The Affair: A Reacher Novel

now. Think about it. He’s going to be the Lone Ranger.”
    “He’s going to be locked up in Leavenworth.”
    “Munro doesn’t think so. He says the officer in question is likely innocent.”
    “Then we should act like it. We should stop with the lawyers and we should stop patrolling outside the fence.”
    “We’re not patrolling outside the fence.”
    I gave up. “Anything else?”
    “One thing,” Garber said. “I have to do this. I hope you understand.”
    “Try me.”
    “You got a postcard from your brother.”
    “Where?”
    “At your office.”
    “And you read it?”
    “An army officer has no reasonable expectation of privacy.”
    “Is that in the regulations too? Along with the hairstyles?”
    “You need to explain the message to me.”
    “Why? What does it say?”
    “The picture on the front is downtown Atlanta. The card was mailed from the Atlanta airport eleven days ago. The text reads: Heading to a town called Margrave, south of here, business, but heard a story Blind Blake died there, will let you know. Then it’s signed Joe, his name.”
    “I know my brother’s name.”
    “What does the message mean?”
    “It’s a personal note.”
    “I’m ordering you to explain it to me. I apologize, but I have to do this.”
    “You went to elementary school. You can read.”
    “What does it mean?”
    “It means what it says. He’s heading south of Atlanta to a town called Margrave.”
    “Who was Blind Blake?”
    “A guitar player, from way back. Blues music. One of the first legends.”
    “Why would Joe make a point of informing you about that?”
    “Shared interest.”
    “What does Joe mean when he says he will let you know?”
    “He means what he says.”
    “Let you know about what?”
    “About the Blind Blake legend, of course. About whether he died there.”
    “Why does it matter where this man died?”
    “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a thing. Like collecting baseball cards.”
    “So this is really about baseball cards?”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Is this a code for something else?”
    “A code? Why the hell would it be a code?”
    Garber said, “You called his office today.”
    “You know about that?”
    “There’s a reporting mechanism in place.”
    “That kid? The girl in his office?”
    “I’m not at liberty to discuss the details. But I need to know why you called him.”
    “He’s my brother.”
    “But why now? Were you going to ask him something?”
    “Yes,” I said. “I was going to ask him how he’s doing. Purely social.”
    “Why now? Did something at Kelham provoke the inquiry?”
    “This is none of your business.”
    “Everything is my business. Help me out here, Reacher.”
    I said, “Two black women were killed here before Janice May Chapman. Did you even know that? Because that’s something you should be bearing in mind, if you’re thinking about political campaigns. We ignored them and then our heads exploded when a white woman got killed.”
    “How does this relate to Joe?”
    “I met the second victim’s brother. Made me think about family. That’s all it was.”
    “Did Joe tell you anything about money from Kosovo?”
    “I didn’t get him. He was out of the office. He was in Georgia.”
    “Atlanta again? Or Margrave?”
    “I have no idea. Georgia is a big state.”
    “OK,” Garber said. “I apologize for the intrusion.”
    I asked, “Who exactly is worried about money from Kosovo?”
    He said, “I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”
    I hung up with Garber and breathed in and out for a spell, and then I carried my new shirt upstairs and left it on my bed. I started to think about dinner with Elizabeth Deveraux. Three hours to go, and only one more thing to do beforehand.

Chapter
40
    I came out of the front of the hotel and looped back through the dog-leg alley between the pharmacy and the hardware store and came out the other end between the loan office and Brannan’s bar. Where Janice May Chapman’s body had been found. The sand pile was still there, dry and crusted and powdery and a little redistributed by the breeze. I stepped around it and checked activity on the one-sided street. Not much was going on. Some of the bars were closed, because the base was closed. No point in opening without customers. A simple economic calculation.
    But Brannan’s bar was open. Defiantly optimistic, or maybe just maintaining some longstanding tradition. I went in and found nobody there except two