One Shot

Franklin said. “If I was shooting like that.”
    “It’s not possible to get better by not practicing,” Reacher said. “I think the truth is he had actually gotten really bad. And I think his ego couldn’t take it. Any shooter is competitive. He knew he was lousy now, and he couldn’t face it, and he wanted to cover it up. He wanted to show off.”
    Franklin pointed at the target. “Doesn’t look lousy to me.”
    “This is faked,” Reacher said. “You’re going to give this to Bellantonio and Bellantonio is going to prove it to you.”
    “Faked how?”
    “I’ll bet this was done with a handgun. Nine-millimeter, from point-blank range. If Bellantonio measures the holes, my guess is he’ll find they’re forty-six thousandths of an inch bigger than .308 holes. And if he tests the paper, he’ll find gunpowder residue on it. Because my guess is James Barr took a stroll down the range and made these holes from an inch away, not three hundred yards. Every time.”
    “That’s a stretch.”
    “It’s simple metaphysics. Barr was
never
this good. And it’s fair to assume he must have gotten worse. If he’d gotten a little worse, he’d have owned up to it. But he didn’t own up to it, so we can assume he’d gotten a
lot
worse. Bad enough to be seriously embarrassed about it. Maybe bad enough that he couldn’t hit the paper at all.”
    Nobody spoke.
    “It’s a theory that proves itself,” Reacher said. “To fake the score because of embarrassment proves he couldn’t shoot well anymore. If he couldn’t shoot well anymore, he didn’t do the thing on Friday.”
    “You’re just guessing,” Franklin said.
    Reacher nodded. “I was. But I’m not now. Now I know for sure. I fired a round down in Kentucky. The guy made me, like a rite of passage. I was full of caffeine. I was twitching like crazy. Now I know James Barr will have been way worse.”
    “Why?” Rosemary asked.
    “Because he has Parkinson’s disease,” Reacher said to her. “
PA
means paralysis agitans, and paralysis agitans is what doctors call Parkinson’s disease. Your brother is getting sick, I’m afraid. Shaking and twitching. And no way on earth can you fire a rifle accurately with Parkinson’s disease. My opinion, not only didn’t he do the thing on Friday, he
couldn’t possibly
have done it.”
    Rosemary went quiet.
Good news and bad news.
She glanced at the window. Looked at the floor. She was dressed like a widow. Black silk blouse, black pencil skirt, black nylons, black patent leather shoes with a low heel.
    “Maybe that’s why he was so angry all the time,” she said. “Maybe he felt it coming on. Felt helpless and out of control. His body started to let him down. He would have hated that. Anyone would.”
    Then she looked straight at Reacher.
    “I told you he was innocent,” she said.
    “Ma’am, I apologize unreservedly,” Reacher said. “You were right. He reformed. He kept to his bargain. He deserves credit. And I’m sorry he’s sick.”
    “Now you’ve got to help him. You promised.”
    “I am helping him. Since Monday night I haven’t done anything else.”
    “This is crazy,” Franklin said.
    “No, it’s exactly the same as it always was,” Reacher said. “It’s someone setting James Barr up for the fall. But instead of actually making him do it, they just made it look like he did it. That’s the only practical difference here.”
    “But is it possible?” Ann Yanni asked.
    “Why not? Think it through.
Walk
it through.”
    Ann Yanni walked it through. She rehearsed little movements, slowly, thoughtfully, like an actress. “He dresses in Barr’s clothes, and shoes, and maybe finds a quarter in a jar. Or in a pocket somewhere. He wears gloves, so as not to mess up Barr’s fingerprints. He’s already taken the traffic cone from Barr’s garage, maybe the day before. He gets the rifle from the basement. It’s already been loaded, by Barr himself, previously. He drives to town in Barr’s minivan. He leaves all the clues. Covers himself in cement dust. Comes back to the house and puts everything away and leaves. Fast, not even taking the time to use the bathroom. Then James Barr comes home sometime later and walks into a trap he doesn’t even know is there.”
    “That’s exactly how I see it,” Reacher said.
    “But where was Barr at the time?” Helen said.
    “Out,” Reacher said.
    “That’s a nice coincidence,” Franklin said.
    “I don’t think it was,” Reacher said.