They knew where they were going.
Then her phone rang yet again. It was Perry, her SAC. Stony, her boss. He said, 'I found out a little more about the victim.'
'That's good,' Sorenson said. 'The guy the State Department sent out wouldn't say a word.'
'Mr Lester? I went over his head. Not that State had much to conceal. Turns out the victim was a trade attache. A salesman, basically. A dealmaker. That's all, really. His job was to oil the wheels for American exporters.'
'Where did he serve?'
'I wasn't told. But they let slip he was an Arabic speaker. Draw your own conclusions.'
'Why was he in Nebraska?'
'No one knows.'
'Business or pleasure?'
'Not business, as far as I can tell. He was on leave between postings.'
'You know that two counterterrorism guys came up from Kansas City?'
'Yes, I heard that. Might mean something. Might not. Those guys are always looking for reasons to freak out. They have a big budget to justify.'
Sorenson said nothing.
Perry said, 'We have a budget to justify too. I hear you made contact with the driver.'
Sorenson said, 'He claims he was a hitchhiker. He claims they dumped him at gunpoint. I'll be meeting with him inside an hour.'
'Good. Arrest him on sight. Homicide, kidnapping, grand theft auto, breaking the speed limit, anything else you can think of. Bring him back here immediately, in handcuffs.'
THIRTY-THREE
SHERIFF VICTOR GOODMAN did the obvious, cautious thing, which was to drive the route between the old pumping station and the farm where the eyewitness lived, which was eleven miles to the north and west of town. On the way out there he drove slowly and paid careful attention to the right-hand shoulder of the road. There was ice here and there. Overall the land was pretty flat, but at a detailed level there were humps and bumps and bad cambers and ragged edges. According to a deputy who knew the guy, the eyewitness drove a well-used Ford Ranger pick-up truck. It was too old for ABS, and assuming it was unloaded it would be light and skittery at the back end. Skids and slides were possible, even likely, because it was late and the guy was probably hurrying. And a skid or a slide at speed could put the guy fifty feet into a field, easily, and maybe even tip him over, if the tyres caught a rut or a furrow. So Goodman used the beam on his windshield pillar, near and far, back and forth, slowing to a walk on the curves, making sure.
He found nothing.
The house the guy lived in was a modest affair. Eighty years previously it might have anchored an independent one-man fifty-acre spread. Now it was a leftover, after two or three rounds of farm consolidations, these days either rented to or provided for a labourer. It had a sagging ridgeline and milky glass in the windows. It was dark and still. Goodman got out of his cruiser and pounded on the door and yelled and hollered.
Then he waited, and three minutes later a dishevelled woman came to the door, in night clothes. The common law wife. No, the guy was not home yet. No, he didn't make a habit of staying out all night. Yes, he always called if he was going to be late. No, she had no idea where he was.
So Goodman got back in his car and drove the same road back to the pumping station, slowly and carefully, using his pillar spot all the way, this time paying close attention to the other shoulder, and watching the first fifty feet of brittle stubble beyond it.
He saw nothing.
So then he drove other routes, in descending order of likelihood. His county was not geographically complicated. The central crossroads created four quadrants, northwest, northeast, southeast, and southwest, each one of them to some varying extent filled in with random ribbons of development. It was conceivable the guy had chosen to thread his way home through an arbitrary and indirect route. Conceivable, but unlikely. Gas was expensive and there was no reason to add unnecessary miles. There was no reason to think the guy had a second lady friend willing to receive a late-night visit. But Goodman was a thorough man, so he checked.
But he found no old Ford Ranger pick-up trucks parked anywhere in the northwestern quadrant. Or in the northeastern quadrant. Or in the southwestern.
The southeastern quadrant was the least likely of all. To get there the guy would have had to turn his back on home, and why would he do that well after midnight? And the southeastern quadrant was mostly commercial, anyway. The two-lane county road leading south was lined on both sides by small strip malls. The road leading east was the same. There were seed merchants and dry goods stores and groceries and gun shops and pawn shops. There was a bank. There was a pharmacy, and a John Deere dealership. All of those establishments closed at five o'clock each afternoon. There was angled street parking in front of the stores, uniformly unoccupied at night, and larger lots behind, mostly empty, and old barns used for storage, all locked up tight.
Sheriff Goodman checked them all anyway. He was a thorough man. He drove slowly south, looking down the alleys between the buildings, then looping back north through the back lots on the right, then going south again and paying attention to the other side of the road, before coming north again through the back lots on the left.
He found nothing. He repeated the same procedure on the road leading east, all the way out into open country and then back again, checking both sides, checking the alleys, checking the storefronts, checking the rear lots.
And there it was.
An old Ford Ranger pick-up truck, parked neatly behind Gus Bantry's hardware store.
Reacher folded the inadequate map and put it in his back pocket. He checked the view out the office window. Still dark. But dawn was coming. He looked at the fat man and said, 'You want to rent me a room?'
The fat man didn't answer.
Reacher said, 'I could give you money and you could give me a key. You could call it running a business.'
The guy responded by stepping out to the well behind the counter and unpinning a notice from the wall. It was a sheet of paper laminated in plastic, with a cursive script and pale inkjet printing spelling out a simple sentence: Management reserves the right to refuse service. The plastic was lightly dusted with gypsum powder, from the bullet hole.
Reacher said, 'I'm the good guy here. You heard me on the phone with the federal authorities. It was an amicable conversation.'
The guy said, 'I can't afford any more trouble.'
'You've had all the trouble you're likely to get tonight. From here on in it's going to be all about an investigation. You could have ten agents here for a week. Or more than ten, or more than a week. How does that compare to your usual winter occupancy?'
The guy paused.
Reacher said, 'OK, we'll all go somewhere else.'
The guy said, 'Forty dollars.'
'Twenty.'
'Thirty.'
'Don't push it. These guys have an office of budgetary responsibility. They see something they don't like, they'll call the IRS, just for fun.'
'Twenty-five dollars.'
'Deal,' Reacher said. He dug in his other back pocket and came out with a wad of crumpled bills. He counted out twenty-five bucks, a ten and two fives and five singles.
The fat man said, 'A week in advance.'
'Don't push it,' Reacher said again.
'OK, two nights.'
Reacher added a twenty and another five. He said, 'I'll take a room in the middle of the row. No neighbours either side.'
'Why?'
'Because I'm a solitary soul.'
The fat man trawled through a drawer and came out with a brass key on a leather fob, which had the number 5 printed in faded gilt on one side, and some mailing instructions on the other. He said, 'You have to sign the register.'
'Why?'
'Iowa law.'
Reacher put himself down as Bill Skowron, who had hit .375 for the Yankees in the World Series just weeks before Reacher was born. The fat man handed over the key and Reacher headed for his room.