One Shot

in control on the street were left to rage unchecked inside. Men were stacked three to a cell and the guards were shorthanded. New guys were called fish, and fish were left to fend for themselves.
    But Barr had been in the army, so the culture shock for him was a little less than it might have been. He survived as a fish for two hours, and then he was escorted to an interview room. He was told there was a lawyer waiting there for him. He found a table and two chairs bolted to the floor in a windowless cubicle. In one of the chairs was a guy he vaguely recognized from somewhere. On the table was a pocket tape recorder. Like a Walkman.
    “My name is David Chapman,” the guy in the chair said. “I’m a criminal defense attorney. A lawyer. Your sister works at my firm. She asked us to help you out.”
    Barr said nothing.
    “So here I am,” Chapman said.
    Barr said nothing.
    “I’m recording this conversation,” Chapman said. “Putting it on tape. I take it that’s OK with you?”
    Barr said nothing.
    “I think we met once,” Chapman said. “Our Christmas party one year?”
    Barr said nothing.
    Chapman waited.
    “Have the charges been explained to you?” he asked.
    Barr said nothing.
    “The charges are very serious,” Chapman said.
    Barr stayed quiet.
    “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself,” Chapman said.
    Barr just stared at him. Just sat still and quiet for several long minutes. Then he leaned forward toward the tape machine and spoke for the first time since the previous afternoon.
    He said, “They got the wrong guy.”

    “They got the wrong guy,” Barr said again.
    “So tell me about the right guy,” Chapman said immediately. He was a good courtroom tactician. He knew how to get a rhythm going. Question, answer, question, answer. That was how to get a person to open up. They fell into the rhythm, and it all came out.
    But Barr just retreated back into silence.
    “Let’s be clear about this,” Chapman said.
    Barr didn’t answer.
    “Are you
denying
it?” Chapman asked him.
    Barr said nothing.
    “Are you?”
    No response.
    “The evidence is all there,” Chapman said. “It’s just about overwhelming, I’m afraid. You can’t play dumb now. We need to talk about
why
you did it. That’s what’s going to help us here.”
    Barr said nothing.
    “You want me to help you?” Chapman said. “Or not?”
    Barr said nothing.
    “Maybe it was your old wartime experience,” Chapman said. “Or post-traumatic stress. Or some kind of mental impairment. We need to focus on the reason.”
    Barr said nothing.
    “Denying it is not smart,” Chapman said. “The evidence is right there.”
    Barr said nothing.
    “Denying it is not an option,” Chapman said.
    “Get Jack Reacher for me,” Barr said.
    “Who?”
    “Jack Reacher.”
    “Who’s he? A friend?”
    Barr said nothing.
    “Someone you know?” Chapman said.
    Barr said nothing.
    “Someone you used to know?”
    “Just get him for me.”
    “Where is he?
Who
is he?”
    Barr said nothing.
    “Is Jack Reacher a doctor?” Chapman asked.
    “A doctor?” Barr repeated.
    “Is he a doctor?” Chapman asked.
    But Barr didn’t speak again. He just got up from the table and walked to the cubicle’s door and pounded on it until the jailer opened it up and led him back to his overcrowded cell.

    ______

    Chapman arranged to meet Rosemary Barr and the firm’s investigator at his law offices. The investigator was a retired cop shared by most of the city’s law firms. They all had him on retainer. He was a private detective, with a license. His name was Franklin. He was nothing like a private eye in a TV show. He did all his work at a desk, with phone books and computer databases. He didn’t go out, didn’t wear a gun, didn’t own a hat. But he had no equal as a fact-checker or a skip tracer and he still had plenty of friends in the PD.
    “The evidence is rock solid,” he said. “That’s what I’m hearing. Emerson was in charge and he’s pretty reliable. So is Rodin, really, but for a different reason. Emerson’s a stiff and Rodin is a coward. Neither one of them would be saying what they’re saying unless the evidence was there.”
    “I just can’t believe he did it,” Rosemary Barr said.
    “Well, certainly he seems to be denying it,” Chapman said. “As far as I can understand him. And he’s asking for someone called Jack Reacher. Someone he knows or used to know. You ever heard that name? You know who he