61 Hours

the case.’
    ‘You all do.’
    ‘He wanted your respect.’
    ‘Or yours,’ Reacher said. ‘Maybe he was trying to live up to the bullshit you put on the radio tonight. About the meth? You made him feel like a fraud.’
    Silence for a beat.
    Holland asked, ‘What happened here?’
    Reacher said, ‘He saw someone in the lot. Almost certainly in a car or a truck. Too cold to be on foot. He drove in. A wide circle. He stopped, cheek to cheek. Pretty close. He turned down his radio and opened his window, ready to talk. But the guy just went ahead and shot him. He fell over and died and his foot slipped off the brake. The car drove itself into the wall.’
    ‘Same basic setup as the lawyer.’
    ‘Pretty much.’
    ‘Was it quick?’
    ‘Head shots usually are.’
    They went quiet. Just stood and shivered in the freezing air. Holland said, ‘Should we look for a shell case?’
    Reacher shook his head. ‘Same deal as the lawyer. The shell case ejected inside the shooter’s vehicle.’
    Holland didn’t speak. Reacher could see the question in his face.
Who was the guy?
It was right there in his eyes.
    An awkward question, with an unappealing answer.
    Reacher said, ‘Now I see why you wanted me here. You wanted me to be the one to reach the conclusion. And say it out loud. Me, not you. An independent voice.’
    Holland didn’t speak.
    Reacher said, ‘OK, let’s not go there. Not just yet. Let’s think for a minute.’
    They went back to the station house. Holland parked in the slot reserved for him and they walked between the garbage cans to the door. They went to the squad room, to the desk that Peterson had used. Holland said, ‘You should check his messages. Voice mail and e-mail. Something might have come in that led him there.’
    Reacher said, ‘You’re clutching at straws.’
    ‘Allow me the privilege.’
    ‘Did he even come here first?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Did he even have time?’
    ‘Probably not. But we should check the messages anyway. Because we need to be sure, with a thing like this.’
    ‘You should do the checking. It’s your department. I’m just a civilian.’
    Holland said, ‘I don’t know how. I never learned. I’m not good with technology. I’m old school. Everyone knows that. I’m the past. Andrew was the future.’
    So Reacher puzzled his way through the telephone console and the computer keyboard. No passwords were required. No PINs. Everything was set up for fast and casual access. There was only one voice mail message. It was from Kim Peterson, much earlier in the evening, just after six o’clock, just after Reacher and her husband had hustled back to Janet Salter’s house after watching the surveillance video from the prison.
    Kim’s recorded voice was suspended somewhere between panicked and brave and resigned and querulous.
    She had asked, ‘When are you coming home?’
    Reacher moved on to e-mail. He opened the application. Two messages downloaded. The first was from the DEA in Washington D.C. An agent there was confirming his belief that there was no meth lab under the facility west of Bolton, South Dakota. Expensive satellite surveillance time proved it. Peterson was thanked for his interest and asked to get back in touch should new information come to light.
    The second e-mail was a routine nightly round robin BOLO bulletin from the Highway Patrol. Statewide coordination. Be on the lookout. For, in this instance, a whole bunch of stuff, including any or all of three stolen cars and four stolen trucks taken that day from random locations around the state, a stolen snowplough taken from a highway maintenance depot east of Mitchell, a thing called an Isuzu N-series pump and a de-icing truck stolen by two absconded employees from a commercial airfield east of Rapid City, a stolen Ithaca shotgun from Pierre, four suspects believed to be at large in a 1979 Chevrolet Suburban after a messy and aborted burglary in Sioux Falls, and finally Peterson’s own contribution, a bartender fleeing a suspected Bolton homicide in a 2005 Ford pick-up truck.
    Reacher said, ‘Nothing.’
    Holland sat down.
    ‘So say it,’ he said. ‘Let’s go there now.’
    ‘Three questions,’ Reacher said. ‘Why did the lawyer stop on the road with such total confidence? Why did Peterson stop in the lot? And why was he killed tonight of all nights?’
    ‘Answers?’
    ‘Because the lawyer felt safe to do so. Because Peterson felt safe to do so. And because you announced the