Echo Burning

hitting her?”
    Walker paused a beat.
    “No, of course not,” he said. “But here’s the big problem. The thing is, he didn’t hit her. Never, Reacher. He wasn’t violent with her. Not ever. I knew Sloop. He was a lot of things, and to be absolutely honest about it, not all of them were good. He was lazy, he was a little casual in business. A little dishonest, to be truthful. I’m not wearing rose-colored spectacles. But all his faults came from the feeling he was a Texan gentleman. I’m very aware of that, because I was a poor boy by comparison. Practically trash. He had the big ranch and the money. It made him a little arrogant and superior, hence the laziness and the impatience with strict principle. But part of being a gentleman in Texas is you would never, ever hit a woman. Whoever the woman was. Not ever. So, she’s making all that up, too. I know it. He never hit her. I promise you that.”
    Reacher shook his head. “What you promise me doesn’t prove a damn thing. I mean, what else would you say? You were his friend.”
    Walker nodded again. “I take your point. But there’s nothing else to go on. There’s just nothing there. Absolutely no evidence, no witnesses, no nothing. We were close. I was with them a thousand times. I heard about the horsebackriding accidents as they happened. There weren’t that many, and they seemed genuine. We’ll ask for the medical records, of course, but I don’t hold out much hope they’ll be ambiguous.”
    “You said it yourself, abuse can be covert.”
    “That covert? I’m a DA, Reacher. I’ve seen everything. Some lone couple in a trailer park, maybe. But Sloop and Carmen lived with family, and they saw friends every day. And before you told the story to Alice Aaron, nobody in the whole of Texas had ever heard the faintest whiff of a rumor about violence between them. Not me, not Al, nobody. So do you understand what I mean? There’s no evidence. All we’ve got is her word. And you’re the only other person who ever heard it. But if you take the stand to back her up, then her trial is over before it’s begun, because the other stuff you’ll have to say will prove she’s a pathological liar. Like, did she say she’d tipped off the IRS?”
    “Yes, she did. She said she called them. Some special unit.”
    Walker shook his head. “They caught him through bank records. It was just a purely accidental by-product of an audit on somebody else. She knew nothing about it. I know that for sure, for an absolute fact, because Sloop went straight to Al Eugene and Al came straight to me for advice. I saw the indictment. Black and white. Carmen is a liar, Reacher, pure and simple. Or maybe not pure and simple. Maybe there are some very complicated reasons behind it.”
    Reacher paused a long moment.
    “Maybe she is a liar,” he said. “But liars can still get abused, same as anybody else. And abuse can be covert. You don’t know it wasn’t happening.”
    Walker nodded. “I agree. I don’t know . But I would bet my life it wasn’t.”
    “She convinced me.”
    “She probably convinced herself. She lives in a fantasy world. I know her, Reacher. She’s a liar, is all, and she’s guilty of first-degree homicide.”
    “So why are we talking?”
    Walker paused.
    “Can I trust you?” he asked.
    “Does it matter?” Reacher said.
    Walker went very quiet. Just stared at his office wall, a whole minute, then another. And another. The boom of the air conditioners crowded into the silence.
    “Yes, it matters,” he said. “It matters plenty. To Carmen, and to me. Because right now you’re reading me completely wrong. I’m not an angry friend trying to protect my old buddy’s reputation. Fact is, I want to find a defense for Carmen, don’t you see that? Even invent one. You know, maybe just pretend the abuse happened and back-pedal like crazy on the premeditation. I’m seriously tempted. Because then I don’t need to charge her at all and I can probably save my shot at the judgeship.”
    The silence came back. Nothing but the air conditioner motors and telephones ringing faintly outside the office door. The distant chatter of a fax machine.
    “I want to go see her,” Reacher said.
    Walker shook his head. “Can’t let you. You’re not her lawyer.”
    “You could bend the rules.”
    Walker sighed again and dropped his head into his hands. “Please, don’t tempt me. Right now I’m thinking about throwing the rules off the top of the