Without Fail

work.”
    “Forget the sex,” Reacher said. “Think about the dishevelment. What exactly created that impression for us?”
    Everybody shrugged. Stuyvesant was still pale. Reacher smiled.
    “Something else on the tape,” he said. “Going in, the garbage bag is reasonably empty. Coming out, it’s much fuller. So was there a lot of trash in the office?”
    “No,” Stuyvesant said, like he was offended. “I never leave trash in there.”
    Froelich sat forward. “So what was in the bag?”
    “Trash,” Reacher said.
    “I don’t understand,” Froelich said.
    “Fifteen minutes is a long time, people,” Reacher said. “They worked efficiently and thoroughly in the secretarial area and had it done in nine minutes. That’s a slightly bigger and slightly more cluttered area. Things all over the place. So compare the two areas, compare the complexity, assume they work just as hard everywhere, and tell me how long they should have spent in the office.”
    Froelich shrugged. “Seven minutes? Eight? About that long?”
    Neagley nodded. “I’d say nine minutes, tops.”
    “I like it clean,” Stuyvesant said. “I leave instructions to that effect. I’d want them in there for ten minutes, at least.”
    “But not fifteen,” Reacher said. “That’s excessive. And we asked them about it. We asked them, why so long in there? And what did they say?”
    “They didn’t answer,” Neagley said. “Just looked puzzled.”
    “Then we asked them whether they spent the same amount of time in there every night. And they said yes, they did.”
    Stuyvesant looked to Neagley for confirmation. She nodded.
    “OK,” Reacher said. “We’ve boiled it down. We’re looking at fifteen particular minutes. You’ve all seen the tapes. Now tell me how they spent that time.”
    Nobody spoke.
    “Two possibilities,” Reacher said. “Either they didn’t, or they spent the time growing their hair.”
    “What?” Froelich said.
    “That’s what makes them look disheveled. Julio especially. His hair is a little longer coming out than going in.”
    “How is that possible?”
    “It’s possible because we weren’t looking at one night’s activities. We were looking at two separate nights spliced together. Two halves of two different nights.”
    Silence in the room.
    “Two tapes,” Reacher said. “The tape change at midnight is the key. The first tape is kosher. Has to be, because early on it shows Stuyvesant and his secretary going home. That was the real thing. The real Wednesday. The cleaners show up at eleven fifty-two. They look tired, because maybe that’s the first night in their shift pattern. Maybe they’ve been up all day doing normal daytime things. But it’s been a routine night at work so far. They’re on time. No spilled coffee anywhere, no huge amount of trash anywhere. The garbage bag is reasonably empty. My guess is they had the office finished in about nine minutes. Which is probably their normal speed. Which is reasonably fast. Which is why they were puzzled when we claimed it was slow. My guess is in reality they came out at maybe one minute past midnight and spent another nine minutes on the secretarial station and left the area at ten past midnight.”
    “But?” Froelich asked.
    “But after midnight we were looking at a different night altogether. Maybe from a couple of weeks ago, before the guy got his latest haircut. A night when they arrived in the area later, and therefore left the area later. Because of some earlier snafu in some other office. Maybe some big pile of trash that filled up their bag. They looked more energetic coming out because they were hurrying to catch up. And maybe it was a night in the middle of their work week and they’d adjusted to their pattern and slept properly. So we saw them go in on Wednesday and come out on a completely different night.”
    “But the date was correct,” Froelich said. “It was definitely Thursday’s date.”
    Reacher nodded. “Nendick planned it ahead of time.”
    “Nendick?”
    “Your tape guy,” Reacher said. “My guess is for a whole week he had that particular camera’s midnight-to-six tape set up to show that particular Thursday’s date. Maybe two whole weeks. Because he needed three options. Either the cleaners would be in and out before midnight, or in before midnight and out after midnight, or in and out after midnight. He had to wait to match his options. If they’d been in and out before midnight, he’d have given