17 A Wanted Man

woman, all in blue denim shirts.’
    Sorenson said nothing. Then her phone rang, and the Iowa State Police told her they had rewound their dashboard video and located Karen Delfuenso’s car. It had passed through their roadblock more than an hour ago. It had not attracted their attention because it had four people in it.

TWENTY-ONE
    SORENSON HUNCHED AWAY from Goodman and switched her phone to her other hand and said, ‘
Four
people?’
    The State Police captain in Iowa said, ‘It’s a kind of shadowy picture, but we can see them fairly clearly. Two in the front, and two in the back. And my sergeant remembers the driver.’
    ‘Can I talk to your sergeant?’
    ‘Can I shut down this roadblock?’
    ‘After I talk to your sergeant.’
    ‘OK, wait one.’
    Sorenson heard scratchy sounds in her ear, and the filtered rattle of an idling truck engine. She turned back to Goodman and said, ‘We were even more wrong than we knew. There are four of them in the car.’ Then she heard a cell phone change hands and a rusty voice said, ‘Ma’am?’
    She asked, ‘Who was in the car?’
    The sergeant said, ‘Mostly I remember the driver.’
    ‘Male or female?’
    ‘Male. A big guy, with a busted nose. Badly busted. I mean raw, like a very recent injury. He looked like a gorilla with its face smashed in.’
    ‘Like the result of a fight?’
    ‘He more or less admitted it. But he said it didn’t happen in Iowa.’
    ‘You talked to him?’
    ‘Briefly. He was polite enough to me. Nothing to report, apart from the nose.’
    ‘Was he acting nervous?’
    ‘Not really. He was quiet. And stoic. He had to be, with a nose like that. He should have been in the hospital.’
    ‘What was he wearing?’
    ‘A winter coat.’
    ‘What about the passengers?’
    ‘I don’t really recall them very well.’
    ‘You’re not on the witness stand here, sergeant. You’re not under oath. Anything you can remember might help me.’
    ‘All I have is impressions. I don’t want to mislead you.’
    ‘Anything at all might help.’
    ‘Well, I thought they were like Peter, Paul and Mary.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Folk singers. From back in the day. Before your time, maybe. They were all dressed the same. Like a singing group. Two men and a woman.’
    ‘Blue denim shirts?’
    ‘Exactly. Like a country music trio. I figured their trunk would be full of steel-strung guitars. I thought maybe they were heading from last night’s show to tonight’s. We see that sometimes. And the woman was all made up, like she had just come off stage.’
    ‘But the driver was different?’
    ‘I thought he was maybe a manager. Or a roadie. You know, big and rough. Just an impression, like I said.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Don’t quote me, OK?’
    ‘I won’t.’
    ‘There was an atmosphere. The woman looked mad. Or resentful, somehow. I thought maybe the shows weren’t going so well, and she wanted to quit the tour, but it was two against one. Or three, if the manager guy had a stake. It was late, but she was wide awake, like she had something on her mind. That was my impression, anyway.’
    Sorenson said nothing.
    The sergeant said, ‘They were the targets, right?’
    Sorenson said, ‘The two men in the shirts, yes.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Not your fault.’
    Then the captain came back on. He said, ‘Ma’am, you told us to look for two fugitives, not some family psychodrama involving a car full of vaudeville players.’
    ‘Not your fault,’ Sorenson said again.
    ‘Can I break down this roadblock now?’
    ‘Yes,’ Sorenson said. ‘And I need an APB on that plate number, all points east of you.’
    ‘I have no units on the road east of me, lady. I had to bring them all here. Face it, ma’am, whoever those guys are, they’re long gone now.’
    Reacher could wink, but only with his left eye. A childhood inheritance. As a kid he had slept mostly on his left side, and on waking would keep his left eye closed against the pillow and open only his right, to peer around whatever darkened bedroom he happened to be in. And he wasn’t sure Delfuenso could see his left eye. Not from the back seat, with the mirror set the way it was. And to mess with his vision was not a good idea at eighty miles an hour, anyway. So he raised his right hand off the shifter, so she could see it, and then he dropped it back.
    He jabbed his thumb to the left. No mirror involved. They were both facing the same way. Left was left. He tapped his index finger three times.