One Shot

traffic cone. It was sitting there on a square of butcher paper, looking large and odd and out of place. Reacher saw the print powder on it, read the notes above it. Barr had handled it, that was for sure. He had clamped his right hand around it, near the top, where it was narrow. More than once. There were fingerprints and palm prints. The match was a laugher. There were way more comparison points than any court would demand.
    Same for the quarter from the parking meter, same for the shell case. Bellantonio showed Reacher laser-printed stills from the parking garage video, showing the minivan coming in just before the event and going out again just after it. He showed him the interior of the Dodge, showed him the automotive carpet fibers recovered from the raw new concrete, showed him the dog hairs, showed him the denim fibers and the raincoat threads. Showed him a square of rug taken from Barr’s house, showed him the matching fibers found at the scene. Showed him the desert boots, showed him how crepe rubber was the best transfer mechanism going. Showed him how the tiny crumbs of rubber found at the scene matched new scuffs on the shoes’ toes. Showed him the cement dust tracked back into Barr’s house and recovered from the garage and the basement and the kitchen and the living room and the bedroom. Showed him a comparison sample taken from the parking garage and a lab report that proved it was the same.
    Reacher scanned the transcripts from the 911 calls and the radio chatter between the squad cars. Then he glanced through the crime-scene protocol. The initial sweep by the uniformed officers, the forensic examination by Bellantonio’s own people, Emerson’s inspiration with the parking meter. Then he read the arrest report. It was printed out and pinned up along with everything else. The SWAT tactics, the sleeping suspect, the ID from the driver’s license from the wallet in the pants pocket. The paramedics’ tests. The capture of the dog by the K9 officers. The clothes in the closet. The shoes. The guns in the basement. He read the witness reports. A Marine recruiter had heard six shots. A cell phone company had provided a recording. There was a graph attached. A gray smear of sound, with six sharp spikes. Left to right, they were arrayed in a pattern that matched what Helen Rodin had said she had heard.
One, two-three, pause, four-five-six.
The graph’s vertical axis represented volume. The shots had been faint but clear on the recording. The horizontal axis represented the time base. Six shots in less than four seconds. Four seconds that had changed a city. For a spell, at least.
    Reacher looked at the rifle. It was heat-sealed into a clear plastic sleeve. He read the report pinned above it. A Springfield M1A Super Match, ten-shot box magazine, four cartridges still in it. Barr’s prints all over it. Scratches on the forestock matching varnish scrapings found at the scene. The intact bullet recovered from the pool. A ballistics lab report matching the bullet to the barrel. Another report matching the shell case to the ejector. Slam dunk. Case closed.
    “OK, enough,” Reacher said.
    “It’s good, isn’t it?” Bellantonio said.
    “Best I ever saw,” Reacher said.
    “Better than a hundred eyewitnesses.”
    Reacher smiled. Crime-scene techs loved to say that.
    “Anything you’re not happy with?” he asked.
    “I love it all,” Bellantonio said.
    Reacher glanced at his reflection in the Dodge’s tinted window. The black glass made his new shirt look gray.
    “Why did he leave the traffic cone behind?” he said. “He could have pitched it into the back of the van, easy as anything.”
    Bellantonio said nothing.
    “And why did he pay to park?” Reacher asked.
    “I’m forensics,” Bellantonio said. “Not psychology.”
    Then Emerson came back in and stood there, waiting to accept Reacher’s surrender. Reacher gave it up, no hesitation. He shook their hands and congratulated them on a well-worked case.

    He walked back, one block north and four blocks east, under the raised highway, heading for the black glass tower. It was after five o’clock and the sun was on his back. He arrived at the plaza and saw that the fountain was still going and the pool had filled another inch. He went in past the NBC sign and rode up in the elevator. Ann Yanni didn’t show. Maybe she was preparing for the six o’clock news.
    He found Helen Rodin at her secondhand desk.
    “Watch my eyes,” he