The Affair_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [104]
“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.
I said, “We need to talk.”
Chapter
60
Deveraux looked up at me, a little alarmed. Something in my voice, maybe. She said, “Talk about what?”
I asked her, “Did you ever date a guy from the base?”
“What base? You mean Kelham?”
“Yes, Kelham.”
“That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?”
“Did you?”
“Of course not. Are you crazy? Those guys are my biggest problem. You know how it is between a military population and local law enforcement. It would have been the worst kind of conflict of interest.”
“Do you socialize with any of them?”
“No, for the same reason.”
“Do you know any of them?”
“Barely,” she said. “I’ve toured the base and met some of the senior officers, in a formal way. Which is to be expected. They’re trying to deal with the same kind of problems I am.”
“OK,” I said.
“Why are you asking?”
“Munro was at the McClatchy place. Rosemary McClatchy and Shawna Lindsay seem to have dated the same guy. Janice Chapman also, probably. Munro heard you had dated the guy too.”
“That’s bullshit. I haven’t dated a guy in two years. Couldn’t you tell?”
I sat down.
“I had to ask,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Who was the guy?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You have to tell me. Don’t you think? McClatchy and Lindsay are my cases. Therefore it’s relevant information. And I have a right to know if some guy is taking my name in vain.”
“Reed Riley,” I said.
“Never heard of him,” she said.
Then she said, “Wait a minute. Did you say Riley?”
I didn’t answer.
She said, “Oh my God. Carlton Riley’s son? He’s at Kelham? I had no idea.”
I said nothing.
“Oh my God,” she said again. “That explains a whole lot.”
I said, “It was his car on the railroad track. And Emmeline McClatchy thinks he got Rosemary pregnant. I didn’t ask her. She came right out with it.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“You can’t. They just choppered him out of there.”
“To where?”
“What’s the most remote army post in the world?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. But a buck gets ten that’s where he’ll be tonight.”
“Why would he say he dated me?”
“Ego,” I said. “Maybe he wanted his pals to believe he had collected the whole set. The four most beautiful women in Carter Crossing. The Brannan brothers at the bar told me he was a big dog and always had arm candy.”
“I’m not arm candy.”
“Maybe not on the inside.”
“His father probably knows the guy Janice Chapman had the affair with. They’re right there in the Senate together.”
I said nothing.
She looked right at me.
She said, “Oh, no.”
I said, “Oh, yes.”
“The same woman? Father and son? That’s seriously messed up.”
“Munro can’t prove it. Neither can we.”
“We can infer it. This all is way too much hoopla for a theoretical worry about blowback in general.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. Who knows how these people think?”
“Whatever, you can’t go