The Affair: A Reacher Novel

garage. No watering can. Rural Mississippi. Agricultural land. Rain and sun. Those weeds had come boiling up like madmen. Some boyfriend had brought over a gasoline mower and hacked them back. Some nice guy with plenty of energy. The kind of guy who doesn’t like mess and disarray. A soldier, almost certainly. The kind of guy who does things for people, gets things neat, and then keeps them neat.
    Deveraux asked, “So what are you saying? She was raped here?”
    “Maybe she wasn’t raped at all.”
    Deveraux said nothing.
    “It’s possible she wasn’t,” I said. “Think about it. A sunny afternoon, total privacy. They’re sitting out back because they don’t want to sit on the front porch with the old biddies watching every move. They’re on the stoop, they’re feeling good, they get right to it.”
    “On the lawn?”
    “Wouldn’t you?”
    She looked right at me and said, “Like you told the doctor, it would depend on who I was with.”
    We spent the next few minutes talking about injuries. I did the thing with my forearm again. I pressed it down and mashed it around. I simulated the throes of passion. I came up with plenty of green chlorophyll stains and a smear of dry stony mud. When I wiped off the dirt we both saw the same kind of small red marks we had seen on Janice May Chapman’s corpse. They were superficial and there was no broken skin, but we both agreed Chapman might have been at it longer, and harder, with more weight and force. “We need to go inside again,” I said.
    We found Chapman’s laundry basket in the bathroom. It was a rectangular wicker thing, with a lid. Painted white. On top of the pile inside was a short sundress. It had cap sleeves and was printed with red and white pinstripes. It was rucked and creased at the waist. It had grass stains on the upper back. Next item down in the laundry pile was a hand towel. Then a white blouse.
    “No underwear,” Deveraux said.
    “Evidently,” I said.
    “The rapist kept a souvenir.”
    “She wasn’t wearing any. Her boyfriend was coming over.”
    “It’s March.”
    “What was the weather like that day?”
    “It was warm,” Deveraux said. “And sunny. It was a nice day.”
    “Rosemary McClatchy wasn’t raped,” I said. “Nor was Shawna Lindsay. Escalation is one thing. A complete change in MO is another.”
    Deveraux didn’t answer that. She stepped out of the bathroom intothe hallway. The center point of the little house. She looked all around. She asked, “What did I miss here? What should be here that isn’t?”
    “Something more than three years old,” I said. “She moved here from somewhere else, and she should have brought things with her. At least a few things. Books, maybe. Or photographs. Maybe a favorite chair or something.”
    “Twenty-four-year-olds aren’t very sentimental.”
    “They keep some little thing.”
    “What did you keep when you were twenty-four?”
    “I’m different. You’re different.”
    “So what are you saying?”
    “I’m saying she showed up here three years ago out of the blue and brought nothing with her. She bought a house and a car and got a local driver’s license. She bought a houseful of new furniture. All for cash. She doesn’t have a rich daddy or his picture would be next to the TV in a silver frame. I want to know who she was.”

Chapter
38
    I followed Deveraux from room to room while she checked for herself. Paint on the walls, still fresh. Loveseat and armchair in the living room, still new. A recent television set. A fancy VHS player. Even the pots and pans and knives and forks in the kitchen showed no nicks or scratches from long-term use.
    There were no clothes in the closet older than a couple of seasons. No old prom dress wrapped in plastic. No old cheerleader outfit. No photographs of family. No keepsakes. No old letters. No softball trophies, no jewelry box with a busted ballerina. No battered stuffed animals preserved from childhood years.
    “Does it matter?” Deveraux said. “She was just a random victim, after all.”
    “She’s a loose end,” I said. “I don’t like loose ends.”
    “She was already here when I got back to town. I never thought about it. I mean, people come and go all the time. This is America.”
    “Did you ever hear anything about her background?”
    “Nothing.”
    “No rumors or assumptions?”
    “None at all.”
    “Did she have a job?”
    “No.”
    “Accent?”
    “The Midwest, maybe. Or just south of it. The