“Are you carrying a—”
“The question was clear. I want to know why you posed it.”
Sensing tension, a few stragglers eyed them while pretending not to.
“We’d like you to come with us,” Dupreau said, voice lowered a hair.
“No.”
“I’m afraid we must insist.” Dupreau, steely.
“I’m afraid I must decline.” Brennan, steelier.
Dupreau withdrew a photo from one navy pocket and handed it to her. A beat to indicate annoyance, then she glanced down at the image.
The subject was male, white, probably midforties. His hair was center parted and held back with a binder. Black plastic-framed glasses sat low on his nose. A camera hung from his neck. He looked like a middle-aged uncle who enjoyed shooting wildflowers in his spare time.
Brennan’s eyes rolled up, one brow cocked in question.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know him,” Dupreau said.
“I don’t know him,” Brennan said.
Dupreau’s gaze cut to his partner. Szewczk wagged his head slowly, clearly disappointed.
“Lose the theatrics,” Brennan said. “Who is he?”
“Jonathan Yeow,” Dupreau said. “Until yesterday, an investigative reporter with the Washington Post.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Yesterday, Yeow’s house cleaner found him in his kitchen, asphyxiated with a plastic bag over his head.” Delivered with an impressive level of disgust. “Murdered.”
“I’m sorry for the man’s misfortune.” Handing back the photo. “But his death has nothing to do with me.”
“Au contraire.” Flick of a smile, no humor. “Your prints were on the plastic bag.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Let’s go.” Dupreau’s tone now carried an aggressive edge.
“May I phone my attorney?”
“I definitely would.”
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1320 EST
THE D.C. METRO PD STATION to which she was transported was on Indiana Avenue in northwest Washington. It was a solid concrete bunker in a neighborhood of solid concrete bunkers, some more so than others. Small red plaza out front, swatches of lawn that would look better come summer, ditto the few optimistic trees. Old-timey lampposts. Droopy flags.
They parked her in an interview room containing the usual table, chairs, wall phone, two-way mirror, and audio-video recording equipment. An hour of fuming, then the door opened and a woman entered. She wore her hair drawn back in a very tight bun, a black pantsuit, size elf, and sensible pumps. Her briefcase said lawyer. Her visitor tag said V. Luong.
Brennan had explained the situation by phone. They got straight to it. As Brennan talked, Luong listened, ears sharp. Attorney ears. Now and then she asked a question.
“You’re certain you’ve never met Mr. Yeow?”
“Absolutely. But I know the connection these yaks have jumped on. Yeow was investigating a suicide that occurred back in the eighties. A man named Calder Massee.”
Luong’s eyes rounded in surprise. “The air force bird colonel who shot himself in Germany?”
“Yes. Massee was discovered dead in his car behind the Hotel Bremerhof in the town of Kaiserslautern in March of 1987. The coroner’s ruling was death by self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
“Who performed the autopsy?”
“A German pathologist.”
“Were you even out of grad school in ’87?”
“Just. But I wasn’t involved in the original analysis.”
Brennan worked the keys on her laptop. Which she’d managed to retain thanks to Luong’s intervention.
“The Massee family went ballistic. They insisted the suicide finding was a cover-up because Calder had been wrongly accused in an espionage case. They claimed he’d been shot in the back of the head, execution style. Said they had an eyewitness to prove it.”
“I remember this.” Luong was jotting notes on a yellow legal pad. “Some relatives were very adept at working the media.”
“That’s an understatement. They called press conferences, volunteered for interviews, appeared on every talk and news show airing at the time.”
“So where do you come in?”
“Massee had three brothers. The youngest was obsessed. After the media lost interest, he took out ads, wrote op-ed pieces, set up blogs and Internet pages, put pressure on his senator and congressman, you know the drill. Over the years, every conspiracy theorist on the planet joined in the fight to have the case reopened. Long story short, in 2012, a government commission was formed. I was recruited to direct an exhumation and examine the remains.”
Brennan double-clicked to open a document. A header gave a case file number, date, and the name Calder Massee.
“This was my final report to the commission.” Scrolling down. “I won’t bore you with the details. Take a look at these images.”
The first was an anterior view of a skull. Brennan pointed to what had once been the nose.
“Note how the midfacial region is fragmented.” Moving her finger to the forehead. “The radial fracturing on the frontal bone.”
New image.
“This is a close-up of the roof of the mouth. Note the blue-green staining on what remains of the palatine process of the maxilla.”
“I see it.”
“That’s due to copper oxidation.”
“The bullet was copper jacketed.”
“Yes. On its path through the head, a tiny sliver broke off, lodged, and oxidized there.”
Brennan moved on to the teeth.
“This shows the lingual, or tongue side of the upper dental arcade. Note the cracked first molar and the dark areas on that tooth and the one beside it. The discoloration was caused by heat when the gun discharged.”
The fourth image showed a hole in the crown of the skull.
“That defect was created when the bullet left Massee’s head. Note that the exit point is high on the crown.”
Tight shot.
“Note that the edges of the defect are beveled on the skull’s outer surface. That means the defect is an exit hole.”
Brennan leaned back. Gestured at the screen.
“The pattern is consistent with trauma resulting from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
“Or someone shoved a gun in Massee’s mouth and pulled the trigger.” Luong, playing devil’s advocate.
“Doubtful. The bullet trajectory was straight up and out the top, so Massee’s head wasn’t moving. Also, there were powder burns on his right hand and no drugs in his system.”
“Why is the lack of drugs significant?”
“Massee was a big guy. Hard to stick a muzzle in a big guy’s mouth if he doesn’t want it there.”
“Which I suspect he did not.” Luong flipped a page. “So your opinion corroborated the original coroner’s report.”
“Yes.”
“The brother wasn’t happy.”
“No.”
“What does all this have to do with Yeow?”
“According to Dupreau and Szewczk, Yeow was working on a story that would prove my analysis was flawed. That I was either inept or bribed.”
“So you killed him to save your reputation.”
“That’s their theory.”
Luong thought about that.
Then, “Why were your prints on the plastic bag?”
“I have no idea.”
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1830 EST
JACK REACHER WALKED OUT OF the Baltimore bus depot into a world of frozen streets and dirty snow. The sun was weak and watery and very low in the sky. He headed toward it, west, down a wide street, on the traffic side of a high berm of plowed snow, with his thumb out. Every car passed him by. Which he expected. Hitching rides in town was hard. Especially Baltimore. He would do better when he got to the highway ramp. His goal was I-95 South, for however many hundreds of miles it took to get fifty degrees warmer. Maybe as far as Miami. Or all the way to Key West. He had been there before. Always had a good time. Except it was the end of the line. Which meant the only way to leave was to double back. Which he didn’t like. He preferred forward motion.