Worth Dying For

energy but no vigour.
    Reacher headed back to the kitchen and found the doctor washing his hands in the sink and the woman brushing her hair without the help of a mirror. He asked her, ‘You OK now?’
    She said, ‘Not too bad,’ slow and nasal and indistinct.
    ‘Your husband’s not here?’
    ‘He decided to go out for dinner. With his friends.’
    ‘What’s his name?’
    ‘His name is Seth.’
    ‘And what’s your name?’
    ‘My name is Eleanor.’
    ‘You been taking aspirin, Eleanor?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Because Seth does this a lot?’
    She paused a long, long time, and then she shook her head.
    ‘I tripped,’ she said. ‘On the edge of the rug.’
    ‘More than once, all in a few days? The same rug?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’d change that rug, if I were you.’
    ‘I’m sure it won’t happen again.’
    They waited ten minutes in the kitchen while she went upstairs to take a shower and change. They heard the water run and stop and heard her call down that she was OK and on her way to bed. So they left. The front door clicked behind them. The doctor staggered to the car and dumped himself in the passenger seat with his bag between his feet. Reacher started up and reversed down the driveway to the road. He spun the wheel and hit the gas and took off, back the way they had come.
    ‘Thank God,’ the doctor said.
    ‘That she was OK?’
    ‘No, that Seth Duncan wasn’t there.’
    ‘I saw his picture. He doesn’t look like much to me. I bet his dog’s a poodle.’
    ‘They don’t have a dog.’
    ‘Figure of speech. I can see a country doctor being worried about getting in the middle of a domestic dispute where the guy drinks beer and wears a sleeveless T-shirt and has a couple of pit bull terriers in the yard, with broken-down appliances and cars. But apparently Seth Duncan doesn’t.’
    The doctor said nothing.
    Reacher said, ‘But you’re scared of him anyway. So his power comes from somewhere else. Financial or political, maybe. He has a nice house.’
    The doctor said nothing.
    Reacher asked, ‘Was it him?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You know that for sure?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And he’s done it before?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How many times?’
    ‘A lot. Sometimes it’s her ribs.’
    ‘Has she told the cops?’
    ‘We don’t have cops. We depend on the county. They’re usually sixty miles away.’
    ‘She could call.’
    ‘She’s not going to press charges. They never do. If they let it go the first time, that’s it.’
    ‘Where does a guy like Duncan go to eat dinner with his friends?’
    The doctor didn’t answer, and Reacher didn’t ask again.
    The doctor said, ‘Are we heading back to the lounge?’
    ‘No, I’m taking you home.’
    ‘Thanks. That’s good of you. But it’s a long walk back to the motel.’
    ‘Your problem, not mine,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m keeping the car. You can hike over and pick it up in the morning.’
    Five miles south of the motel the doctor stared all over again at the three old houses standing alone at the end of their driveway, and then he faced front and directed Reacher left and right and left along the boundaries of dark empty fields to a new ranch house set on a couple of flat acres bounded by a post-and-rail fence.
    ‘Got your key?’ Reacher asked him.
    ‘On the ring.’
    ‘Got another key?’
    ‘My wife will let me in.’
    ‘You hope,’ Reacher said. ‘Goodnight.’
    He watched the doctor stumble through the first twenty feet of his driveway and then he K-turned and threaded back to the main north-south two-lane. If in doubt turn left, was his motto, so he headed north a mile and then he pulled over and thought. Where would a guy like Seth Duncan go for dinner with his friends?

FIVE
    A STEAKHOUSE , WAS R EACHER ’ S CONCLUSION . A RURAL AREA , FARM country, a bunch of prosperous types playing good-old-boy, rolling their sleeves, loosening their ties, ordering a pitcher of domestic beer, getting sirloins cooked rare, smirking about the coastal pussies who worried about cholesterol. Nebraska counties were presumably huge and thinly populated, which could put thirty or more miles between restaurants. But the night was dark and steakhouses always had lit signs. Part of the culture. Either the word
Steakhouse
in antique script along the spine of the roof, all outlined in neon, or an upmarket name-board all blasted with spotlights.
    Reacher killed his headlights and climbed out of the Subaru and grabbed one of the roof rails and stepped up on the