Running Blind(The Visitor) - By Lee Child Page 0,80

shrugged again. "I don't know. I've never had a washing machine delivered. I guess sometimes they don't need a signature. The guy who sent it probably specified no signature required."

"But she'd have seen it right there, next time she went in the garage. Soon as she stashed her car, when she got back."

Reacher nodded. "Yes, she must have. It's big enough."

"So what then?"

"She calls UPS or FedEx or whoever. Maybe she tore off the envelope herself. Carried it into the house, to the phone, to give them the details."

"Why didn't she unpack it?"

Reacher made a face. "She figures it's not really hers, why would she unpack it? She'd only have to box it up again."

"She mention anything to you or Harper? Anything about unexplained deliveries?"

"No. But then she might not have connected it. Foul-ups happen, right? Normal part of life."

Blake nodded. "Well, if the details are in the house, we'll find them. Crime scene people are going to spend some time in there, soon as the coroner is through."

"Coroner won't find anything," Reacher said.

Blake looked grim. "This time, he'll have to."

"So you're going to have to do it differently," Reacher said. He concentrated on the you. "You should take the whole tub out. Take it over to some big lab in Seattle. Maybe fly it all the way back to Quantico."

"How the hell can we take the whole tub out?"

"Tear the wall out. Tear the roof off, use a crane."

Blake paused and thought about it. "I guess we could. We'd need permission, of course. But this must be Julia's house now, in the circumstances, right? She's next of kin, I guess."

Reacher nodded. "So call her. Ask her. Get permission. And get her to check the field reports from the other three places. This delivery thing might be a one-shot deal, but if it isn't, it changes everything."

"Changes everything how?"

"Because it means it isn't a guy with time to drive a truck all over the place. It means it could be anybody, using the airlines, in and out quick as you like."

BLAKE WENT BACK to the Suburban to make his calls, and Harper found Reacher and walked him fifty yards up the road to where agents from the Spokane office had spotted tire marks in the mud on the shoulders. It had gone dark and they were using flashlights. There were four separate marks in the mud. It was clear what had happened. Somebody had swung nose-in to the left shoulder, wound the power steering around, backed across the road and put the rear tires on the right shoulder, and then swooped away back the way he had come. The front-tire marks were scrubbed into fan shapes by the operation of the steering, but the rear-tire marks opposite were clear enough. They were not wide, not narrow.

"Probably a midsize sedan," the Spokane guy said. "Fairly new radial tires, maybe a 195/70, maybe a fourteen-inch wheel. We'll get the exact tire from the tread pattern. And we'll measure the width between the marks, maybe get the exact model of the car."

"You think it's the guy?" Harper asked.

Reacher nodded. "Got to be, right? Think about it. Anybody else hunting the address sees the house a hundred yards ahead and slows enough to check the mailbox and stop. Even if they don't, they overshoot a couple of yards and just back right up. They don't overshoot fifty yards and wait until they're around the corner to turn. This was a guy cruising the place, watching out, staying cautious. It was him, no doubt about it."

They felt the Spokane guys setting up miniature waterproof tents over the marks and walked back toward the house. Blake was standing by the Suburban, waiting, lit from behind by the dome light inside.

"We've got appliance cartons listed at all three scenes," he said. "No information about contents. Nobody thought to look. We're sending local agents back to check. Could be an hour. And Julia says we should go ahead and rip the tub out. I'm going to need some engineers, I guess."

Reacher nodded vaguely and paused, immobilized by a new line of thought.

"You should check on something else," he said. "You should get the list of the eleven women, call the seven he hasn't gotten to yet. You should ask them."

Blake looked at him. "Ask them what? Hi, you still alive?"

"No, ask them if they've had any deliveries they weren't expecting. Any appliances they never ordered. Because if this guy is speeding up, maybe the next one is all