Running Blind (The Visitor)

You’ve planned for every contingency.
    "OK, COLONEL KRUGER,” Leighton said. "We’re on your ass now.”
    They were back in the duty office, damp from the jog through the nighttime rain, high with elation, flushed with cold air and success. Handshakes had been exchanged, high fives had been smacked, Harper had laughed and hugged Reacher. Now Leighton was scrolling through a menu on his computer screen, and Reacher and Harper were sitting side by side in front of his desk on the old upright chairs, breathing hard. Harper was still smiling, basking in relief and triumph.
    “Loved that business with the stool,” she said. “We watched the whole thing on the video screen.”
    Reacher shrugged.
    “I cheated,” he said. “I chose the right stool, is all. I figured visiting time, that sergeant sits on the one by the door, wriggles around a little because he’s bored. Guy that size, the joints were sure to be cracked. The thing practically fell apart.”
    “But it looked real good.”
    “That was the plan. First rule is to look real good.”
    “OK, he’s in the personnel listings,” Leighton said. "LaSalle Kruger, bird colonel, right there.”
    He tapped the screen with his nail. It made the same glassy thunk they’d heard before. Like a bottle.
    “Has he been in trouble?” Reacher asked.
    “Can’t tell, yet,” Leighton said. “You think he’ll have an MP record?”
    “Something happened,” Reacher said. “Special Forces in Desert Storm, and now he’s working supply? What’s that about?”
    Leighton nodded. “It needs explaining. Could be disciplinary, I guess.”
    He exited the personnel listings and clicked on another menu. Then he paused.
    “This will take all night,” he said.
    Reacher smiled. “You mean you don’t want us to see anything.”
    Leighton smiled back. “Right first time, pal. You can smack the prisoners around as much as you want, but you can’t look at the computer stuff. You know how it is.”
    “I sure do,” Reacher said.
    Leighton waited.
    “That inventory thing about the jeep tires?” Harper said suddenly. “Could you trace some missing camouflage paint in there?”
    “Maybe,” Leighton said. “Theoretically, I guess.”
    “Eleven women on his list, look for about three hundred gallons,” she said. “If you could put Kruger together with the paint, that would do it for me.”
    Leighton nodded.
    “And dates,” she said. “Find out if he was off duty when the women were killed. And match the locations, I guess. Confirm there were thefts where the women served. Prove they saw something.”
    Leighton looked across at her. “The Army is going to just love me, right? Kruger’s our guy, and I’m busting my ass all night so we can give him away to the Bureau.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “But the jurisdiction issue is clear, isn’t it? Homicide beats theft.”
    Leighton nodded, suddenly somber.
    “Like scissors beats paper,” he said.
    YOU’VE SEEN ENOUGH of the house. Standing there in the dark staring at it and listening to her play the damn piano isn’t going to change anything. So you step away from the fence and duck into the brush and work your way east and south, back toward the car. You get there and dust yourself off and slide in and start it up and head back down through the crossroads. Part two of your task ahead, and you’ve got about twenty minutes to complete it in. You drive on. There’s a small shopping center two miles west of the junction, left-hand side of the road. An old-fashioned one-story mall, shaped like a squared-off letter C. A supermarket in the middle like a keystone, small single-unit stores spreading either side of it. Some of them are boarded up and empty. You pull into the parking lot at the far end and you nose along the fire lane, looking. You find exactly what you want, three stores past the supermarket. It’s nothing you didn’t expect to find, but still you clench your fist and bang it on the rim of the steering wheel. You smile to yourself.
    Then you turn the car around and idle back through the lot, checking it out, and your smile dies. You don’t like it. You don’t like it at all. It’s completely overlooked. Every storefront has a direct view. It’s badly lit now, but you’re thinking about daylight. So you drive around behind the arm of the C, and your smile comes back again. There’s a single row of overspill parking back there, facing plain painted delivery doors in the back walls of the