Reacher was on his way to them because of a woman. He had spent
Friday night in South Beach, Miami, in a salsa club, with a dancer
from a cruise ship. The boat was Norwegian, and so was the girl.
Reacher guessed she was too tall for ballet, but she was the right
size for everything else. They met on the beach in the afternoon.
Reacher was working on his tan. He felt better brown. He didn’t know
what she was working on. But he felt her shadow fall across his face
and opened his eyes to find her staring at him. Or maybe at his
scars. The browner he got, the more they stood out, white and wicked
and obvious. She was pale, in a black bikini. A small black bikini.
He pegged her for a dancer long before she told him. It was in the
way she held herself.
They ended up having a late dinner together and then going out to
the club. South Beach salsa wouldn’t have been Reacher’s first
choice, but her company made it worthwhile. She was fun to be with.
And she was a great dancer, obviously. Full of energy. She wore him
out. At four in the morning she took him back to her hotel, eager to
wear him out some more. Her hotel was a small Art Deco place near
the ocean. Clearly the cruise line treated its people well.
Certainly it was a much more romantic destination than Reacher’s own
motel. And much closer.
And it had cable television, which Reacher’s place didn’t. He woke
at eight on Saturday morning when he heard the dancer in the shower.
He turned on the TV and went looking for ESPN. He wanted Friday
night’s American League highlights. He never found them. He clicked
his way through successive channels and then stopped dead on CNN
because he heard the chief of an Indiana police department say a
name he knew: James Barr. The picture was of a press conference.
Small room, harsh light. Top of the screen was a caption that said:
Courtesy NBC. There was a banner across the bottom that said: Friday
Night Massacre. The police chief said the name again, James Barr,
and then he introduced a homicide detective called Emerson. Emerson
looked tired. Emerson said the name for a third time: James Barr.
Then, like he anticipated the exact question in Reacher’s mind, he
ran through a brief biography: Forty-one years old, local Indiana
resident, U.S. Army infantry specialist from 1985 to 1991, Gulf War
veteran, never married, currently unemployed.
Reacher watched the screen. Emerson seemed like a concise type of a
guy. He was brief. No bullshit. He finished his statement and in
response to a reporter’s question declined to specify what if
anything James Barr had said during interrogation. Then he
introduced a District Attorney. This guy’s name was Rodin, and he
wasn’t concise. Wasn’t brief. He used plenty of bullshit. He spent
ten minutes claiming Emerson’s credit for himself. Reacher knew how
that worked. He had been a cop of sorts for thirteen years. Cops
bust their tails, and prosecutors bask in the glory. Rodin said
James Barr a few more times and then said the state was maybe
looking to fry him.
For what?
Reacher waited.
A local anchor called Ann Yanni came on. She recapped the events of
the night before. Sniper slaying. Senseless slaughter. An automatic
weapon. A parking garage. A public plaza. Commuters on their way
home after a long workweek. Five dead. A suspect in custody, but a
city still grieving.
Reacher thought it was Yanni who was grieving. Emerson’s success had
cut her story short. She signed off and CNN went to political news.
Reacher turned the TV off. The dancer came out of the bathroom. She
was pink and fragrant. And naked. She had left her towels inside.
“What shall we do today?” she said, with a wide Norwegian smile.
“I’m going to Indiana,” Reacher said.
He walked north in the heat to the Miami bus depot. Then he leafed
through a greasy timetable and planned a route. It wasn’t going to
be an easy trip. Miami to Jacksonville would be the first leg. Then
Jacksonville to New Orleans. Then New Orleans to St. Louis. Then St.
Louis to Indianapolis. Then a local bus, presumably, south into the
heartland. Five separate destinations. Arrival and departure times
were not well integrated. Beginning to end, it was going to take
more than forty-eight hours. He was tempted to fly or rent a car,
but he was short of money and he liked buses better and he figured
nothing much was going to happen on the weekend anyway.
What happened on the weekend was that Rosemary Barr called her
firm’s investigator back. She figured Franklin would have a
semiindependent point of view. She got him at home, ten o’clock in
the morning on the Sunday.
“I think I should hire different lawyers,” she said.
Franklin said nothing.
“David Chapman thinks he’s guilty,” Rosemary said. “Doesn’t he?
So he’s already given up.”
“I can’t comment,” Franklin said. “He’s one of my employers.”
Now Rosemary Barr said nothing.
“How was the hospital?” Franklin asked.
“Awful. He’s in intensive care with a bunch of prison deadbeats.
They’ve got him handcuffed to the bed. He’s in a coma, for God’s
sake. How do they think he’s going to escape?”
