One Shot by Lee Child Read Free Book Online

just can't believe he did it,' Rosemary Barr said.
    'Well, certainly he seems to be denying it,' Chapman said. 'As far as I can understand him. And he's asking for someone called Jack Reacher. Someone he knows or used to know. You ever heard that name? You know who he is?'
    Rosemary Barr just shook her head. Chapman wrote the name Jack Reacher on a sheet of paper and slid it across to Franklin. 'My guess is he may be a psychiatrist. Mr Ban brought the name up right after I told him how strong the evidence is. So maybe this Reacher guy is someone who can help us out with the mitigation. Maybe he treated Mr Barr in the past.' 'My brother never saw a psychiatrist,' Rosemary Barr said.
    'To your certain knowledge?'
    'Never.'
    'How long has he been in town?'
    'Fourteen years. Since the army.'
    'Were you close?'
    'We lived in the same house.'
    'His house?'
    Rosemary Barr nodded.
    'But you don't live there any more.'
    Rosemary Barr looked away.
    'No,' she said. 'I moved out'
    'Might your brother have seen a shrink after you moved out?'
    'He would have told me.'
    'OK, what about before? In the service?'
    Rosemary Barr said nothing. Chapman turned back to Franklin.
    'So maybe Reacher was his army doctor,' he said.
    'Maybe he has information about an old trauma. He could be very helpful.' Franklin accepted the sheet of paper.
    'In which case I'll find him,' he said.
    'We shouldn't be talking about mitigation anyway,'
    Rosemary Barr said. 'We should be talking about reasonable doubt. About innocence.' 'The evidence is very strong,' Chapman said. 'He used his own gun.'
    Franklin spent three hours failing to find Jack Reacher.
    First he trawled through psychiatric associations. No hits. Then he searched the Internet for Gulf War support groups. No trace. He tried Lexis-Nexis and all the news organizations. Nothing. Then he started back at the beginning and accessed the National Personnel Record Center's database. It listed all current and former military. He found Jack Reacher's name in there easily enough. Reacher had entered the service in 1984 and there was an honourable discharge in 1997.
    James Barr himself had signed up in 1985 and mustered out in 1991. So there was a six-year overlap.
    But Reacher had been no kind of doctor. No kind of a psychiatrist. He had been a military cop. An officer. A major. Maybe a high-level investigator. Barr had finished as a lowly Specialist E-4.
    Infantry, not military police. So what was the point of contact between a military police major and an infantry E-4? Something helpful, obviously, or Barr wouldn't have mentioned the name. But what?
    At the end of three hours Franklin figured he would never find out, because Reacher fell off the radar after 1997. Completely and totally. There was no trace of him anywhere. He was still alive, according to the Social Security Administration. He wasn't in prison, according to the NCIC. But he had disappeared. He had no credit rating. He wasn't listed as title holder to any real estate, or automobiles, or boats. He had no debts. No liens. No address.
    No phone number. No warrants outstanding, no judgements entered. He wasn't a husband. Wasn't a father. He was a ghost.
    James Barr spent the same three hours in serious trouble. It started when he stepped out of his cell. He turned right to walk down to the pay phones. The corridor was narrow. He bumped into another guy, shoulder to shoulder. Then he made a bad mistake. He took his eyes off the floor and glanced at the other guy and apologized.
    A bad mistake, because a fish can't make eye contact with another prisoner.
    Not without implying disrespect. It was a prison thing.
    He didn't understand.
    The guy he made eye contact with was a Mexican. He had gang tattoos, but Barr didn't recognize them.
    Another bad mistake. He should have put his gaze back on the floor and moved on and hoped for the best. But he didn't.
    Instead, he said, 'Excuse me.'
    Then he raised his eyebrows and half smiled in a self deprecating