Running Blind (The Visitor)

coincidental. The overlap is ridiculous. What are the chances all these witnesses would also be harassment victims?”
    “It’s only an idea,” Reacher said. “But the chances are actually pretty good, the way I see it. The only real harassment victim was Julia’s sister. Caroline Cooke doesn’t count, because that was a technicality.”
    “What about Callan and Stanley?” Poulton asked. “You don’t call that harassment?”
    Reacher shook his head. But Lamarr beat him to the punch. She was leaning forward, fingers drumming on the table, life back in her eyes, completely on the ball.
    “No, think about it, people,” she said. “Think about it laterally . They weren’t harassment victims and witnesses. They were harassment victims because they were witnesses. If you’re some Army racketeer and you’ve got a woman in your unit who’s not turning a blind eye to what you need her to be turning a blind eye to, what do you do about it? You get rid of her, is what. And what’s the quickest way to do that? You make her uncomfortable, sexually.”
    There was silence. Then Blake shook his head again.
    “No, Julia,” he said. “Reacher’s seeing ghosts, is all. It’s still way too coincidental. Because what are the chances he’d just happen to be in a restaurant alley one night and stumble across the back end of the same racket that’s killing our women? A million to one, minimum. ”
    “A billion to one,” Poulton said.
    Lamarr stared at them.
    “ Think , for God’s sake,” she said. “Surely he’s not saying he saw the same racket that’s killing our women. Probably he saw a completely different racket. Because there must be hundreds of rackets in the Army. Right, Reacher?”
    Reacher nodded.
    “Right,” he said. “The restaurant thing set me thinking along those lines, is all, in general terms.”
    There was silence again. Blake colored red.
    “There are hundreds of rackets?” he said. “So how does that help us? Hundreds of rackets, hundreds of Army people involved, how are we going to find the right one? Needle in a damn haystack. It’ll take three years. We’ve got three weeks.”
    “And what about the paint?” Poulton asked. “If he’s eliminating witnesses, he’d walk up and shoot them in the head, silenced .22. He wouldn’t mess with all this other stuff. All this ritual is classic serial homicide.”
    Reacher looked at him.
    “Exactly,” he said. “Your perception of the motive is defined by the manner of the killings. Think about it. If they had all got a silenced .22 in the head, what would you have thought?”
    Poulton said nothing. But there was doubt in his eyes. Blake sat forward and put his hands on the table.
    “We’d have called them executions,” he said. “Wouldn’t have altered our assessment of the motive.”
    “No, be honest with me,” Reacher said. “I think you’d have been a little more open-minded. You’d have cast your net a little wider. Sure, you’d have considered the harassment angle, but you’d have considered other things too. More ordinary things. Bullets to the head, I think you’d have considered more routine reasons.”
    Blake sat there, hesitant and silent. Which was the same thing as a confession.
    “Bullets to the head are kind of normal , right?” Reacher said. “In your line of work? So you’d have looked at normal reasons too. Like eliminating witnesses to a crime. Bullets to the head, I think right now you’d be all over the Army scams, looking for some efficient enforcer. But the guy deflected you by dressing it up with all this bizarre bullshit. He hid his true motive. He smoke-screened it. He camouflaged it. He pushed you into this weird psychological arena. He manipulated you, because he’s very smart.”
    Blake was still silent.
    “Not that you needed much manipulation,” Reacher said.
    “This is just speculation,” Blake said.
    Reacher nodded. “Of course it is. I told you, it’s only half an idea. But that’s what you do down here, right? You sit here all day long wearing the seat out of your pants, speculating about half-ideas.”
    Silence in the room.
    “It’s bullshit,” Blake said.
    Reacher nodded again. “Yes, maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s some Army guy making big bucks out of some scam these women knew about. And he’s hiding behind this harassment issue, by dressing it up like a psychodrama. He knew you’d jump right on it. He knew he could make you look in the wrong