“What’s the legal position?”
“He was arrested but not arraigned. He’s in a kind of limbo.
They’re assuming he wouldn’t have gotten bail.”
“They’re probably right.”
“So they claim under the circumstances it’s like he actually didn’t
get bail. So he’s theirs. He’s in the system. Like a twilight zone.”
“What would you like to happen?”
“He shouldn’t be in handcuffs. And he should be in a VA hospital at
least. But that won’t happen until I find a lawyer who’s prepared to
help him.”
Franklin paused. “How do you explain all the evidence?”
“I know my brother.”
“You moved out, right?”
“For other reasons. Not because he’s a homicidal maniac.”
“He blocked off a parking space,” Franklin said. “He premeditated
this thing.”
“You think he’s guilty, too.”
“I work with what I’ve got. And what I’ve got doesn’t look good.”
Rosemary Barr said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Franklin said.
“Can you recommend another lawyer?”
“Can you make that decision? Do you have a power of attorney?”
“I think it’s implied. He’s in a coma. I’m his next of kin.”
“How much money have you got?”
“Not much.”
“How much has he got?”
“There’s some equity in his house.”
“It won’t look good. It’ll be like a kick in the teeth for the firm
you work for.”
“I can’t worry about that.”
“You could lose everything, including your job.”
“I’ll lose it anyway, unless I help James. If he’s convicted,
they’ll let me go. I’ll be notorious. By association. An
embarrassment.”
“He had your sleeping pills,” Franklin said.
“I gave them to him. He doesn’t have insurance.”
“Why did he need them?”
“He has trouble sleeping.”
Franklin said nothing.
“You think he’s guilty,” Rosemary said.
“The evidence is overwhelming,” Franklin said.
“David Chapman isn’t really trying, is he?”
“You have to consider the possibility that David Chapman is right.”
“Who should I call?”
Franklin paused.
“Try Helen Rodin,” he said.
“Rodin?”
“She’s the DA’s daughter.”
“I don’t know her.”
“She’s downtown. She just hung out her shingle. She’s new and she’s
keen.”
“Is it ethical?”
“No law against it.”
“It would be father against daughter.”
“It was going to be Chapman, and Chapman knows Rodin a lot better
than his daughter does, probably. She’s been away for a long time.”
“Where?”
“College, law school, clerking for a judge in D.C.”
“Is she any good?”
“I think she’s going to be.”
Rosemary Barr called Helen Rodin on her office number. It was like a
test. Someone new and keen should be at the office on a Sunday.
Helen Rodin was at the office on a Sunday. She answered the call
sitting at her desk. Her desk was secondhand and it sat proudly in a
mostly empty two-room suite in the same black glass tower that had
NBC as the second-floor tenant. The suite was rented cheap through
one of the business subsidies that the city was throwing around like
confetti. The idea was to kick-start the rejuvenated downtown area
and clean up later with healthy tax revenues.
Rosemary Barr didn’t have to tell Helen Rodin about the case because
the whole thing had happened right outside Helen Rodin’s new office
window. Helen had seen some of it for herself, and she had followed
the rest on the news afterward. She had caught all of Ann Yanni’s TV
appearances. She recognized her from the building’s lobby, and the
elevator.
“Will you help my brother?” Rosemary Barr asked.
Helen Rodin paused. The smart answer would be No way. She knew that.
Like No way, forget about it, are you out of your mind? Two reasons.
One, she knew a major clash with her father was inevitable at some
point, but did she need it now? And two, she knew that a new
lawyer’s early cases defined her. Paths were taken that led down
fixed routes. To end up as a when-all-else-fails criminal-defense
attorney would be OK, she guessed, all things considered. But to
start out by taking a case that had offended the whole city would be
a marketing disaster. The shootings weren’t being seen as a crime.
They were being seen as an atrocity. Against humanity, against the
whole community, against the rejuvenation efforts downtown, against
the whole idea of being from Indiana. It was like LA or New York or
Baltimore had come to the heartland, and to be the person who tried
to excuse it or explain it away would be a fatal mistake. Like a
mark of Cain. It would follow her the rest of her life.
“Can we sue the jail?” Rosemary Barr asked. “For letting him get
hurt?”
Helen Rodin paused again. Another good reason to say no. An
unrealistic client.
“Maybe later,” she said. “Right now he wouldn’t generate much
sympathy as a plaintiff. And it’s hard to prove damages, if he’s
heading for death row anyway.”
“Then I can’t pay you much,” Rosemary Barr said. “I don’t have
money.”
