Tripwire

smile.
    “We were expecting you,” she said.
    She turned and stood aside. He nodded and went in. The radius of the skirt meant he had to push past its flare with a loud rustle of nylon.
    “I brought your mail,” he said to her. “Your box was full.”
    He held up the thick stack of curled envelopes and waited.
    “Thank you,” she said. “You’re very kind. It’s a long walk out there, and we don’t like to stop the car to get it, in case we get rear-ended. It’s a very busy road. People drive terribly fast, you know. Faster than they should, I think.”
    Reacher nodded. It was about the quietest road he had ever seen. A person could sleep the night out there right on the yellow line, with a good chance of surviving until morning. He was still holding the mail. The old lady showed no curiosity over it.
    “Where would you like me to put it?”
    “Would you put it in the kitchen?”
    The hallway was a dark space, paneled in gloomy wood. The kitchen was worse. It had a tiny window, glassed in with yellow reeded glass. There was a collection of freestanding units in muddy dark veneer, and curious old enamel appliances, speckled in mint greens and grays, standing up on short legs. The whole room smelled of old food and a warm oven, but it was clean and tidy. A rag rug on worn linoleum. There was a chipped china mug with a pair of thick eyeglasses standing vertically in it. He put the stack of mail next to the mug. When her visitor was gone, she would use her eyeglasses to read her mail, right after she put her best frock back in the closet with the mothballs.
    “May I offer you cake?” she asked.
    He glanced at the stovetop. There was a china plate there, covered over with a worn linen cloth. She’d baked something for him.
    “And coffee?”
    Next to the stove top was an ancient percolator, mint green enamel, green glass knob on the top, connected to the outlet by a cord insulated with frayed fabric. He nodded.
    “I love coffee and cake,” he said.
    She nodded back, pleased. Bustled forward, crushing her skirt against the oven door. She used a thin trembling thumb and operated the switch on the percolator. It was already filled and ready to go.
    “It takes a moment,” she said. Then she paused and listened. The old percolator started a loud gulping sound. “So come and meet Mr. Hobie. He’s awake now, and very anxious to see you. While we’re waiting for the machine.”
    She led him through the hallway to a small parlor in back. It was about twelve by twelve and heavily furnished with armchairs and sofas and glass-fronted chest-high cabinets filled with china ornaments. There was an old guy in one of the chairs. He was wearing a stiff serge suit, blue, worn and shiny in places, and at least three sizes too big for his shrunken body. The collar of his shirt was a wide stiff hoop around a pale scrawny neck. Random silky tufts of white were all that was left of his hair. His wrists were like pencils protruding from the cuffs of his suit. His hands were thin and bony, laid loosely on the arms of the chair. He had clear plastic tubes looped over his ears, running down under his nose. There was a bottle of oxygen on a wheeled cart, parked behind him. He looked up and took a long, loud sniff of the gas to fuel the effort of lifting his hand.
    “Major Reacher,” he said. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”
    Reacher stepped forward and grasped the hand and shook it. It was cold and dry, and it felt like a skeleton’s hand wrapped in flannel. The old guy paused and sucked more oxygen and spoke again.
    “I’m Tom Hobie, Major. And this lovely lady is my wife, Mary.”
    Reacher nodded.
    “Pleased to meet you both,” he said. “But I’m not a major anymore.”
    The old guy nodded back and sucked the gas through his nose.
    “You served,” he said. “Therefore I think you’re entitled to your rank.”
    There was a fieldstone fireplace, built low in the center of one wall. The mantel was packed tight with photographs in ornate silver frames. Most of them were color snaps showing the same subject, a young man in olive fatigues, in a variety of poses and situations. There was one older picture among them, airbrushed black-and-white, a different man in uniform, tall and straight and smiling, a private first class from a different generation of service. Possibly Mr. Hobie himself, before his failing heart started killing him from the inside, although it was hard for Reacher to tell. There was no