The Affair_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [67]
“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.”
Chapter
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