Jack the Reaper, page 6
“Sounds odd,” Brewer frowned. “What’s the job?”
“Truth is, we don’t know. It’s classified above our clearance level.” Otto sipped the coffee and felt the snake in her stomach thrash, residuals of the morning’s madness. The bagel should take care of that for a while.
“So you’re just a couple of pencil pushers wasting my time?” Brewer stared across the table like a pugnacious bulldog ready to bite.
She shrugged. She’d told Brewer the truth. Early on, she’d wanted to know everything about the job Reacher was being fitted for. Now, she found her ignorance was useful for encounters exactly like this one.
“That’s crap, and we all know it.” Brewer’s fuse was lit, and he wasn’t about to let the question slide. “How’d you get onto me as a source?”
“The way it works is our boss identifies the sources, and we gather the intel. You don’t know why your name would have come up in connection with Reacher?” The sources always knew more than Otto and Gaspar did, whether they were willing to admit it or not. No reason to pretend otherwise with a guy who was already pissed off.
The waitress returned with their breakfast, which halted the conversation for a few moments. When she left again, Gaspar dug into his food.
Otto shook her head. Nothing seemed to faze her partner. He was sleepy, he slept. Hungry, he ate. From all she’d learned about him, Reacher was the same way. Maybe it was a man thing.
“Detective Brewer, what can you tell us about Reacher?” She picked up the toasted bagel slathered with dripping butter and melting cream cheese and dropped it instantly.
Brewer smirked when she sucked the burning fat from her fingers. “Like I said, not much to tell.”
“Tell us anyway,” Gaspar said amiably between bites. “We’re in a new era of inter-agency cooperation. All for one and one for all. Haven’t you heard?”
“Yeah. And when my boss tells me to cooperate, I follow orders. But you didn’t even ask him, did you?” Brewer glared across the table for a few moments.
“We can go through channels,” Otto said reasonably. “I guess we had the impression you wouldn’t want us to explain this situation to your boss.”
Brewer’s silent glare lingered until curiosity or something else got the better of him. “Okay, I met Reacher a while back. Thinking about it while I was waiting for you, seems like it was late summer. Year before last. Say fifteen, sixteen months ago. Talked to him four or five times, I guess. No more than that. He told me he was looking into an old homicide.”
“See? Not so hard, right?” Otto nodded. “What did you tell Reacher?”
“Nothing.” Brewer shrugged. “The case wasn’t NYPD jurisdiction, so I didn’t have anything useful to offer. I pointed him in the right direction, and that was pretty much it.”
Gaspar was shoveling food into his mouth like a man just released from captivity. He swallowed and swilled the coffee before he asked, “If you had nothing to do with the homicide case, why did Reacher approach you?”
“He got my name from a witness. He was just getting started with his investigation. You know how that is, right? We kiss a lot of frogs in this business before we find anything useful sometimes.”
Gaspar nodded and went back to sopping up the egg yolks with the pancakes. His entire plate looked disgusting. Otto wrapped her burned fingers around the cool water glass and pushed the bagel aside. Gaspar kept eating.
“You said you pointed Reacher in the right direction,” Otto said. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing complicated. The witness who gave Reacher my name was a friend. She wanted me to help him out. So I pointed him to the retired FBI agent who handled the original case. Figured she could fill in the blanks for him.”
Otto nodded. “And that would be Lauren Pauling?”
Brewer’s eyes widened briefly as if he hadn’t expected them to know. “That’s right. She’s a private investigator now. Office over on West Fourth Street.”
“We’re on our way to her next,” Gaspar said.
Otto considered why the Boss had sent them to Brewer. If he’d had as little to do with Reacher as he claimed, the Boss would have known that, wouldn’t he?
So there was something more here.
“How many times did you say you met with Reacher?”
“More than once. Less than ten times. Hell, probably less than five.” Brewer shrugged. “I didn’t count. The contact was pretty casual.”
