Echo Burning

sergeant went quiet.
    “What?” Reacher asked again.
    “Having no lawyer is a big problem, is what. Kid’s going to be seven and a half before mom even gets a bail hearing.”
    “She’ll get a lawyer, right?”
    “Sure, Constitution says so. But the question is, when? This is Texas.”
    “You ask for a lawyer, you don’t get one right away?”
    “Not right away. You wait a long, long time. You get one when the indictment comes back. And that’s how old Hack Walker is going to avoid his little conflict problem, isn’t it? He’ll just lock her up and forget about her. He’d be a fool not to. She’s got no lawyer, who’s to know? Could be Christmas before they get around to indicting her. By which time old Hack will be a judge, most likely, not a prosecutor. He’ll be long gone. No more conflict of interest. Unless he happens to pull the case later, whereupon he’d have to excuse himself anyway.”
    “Recuse.”
    “Whatever, not having her own lawyer changes everything.”
    The trooper in the passenger seat turned and spoke for the first time in an hour.
    “See?” he said. “Didn’t matter what I called it on the radio.”
    “So don’t you spend your time at the museum,” the sergeant said. “You want to help her, you go find her a lawyer. You go beg, borrow or steal her one.”

    Nobody spoke the rest of the way into Pecos County. They crossed under Interstate 10 and followed the backup caracross more empty blackness all the way to Interstate 20, about a hundred miles west of where Reacher had forced his way out of Carmen’s Cadillac sixty hours previously. The sergeant slowed the car and let the backup disappear ahead into the darkness. He braked and pulled off onto the shoulder a hundred yards short of the cloverleaf.
    “We’re back on patrol from here,” he said. “Time to let you out.”
    “Can’t you drive me to the jail?”
    “You’re not going to jail. You haven’t done anything. And we’re not a taxicab company.”
    “So where am I?”
    The sergeant pointed straight ahead.
    “Downtown Pecos,” he said. “Couple miles, that way.”
    “Where’s the jail?”
    “Crossroads before the railroad. In the courthouse basement.”
    The sergeant opened his door and slid out and stretched. Stepped back and opened Reacher’s door with a flourish. Reacher slid out feet first and stood up. It was still hot. Haze hid the stars. Lonely vehicles whined by on the highway bridge, few enough in number that absolute silence descended between each one. The shoulder was sandy, and stunted velvet mesquite and wild indigo struggled at its margin. The cruiser’s headlights picked out old dented beer cans tangled among the stalks.
    “You take care now,” the sergeant said.
    He climbed back into his seat and slammed his door. The car crunched its way back to the blacktop and curved to the right, onto the cloverleaf, up onto the highway. Reacher stood and watched its taillights disappear in the east. Then he set off walking north, under the overpass, toward the neon glow of Pecos.

    He walked through one pool of light after another, along a strip of motels that got smarter and more expensive the farther he moved away from the highway. Then there was a rodeo arena set back from the street with posters still in place from a big event a month ago. There’s a rodeo there in July, Carmen had said. But you’ve missed it for this year . He walked in the road because the sidewalks had long tables set up on them, like outdoor market stalls. They were all empty. But he could smell cantaloupe on the hot night air. The sweetest in the whole of Texas, she had said. Therefore in their opinion, in the whole of the world . He guessed an hour before dawn old trucks would roll in loaded with ripe fruit from the fields, maybe hosed down with irrigation water to make it look dewy and fresh and attractive. Maybe the old trucks would have whole families crammed in the cabs ready to unload and sell all day and find out whether their winter was going to be good or bad, lean or prosperous. But really he knew nothing at all about agriculture. All his ideas came from the movies. Maybe it was all different in reality. Maybe there were government subsidies involved, or giant corporations.
    Beyond the cantaloupe market was a pair of eating places. There was a doughnut shop, and a pizza parlor. Both of them were dark and closed up tight. Sunday, the middle of the night, miles from anywhere. At the end of the strip was a