“Petrosian’s handiwork,” Blake said. “Wives and sisters and daughters of people who pissed him off.”

“So how come he’s still running around?”

There was silence for a second.

“There’s proof, and then there’s proof, right?” Blake said.

Reacher nodded. “So where’s Jodie?”

“Hell should I know?” Blake said again. “We’ve got no interest in her as long as you play ball. We’re not tailing her. Petrosian can find her himself, if it comes to that. We’re not going to deliver her to him. That would be illegal, right?”

“So would breaking your neck.”

Blake nodded. “Stop with the threats, OK? You’re in no position.”

“I know this whole thing was your idea.”

Blake shook his head. “I’m not worried about you, Reacher. Deep down, you think you’re a good person. You’ll help me, and then you’ll forget all about me.”

Reacher smiled. “I thought you profilers were supposed to be real insightful.”

THREE WEEKS IS a nice complicated interval, which is exactly why you chose it. It has no obvious significance. They’ll drive themselves mad, trying to understand a three-week interval. They’ll have to dig real, real deep before they see what you’re doing. Too deep to be feasible. The closer they get to it, the less it will mean. The interval leads nowhere. So the interval makes you safe.

But does it have to be maintained? Maybe. A pattern is a pattern. It ought to be a very strict thing. Very precise. Because that’s what they’re expecting. Strict adherence to a pattern. It’s typical in this sort of case. The pattern protects you. It’s important. So it should be maintained. But then again, maybe it shouldn’t. Three weeks is a pretty long interval. And pretty boring. So maybe you should speed it up. But anything less would be very tight, given the work required. Soon as one was done, the next would have to be prepared. A treadmill. Difficult work, on a tight schedule. Not everybody could do it. But you could.

THE CASE CONFERENCE was held in a long low room a floor above Blake’s office. There was light brown fabric on the walls, worn shiny where people had leaned on it or brushed against it. One long wall had four recesses let into it, with blinds and concealed lighting simulating windows, even though the room was four stories underground. There was a silent television mounted high on the wall, with the budget hearings playing to nobody. There was a long table made of expensive wood, surrounded by cheap chairs set at forty-five degree angles so they faced the head of the table, where there was a large empty blackboard set against the end wall. The blackboard was modern, like it came from a well-endowed college. The whole place was airless and quiet and isolated, like a place where serious work was done, like a postgraduate seminar room.

Harper led Reacher to a seat at the far end from the blackboard. The back of the class. She sat one place nearer the action, so he had to look past her shoulder. Blake took the chair nearest the board. Poulton and Lamarr came in together, carrying files, absorbed in low conversation. Neither of them glanced anywhere except at Blake. He waited until the door closed behind them and then stood up and flipped the blackboard over.

The top right quarter was occupied by a large map of the United States, dotted with a forest of flags. Ninety-one of them, Reacher guessed, without trying to count them all. Most of them were red, but three of them were black. Opposite the map on the left was an eight-by-ten color photograph, cropped and blown up from a casual snapshot taken through a cheap lens onto grainy film. It showed a woman, squinting against the sun and smiling. She was in her twenties, and pretty, a plump happy face framed by curly brown hair.

“Lorraine Stanley, ladies and gentlemen,” Blake said. “Recently deceased in San Diego, California.”

Underneath the smiling face were more eight-by-tens pinned up in a careful sequence. The crime scene. They were crisper photographs. Professional. There was a long shot of a small Spanish-style bungalow, taken from the street. A close-up of the front door. Wide shots of a hallway, a living room, the master bedroom. The master bathroom. The back wall was all mirror above twin sinks. The photographer was reflected in the mirror, a large person bundled into a white nylon coverall, a shower cap on his head, latex gloves on his hands, a camera at his eye, the bright halo of the strobe caught by the mirror. There was a shower stall on the right, and a tub on the left. The tub was low, with a wide lip. It was full of green paint.

“She was alive three days ago,” Blake said. “Neighbor saw her wheeling her garbage to the curb, eight forty-five in the morning, local time. She was discovered yesterday, by her cleaner.”

“We got a time of death?” Lamarr asked.

“Approximate,” Blake said. “Sometime during the second day.”

“Neighbors see anything?”

Blake shook his head. “She took her garbage can back inside, the same day. Nobody saw anything after that.”

“MO?”

“Exactly identical to the first two.”

“Evidence?”

“Not a damn thing, so far. They’re still looking, but I’m not optimistic.”

Reacher was focusing on the picture of the hallway. It was a long narrow space leading past the mouth of the living room, back to the bedrooms. On the left was a narrow shelf at waist height, crowded with tiny cactus plants in tiny terra-cotta pots. On the right were more narrow shelves, fixed to the wall at random heights and in random lengths. They were packed with small china ornaments. Most of them looked like dolls, brightly painted to represent national or regional costumes. The sort of things a person buys when she’s dreaming of having a home of her own.

“What did the cleaner do?” he asked.

Blake looked all the way down the table. “Screamed a bit, I guess, and then called the cops.”

“No, before that. She has her own key?”

“Obviously.”

“Did she go straight to the bathroom?”

Blake looked blank and opened a file. Leafed through it and found a faxed copy of an interview report. “Yes, she did. She puts stuff in the toilet bowl, leaves it to work while she does the rest of the house, comes back to it last.”

“So she found the body right away, before she did any cleaning?”

Blake nodded.

“OK,” Reacher said.

“OK what?”

“How wide is that hallway?”

Blake turned and examined the picture. “Three feet? It’s a small house.”

Reacher nodded. “OK.”

“OK what?”

“Where’s the violence? Where’s the anger? She answers the door, this guy somehow forces her back through the hallway, through the master bedroom, into the bathroom, and then carries thirty gallons of paint through after her, and he doesn’t knock anything off those shelves.”

“So?”

Reacher shrugged. “Seems awful quiet to me. I couldn’t wrestle somebody down that hallway without touching all that stuff. No way. Neither could you.”

Blake shook his head. “He doesn’t do any wrestling. Medical reports show the women probably aren’t touched at all. It’s a quiet scene, because there is no violence.”

“You happy with that? Profile-wise? An angry soldier looking for retribution and punishment, but there’s no uproar?”

“He kills them, Reacher. The way I see it, that’s retribution enough.”

There was silence. Reacher shrugged again. “Whatever. ”

Blake faced him down the length of the table. “You’d do it differently?”

“Sure I would. Suppose you keep on pissing me off and I come after you. I don’t see myself being especially gentle about it. I’d probably smack you around a little. Maybe a lot. If I was mad with you, I’d have to, right? That’s what being mad is all about.”

“So?”

“And what about the paint? How does he bring it to the house? We should go to the store and check out what thirty gallons looks like. He must have a car parked outside for twenty, thirty minutes at least. How does nobody see it? A parked car, or a wagon, or a truck?”