Echo Burning

indicated how acute her anguish was. So in a situation like this, her lawyer will try hard to get the hearsay admitted, because it goes to her state of mind. And there are provisions that might allow it. Obviously most DAs would fight it, but this office wouldn’t. We’d tend to allow it, because we know marital abuse can be covert. My instinct would be to allow anything that gets us nearer to the truth. So let’s say you or a person like you were allowed to testify. You’d paint a pretty horrible picture, and in the circumstances, what with his return home looming over her and all, the jury might tend to be sympathetic. They might overlook the element of premeditation. She might get a not guilty verdict.”
    “So where’s the problem?”
    “Problem is, if you testified, you’d be cross-examined, too.”
    “So?”
    Walker looked down at the desk again. “Let me take a couple more guesses. Don’t respond. And please, if I’m guessing wrong, don’t be offended. If I’m wrong, I apologize most sincerely in advance. O.K.?”
    “O.K.”
    “My guess is the premeditation was extensive. My guess is she thought about it and then she tried to recruit you to do it for her.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “My guess is she didn’t pick you up by accident. She selected you in some way and tried hard to persuade you.”
    Reacher said nothing. Walker swallowed.
    “Another guess,” he said. “She offered you sex as a bribe.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “Another guess,” Walker said. “She didn’t give up. At some stage, she tried again to get you into bed.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “You see?” Walker said. “If I’m right, and I think I am, because I know this woman, all that stuff would come out too, under cross-examination. Evidence of thorough preparation. Unless you were to lie on the stand. Or unless we didn’t ask the right questions. But assuming we asked the right questions and you told us the truth, the whole premeditation issue would be damaged. Very seriously. Probably fatally.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “And it gets worse, I’m afraid,” Walker said. “Much worse. Because if she’s told you things, what matters then is her credibility, right? Specifically, was she telling you the truth about the abuse, or was she not? We’d test that by asking you questions we do know the answers to. So under cross-examination, we’d ask you innocent stuff first, like who she is and where she’s from, and you’d tell us what she told you.”
    “And?”
    “And her credibility would fall apart. Next stop, death by lethal injection.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I know this woman, and she makes things up.”
    “What things?”
    “Everything. I’ve heard her stories, over and over. Did she in fact tell you she’s from a rich wine-growing family?”
    Reacher nodded. “More or less. She said she’s from a thousand acres in the Napa Valley. Isn’t she?”
    Walker shook his head. “She’s from some barrio in South Central L.A. Nobody knows anything about her parents. She probably doesn’t, either.”
    Reacher was quiet for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Disguising a humble background isn’t a crime.”
    “She was never a student at UCLA. She was a stripper. She was a whore, Reacher. She serviced the UCLA frat parties, among other things. Sloop met her when she was performing. Part of her repertoire was an interesting little trick with a long-neck beer bottle. He fell for her, somehow. You know, let me take you away from all this sort of thing. I guess I can understand it. She’s cute now. She was stunning then. And smart. She looked at Sloop and saw a rich man’s son from Texas, with a big fat wallet. She saw a meal ticket. She wentto live with him. Came off the pill and lied about it and got herself pregnant. Whereupon Sloop did the decent thing, because he was like that, in a gentlemanly way. She suckered him, and he let her.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    Walker shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if you do or if you don’t, and I’ll tell you exactly why in a moment. But it’s all true, I’m afraid. She had brains. She knew what happens to whores when they get old. It goes right downhill, and it doesn’t start very high, does it? She wanted a way out, and Sloop was it. She bled him for years, diamonds, horses, everything.”
    “I don’t believe you,” Reacher said again.
    Walker nodded. “She’s very convincing. Can’t argue with that.”
    “Even if it is true, does it justify him