Blue Moon

Aaron Shevick might have been a hotshot machinist in the distant past, but he was no kind of a useful witness in the present day. He said he had heard no traffic outside. He had seen no cars on the street. They had gotten up at seven o’clock in the morning and had eaten a small breakfast at eight. Then he had walked to the convenience store to buy a quart of milk, for future small breakfasts. When he got home Maria was nowhere to be seen.

“How long were you gone?” Reacher asked.

“Twenty minutes,” Shevick said. “Maybe more. I’m still walking slow.”

“And you looked all through the house?”

“I thought maybe she had fallen. But she hadn’t. Not in the yard, either. So she went out somewhere. Or someone took her.”

“Let’s start with she went out somewhere. Did she take her coat?”

“She didn’t need her coat,” Abby said. “It’s warm enough without. A better question would be, did she take her purse?”

Shevick looked in what he called all the usual places. There were four of them. A particular spot on the kitchen countertop, a particular spot on an entryway bench in the hallway area opposite the front door, a particular peg in the coat closet where they also hung their umbrellas, and lastly, a spot on the living room floor next to her armchair.

No purse.

“OK,” Reacher said. “That’s a good sign. Very persuasive. It means most likely she went out voluntarily, under her own steam, in an orderly fashion, not in any kind of panic, and not under any kind of duress.”

Shevick said, “She might have left her purse somewhere else.” He glanced all around, helpless. It was a small house, but even so it hid a hundred hiding places.

“Let’s look on the bright side,” Reacher said. “She picked up her purse, she hooked it on her elbow, and she walked away down the path.”

“Or they threw her in a car. Maybe they forced her to bring her purse. Maybe they knew how it would look to us. They’re trying to throw us off the trail.”

“I think she went to the pawn shop,” Reacher said.

Shevick was quiet a long moment. Then he raised a finger in a be-right-back kind of a way, and he limped down the corridor to the bedroom. A minute later he limped back carrying an ancient shoebox. It had faded pastel pink and white candystripes on it, and a faded black and white label pasted to the short end, with a manufacturer’s name, and a line drawing of a shoe, which was a proudly chunky woman’s lace-up, and a size, which was four, and a price, which was a penny shy of four bucks. Maybe the shoes Maria Shevick was married in.

“The family jewelry,” Shevick said.

He lifted the lid. The box was empty. No nine-carat wedding bands, no diamond engagement rings, no gold-plated watch with a crack in the crystal.

“We should go pick her up,” Abby said. “It will be a sad walk home otherwise.”

—

Organized crime’s traditional staples were usury, narcotics, prostitution, gambling, and protection rackets. Throughout their half of the city the Ukrainians ran them all with great skill and aplomb. Narcotics were doing better than ever. Weed had largely gone away, because of creeping legalization all over the place, but exploding demand for meth and oxy more than made up the difference. Profit was sky high. Pushed even higher by a percentage royalty on all the Mexican heroin sold in the city itself, from the western limit to Center Street. Every single gram. Gregory’s greatest success. He had negotiated the deal himself. The Mexican gangs were notorious barbarians, and it took a lot to impress them. But Gregory had persisted. Two of their street corner guys upside down with their guts out had finally done the trick. Before death, unhappily. At that point the Mexicans had started to fear for future recruitment. Street corner guys didn’t make much. Enough to risk getting shot, maybe, but not enough to risk getting hung upside down and slit wide open from throat to groin. While still alive. Hence the royalty. It kept everyone happy.