Blake was still silent.

“Not that you needed much manipulation,” Reacher said.

“This is just speculation,” Blake said.

Reacher nodded. “Of course it is. I told you, it’s only half an idea. But that’s what you do down here, right? You sit here all day long wearing the seat out of your pants, speculating about half-ideas.”

Silence in the room.

“It’s bullshit,” Blake said.

Reacher nodded again. “Yes, maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s some Army guy making big bucks out of some scam these women knew about. And he’s hiding behind this harassment issue, by dressing it up like a psychodrama. He knew you’d jump right on it. He knew he could make you look in the wrong place. Because he’s very smart.”

Silence.

“Your call,” Reacher said.

There was silence.

“Julia?” Blake said.

The silence continued. Then Lamarr nodded, slowly. “It’s a viable scenario. Maybe more than viable. It’s possible he could be exactly right. Possible enough that I think we should check it out, maximum effort, immediately. ”

The silence came back.

“I think we shouldn’t waste any more time,” Lamarr whispered.

“But he’s wrong,” Poulton said.

He was riffing through paper, and his voice was loud and joyful.

“Caroline Cooke makes him wrong,” he said. “She was in War Plans at NATO. High-level office work. She was never anywhere near weapons or warehouses or quartermasters.”

Reacher said nothing. Then the silence was broken by the door. It opened up and Stavely hurried into the room, big and busy and intrusive. He was dressed in a white lab coat, and his wrists were smeared green where the paint had lapped up above his gloves. Lamarr stared at the marks and went whiter than his coat. She stared for a long moment and then closed her eyes and swayed like she was about to faint. She gripped the tabletop in front of her, thumbs underneath, pale fingers above, spread outward with the thin tendons standing out like quivering wires.

“I want to go home now,” she said, quietly.

She reached down and gathered up her bag. Threaded the strap onto her shoulder and pushed back her chair and stood up. Walked slowly and unsteadily to the door, her eyes fixed on the remnants of her sister’s last moments of life daubed across Stavely’s stained wrists. Her head turned as she walked to keep them in view. Then she wrenched her gaze away and opened the door. Passed through it and let it close silently behind her.

“What?” Blake said.

“I know how he kills them,” Stavely said. “Except there’s a problem.”

“What problem?” Blake asked.

“It’s impossible.”

20

"I CUTA few corners,” Stavely said. “You need to understand that, OK? You guys are in a big hurry, and we think we’re dealing with a consistent MO, so all I did was look at the questions that the first three left behind. I mean, we all know what it isn’t, right?”

“It isn’t everything, far as we know,” Blake said.

“Right. No blunt trauma, no gunshots, no stab wounds, no poison, no strangulation.”

“So what is it?”

Stavely moved a complete circle around the table and sat down at an empty chair, on his own, three seats from Poulton and two from Reacher.

“Did she drown?” Poulton asked.

Stavely shook his head. “No, just like the first three didn’t. I took a look at her lungs, and they were completely clear.”

“So what is it?” Blake asked again.

“Like I told you,” Stavely said. “You stop the heart, or you deny oxygen to the brain. So first, I looked at her heart. And her heart was perfect. Completely undamaged. Same as the other three. And these were fit women. Great hearts. It’s easier to spot the damage on a good heart. An older person might have a bad heart, with preexisting damage, you know, furring or scarring from previous cardiac trouble, and that can hide new damage. But these were perfect hearts, like athletes. Any trauma, it would have stuck out a mile. But there wasn’t any. So he didn’t stop their hearts.”

“So?” Blake asked.

“So he denied them oxygen,” Stavely said. “It’s the only remaining possibility.”

“How?”

“Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it? Theoretically he could have sealed off the bathroom and pumped the oxygen out and replaced it with some inert gas.”

Blake shook his head. “That’s absurd.”

“Of course it is,” Stavely said. “He’d have needed equipment, pumps, tanks of gas. And we’d have found residue in the tissues. Certainly in the lungs. There aren’t any gases we wouldn’t have detected.”

“So?”

“So he choked off their airways. It’s the only possibility. ”

“You said there are no signs of strangulation.”

Stavely nodded. “There aren’t. That’s what got me interested. Strangulation normally leaves massive trauma to the neck. All kinds of bruising, internal bleeding. It sticks out a mile. Same for garroting.”

“But?”

“There’s something called gentle strangulation.”

“Gentle?” Harper said. “Awful phrase.”

“What is it?” Poulton asked.

“A guy with a big arm,” Stavely said. “Or a padded coat sleeve. Gentle consistent pressure, that will do it.”

“So is that it?” Blake asked.

Stavely shook his head. “No, it isn’t. No external marks, but to get far enough to kill them, you leave internal damage. The hyoid bone would be broken, for instance. Certainly cracked, at least. Other ligament damage too. It’s a very fragile area. The voice box is there.”

“And you’re going to tell me there was no damage, I guess,” Blake said.

“Nothing gross,” Stavely said. “Did she have a cold, when you met with her?”

He looked at Harper, but Reacher answered.

“No,” he said.

“Sore throat?”

“No.”

“Husky voice?”

“She seemed pretty healthy to me.”

Stavely nodded. Looked pleased. “There was some very, very slight swelling inside the throat. It’s what you’d get recovering from a head cold. Mucus drip might do it, or a very mild strep virus. Ninety-nine times in a hundred, I’d ignore it completely. But the other three had it too. That’s a little coincidental for me.”

“So what does it mean?” Blake asked.

“It means he pushed something down their throats,” Stavely said.

Silence in the room.

“Down their throats?” Blake repeated.

Stavely nodded. “That was my guess. Something soft, something which would slip down and then expand a little. Maybe a sponge. Were there sponges in the bathrooms?”

“I didn’t see one in Spokane,” Reacher said.

Poulton was back in the piles of paper. “Nothing on the inventories.”

“Maybe he removed them,” Harper said. “He took their clothes.”

“Bathrooms without sponges,” Blake said slowly. “Like the dog that didn’t bark.”

“No,” Reacher said. “There wasn’t a sponge before, is what I meant.”

“You sure?” Blake asked.

Reacher nodded. “Totally.”

“Maybe he brings one with him,” Harper said. “The type he prefers.”

Blake looked away, back to Stavely. “So that’s how he’s doing it? Sponges down their throats?”

Stavely stared at his big red hands, resting on the tabletop.

“It has to be,” he said. “Sponges, or something similar. Like Sherlock Holmes, right? First you eliminate the impossible, and whatever you’re left with, however improbable, has got to be the answer. So the guy is choking them to death by pushing something soft down their throats. Something soft enough not to cause blunt trauma internally, but something dense enough to block the air.”

Blake nodded, slowly. “OK, so now we know.”

Stavely shook his head. “Well, no, we don’t. Because it’s impossible.”

“Why?”

Stavely just shrugged miserably.

“Come here, Harper,” Reacher said.

She looked at him, surprised. Then she smiled briefly and stood up and scraped her chair back and walked toward him.