"Same reason you chased the yahoos away," Munro said. "I'm trying to get the job done."
"In what way?"
"I checked out the other two women you mentioned. There were FYI memos in the XO's files. Then I cross-referenced bits and pieces of information I picked up along the way. It seems like Captain Riley is something of a ladies' man. Since he got here he's had a string of girlfriends longer than my dick. It's likely both Janice Chapman and Shawna Lindsay were on the list. I want to see if Rosemary McClatchy will make it three for three."
"That's why I'm here, too."
"Great minds think alike," Munro said. "Or fools never differ."
"Did you bring his picture?"
He unbuttoned his right breast pocket, just below his name. He pulled out a slim black notebook and opened it and slid a photograph from between its pages. He handed it to me, arm's length across the transmission tunnel.
Captain Reed Riley. The first time I had seen his face. The photograph was in color, possibly taken for a passport or some other civilian document that prohibited headgear or other visual obstructions. He looked to be in his late twenties. He was broad but chiseled, somewhere halfway between bulky and slender. He was tan and had very white teeth, some of which were on display behind an easy grin. He had brown hair buzzed short, and wise empty eyes creased at the corners with webs of fine lines. He looked steady, competent, hard, and full of shit. He looked exactly like every infantry captain I had ever seen.
I handed the picture back, arm's length across the transmission tunnel.
I said, "We'll be lucky to get a definitive ID. I bet all Rangers look the same to old Mrs. McClatchy."
"Only one way to find out," Munro said, and opened his door. I got out on my side and waited while he looped around the stubby hood. He said, "I'll tell you something else that came up with the cross-referencing. Something you might like to know. Sheriff Deveraux is not a lesbian. She's a notch on Riley's bedpost too. Apparently they were dating less than a year ago."
And then he walked on ahead of me, to Emmeline McClatchy's door.
Emmeline McClatchy opened up after Munro's second knock. She greeted us with polite reserve. She remembered me from before. She paid close attention as Munro introduced himself, and then she invited us inside, to a small room that had two wooden wheelback chairs either side of a fireplace, and a rag rug on the floor. The ceiling was low and the dimensions were cramped and the air smelled of cooked food. There were three framed photographs on the wall. One was Martin Luther King, and one was President Clinton, and the third was Rosemary McClatchy, from the same series as the picture I had seen in the Sheriff's Department's file, but possibly even more spectacular. A friend with a camera, one roll of film, a sunny afternoon, a frame, a hammer, and a nail, and that was all that was left of a life.
Emmeline and I took the chairs by the fireplace and left Munro standing on the rug. In the tiny room he looked as big as I felt, and just as awkward, and just as clumsy, and just as alien. He took the photograph from his pocket again and held it face down against his chest. He said, "Mrs. McClatchy, we need to ask you about your daughter Rosemary's friends."
Emmeline McClatchy said, "My daughter Rosemary had lots of friends."
Munro said, "In particular one young man from the base she might have been seeing."
"Seeing?"
"Stepping out with. Dating, in other words."
"Let me see the picture."
Munro bent down and handed it over. She held it this way and that in the light from the window. She studied it. She asked, "Is this man suspected of killing the white girl?"
Munro said, "We're not sure. We can't rule him out."
"Nobody brought pictures to me when Rosemary was killed. Nobody brought pictures to Mrs. Lindsay when Shawna was killed. Why is that?"
Munro said, "Because the army made a bad mistake. There's no excuse for it. All I can say is it would have been different if I had been involved back then. Or Major Reacher here. Beyond that, all I can do is apologize."
She looked at him, and so did I. Then she looked at the picture again and said, "This man's name is Reed Riley. He's a captain in the 75th Ranger Regiment. Rosemary said he commanded Bravo Company, whatever that is."
"So they were dating?"
"Almost four months. She was talking about a life together."
"Was he?"
"Men will say anything to get what they want."
"When did it end?"
"Two weeks before she was killed."
"Why did it end?"
"She didn't tell me."
"Did you have an opinion?"
Emmeline McClatchy said, "I think she got pregnant."
59
There was silence in the small room for a moment, and then Emmeline McClatchy said, "A mother can always tell. She looked different. She acted different. She even smelled different. At first she was happy, and then later she was miserable. I didn't ask her anything. I thought she would come to me on her own. You know, in her own good time. But she didn't get the chance."
Munro was quiet for a beat, like a mark of respect, and then he asked, "Did you ever see Captain Riley again after that?"
Emmeline McClatchy nodded. "He came by to offer his condolences, a week after her body was found."
"Do you think he killed her?"
"You're the policeman, young man, not me."
"I think a mother can always tell."
"Rosemary said his father was an important man. She wasn't sure where or how. Politics, perhaps. Something where image matters. I think a black girlfriend was a good thing for Captain Riley, but a pregnant girlfriend wasn't."
Emmeline McClatchy wouldn't be pushed any further. We said our goodbyes and walked back to the Humvee. Munro said, "This is looking real bad."
I asked him, "Did you speak to Shawna Lindsay's mother too?"
"She wouldn't say a word to me. She chased me away with a stick."
"How solid is the information about Sheriff Deveraux?"
"Rock solid. They dated, he ended it, she wasn't happy. Then Rosemary McClatchy was next up, as far as I can piece it together."
"Was it his car that got wrecked on the track?"
"According to the Oregon DMV it was. Via the plate you found. A blue '57 Chevy. A piece of shit, not a show car."
"Did he have an explanation?"
"No, he had a lawyer."
"Can you prove he was Janice Chapman's boyfriend too?"
"Not beyond a reasonable doubt. She was a party girl. She was seen with a lot of guys. She can't have been dating all of them."
"She was known as a party girl at Tulane, too."
"Is that where she went?"
"Apparently."
He smiled. "If all the Tulane coeds were laid end to end, I wouldn't be in the least surprised."
"Did you know she wasn't really Janice Chapman?"
"What do you mean?"
"She was born Audrey Shaw. She changed her name three years ago."
"Why?"
"Politics," I said. "She was coming off a two-year affair with Carlton Riley."
I left him with that piece of information, and walked away south. He drove away north. This time I didn't cut through anyone's yard. I walked around the block, like a responsible citizen, and stepped over the wire and hiked across the field and found the dirt track through the trees. I was back on Main Street less than twenty minutes later. Five minutes after that I was inside the Sheriff's Department. One minute after that I was in Deveraux's office. She was behind her desk. The desk was covered in a sea of paper.