‘You’re not dressed like a Mormon.’
‘So you go knock on the door. Just in case. If he’s there, tell him you’re a Mormon who is coincidentally also in the snow-plough business, and you want to talk to him about insurance against global warming.’
The truck moved on. The track ran through the wooded slopes five more miles, always rough, with deep baked ruts in places, and worn gravel, and flat rocks the size of tables. The Land Cruiser nodded from side to side, and soldiered on. All the way through a final curve, and up a sudden sharp rise, to a stadium-sized plateau, full of trees, except for a home site set about a third of the way in. It had a long low log house, with wide porches all around, all in the centre of a slightly tended acre, behind an informal fence made up of posts and rails twisted and greyed by the wind and the weather. Bramall drove in, and parked a respectful distance from the house. There were tatters of crime scene tape on the porch rails either side of the entrance. As if at one time the house was roped off.
‘This wasn’t the crime scene,’ Bramall said. ‘The guy died in the woods.’
‘He was found in the woods,’ Reacher said. ‘Maybe the sheriff thought that was a whole different thing entirely. We know he searched here. He found a car with a lot of miles, and ten grand in the closet.’
‘Where is Billy right now?’
‘Why worry about him?’
‘I’m not. But you should. Scorpio was ordering a homicide.’
‘Billy’s not here. What are the odds? Plus he didn’t get the message. He doesn’t know Scorpio gave me Porterfield’s name. So why would he come here to Porterfield’s house? What were the odds we would ever find it anyway? Who knew the old post office guy was so good at guessing distances? Billy is somewhere else and this place is empty.’
‘OK,’ Bramall said.
He got out of the car and went to knock on the door.
A purposeful stride.
Reacher saw him knock, and he heard the sound, loud and clear, a fraction delayed by the distance, like a mismatched movie soundtrack.
He saw Bramall step back politely.
No one came to the door.
No movement anywhere.
Bramall knocked again.
The same no reaction.
He walked back and got in the truck, and said, ‘This place is empty.’
Reacher said, ‘How do you feel about going in?’
‘It’s all closed up.’
‘We could break a window.’
‘Legally we have to ask ourselves if the county owns it now. Which it might, officially. Because of the unpaid taxes. Breaking into county property is a big step. You can’t fight city hall.’
‘Maybe you smelled a suspicious smell, or thought you heard something. Like a despairing cry. The kind of thing that would justify a warrantless search. Did you?’
‘No,’ Bramall said.
‘You’re retired,’ Reacher said. ‘You don’t have to stick to FBI bullshit any more.’
‘What would be the army approach? Set the place on fire?’
‘No, that would be the Marine Corps approach. The army would conduct a careful survey of the exterior, and by great good fortune would discover a pane of glass previously broken by persons unknown, at a previous time, maybe long ago, or even just recently, which if true would reasonably suggest an ongoing emergency inside, which in turn would justify a good look around. I don’t think the Supreme Court could argue with that.’
‘Previously broken either recently or a long time ago?’
‘Obviously any sounds you hear in real time will be me, accidently stepping on previously broken glass left lying on the porch ever since the unknown previous incident. That can sound very like a freshly breaking window. It’s a common illusion.’
‘That’s a standard FBI trick too. We weren’t all bullshit.’
‘Some of you came to us for training.’
‘And some of you came to us.’
‘I’m going to conduct a careful survey,’ Reacher said.
He got out of the car.
EIGHTEEN
IT WAS A big house, but an easy survey, because the porch ran all the way around the structure, flat and level and true, and it served up all the first-floor doors and windows at a convenient height for inspection. Reacher started at the front, with the door Bramall had knocked on, which was a solid wooden affair, locked tight, and way too much effort to break down. So he moved on, to a hallway window, which would have taken no effort at all to get through, except it was on the front of the house, and even in the uninhabited middle of nowhere some ancient part of his brain sounded a warning. The front was never good. Not during, and not even afterwards. Why leave after-action evidence in plain view? Not that there would be much. A discreet punched-out hole in the glass, about the size of a big man’s elbow, and a slit insect screen rippling in the breeze. That would be all. Not much. But maybe enough to catch a passer-by’s eye. Always safer if that kind of thing happened later, not sooner, for all kinds of reasons.
The back was better.
Reacher walked down the side of the house, past five more windows all the same as the front. Which made it likely the windows in back would be all the same, too. Some kind of a unifying design theme. Or some kind of a big discount for a bulk purchase. But either way was good news. Windows like that were easy.
He turned the corner, and the first window he came to was broken.
It had a hole punched through it, about the size of a big man’s elbow.
The insect screen was slit.
The broken glass was dirty, and the screen was mildewed. A year, maybe more. At least four seasons of wind and weather. Inside was a kitchen. Countertops that should have been shiny were dull with dust. Beyond the kitchen was a dining area, all gloom and shadows.
He walked the long way around the porches, and back to the car. Bramall had gotten out again. He was standing in a no-man’s-land patch of dirt about thirty feet from the house.
Reacher said, ‘I found a busted window.’
‘Nicely done,’ Bramall said. ‘I didn’t hear a thing.’
‘For real. An actual busted window. Previously broken by persons unknown. A year or more ago, by the look of it. Exactly how we would have done it.’
‘Show me,’ Bramall said.
Reacher led him along the front porch, and the side porch, and around the corner to the back. Bramall took a good long look. He seemed impressed by the mildew. He said, ‘A year at least. Let’s say a year and a half. Why not? Let’s say this happened right after Porterfield died. Was it the sheriff? You told me he searched the place.’
‘The sheriff had the keys,’ Reacher said. ‘He found them in Porterfield’s pocket. That’s how they identified him, along with his teeth. So the sheriff didn’t need to break in. This was someone else, who didn’t have the keys.’
‘Squatters, maybe.’
‘They wouldn’t bust the kitchen window. The kitchen is a room they would want to use. They would have bust a window somewhere else.’
‘Ordinary burglars, then.’
‘Possible. We’ll know by how much mess they made.’