“What was the case about? The one he was interested in?”
“I told you. An old homicide.”
“How old?”
“About five years at the time, I think. Maybe seven or so now. It wasn’t my case.”
“So you said.” Otto cocked her head. “Why wasn’t it your case?”
“Originally, it was a kidnapping, which is FBI jurisdiction. So we weren’t involved. Which meant we didn’t have a file. When the kidnapping became a homicide, they found the body on the other side of the George Washington bridge, in New Jersey, and figured she’d been killed there.” He tapped his fingers on the laminated table. “Again, not NYPD jurisdiction. So we didn’t have a file on the homicide case to look at or show Reacher, either. We weren’t much help. Which is what I told him.”
“Five meetings? To say what you just told us in five sentences?” Otto waited, but Brewer merely nodded. “You knew the witness, you said. Who was that?”
“The homicide victim’s sister. That’s how Reacher got on to her. Like I said, she was a friend. She’s the one who sent him to me.” He paused. “But again, I didn’t have anything to offer him, so he moved on to Pauling.”
“Why was Reacher interested in this old homicide?” Otto asked.
Brewer’s gaze dropped, and he squirmed a little in his chair. He cleared his throat. “I guess you’d have to ask him.”
“What was the victim’s name?”
Brewer seemed to be thinking about it. “You know, I’ve tried to remember the name. But no luck.” He shook his head.
There was more there, but she figured Brewer wouldn’t say until she had some sort of incentive or a pressure point to exploit. Both of those techniques worked better with an element of surprise. If she pushed harder now, he might clam up even worse. She’d circle back. Maybe his memory would improve.
Otto nodded. “When and where was the last time you saw Reacher?”
Brewer’s eyes widened as if he’d just this moment remembered. “I think it was right here. He was sitting in this very spot.”
Otto held her temper, even though the guy was jerking them around and they both knew it. What she didn’t know was why. “And your friend, the witness. Where is she now?”
“She moved to Washington State.”
“We’ll need her contact information.” A demand, not a question.
He paused like he might refuse, but then he reached into his pocket for his cell phone and pulled up a contact and handed the phone to Otto. “Email it to yourself.”
The woman’s name was new to Otto. Patti Joseph had not been referenced in the data contained on the Boss’s thumb drive. Which could mean Ms. Joseph was not relevant here. Briefly, Otto wondered why not. She handed the phone back.
“What was the homicide victim’s name, again? Your friend’s sister.”
Brewer closed his eyes and tilted his chin as if a thorough memory search was required. “Sorry. I’m still drawing a blank. It was a short name. Kind of old fashioned. Not Madison or Ashley or one of those newer ones.” His eyebrows shot up. “Ask Pauling. She’ll know.”
“Because it was her case. Yeah, you said that.” Otto watched his eyes.
Maybe he’d been more interested in the victim’s sister than he let on. Maybe that’s why he conveniently didn’t remember the homicide victim’s name, too.
Or maybe he was lying. But why would he bother to lie for a guy he only met a few times?
“What was your sense of Reacher?” she asked, changing tack.
Brewer frowned and cocked his head. “My sense of him?”
“Yeah,” Otto said. “I’ve never met the man, and you have. You’re a cop. You’re used to sizing people up pretty quickly. Did he seem like a reliable guy to you?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Brewer nodded and leaned closer across the table. He lowered his voice, which made Otto wary. First, he was all suspicious, and now he wanted to share confidences? “Honestly, I don’t know. And that’s one of the reasons I remember the whole situation.”
“What do you mean?” Gaspar asked.
“Because I didn’t know. Sometimes I’m wrong. But I always have a gut feeling, and it’s usually solid. With Reacher, I didn’t know. Could have gone either way.” Brewer raised his eyebrows, extended his hand, flipped his palm over and back a couple of times. “On the one hand, he was one of the most controlled guys I’ve ever been around. Wrapped a little too tight, but not likely to react without thinking.”
