Past Tense - Lee Child Page 0,19

have had driver’s licenses?”

“Not if they were poor. Not if they were thieves, either. Not in their real names, anyway.”

“Your dad must have had a birth certificate. He must be on paper somewhere.”

The customer door from the corridor opened, and Carter Carrington stepped inside, with his suit and his smile and his unruly hair. He saw Reacher and said, “Hello again,” not surprised at all, as if he had expected no one else. Then he turned toward the counter and stuck out his hand and said, “You must be Ms. Castle.”

“Elizabeth,” she said.

“Carter Carrington. Really pleased to meet you. Thanks for sending this gentleman my way. He has an interesting situation.”

“Because his dad is missing from two consecutive counts.”

“Exactly.”

“Which feels deliberate.”

“As long as we’re sure we’re looking at the right town.”

“We are,” Reacher said. “I saw it written down a dozen times. Laconia, New Hampshire.”

“Interesting,” Carrington said. Then he looked Elizabeth Castle in the eye and said, “We should have lunch sometime. I like the way you saw the thing with the two counts. I’d like to discuss it more.”

She didn’t answer.

“Anyway, keep me in the loop,” he said.

She said, “We figure he must have had a birth certificate.”

“Almost certainly,” he said. “What was his date of birth?”

Reacher paused a beat.

He said, “This is going to sound weird. In this context, I mean.”

“Why?”

“Sometimes he wasn’t sure.”

“What does that mean?”

“Sometimes he said June, and sometimes he said July.”

“Was there an explanation for that?”

“He said he couldn’t remember because birthdays weren’t important to him. He didn’t see why he should be congratulated for getting another year closer to death.”

“That’s bleak.”

“He was a Marine.”

“What did the paperwork say?”

“July.”

Carrington said nothing.

Reacher said, “What?”

“Nothing.”

“I already agreed with Ms. Castle we don’t need to walk on eggs.”

“A child uncertain of its birth date is a classic symptom of dysfunction within a family.”

“Theoretically,” Reacher said.

“Anyway, birth records are in date order. Could take some time, if you’re not sure. Better to find another avenue.”

“Such as?”

“The police blotter, maybe. Not to be insensitive. Purely as a percentage play. If nothing else it would be nice to eliminate the possibility. I don’t want them to be hiding from the law, any more than you do. I want a more interesting reason than that. And it won’t take long to find out. As of now our police department is computerized back about a thousand years. They spent a fortune. Homeland Security money, not ours, but still. They also built a statue of the first chief.”

“Who should I go see?”

“I’ll call ahead. Someone will meet you at the desk.”

“How cooperative will they be?”

“I’m the guy who decides whether the city goes to bat for them. When they do something wrong, I mean. So they’ll be plenty cooperative. But wait until after lunch. You’ll get more time that way.”

* * *

—

Patty Sundstrom and Shorty Fleck went to lunch over at the big house. It was an awkward meal. Shorty was by turns stiff and sheepish. Peter was silent. Either offended or disappointed, Patty couldn’t tell. Robert and Steven didn’t say much of anything. Only Mark really talked. He was bright and blithe and chatty. Very friendly. As if the events of the morning had never occurred. He seemed determined to find solutions to their problems. He apologized to them over and over about the phone. He made them listen to the dead handset, as if to share his burden. He said he was concerned people would be worried about them, either back home, or at their destination. Were they missing appointments? Were there people they needed to call?

Patty said, “No one knows we’re gone.”

“Really?”

“They would have tried to talk us out of it.”

“Out of what?”

“It’s boring up there. Shorty and I want something different.”

“Where do you plan to go?”

“Florida,” she said. “We want to start our own business there.”

“What kind of business?”

“Something on the ocean. Watersports, maybe. Like windsurfer rentals.”

“You would need capital,” Mark said. “To buy the windsurfers.”

Patty looked away, and thought about the suitcase.

Shorty asked, “How long will the phone be out?”

Mark asked back, “What am I, clairvoyant?”

“I mean, usually. On average.”

“They usually fix it in half a day. And the mechanic is a good friend. We’ll ask him to put us first in line. You could be back on the road before dinnertime.”

“What if it takes longer than half a day?”

“Then it just does, I guess. I can’t control it.”

“Honestly, the best thing would be just give us a ride to town. Best for us, and best