front parlor. The parlor was hot and airless and had a yard-long encyclopedia set and a bunch of religious statuettes on a low shelf. A single picture on the wall. The picture was a photograph of a boy. It was a studio portrait. The boy was maybe fourteen, with a precocious smudge of mustache above his lip. He was wearing a white confirmation robe and smiling shyly. The picture was in a black frame and had a dusty square of black fabric hung around it.
"My eldest son," a voice said. "That picture was made just before we left our village in Mexico."
Reacher turned and found the mother standing behind him.
"He was killed, on the journey here," she said.
Reacher nodded. "I know. I heard. The border patrol. I'm very sorry."
"It was twelve years ago. His name was Raoul Garcia."
The way she said his name was like a small act of remembrance.
"What happened?" Reacher asked.
The woman was silent for a second.
"It was awful," she said. "They hunted us for three hours in the night. We were walking and running, they had a truck with bright lights. We got split up. Divided, in the dark. Raoul was with his sister. He was protecting her. She was twelve. He sent her one way and walked the other way, into the lights. He knew it was worse, if they captured girls. He gave himself up to save his sister. But they didn't try to arrest him or anything. Didn't even ask him any questions. They just shot him down and drove away. They came near where I was hiding. They were laughing. I heard them. Like it was a sport."
"I'm very sorry," Reacher said again.
The woman shrugged. "It was very common then. It was a bad time, and a bad area. We found that out, later. Either our guide didn't know, or didn't care. We found out that there were more than twenty people killed on that route in a year. For fun. Some of them in horrible ways. Raoul was lucky, just to be shot. Some of them, their screams could be heard for miles, across the desert, in the darkness. Some of the girls were carried away and never seen again."
Reacher said nothing. The woman gazed at the picture for a moment longer. Then she turned away with an immense physical effort and forced a smile and gestured that Reacher should rejoin the party in the kitchen.
"We have tequila," she said quietly. "Saved especially for this day."
There were shot glasses on the table, and the daughter was filling them from a bottle. The girl that Raoul had saved, all grown up. The younger son passed the glasses around. Reacher took his and waited. The Garcia father motioned for quiet and raised his drink toward Alice in a toast.
"To our lawyer," he said. "For proving the great Frenchman Honore de Balzac wrong when he wrote, 'Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.'"
Alice blushed a little. Garcia smiled at her and turned to Reacher. "And to you, sir, for your generous assistance in our time of need."
"De nada," Reacher said. "No hay de que. "
The tequila was rough and Raoul's memory was everywhere, so they refused a second shot and left the Garcias alone with their celebrations. They had to wait again until the air conditioner made the VW's interior bearable. Then they headed back to Pecos.
"I enjoyed that," Alice said. "Felt like I finally made a difference."
"You did make a difference."
"Even though it was you made it happen."
"You did the skilled labor," he said.
"Nevertheless, thanks."
"Did the border patrol ever get investigated?" he asked.
She nodded. "Thoroughly, according to the record. There was enough noise made. Nothing specific, of course, but enough general rumors to make it inevitable."
"And?"
"And nothing. It was a whitewash. Nobody was even indicted."
"But did it stop?"
She nodded again. "As suddenly as it started. So obviously they got the message."
"That's how it works," he said. "I've seen it before, different places, different situations. The investigation isn't really an investigation, as such. It's more like a message. Like a coded warning. Like saying, you can't get away with this anymore, so you better stop doing it, whoever you are."
"But justice wasn't done, Reacher. Twenty-some people died. Some of them gruesomely. It was like a pogrom, a year long. Somebody should have paid."
"Did you recognize that Balzac quotation?" he asked.