Without Fail

where we can look at them?”
    “They’re no different than the copies.”
    “Copying causes detail loss,” Reacher said. “First rule, start with the originals.”
    “OK,” the guy said. “You can look at them right here, I guess.”
    He stood up awkwardly and pushed and pulled some equipment around on a bench and angled a small monitor outward and switched on a stand-alone player. A blank gray square appeared on the screen.
    “No remotes on these things,” he said. “You have to use the buttons.”
    He stacked the three tape boxes in the correct time sequence.
    “Got chairs?” Reacher asked.
    The guy ducked out and came back dragging two typist’s chairs. They tangled in the doorway and he had trouble fitting them both in front of the narrow bench. Then he glanced around like he was unhappy about leaving strangers alone in his little domain.
    “I guess I’ll wait in the foyer,” he said. “Call me when you’re through.”
    “What’s your name?” Neagley asked.
    “Nendick,” the guy said, shyly.
    “OK, Nendick,” she said. “We’ll be sure to call you.”
    He left the room and Reacher put the third tape in the machine.
    “You know what?” Neagley said. “That guy didn’t sneak a peek at my ass.”
    “Didn’t he?”
    “Guys usually do when I’m wearing these pants.”
    “Do they?”
    “Usually.”
    Reacher kept his gaze firmly on the blank video screen.
    “Maybe he’s gay,” he said.
    “He was wearing a wedding band.”
    “Then maybe he tries hard to avoid inappropriate feelings. Or maybe he’s tired.”
    “Or maybe I’m getting old,” she said.
    He hit fast rewind. The motor whirred.
    “Third tape,” he said. “Thursday morning. We’ll do this backward.”
    The player spooled fast. He watched the counter and hit play and the picture came up with an empty office with the timecode burned in over it showing the relevant Thursday’s date and the time at seven fifty-five A . M . He hit forward scan and then froze the picture when the secretary entered the frame at exactly eight o’clock in the morning. He settled in his chair and hit play and the secretary walked into the square area and took off her coat and hung it on the rack. Walked within three feet of Stuyvesant’s door and bent down behind her desk.
    “Stowing her purse,” Neagley said. “On the floor in the footwell.”
    The secretary was a woman of maybe sixty. For a moment she was face-on to the camera. She was a matronly figure. Stern, but kindly. She sat down heavily and hitched her chair in and opened a book on the desk.
    “Checking the diary,” Neagley said.
    The secretary stayed firmly in her chair, busy with the diary. Then she started in on a tall stack of memos. She filed some of them in a drawer and used her rubber stamp on others and moved them right to left across her desk.
    “You ever see so much paperwork?” Reacher said. “Worse than the Army.”
    The secretary broke off from her memo stack twice, to answer the phone. But she didn’t move from her chair. Reacher fast-forwarded until Stuyvesant himself swept into view at ten past eight. He was wearing a dark raincoat, maybe black or charcoal. He was carrying a slim briefcase. He took off his coat and hung it on the rack. Advanced into the square area and the secretary’s head moved like she was speaking to him. He set his briefcase on her desk at an exact angle and adjusted its position. Bent to confer with her. Nodded once and straightened up and stepped to his door without his briefcase and disappeared into his office. The timer ticked off four seconds. Then he was back out in the doorway, calling to his secretary.
    “He found it,” Reacher said.
    “The briefcase thing is weird,” Neagley said. “Why would he leave it?”
    “Maybe he had an early meeting,” Reacher said. “Maybe he left it out there because he knew he was leaving again right away.”
    He fast-forwarded through the next hour. People ducked in and out of the office. Froelich made two trips. Then a forensic team arrived and left twenty minutes later with the letter in a plastic evidence bag. He hit reverse scan. The whole morning’s activity unfolded again, backward. The forensic team left and then arrived, Froelich came out and in twice, Stuyvesant arrived and left, and then his secretary did the same.
    “Now for the boring part,” Reacher said. “Hours and hours of nothing.”
    The picture settled to a steady shot of an empty area with the timer rushing