CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It was Sunday and we were in the middle of the Bible belt, but The Lucky Bar had reopened for business. The flashing neon signs were unmistakable for both north and southbound traffic. Colonel Summer must have known precisely where she was whenever she drove past it over the years. No way could she have missed those lights, any more than she could have been disoriented or failed to realize that blind curve at mile marker #224.

Gaspar pulled into the truck stop to refuel and look around. It was getting late and we would stay at the New Haven Grand Lodge tonight.

“I thought you said Alvin Barry was hospitalized and his son, Junior, was arrested? Who’s running the bar?”

I shrugged. It had been a long day. The last thing I’d hoped for was another trip to The Lucky Bar. But I knew that’s exactly where I was headed.

Gaspar finished with the gas and we rolled over to The Lucky Bar’s parking lot. There were fewer vehicles in the lot than there were two days ago, but it was still three-quarters full. Gaspar parked and we exited the vehicle. The bar’s door was wide open and the wall of noise was palpable like before.

As we walked toward the entrance, Gaspar’s limp grew less pronounced with each step, as always, yet he still pulled a Tylenol out of his pocket and swallowed it when he thought I wasn’t looking. I was worried about his liver, but I said nothing. I was his partner, not his mother.

Once again, the stench of tobacco smoke and beer assaulted us more than ten yards away.

At the front door, we stopped briefly before stepping inside. Behind the bar was a younger, slightly smaller version of Junior Barry. Same stocky build, same tight black T-shirt, tattoos in all the same places.

Standing next to him was a woman I recognized. I nudged Gaspar with my elbow and nodded toward her. “Sergeant Major Madeline Jones, retired.”

He nodded.

The pounding, pulsing country music and the garish pink, blue, and green floodlights supplied the necessary accompaniment for the exotic dancer on the stage. Tonight, the tables were upright and the chairs were full. Again, patrons seemed to be about ninety-eight percent male, mostly civilians, and a few enlisted men from Fort Bird looking uncomfortable in civilian clothes with unmistakable haircuts.

Everything about the place seemed to be business as usual like the shooting never happened.

Jones recognized me. She waited until we found an empty table near the back of the crowded floor where the din was slightly quieter and conversation almost possible. She brought over three domestic beers in brown long-necked bottles and joined us. She raised her bottle in a toast. “Thank you for your help with Alvin and Junior the other night,” she shouted over the music.

“I wish I could have done more,” I shouted back. I introduced Gaspar and she nodded and raised her bottle in his direction.

Gaspar took a sip to be friendly, but he normally didn’t drink. I assumed he was worried about navigating on his bad leg while under the influence. Or maybe he was worried about his liver because all of the Tylenol he ate, too.

“You just helping out for tonight?”

“Alvin’s my brother. I watch the place a couple of nights a week so he can get a break. We never had a shooting before, but things can get out of hand pretty quickly. That’s a cousin behind the counter now. Everybody will be taking turns until Alvin is back on his feet and Junior is sorted out.”

“Any news on Alvin’s shoulder?” I swigged the beer to be sociable.

“Doc over at New Haven General says he’s not as young as he used to be, but he’ll be okay.”

“What about Junior?”

“He’ll probably get a few years in state prison. A couple bullets that hit the dancer and one of the patrons came from his gun.”

I sipped and waited a second before I changed the subject. “The other day, you had some pretty hard words about Reacher. I’ve never met him. Anything else you can tell me for my background check would help.”

She nodded a couple of times as if she was thinking things through. “At first, I liked him. He was straight with me. I had a young son at home and I was worried I might be left on the outside looking in after the big changes coming down because of the end of the Cold War.”

“What did he say about that?” Gaspar asked.

“He told me not to worry. He said my son would be out of college before they figured out the force reduction. He was dead wrong, but it made me feel better at the time.” She did seem to have liked Reacher, which stood in stark contrast to the impression she gave me in Tony Clifton’s office.

She swigged her beer. Now that she’d started talking, she kept going. “We got along well enough. I brought him coffee. He had an emergency once and I loaned him all the money I had. I think it was about forty-seven dollars. He paid me back fifty-two, which included my babysitter.”

She chuckled. She drained the beer and returned the bottle to the table.

I said, “Junior told me that Jack Reacher was the one who messed up Alvin’s knee. Is that true?”

