Margrave, Georgia
November 2
1:40 p.m.
Gaspar matched Kim’s pace stride for stride. He said, “Eyes and ears everywhere. We’ve got to go.”
Chemical smoke poisoned the air, burning their eyes. Whapping helicopter blades raised the decibel level to painful proportions. News media swarmed, multiplied like wasps. Ambulances, fire rescue, law enforcement, and tow trucks rushed inbound and outbound from all directions. Arriving vehicles slammed to quick stops, sirens wailing, flashing lights bouncing off every solid object, occupants dashing through the chaos. The gathering crowd of civilians provided more cover and confusion.
Kim and Gaspar walked away unnoticed, down the ramp, along the county road’s shoulder, farther and farther from the Chevy’s blackened husk. He breathed hard, but he didn’t slow. Nor did she. They made it to Roscoe’s car. Gaspar pressed the key fob, released the door locks. He went one way and she went the other, peeling apart like wide receivers, and they yanked door handles and slid into the front seats.
Gaspar started the engine, three-point turned, flipped on the bubble light. Kim pulled the power connector to the dash-cam mounted near the windshield. Front audio-video disconnected, but this was a wired state-of-the-art law enforcement vehicle recording every moment. Other devices might still be powered. No termination switch on the instrument panels.
Only one choice. For now. Least said was soonest mended. She put her finger to her lips. Gaspar nodded agreement. He drove south in silence. She held out her hand, palm up.
Gaspar shrugged and fished out the boss’s phantom cell.
She disabled the GPS before shutting it down. She repeated the process on both their personal smart phones. They’d have maybe five to ten minutes of extra breathing room if they needed it. No more.
Plausible deniability was always good.
She saw the sign for the washboard dirt ribbon: Black Road.
She pointed.
Turn here.
Gaspar turned. Rain had tamped down the dust since Monday. They saw the pulverized mailbox that marked the driveway entrance.
Gaspar ignored the house and parked next to the car shack, nose out, for a quick exit.
Gaspar opened Roscoe’s glove box and rooted around. He found four packs of peanuts. The console storage compartment yielded chocolate peanut butter cups. He tossed a half share to Kim and dropped his own share in his pockets. They moved away together and stood under pecan tree canopies in the weedy side yard.
Gaspar poured half a peanut pack into his mouth. Kim ate slowly from her palm. She said, “I want a closer look at that mailbox. Something not right about it.”
Gaspar limped and she walked along the rutted two-track driveway. The quiet of the November country afternoon was punctuated only by nearby bugs and distant crows and scraping soles on gravel. Sunshine warmed the chill.
Gaspar said, “Five minutes on foot to reach the destroyed mailbox.”
“Less if you’re mad and chasing vandals.”
He asked, “Why are we here?”
“I want a private look at things. Hands on.”
He said, “It worries me that I’m beginning to understand you.”
“How’s that?”
“You talked to the boss, didn’t you? We’re working the Black homicide now, and Reacher’s involved. We need to find Sylvia. I can see it in your twitches.”
“Sylvia confessed to killing Harry, but the confession’s hinky. At least as to chronology. Roscoe knows that. And where’s the motive? Not spouse abuse, for sure. No evidence of any kind to support that.”
Gaspar reached into his pocket and pulled out a fragment of scorched paper. “I found this in the grass not far from the Chevy. There were pieces all over the place.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Kim said. She showed him identical burnt fragments from her own pocket. “They were hundred dollar bills.”
Gaspar examined them. “Ragged edges, fibers, rough texture. The real deal. But they’re old. Ben’s face is bigger on new ones.”
“Reacher blew up a Chevy full of cash? Doesn’t make much sense.”
They stopped at the end of the driveway, under a stand of trees all choked by kudzu, and looked at the battered mailbox. Kim swiped her palms together to dust off the peanut salt, and hooked her thumbs in her back pockets. She said, “What’s bugging me about this mailbox is the repeated pounding. Had to make a hell of a racket in all this quiet.”
“Who’s gonna complain? The locusts?”
“Destroying the box is a felony and Harry’s a cop, right? Slugger knows he’ll get prison time and big money fines if Harry catches him, so he makes sure Harry’s not home somehow. Doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?”
“Takes planning. Slugger’s going to a lot of trouble to piss Harry off and all he does is beat the mailbox. Why not burn the house down or at least trash the place?”
“What if they were cooking or dealing at the house, which is how they get a Chevy-full of hundred dollar bills? Slugger was a meth-head?”
“Crazy junky beats mailbox to hell?” Kim shook her head.
“Don’t like it?”
“Why didn’t Harry replace the box?”
“God, I’d hate to live inside your head, Cosette. Does everything bounce around in there like that?”
“Pretty much, la Mancha. It’s a curse.” She shrugged, mocking his favorite physical response.
“So what’s your best guess?”
“I think Sylvia destroyed the box and Harry didn’t care.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure it matters. Why do we care about their mail? They didn’t.”
Kim said, “Exactly. They cared enough at one time to have the mailbox, though. So what changed? Their connection to the postal service was destroyed and neither Harry nor Sylvia fixed it for months, judging by the rust in those cracks. How do they get their mail?”
“Several options, I guess. P.O. Box. Forward to Harry’s office. Whatever.”
“Neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of night stays mail couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
He raised his eyebrow. “You were a mail carrier? You memorized the creed?”
“The postal service doesn’t have a creed,” she said, smiling for the first time since the Chevy exploded. “That was in a Kevin Costner movie. Man, you Chicanos are slow.”
Gaspar laughed out loud and the sound made her feel normal. Almost.
She said, “How about this? The mail is delivered come rain or come shine, but only if there’s a place to leave it. And people aren’t required to provide a box or accept delivery.”
He finished the thought. “So what mail was Sylvia avoiding? Maxed out credit card bills for her high-ticket fashion habit? Wouldn’t be the first woman to spend her husband into bankruptcy. Might explain why she killed him, too, if he found out.”
“Find the mail, find the answer.”
“And how do we do that, Mrs. Einstein?”
She heard helicopters in the distance, pressing her. “We’ve got to get moving, Cheech.” She’d taken a couple of steps along the driveway before she realized he wasn’t following. He’d stepped closer to the box, balanced on a mossy limestone rock, and was peering down into the muck. He said, “I keep telling you, Cheech is Mexican, not Cuban. God, you Germans are dumb.”
“We have to go,” she said. She tapped his arm. And regretted it immediately. The moss on the rock and his bad leg and his poor balance all came together and he slipped into the weedy ditch, on his butt, legs flailing, arms in the air.
“Oh, man,” he said, as the water soaked his trousers.
He looked embarrassed.
She shook her head in mock despair. “You’re hopeless, you know that? Quit screwing around down there. Hubba hubba. We’ve got to go.”
He reached up. “Help me out of here.”
Kim secured her footing. Saw a fat stick floating toward him over the tops of murky ripples. Driftwood, maybe.
Not driftwood.
Gaspar reached up, ready to grasp her wrist.
Kim pulled her Sig and aimed an inch from Gaspar’s heel.
He covered his ears a split second too late.
She fired once. A sound like thunder. Then again. And again, to be certain.
He jerked his right foot back and sat up straight and crossed himself rapidly.
He said, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, are you out of your mind?”
The rattlesnake’s bloody head dangled from a still-wriggling body as big around as Gaspar’s ankle. Precisely three inches from where his right foot had been.
“Pray later,” she said. “That guy’s got friends and family nearby. We have to go.”