“And yet?” Otto prompted when he paused a bit too long.
He flipped his palm over again. “I had the feeling that the smallest little thing might push his buttons. Like with the right provocation, he might do almost anything. Like he wouldn’t be the least concerned with the law or the consequences.”
Brewer sat back and exhaled a long breath. “And if he was provoked? Well, I’d be careful. My sense of Reacher was he seemed like the kind of guy who would always be the last man standing.”
The words struck a deep chord with Otto, and she felt her nerves begin to hum with low voltage electricity like a weak Taser shot surging through her body.
Reacher’s history, what little she knew of it, reflected a life of spectacular violence.
She recalled his army service records. Thirteen years. He’d seen combat, sure. Lots of medals, and a difficult career path, filled with ups and downs.
Military police. Special Investigative Unit. Ended with an honorable discharge, but a lot earlier than a guy like Reacher would typically retire. Suggesting he’d been coerced to go early, for undisclosed reasons.
In the course of his job as an army cop, the number of battered and broken men he’d left behind was surpassed only by the number of dead ones, and many of them were not enemies left on the battle field.
Brewer had nailed Reacher’s army days. Spot on.
Whatever needed to be done, Reacher did it. Cop, judge, jury, and executioner. Always the last man standing. Never a drop of conscience or remorse.
Precisely.
Gaspar finished sopping up every last drop of the gooey yellow egg puddle on his plate. He eyed Otto’s bagel. “Are you going to eat that?”
She pushed it toward him. The man was a bottomless pit. Where did he put all the food? None of it piled up on his bones, for sure. He could double as a scarecrow if his FBI gig didn’t work out.
He made short work of the bagel and finished the coffee and pushed back from the table. Otto and Brewer both shook their heads.
Brewer laughed. “I haven’t seen anybody eat like that since I coached high school football. Man, those teenagers could pack it away.”
Gaspar smiled. “Were you in the army, Brewer?”
Brewer nodded. “Eat when you can. Sleep when you can.”
“Exactly,” Gaspar said. He pulled out a couple of bills and tossed them on the table for the waitress.
“Thanks for your help. We’ll follow up with Pauling,” Otto’s voice quivered slightly. Probably from too much coffee and adrenaline and too little sleep or food. She stood and collected her bags. “We’ll call you if we need anything else.”
“You do that.” Brewer’s tone implied he’d be a lot less interested in taking their calls in the future.
They shook hands and just as Brewer turned to head toward the men’s room, Otto said, “One more thing.”
“Yes?” He turned back.
“When Reacher was here. In the city. Where was he staying?”
Brewer’s face flushed and he seemed momentarily flustered. “Staying?”
“An apartment? Friends? A hotel?”
“I’m not sure. I think he had a friend with a place at the Dakota on Central Park West. Pauling will know. She spent a lot more time with him than I did.” He waved them off and continued toward the men’s room.
Otto watched his broad back for a moment, wondering which part of that answer was the lie, and added it to the list of things she’d ask him next time. When she had some leverage. Because he definitely knew more than he’d admitted.
She led the way out, carrying her bags along the tight space between tables, with Gaspar trailing behind.
While Gaspar waved down a taxi, Otto waited near the building, away from the wind. She glanced around. A few pedestrians picked their way through the treacherous sidewalk, headed one way or the opposite direction. Lighter than usual New York City traffic inched along the street.
Which meant she had a partially obstructed view of a guy sitting behind the wheel of a dark sedan parked across the street. His chin rested on his chest. He was reading something in his lap. She glimpsed only his profile between passing vehicles.
Her breath caught painfully in her chest.
She shook her head to clear the fanciful thought that had popped to mind. This guy couldn’t possibly be Reacher. Not if he’d been in Detroit a few hours ago. Get a grip.
Otto pulled out her phone and called Lauren Pauling Investigations. Pauling’s business office was within walking distance, but with the bags and the sidewalks covered with snow and ice, a taxi was a better option.