A dark cloud floated across her features. “Lucky for him I didn’t know that until after he’d gone. Got off with a slap on the wrist for it, too.” She scowled. The hard tone she’d used in Major Clifton’s office that first day had returned, rocky as granite. “Just because he busted those officers, they let him off the hook for what he did to Alvin. A lot of us didn’t think that was right at the time. Still don’t.”

The anger rolled off her in waves that I could feel like the pulsing of the loud country music in my veins. “What about Summer? What did she think about it?”

“She thought it was just fine. But then, she would. She was sleeping with Reacher and she thought he hung the moon. She made out like he was some kind of misunderstood hero or something.” Jones’s scowl grabbed tighter across her face. “If Summer hadn’t spoken up for him, he’d have gone to Leavenworth for what he did. The pain he put Alvin through was criminal. Disabled a fine man who did nothing but take care of his own.”

I nodded like what she’d said made perfect sense. “You heard about Colonel Summer’s accident? The same night as the shooting.”

“I heard.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I told Sheriff Taylor. She was speeding around here in that little car like she always did. The truck slowed down and she didn’t. Nasty way to go, but at least it was over quick. She wasn’t disabled and in pain her whole life with a busted leg. Could’ve gone that way, you know.” Jones’s cold words made her sound a little sorry that Summer died instantly.

“What do you know about the dancer that was the catalyst for everything that happened here the other night?”

“Nothing much. She grew up around here, but she was a mousy little thing. High tailed it outta here with Mayne when she was too young to know better. She shouldn’t have messed with Delta Force. Those guys are all a little crazy, you ask me.” She drained her beer and set the bottle down. “Reacher’s still causing trouble and he’s been gone from around here for twenty years.”

“What do you mean?”

“The shooter. Jeffrey Mayne. He and Reacher had a beef, too. Around the same time as everything else. Reacher shoved a bullet up Mayne’s nose. Mayne didn’t take that well at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had another round or two before Reacher mustered out.” She rolled her shoulders and her neck cracked. “Did some kind of permanent damage to Mayne’s sinuses. Which got him discharged on a medical a couple of years later. After Mayne and Gloria were already gone from here.” She shook her head and scowled darkly. “And now Reacher circles back around and tears our lives up all over again—Alvin’s bar all shot up, a bunch of people dead, Gloria included, Junior headed for the pen—”

“What do you mean? Reacher was here during the shooting?” I blinked. I felt whipsawed.

“I don’t know where Reacher is, I told you that.” Jones shrugged. “But whatever happened here that night, it’s all because of him. Back in 1990, Reacher messed up Alvin’s leg for life because he thought Alvin had knocked one of the dancers around. Wasn’t true then and never been true since. Mayne thinking Alvin somehow kept Gloria away from him by force or something wasn’t true, either. People think Alvin looks scary, so he must be scary, you know?”

Jones was drifting. I brought her back online: “So why did Reacher shove the bullet up Mayne’s nose?”

“Mayne had delivered the bullet a couple of days before with Reacher’s name on it.”

“A threat? For what?”

“Reacher was poking into things he shouldn’t have been, disrespecting a murdered officer. Delta guys didn’t appreciate it, I guess.” She stood and collected her empty beer bottle. Ours were still full, so she left them on the table. “I’ve gotta get back to work.”

Gaspar said, “Did you know either one of the big rig drivers involved in that crash?”

“Sure. I know both of those men. Fine fathers and good truckers, too. This must be tearing them up.”

“You heard about the deer, then?”

She nodded. “Deer on the road around here are pretty normal. We got farmers all over the place and the deer eat the crops. Oftentimes we’ve got goats and cows on the roads, too. Natural hazards. Hell, there’s even a couple of signs on both sides of the highway saying to watch out for them. Summer knew that, just like everybody else does.”

I met her eyes with a steady gaze. “You didn’t kill Summer, did you?”

I expected her to bridle at the question or be shocked by the idea that anything but Summer’s own recklessness had killed her, but she just held my gaze and said, “Not me,” smirking in a way that suggested she knew who did.

She wove through the tables and stopped to chat with a few of the men on her way back to the front. As I watched her go, I wondered if she’d had any sniper training and whether she’d qualified on the L115A3 rifle.