"Maybe she wasn't raped at all."
Deveraux said nothing.
"It's possible she wasn't," I said. "Think about it. A sunny afternoon, total privacy. They're sitting out back because they don't want to sit on the front porch with the old biddies watching every move. They're on the stoop, they're feeling good, they get right to it."
"On the lawn?"
"Wouldn't you?"
She looked right at me and said, "Like you told the doctor, it would depend on who I was with."
We spent the next few minutes talking about injuries. I did the thing with my forearm again. I pressed it down and mashed it around. I simulated the throes of passion. I came up with plenty of green chlorophyll stains and a smear of dry stony mud. When I wiped off the dirt we both saw the same kind of small red marks we had seen on Janice May Chapman's corpse. They were superficial and there was no broken skin, but we both agreed Chapman might have been at it longer, and harder, with more weight and force. "We need to go inside again," I said.
We found Chapman's laundry basket in the bathroom. It was a rectangular wicker thing, with a lid. Painted white. On top of the pile inside was a short sundress. It had cap sleeves and was printed with red and white pinstripes. It was rucked and creased at the waist. It had grass stains on the upper back. Next item down in the laundry pile was a hand towel. Then a white blouse.
"No underwear," Deveraux said.
"Evidently," I said.
"The rapist kept a souvenir."
"She wasn't wearing any. Her boyfriend was coming over."
"It's March."
"What was the weather like that day?"
"It was warm," Deveraux said. "And sunny. It was a nice day."
"Rosemary McClatchy wasn't raped," I said. "Nor was Shawna Lindsay. Escalation is one thing. A complete change in MO is another."
Deveraux didn't answer that. She stepped out of the bathroom into the hallway. The center point of the little house. She looked all around. She asked, "What did I miss here? What should be here that isn't?"
"Something more than three years old," I said. "She moved here from somewhere else, and she should have brought things with her. At least a few things. Books, maybe. Or photographs. Maybe a favorite chair or something."
"Twenty-four-year-olds aren't very sentimental."
"They keep some little thing."
"What did you keep when you were twenty-four?"
"I'm different. You're different."
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying she showed up here three years ago out of the blue and brought nothing with her. She bought a house and a car and got a local driver's license. She bought a houseful of new furniture. All for cash. She doesn't have a rich daddy or his picture would be next to the TV in a silver frame. I want to know who she was."
38
I followed Deveraux from room to room while she checked for herself. Paint on the walls, still fresh. Loveseat and armchair in the living room, still new. A recent television set. A fancy VHS player. Even the pots and pans and knives and forks in the kitchen showed no nicks or scratches from long-term use.
There were no clothes in the closet older than a couple of seasons. No old prom dress wrapped in plastic. No old cheerleader outfit. No photographs of family. No keepsakes. No old letters. No softball trophies, no jewelry box with a busted ballerina. No battered stuffed animals preserved from childhood years.
"Does it matter?" Deveraux said. "She was just a random victim, after all."
"She's a loose end," I said. "I don't like loose ends."
"She was already here when I got back to town. I never thought about it. I mean, people come and go all the time. This is America."
"Did you ever hear anything about her background?"
"Nothing."
"No rumors or assumptions?"
"None at all."
"Did she have a job?"
"No."
"Accent?"
"The Midwest, maybe. Or just south of it. The heartland, anyway. I only spoke to her once."
"Did you fingerprint the corpse?"
"No. Why would we? We knew who she was."
"Did you know?"
"Too late now."
I nodded. By now Chapman's skin would be sloughing off her fingers like a soft old glove. It would be wrinkling and tearing like a wet paper bag. I asked, "Do you have a fingerprint kit in the car?"
She shook her head. "Butler does the fingerprinting here. The other deputy. He took a course with the Jackson PD."
"You should get him here. He can take prints from the house."
"They won't all be hers."
"Nine out of ten will be. He should start with the tampon box."
"She won't be on file anywhere. Why would she be? She was a kid. She didn't serve and she wasn't a cop."
I said, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
Deveraux used the radio in her car out in the middle of the turnaround. She had chess pieces to move. Pellegrino had to replace Butler at Kelham's gate. She came back in and said, "Twenty minutes. I have to get back. I have work to do. You wait here. But don't worry. Butler should do it right. He's a reasonably smart guy."
"Smarter than Pellegrino?"
"Everyone is smarter than Pellegrino. My car is smarter than Pellegrino."
I asked, "Will you have dinner with me?"
She said, "I have to work pretty late."
"How late?"
"Nine o'clock, maybe."
"Nine would be fine."
"Are you paying?"
"Absolutely."
She paused a beat.
"Like a date?" she asked.
"We might as well," I said. "There's only one restaurant in town. We'd probably end up eating together anyway."
"OK," she said. "Dinner. Nine o'clock. Thank you."
Then she said, "Don't shave, OK?"
I said, "Why not?"
She said, "You look good like that."
And then she left.
I waited on Janice May Chapman's front porch, in one of her rocking chairs. Both old ladies watched me from across the street. Deputy Butler showed up just inside his allotted twenty minutes. He was in a car like Pellegrino's. He left it where Deveraux had left hers, and unfolded himself from the seat, and stepped around to the trunk. He was a tall guy, and well put together, somewhere in his middle thirties. He had long hair for a cop, and a square, solid face. First glance, he wouldn't be the easiest guy in the world to manage. But maybe not impossible.
He took a black plastic box out of his trunk and walked up Chapman's driveway toward me. I got out of my chair and held out my hand. Always better to be polite. I said, "Jack Reacher. I'm pleased to meet you."
He said, "Geezer Butler."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
"You play bass guitar?"
"Like I haven't heard that one before."
"Was your dad a Black Sabbath fan?"
"My mom too."
"Are you?"
He nodded. "I've got all their records."
I led him inside. He stood in the hallway, looking around. I said, "The challenge here is to get her prints and no one else's."
"To avoid confusion?" he said.
No, I thought. To avoid a Bravo Company guy lighting up the system. Better safe than sorry.
I said, "Yes, to avoid confusion."