The phone rang several times before voice mail picked up. “This is Lauren Pauling,” said a low and husky voice. It sounded like she’d been recovering from laryngitis for the past thirty years. “I’m sorry I’m not available to take your call. Leave me a message, and I’ll call you back.”
Otto hung up. Pauling’s office was a one-woman operation. She might be there, maybe with a client, or she could be out.
A taxi finally pulled up to the curb in front of the coffee shop. Gaspar came back to help with the bags. Otto felt a little twinge of déjà vu as the bags were stowed in the trunk and they settled into the back seat.
“Where to?” the driver asked. He spoke perfect English, with a slight British accent. She guessed his ethnicity was a former colony of the empire.
Otto considered the choices briefly. They were closer to Pauling’s office, so she gave him the address on West Fourth Street. If Pauling wasn’t there, they’d try her home.
The only other slim lead they had were the nameless friends Reacher had bunked with while he was in the city back then. Brewer said an apartment in the Dakota, which had been standing at the corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West for more than a hundred years. It would wait.
When the taxi pulled into the flow of traffic, Otto explained the unanswered phone call to Pauling and her backup plan to her partner.
“Do we know for sure that Pauling’s actually in the city somewhere?” Gaspar asked.
Otto frowned. “The Boss wouldn’t have sent us here otherwise.”
“You still have that much faith in the guy, huh? After everything?” He smirked and wagged his head in mock consternation. “I’ve got another fifty bucks if you want to wager.”
Otto shrugged off the fool’s bet and Gaspar laughed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Thursday, January 13
11:35 a.m.
New York City
Parnell found his cell phone and redialed the little twerp’s number. The phone rang several times and went to voice mail. The coward. He was probably standing right there, afraid to pick up. Parnell’s lip curled.
He calmed his tone to coax the spineless idiot from his hiding place. “Simon, this is Fred Kern. I know you’re busy and I’m sorry to bother you. But I’m afraid the key you gave me won’t open the door to the apartment.”
The dweeb picked up. What a fool. “Oh, Mr. Kern. I was on the other line. What? It’s the wrong key?”
“I should have looked at it while you were still here. It’s actually the key to the apartment above this one on the sixth floor.” Parnell’s right hand fisted so tight he felt his own pulse. “Could I trouble you to bring the correct key down for me? I’ve got a meeting I must attend, and I’m running short on time.”
“Um, sure. I’ll be right down.” His voice squeaked, and he coughed to cover up his nerves. “But, uh, I’m on my way out with some friends, so could you meet me at the elevator again?”
Parnell could almost smell the sweat rolling off him. “Of course. Sorry to trouble you.”
He ended the call before Peck could come up with any further excuses. Parnell walked to the elevator and, with gloved hands in his pockets, leaned against the wall out of sight of any passengers inside the elevator with Peck.
He didn’t wait long. When the elevator arrived, and the door opened, he heard Peck and at least two other males inside. They were laughing and horsing around. Parnell stood at ease, leaning against the wall.
Peck stuck his head out and looked left first, then right. He spotted Parnell. “I have the master key here, Mr. Kern, but the one I gave you is the only key I have for that apartment.”
Parnell heard Peck’s friends talking. No one glanced out to get a good look at Parnell, he was fairly certain. Which meant he wouldn’t need to kill them, possibly.
“Bring the master along and try it for me,” Parnell tilted his head toward the honey colored door around the corner. He turned and took a few steps in that direction.
One of Peck’s friends had pressed the button to hold the elevator door open, which triggered a loud bell of objection from the elevator’s security system. Without turning around, Parnell raised his voice to be heard over the bell and said, “You guys go on down. He’ll meet you there later.”
The loud bell sounded again. Peck glanced at his friends. One said, “Go on, Simon. We’ll get a head start. You can catch up.”
When Peck didn’t move, and the bell sounded louder, longer, one of the men gave him a little shove toward the open door and said, “Work comes first.”
