The Affair: A Reacher Novel

time to waste.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “This whole thing was about too much rush. You worked like crazy, and teased us about access to give yourself more time. But finally you got it done just after lunch on Sunday. The file was complete. The word came through while the chopper was in the air. So it went back empty. But then you waited until Tuesday before you released it for public scrutiny. I had a rather egotistical explanation for that. I thought it was because I was here on Sunday but not on Tuesday. But that wasn’t the reason. You needed two days to make it look old. That was the reason. You had to scrape it up and scuff it around.”
    “Are you saying that file was a forgery?”
    “I know, you’re shocked. Maybe you’ve known for nine months, or six, or maybe just a week or so, but we all know now.”
    “Know what?” Reed Riley said.
    I turned toward him. He was staring forward too, but he knew I was talking to him. I said, “Maybe Rosemary McClatchy was insecure because her beauty was all she had, so maybe she got jealous, and maybe that’s where you got the idea for the vengeful woman. And she was pregnant anyway, and you’d already checked out the local sheriff, because that’s what an ambitious company commander does, and it was easier for you than most, because of your connections, so you knew about her father and the empty house, and you’re a sick bastard, so you took poor pregnant Rosemary McClatchy there and you butchered her.”
    No response.
    “And you liked it,” I said.
    No response.
    “So you did it again. And you got better at it. No more dumping them in the ditch by the railroad track. You were ready for somethingmore adventurous. Maybe something more appropriate. Maybe Shawna Lindsay also had delusions of marriage, and maybe she was talking about living in a little house together, so you dumped her on a construction site. You could drive through that neighborhood anytime you liked. You always had. The big dog, out on the prowl, in his old blue car. Part of the scenery.”
    He said, “I broke up with Shawna weeks before she died. How do you explain that?”
    “You ask them back, they come running, right?”
    No answer.
    I said, “And you put Janice Chapman behind a bar for the same reason. She was a party girl. And maybe you set yourself a little extra challenge that night. Third time lucky. Variety is the spice of life. Maybe you told the guys you were hitting the head, and you snuck out and did it in the same time you need to take a leak. Six minutes and forty seconds would be my guess. Which is not plausible. Not for Deveraux. That’s where the alternative theory starts to falter. Did nobody think about how she’s built? She couldn’t lift a full-grown woman off a deer trestle. She couldn’t carry a corpse to a car.”
    Senator Riley said, “The file is genuine.”
    I said, “It started out with its feet on the ground. Someone thought up a neat little story. The jealous woman, the broken arm. The missing four hundred dollars. It was quite subtle. Conclusions would be drawn by the reader. But then someone chickened out. They didn’t want subtle anymore. They wanted a flashing red light. So you retyped the whole thing to include a car. Then you got on the phone and told your son to go put his own car on the train track.”
    “That’s crazy.”
    “There was no other reason behind the stuff with the car. The car was senseless. It served no other purpose. Other than to nail the lid shut on Deveraux as soon as anyone opened that file.”
    “That file is genuine.”
    “They went too far with the dead people. James Dyer, maybe. We could buy that. He was a senior officer. Health maybe not the best. But Paul Evers? Too convenient. As if you were scared of people askingquestions. Dead people can’t answer. Which brings us to Alice Bouton. Is she going to be dead too? Or is she going to be still alive? In which case, what would she tell us if we asked her about her broken arm?”
    “The file is completely genuine, Reacher.”
    “Can you read, senator? If so, read this for me.” I slid the folded diner check from my pocket and tossed it in his lap.
    He said, “I’m not allowed to move.”
    I said, “You can pick it up.”
    He picked it up. It shook in his hand. He looked at the back. He looked at the front. He turned it right way up. He took a breath. He asked, “Have you read it? Do you know what it says?”
    I said, “No, I haven’t looked at