Without Fail - Lee Child [61]
“Do you remember the morning the message showed up in there?” she asked.
“Of course I do,” the secretary said.
“Why did Mr. Stuyvesant leave his briefcase out here?”
The secretary thought for a moment. “Because it was a Thursday.”
“What happens on a Thursday? Does he have an early meeting?”
“No, his wife goes to Baltimore, Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“How is that connected?”
“She volunteers at a hospital there.”
Neagley looked straight at her. “How does that affect her husband’s briefcase?”
“She drives,” the secretary said. “She takes their car. They only have one. No department vehicle either, because Mr. Stuyvesant isn’t operational anymore. So he has to come to work on the Metro.”
Neagley looked blank. “The subway?”
The secretary nodded. “He has a special briefcase for Tuesdays and Thursdays because he’s forced to place it on the floor of the subway car. He won’t do that with his regular briefcase, because he thinks it gets dirty.”
Neagley stood still. Reacher thought back to the videotapes, Stuyvesant leaving late on Wednesday evening, returning early on Thursday morning.
“I didn’t notice a difference,” he said. “Looked like the same case to me.”
The secretary nodded in agreement.
“They’re identical items,” she said. “Same make, same vintage. He doesn’t like for people to realize. But one is for his automobile and the other is for the subway car.”
“Why?”
“He hates dirt. I think he’s afraid of it. Tuesdays and Thursdays, he won’t take his subway-car briefcase into his office at all. He leaves it out here all day and I have to bring him things from it. If it’s been raining he leaves his shoes out here, too. Like his office was a Japanese temple.”
Neagley glanced at Reacher. Made a face.
“It’s a harmless eccentricity,” the secretary said. Then she lowered her voice, as if she might be overheard all the way from the White House. “And absolutely unnecessary, in my opinion. The D.C. Metro is famous for being the cleanest subway in the world.”
“OK,” Neagley said. “But weird.”
“It’s harmless,” the secretary said again.
Reacher lost interest and stepped behind her and looked at the fire door. It had a brushed-steel push bar at waist height, like the city construction codes no doubt required it to have. He put his fingers on it and it clicked back with silky precision. He pushed a little harder and it folded up against the painted wood and the door swung back. It was a heavy fireproof item and there were three large steel hinges carrying its weight. He stepped through to a small square stairwell. There were concrete stairs, newer than the stone fabric of the building. They ran up to the higher floors and down toward street level. They had steel handrails. There were dim emergency lights behind glass in wire cages. Clearly a narrow space had been appropriated in the back of the building during the modernization and dedicated to a full-bore fire escape system.
There was a regular knob on the back of the door that operated the same latch as the push bar. It had a keyhole, but it wasn’t locked. It turned easily. Makes sense, he thought. The building was secure as a whole. They didn’t need for every floor to be isolated as well. He let the door close behind him and waited in the gloom on the stairwell for a second. Turned the knob again and reopened the door and stepped back into the brightness of the secretarial area, one pace. Twisted and looked up at the surveillance camera. It was right there above his head, set so it would pick him up sometime during his second step. He inched forward and let the door close behind him. Checked the camera again. It would be seeing him by now. And he still had more than eight feet to go before he reached Stuyvesant’s door.
“The cleaners put the message there,” the secretary said. “There’s no other possible explanation.”
Then her phone rang and she excused herself politely and answered it. Reacher and Neagley walked back through the maze of corridors and found Froelich’s office. It was quiet and