Helen Rodin paused for a third time. Another good reason to say no.
It was a little early in her career to be contemplating pro bono
work.
But. But. But.
The accused deserved representation. The Bill of Rights said so. And
he was innocent until proven guilty. And if the evidence was as bad
as her father said it was, then the whole thing would be little more
than a supervisory process. She would verify the case against him
independently. Then she would advise him to plead guilty. Then she
would watch his back as her father fed him through the machine. That
was all. It could be seen as honest dues-paying. A constitutional
chore. She hoped.
“OK,” she said.
“He’s innocent,” Rosemary Barr said. “I’m sure of it.”
They always are, Helen Rodin thought.
“OK,” she said again. Then she told her new client to meet her in
her office at seven the next morning. It was like a test. A sister
who really believed in her brother’s innocence would show up for an
early appointment.
Rosemary Barr showed up right on time, at seven o’clock on Monday
morning. Franklin was there, too. He believed in Helen Rodin and was
prepared to defer his bills until he saw which way the wind was
blowing. Helen Rodin herself had already been at her desk for an
hour. She had informed David Chapman of the change in representation
on Sunday afternoon and had obtained the audiotape of his initial
interview with James Barr. Chapman had been happy to hand it over
and wash his hands. She had played the tape to herself a dozen times
Sunday night and a dozen more that morning. It was all anyone had of
James Barr. Maybe all anyone was ever going to get. So she had
listened to it carefully, and she had drawn some early conclusions
from it.
“Listen,” she said.
She had the tape cued up and ready in an old-fashioned machine the
size of a shoe box. She pressed Play and they all heard a hiss and
breathing and room sounds and then David Chapman’s voice: I can’t
help you if you won’t help yourself. There was a long pause, full of
more hiss, and then James Barr spoke: They got the wrong guy….
They got the wrong guy, he said again. Then Helen watched the tape
counter numbers and spooled forward to Chapman saying: Denying it is
not an option. Then Barr’s voice came through: Get Jack Reacher for
me. Helen spooled onward to Chapman’s question: Is he a doctor? Then
there was nothing on the tape except the sound of Barr beating on
the interview room door.
“OK,” Helen said. “I think he really believes he didn’t do it. He
claims as much, and then he gets frustrated and terminates the
interview when Chapman doesn’t take him seriously. That’s clear,
isn’t it?”
“He didn’t do it,” Rosemary Barr said.
“I spoke with my father yesterday,” Helen Rodin said. “The evidence
is all there, Ms. Barr. He did it, I’m afraid. You need to accept
that a sister maybe can’t know her brother as well as she’d like. Or
if she once did, that he changed for some reason.”
There was a long silence.
“Is your father telling you the truth about the evidence?” Rosemary
asked.
“He has to,” Helen said. “We’re going to see it all anyway. There’s
the discovery process. We’re going to take depositions. There would
be no sense in him bluffing at this point.”
Nobody spoke.
“But we can still help your brother,” Helen said in the silence. “He
believes he didn’t do it. I’m sure of that, after listening to the
tape.
Therefore he’s delusional now. Or at least he was on Saturday.
Therefore perhaps he was delusional on Friday, too.”
“How does that help him?” Rosemary Barr asked. “It’s still admitting
he did it.”
“The consequences will be different. If he recovers. Time and
treatment in an institution will be a lot better than time and no
treatment in a maximum security prison.”
“You want to have James declared insane?”
Helen nodded. “A medical defense is our best shot. And if we
establish it right now, it might improve the way they handle him
before the trial.”
“He might die. That’s what the doctors said. I don’t want him to die
a criminal. I want to clear his name.”
“He hasn’t been tried yet. He hasn’t been convicted. He’s still an
innocent man in the eyes of the law.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No,” Helen said. “I guess it isn’t.”
There was another long silence.
“Let’s meet back here at ten-thirty,” Helen said. “We’ll thrash out
a strategy. If we’re aiming for a change of hospitals, we should try
for it sooner rather than later.”
“We need to find this Jack Reacher person,” Rosemary Barr said.
Helen nodded. “I gave his name to Emerson and my father.”
“Why?”
“Because Emerson’s people cleared your brother’s house out.
They might have found an address or a phone number. And my father
needed to know because we want this guy on our witness list, not the
prosecution’s. Because he might be able to help us.”
“He might be an alibi.”
“Maybe an old army buddy, at best.”
“I don’t see how,” Franklin said.
Continues…
Excerpted from One Shot
by Lee Child
Copyright © 2005 by Lee Child.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Delacorte Press
Copyright © 2005
Lee Child
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-385-33668-3
