17 A Wanted Man

Reacher and Sorenson walked up Delfuenso’s neighbour’s driveway.
    Delfuenso’s neighbour was a woman not much more than thirty. Her daughter was a ten-year-old version of the same person, still straight and slender and unlined. Her name was Paula. She was camped out in the back room. No view of the road. No view of anything, except mud. She had an electronic box hooked up to the TV. All kinds of things were happening on the screen. Explosions , mostly. Tiny cartoon figures were getting vaporized in sudden puffs of smoke smaller than golf balls.
    The neighbour said, ‘I had to go to work. I’m sorry.’
    Sorenson said, ‘I understand,’ like she meant it. Reacher understood too. He read the papers. He heard people talking. He knew jobs were easy to lose, and hard to get back.
    The neighbour said, ‘I told them not to answer the door.’
    Sorenson looked at the kid and asked, ‘Paula, why did you?’
    The kid said, ‘I didn’t.’
    ‘Why did Lucy?’
    ‘Because the man called her name.’
    ‘He called Lucy’s name?’
    ‘Yes. He said, Lucy, Lucy.’
    ‘What else did he say?’
    ‘I didn’t hear.’
    ‘Are you sure? You must have heard something.’
    The kid didn’t answer.
    Sorenson waited.
    The kid asked, ‘Am I in trouble?’
    Sorenson hesitated.
    Reacher said, ‘Yes, kid, you are. Quite a lot of trouble, to be honest. But you can get out of all of it if you tell us everything you heard and everything you saw this morning. You do that, and you’ll be completely free and clear.’
    A plea bargain. An incentive. A stick and a carrot. A time-honoured system. Reacher had gone that route many times, back in the day. A ten-year stretch reduced to a three-to-five, probation instead of jail time, charges dropped in exchange for information. The system worked with twenty-year-olds and thirty-year-olds. It worked just fine. Reacher saw no reason why it wouldn’t work just as well with a ten-year-old.
    The kid said nothing.
    Reacher said, ‘And I’ll give you a dollar for candy, and my friend will give you a kiss on the head.’
    Bribery worked, too.
    The kid said, ‘The man said he knew where Lucy’s mom was.’
    ‘Did he?’
    The kid nodded, earnestly. ‘He said he would take Lucy to her mom.’
    ‘What did the man look like?’
    The kid was squeezing her fingers, like she could wring the answer out of her hands.
    She said, ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘But you peeked a little bit, right?’
    The kid nodded again.
    Reacher asked, ‘How many men did you see at the door?’
    ‘Two.’
    ‘What did they look like?’
    ‘Like you see on the TV.’
    ‘Did you see their car?’
    ‘It was big and low.’
    ‘A regular car? Not a pick-up truck or a four wheel drive?’
    ‘Regular.’
    ‘Was it muddy?’
    ‘No, it was shiny.’
    ‘What colour was it?’
    The kid was wringing her hands again.
    She said, ‘I don’t know.’
    Sorenson’s phone rang. She checked the window and mouthed, ‘Omaha.’
    Reacher shook his head. Sorenson nodded, but she didn’t look happy. She let it ring. Eventually it stopped and Reacher looked back at the kid and said, ‘Thanks, Paula. You did great. You’re not in trouble any more. You’re totally free and clear.’ He dug in his pocket and peeled a buck off his roll of bills. He handed it over. Sorenson’s phone trilled once. Voice mail. Reacher said, ‘Now the pretty lady will give you a kiss on the forehead.’
    The kid giggled. Sorenson looked a little shy about it, but she went ahead and bent down and did the deed. The kid went back to her on-screen explosions. Reacher looked at her mom and said, ‘We need to borrow the key to Karen’s house.’
    The woman got it from a drawer in the hallway. It was a regular house key, on a fob with a crystal pendant. Just like the car key. Reacher wondered what kind of temperature would melt crystal glass. A lower temperature than regular glass, probably. Because of whatever they put in it to make it sparkle. So the car key fob was gone for ever. It was a smear of trace elements on the Impala’s burned-out floor, or a tiny cloud of vapour already halfway to Oregon on the wind.
    He took the key and said, ‘Thanks,’ and then he and Sorenson stepped out the door. Goodman’s car was still there, but the ambulance had been and gone with the body. Puller’s car was gone. And the clouds had gone too. The sky had brightened up. A watery winter sun was visible, high overhead.
    Sorenson paused on the driveway and checked