The Hard Way

lawyer and sued the Department of Defense. The Pentagon had denied any knowledge of Clay James Hobart’s activities subsequent to his last day in a USMC uniform. Then Dee Marie had sued the Department of State. Some fifth-rung State lawyer had come back and promised that Hobart would be put on file as a tourist missing in West Africa. So Dee Marie had gone back to pestering journalists and had filed a string of Freedom of Information Act petitions. More than half of them had already been denied and the others were still choked in red tape.
    “She was really going at it,” Pauling said. “Wasn’t she? Metaphorically she was lighting a candle for her brother every single day for five years.”
    “Like Patti Joseph,” Reacher said. “This is a tale of two sisters.”
    “The Pentagon knew Hobart was alive after twelve months. And they knew where he was. But they kept quiet for four years. They let this poor woman suffer.”
    “What was she going to do anyway? Lock and load and go to Africa and rescue him single-handed? Bring him back to stand trial for Anne Lane’s homicide?”
    “There was never any evidence against him.”
    “Whatever, keeping her in the dark was probably the best policy.”
    “Spoken like a true military man.”
    “Like the FBI is a fount of free information?”
    “She could have gone over there and petitioned the new government in Burkina Faso personally.”
    “That only works in the movies.”
    “You’re very cynical, you know that?”
    “I don’t have a cynical bone in my body. I’m realistic, is all. Shit happens.”
    Pauling went quiet.
    “What?” Reacher said.
    “You said lock and load. You said Dee Marie could lock and load and go to Africa.”
    “No, I said she couldn’t.”
    “But we agree that Hobart picked up a new partner, right?” she said. “As soon as he got back? One that he trusts, and real fast?”
    “Clearly,” Reacher said.
    “Could it be the sister?”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “The trust would be there,” Pauling said. “Wouldn’t it? Automatically? And
she
was there, which would explain the speed. And the commitment would have been there, on her part. Commitment, and a lot of anger. So is it possible that the voice you heard on the car phone was a woman?”
    Reacher was quiet for a beat.
    “It’s possible,” he said. “I guess. I mean, it never struck me that way. Never. But that could just be a preconception on my part. An unconscious bias. Because those machines are tough. They could make Minnie Mouse sound like Darth Vader.”
    “You said there was a lightness to the voice. Like a small man.”
    Reacher nodded. “Yes, I did.”
    “Therefore like a woman. With the pitch altered an octave, it’s plausible.”
    “It could be,” Reacher said. “Certainly whoever it was knew the West Village streets pretty well.”
    “Like a ten-year resident would. Plus military jargon, from having had a husband and a brother in the Marine Corps.”
    “Maybe,” Reacher said. “Gregory told me a woman showed up in the Hamptons. A fat woman.”
    “Fat?”
    “Gregory said heavyset.”
    “Surveillance?”
    “No, she and Kate talked. They went walking on the beach.”
    “Maybe it was Dee Marie. Maybe she’s fat. Maybe she was asking for money. Maybe Kate blew her off and that was the last straw.”
    “This is about more than money.”
    “But that doesn’t mean this isn’t at least partly about money,” Pauling said. “And judging by where she’s living Dee Marie needs money. Her share would be more than five million dollars. She might think of it like compensation. For five years of stonewalling. A million dollars a year.”
    “Maybe,” Reacher said again.
    “It’s a hypothesis,” Pauling said. “We shouldn’t rule it out.”
    “No,” Reacher said. “We shouldn’t.”
    Pauling pulled a city directory off her shelf and checked the Hudson Street address.
    “They’re south of Houston,” she said. “Between Vandam and Charlton. Not between Clarkson and Leroy. We were wrong.”
    “Maybe they like a bar a few blocks north,” Reacher said. “He couldn’t have called himself Charlton Vandam anyway. That’s way too phony.”
    “Whatever, they’re only fifteen minutes from here.”
    “Don’t get your hopes up. This is another brick in the wall, that’s all. One or both of them, whichever, they must be long gone already. They’d be crazy to stick around.”
    “You think?”
    “They’ve got blood on their hands and money