Amos met them in an unmarked car, out on the curb, at the entrance to the alley. She shook Burke’s hand and said she was pleased to meet him. Then she turned to Reacher and asked if he felt OK. She said, “This could be very weird.”
“Not very,” he said. “Maybe a little. I think I figured most of it out. There was always something wrong with the story. Now I know what. Because of something old Mr. Mortimer said.”
“Who is old Mr. Mortimer?”
“The old guy in the old people’s home. He said back in the day from time to time he would visit his cousins in Ryantown. He said he remembers the birdwatching boys. He said he was drafted near the end of the war. He said they didn’t need him. They had too many people already. He said he never did anything, and felt like a fraud every July Fourth parade.”
Amos said nothing.
They all went to the door together. More seemly, Burke insisted, given the hour. Like delivering a death message, Reacher thought. Two MPs and a priest.
He rang the bell.
A whole minute later a hallway light came on. He saw it through a pebbled glass pane set high in the door. He saw a broken-up mosaic of calm cream colors, a long narrow space, with what might have been family photographs on the wall.
He saw an old man shuffle into view. A broken-up mosaic. Stooped, gray, slow, unsteady. He walked with his knuckles pressed on a millwork rail. He got closer and closer, and then he opened the door.
Chapter 44
The old man who opened the door was about ninety. He was thin and stooped inside too-big clothing, maybe favorite stuff bought long ago, back when he was a vigorous seventy. He could have started out six-one and 190, at his peak, before the start of a long decline. Now he was bent over like a question mark. His skin was slack and translucent. His eyes watered. He had strands of gray hair, as fine as silk.
He wasn’t Reacher’s father.
Not even thirty years older. Because he wasn’t. Simple as that. Also forensically, because no broken nose, no shrapnel scar on his cheek, no stitch mark in his eyebrow.
The photographs on the wall were of birds.
The old man held out a wavering hand.
“Stan Reacher,” he said. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
Reacher shook the old man’s hand. It felt cold as ice.
“Jack Reacher,” he said. “Likewise.”
“Are we related?”
“We’re all related, if you go back far enough.”
“Please come in.”
Amos said she and Burke would wait in the car. Reacher followed the old guy down the hallway. Slower than a funeral march. Half a step, a long pause, another half a step. They made it to a nook between the living room and an eat-in kitchen. It had two armchairs, set one each side of a lamp with a big fringed shade. Good for reading.
Old Stan Reacher waved his wavering hand at one of the armchairs, like an invitation, and he sat down in the other. He was happy to talk. He was happy to answer questions. He didn’t seem to find them strange. He confirmed he grew up in Ryantown, in the tin mill foreman’s apartment. He remembered the kitchen tile. Acanthus leaves, and marigolds, and artichoke blossoms. James and Elizabeth Reacher were his parents. The tin mill foreman himself, and the bed sheet finisher. He said it never occurred to him to wonder whether they did a good job or not. Partly because it was all he knew, and partly because he didn’t notice anyway, because he had been introduced to birdwatching by then, which had given him a whole other world to go live in. He said it wasn’t about checking off new sightings on a list. There was a clue in the word. It was about watching. What they did, and how, and why, and where, and when. It was about thinking yourself into whole new dimensions, with whole new problems and whole new powers.
Reacher asked, “Who introduced you?”
“My cousin Bill,” Stan said.
“Who was he?”
“It was a time, back then. Somehow most of the boys you hung out with were your cousins. Maybe it was a tribal instinct. People were afraid. It was tough times. For a spell it looked like the whole thing could fall apart. I guess cousins were reassuring. Any kid’s best friend was likely his cousin. Bill was mine and I was his.”