Echo Burning

crossroads, with a sign showing the museum was straight across. But before the turn, on the right, was the courthouse. It was a nice enough building, but he didn’t spend any time looking at it. Just ducked around the side to the back. No jail he had ever seen had an entrance on the street. There was a lit doorway in the back wall at semi-basement level with two cement steps leading down from a parking area. There was a dusty four-cylinder Chevrolet in one corner. The lot was fenced with razor wire and hung with large notices warning unauthorized parkers their cars would be towed. There were yellow lightbulbs mounted on the fence posts. Clouds of silent insects crowded each of them. The blacktop was still hot under his feet. No cooling breezes back there. The jail door was scarred steel and had No Admittance stenciled across it in faded paint. Above it was a small video camera angled down, with a red diode glowing above the lens.
    He went down the steps and knocked hard on the door. Stepped back a pace so the camera could pick him up. Nothing happened for a long moment. He stepped forward and knocked again. There was the click of a lock and a womanopened the door. She was dressed in a court bailiff’s uniform. She was white, maybe fifty, with gray hair dyed the color of sand. She had a wide belt loaded with a gun and a nightstick and a can of pepper spray. She was heavy and slow, but she looked awake and on the ball.
    “Yes?” she said.
    “You got Carmen Greer in here?”
    “Yes.”
    “Can I see her?”
    “No.”
    “Not even for a minute?”
    “Not even.”
    “So when can I?”
    “You family?”
    “I’m a friend.”
    “Not a lawyer, right?”
    “No.”
    “Then Saturday,” the woman said. “Visiting is Saturday, two to four.”
    Almost a week .
    “Can you write that down for me?” he said. He wanted to get inside. “Maybe give me a list of what I’m allowed to bring her?”
    The bailiff shrugged and turned and stepped inside. Reacher followed her into the dry chill of an air conditioner running on high. There was a lobby. The bailiff had a high desk, like a lectern. Like a barrier. Behind it were cubbyholes covering the back wall. He saw Carmen’s lizard-skin belt rolled into one of them. There was a small Ziploc bag with the fake ring in it. Off to the right was a barred door. A tiled corridor beyond.
    “How is she?” he asked.
    The bailiff shrugged again. “She ain’t happy.”
    “About what?”
    “About the cavity search, mainly. She was screaming fit to burst. But rules are rules. And what, she thinks I enjoy it either?”
    She pulled a mimeographed sheet from a stack. Slid it across the top of the desk.
    “Saturday, two to four,” she said. “Like I told you. And don’t bring her anything that’s not on the list, or we won’t let you in.”
    “Where’s the DA’s office?”
    She pointed at the ceiling. “Second floor. Go in the front.”
    “When does it open?”
    “About eight-thirty.”
    “You got bail bondsmen in the neighborhood?”
    She smiled. “Ever see a courthouse that didn’t? Turn left at the crossroads.”
    “What about lawyers?”
    “Cheap lawyers or expensive lawyers?”
    “Free lawyers.”
    She smiled again.
    “Same street,” she said. “That’s all it is, bondsmen and community lawyers.”
    “Sure I can’t see her?”
    “Saturday, you can see her all you want.”
    “Not now? Not even for a minute?”
    “Not even.”
    “She’s got a daughter,” Reacher said, irrelevantly.
    “Breaks my heart,” the woman said back.
    “When will you see her?”
    “Every fifteen minutes, whether she likes it or not. Suicide watch, although I don’t think your friend is the type. You can tell pretty easy. And she’s a tough cookie. That’s my estimation. But rules are rules, right?”
    “Tell her Reacher was here.”
    “Who?”
    “Reacher. Tell her I’ll stick around.”
    The woman nodded, like she’d seen it all, which she probably had.
    “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled,” she said.
    Then Reacher walked back to the motel strip, remembering all the jailhouse duty he’d pulled early in his career, wishing he could put his hand on his heart and say he’d acted a whole lot better than the woman he’d just met.

    He walked almost all the way back to the highway, until the prices ducked under thirty bucks. Picked a place and woke the night clerk and bought the key to a room near the end of therow. It was worn and faded and crusted with the kind of