the woman in the doorway he said, “I got a question for you first, and then I'll tell you about Billy.”

“What's the question?”

“Tell me about the other woman, who looks just like my friend here. Like her twin sister.”

“What other woman?”

“I just told you. Pay attention. Like my friend here. In this neighborhood.”

“Never seen her.”

“She might be Billy's friend too.”

“Don't know her.”

“You sure?”

“A woman who looks like her? Never seen one.”

“You ever heard the name Rose?”

“Never ever. Now tell me about Billy.”

“I haven't met him yet,” Reacher said. “But I hear his privileges were suspended. His cupboard is bare. Until he takes care of a local problem. Which he hasn't yet. I know that, because I'm the local problem. And here I still am. So if he happens to drop by, tell him I'm looking for him. The Incredible Hulk. Tell him I plan to stop by and pay him a visit. Give him a good description. That might be worth twenty bucks to him. You could get a freebie.”

“Billy never gives freebies,” the woman said.

“Who is Billy?” Mackenzie asked again.

They told her in the car. Not the whole story. Still they kept him separate. As if he was an accidental discovery, off to one side. They told her about the shoebox of cash, but not the shoebox of jewelry.

But Mackenzie was a smart woman.

She said, “Then why were you in his home in the first place?”

Which under her critical gaze led to the whole soup-to-nuts narrative, involving Scorpio, and Porterfield, and Billy, and Bramall's old phone records, and Nakamura's overheard voicemails.

Mackenzie said, “In other words for at least two years Rose has been involved with drug dealers and drug users. Meth and heroin. With all that entails. Such as shacking up with one who got eaten by a bear.”

They didn't answer.

Mackenzie asked, quietly, “Is she an addict?”

They told her about the shoebox of jewelry.

She started to cry.