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start,” Danimal said. “He claimed he was drinking with buddies at a local strip joint until the place closed.”
    “Devoted family man that he was. Alibi didn’t hold up, though?”
    “No confirming surveillance available in those clubs, for obvious reasons. Nobody remembered Weston being there after his buddies left about two a.m.”
    Gaspar said, “Meaning Reacher focused on the most obvious suspect.”
    “Pretty much,” Danimal said. “Reacher wanted Weston to be guilty, sure. But the rest of us agreed. Reacher wasn’t completely wrong.”
    “Roger that,” Gaspar said.
    “What happened next?” Otto asked.
    Danimal looked uncomfortable for the first time. “That’s a little…vague.”
    “Let me guess,” Otto said, sardonically. “Weston was hauled in looking like he’d been run over by a bus, right?”
    Danimal shrugged and said nothing.
    “What persuaded Reacher to abandon charges against Weston?” Gaspar asked.
    Silence again.
    Otto asked, “So what happened after Weston’s arrest?”
    “Case was over, as far as we were concerned. The situation moved up the chain of command, out of Reacher’s purview. He returned to his regular post.”
    “Where was that?”
    “Texas, maybe?” Danimal said.
    “But that wasn’t the end of things, was it?”
    “Pretty quickly, local detectives concluded Weston’s family had been killed by a cheap hit man.”
    “How cheap?” Gaspar asked.
    “Five-hundred dollars, I think, for all four hits.”
    “Anybody could have paid that,” Otto said. “Even on Army wages.”
    Danimal didn’t argue. “They couldn’t tie Weston to the killer, so charges against Weston were dropped. Reacher had no say in the matter. Even if he’d still been on base, the result would have been the same.”
    Gaspar said, “Reacher had to love that.”
    Danimal laughed. “Exactly.”
    Otto tilted her head toward Jess Kimball, who was still sitting with the press off to the opposite side of the stage. “Reporter over there says Weston’s family was killed to send him a message. Any truth to that?”
    “Probably. But that made him a victim, not a suspect. We couldn’t prove anything more,” Danimal replied.
    “How hard did you try?” Gaspar asked.
    “If the evidence was there, Reacher would have found it. He was a good cop and he did a good job on the case.”
    After thinking a bit, Otto said, “After Weston was released, Reacher kept looking for evidence, didn’t he? And he let it be known. He hounded Weston, figuring he’d crack. Or do something else Reacher could charge him for, right?”
    Danimal said nothing.
    Otto said, “A few of your guys maybe helped Reacher out with that project.”
    Danimal still said nothing.
    Weston was a scumbag through and through. Reacher wouldn’t have let that go. Gaspar wouldn’t have, either.
    “How’d it end?” Otto asked.
    “Weston was arrested frequently. Jaywalking. Spitting on the sidewalk. Whatever,” Danimal replied.
    “Didn’t matter as long as Weston was getting hassled and locked up for something and sporting a few bruises, right?” Otto asked.
    He shrugged. “When Weston came up for his next promotion, he got passed over. His CO suggested he’d be better off outside, away from, uh, constant surveillance.”
    “So Weston retired,” Otto said.
    “Yes.”
    “And then what?”
    Danimal replied, “And then he got worse.”
    Gaspar figured Reacher had been counting on that. Reacher had sized Weston up and concluded he was a scumbag. Guys like Weston don’t get better with age.
    While Danimal was briefing them, Gaspar had been preoccupied with Reacher and not watching Weston closely enough. For Gaspar’s assignment, Weston was a source of information and nothing more. After he told them what they needed to know, Weston could stand in front of a firing squad and Gaspar wouldn’t have cared. Because he agreed with Reacher. Weston killed his family, one way or another. Weston was not the victim here.
    Until he