Lee Child - Echo Burning

"I've got her property," Alice said. "A belt and a ring."

"Take them to storage," Walker said. "We'll be moving her, later."

"Where?"

"The penitentiary. We can't keep her here anymore."

"No, where's storage?"

"Same building as the morgue. Make sure you get a receipt."

* * *

Reacher walked with her over to the morgue. He wasn't aware of taking a single step. Wasn't aware of the heat, or the dust, or the noise, or the traffic, or the smells of the street. He felt like he was floating an inch above the sidewalk, insulated inside some kind of sensory-deprivation suit. Alice was talking to him, time to time, but he was hearing nothing that she said. All he could hear was a small voice inside his head that was saying you were wrong. Completely wrong. It was a voice he had heard before, but that didn't make it any easier to hear again, because he had built his whole career on hearing it fewer times than the next guy. It was like a box score in his mind, and his average had just taken some serious damage. Which upset him. Not because of vanity. It upset him because he was a professional who was supposed to get things right.

"Reacher?" Alice was saying. "You're not listening, are you?"

"What?" he said.

"I asked you, do you want to get a meal?"

"No," he said. "I want to get a ride."

She stopped walking. "What now? Quadruple-check?"

"No, I mean out of here. I want to go somewhere else. A long way away. I hear Antarctica is nice, this time of year."

"The bus depot is on the way back to the office."

"Good. I'll take a bus. Because I'm all done hitchhiking. You never know who's going to pick you up."

The morgue was a low industrial shed in a paved yard behind the street. It could have been a brake shop or a tire depot. It had metal siding and a roll-up vehicle door. There was a personnel entrance at the far end of the building. It had two steps up to it, framed by handrails fabricated from steel pipe. Inside, it was very cold. There were industrial-strength air conditioners running full blast. It felt like a meat store. Which it was, in a way. To the left of the foyer was a double door that gave directly onto the morgue operation. It was standing open, and Reacher could see the autopsy tables. There was plenty of stainless steel and white tile and fluorescent light in there.

Alice put the lizard skin belt on the reception counter and dug in her pocketbook for the ring. She told the attendant they were for Texas vs. Carmen Greer. He went away and came back with the evidence box.

"No, it's personal property," she said. "Not evidence. I'm sorry."

The guy gave her a why didn't you say so look and turned around.

"Wait," Reacher called. "Let me see that."

The guy paused, and then he turned back and slid the box across the counter. It had no lid, so it was really just a cardboard tray maybe three inches deep. Somebody had written Greer on the front edge with a marker pen. The Lorcin was in a plastic bag with an evidence number. Two brass shell cases were in a separate bag. Two tiny .22 bullets were in a bag each. They were gray and very slightly distorted. One bag was marked Intercranial #1 and the other was marked Intercranial #2. They had reference numbers, and signatures.

"Is the pathologist here?" Reacher asked.

"Sure," the counter guy said. "He's always here."

"I need to see him," Reacher said. "Right now."

He was expecting objections, but the guy just pointed to the double doors.

"In there," he said.

Alice hung back, but Reacher went through. At first he thought the room was empty, but then he saw a glass door in the far corner. Behind it was an office, with a man in green scrubs at a desk. He was doing paperwork. Reacher knocked on the glass. The man looked up. Mouthed come in. Reacher went in.

"Help you?" the guy said.

"Only two bullets in Sloop Greer?" Reacher said.

"Who are you?"

"I'm with the perp's lawyer," Reacher said. "She's outside."

"The perp?"

"No, the lawyer."

"O.K.," the guy said. "What about the bullets?"

"How many were there?"

"Two," the guy said. "Hell of a time getting them out."

"Can I see the body?"

"Why?"

"I'm worried about a miscarriage of justice."

It's a line that usually works with pathologists. They figure there's going to be a trial, they figure they'll be called on for evidence, the last thing they want is to be humiliated by the defense on cross-examination. It's bad for their scientific image. And their egos. So they prefer to get any doubts squared away beforehand.

"O.K.," he said. "It's in the freezer."

He had another door in back of his office which led to a dim corridor. At the end of the corridor was an insulated steel door, like a meat locker.

"Cold in there," he said.

Reacher nodded. "I'm glad somewhere is."

The guy operated the handle and they went inside. The light was bright. There were fluorescent tubes all over the ceiling. There was a bank of twenty-seven stainless steel drawers on the far wall, nine across, three high. Eight of them were occupied. They had tags slipped into little receptacles on the front, the sort of thing you see on office filing cabinets. The air in the room was frosty. Reacher's breath clouded in front of him. The pathologist checked the tags and slid a drawer. It came out easily, on cantilevered runners.

"Had to take the back of his head off," he said. "Practically had to scoop his brains out with a soup ladle, before I found them."

Sloop Greer was on his back and naked. He looked small and collapsed in death. His skin was gray, like unfired clay. It was hard with cold. His eyes were open, blank and staring. He had two bullet holes in his forehead, about three inches apart. They were neat holes, blue and ridged at the edges, like they had been carefully drilled there by a craftsman.

"Classic .22 gunshot wounds," the pathologist said. "The bullets go in O.K., but they don't come out again. Too slow. Not enough power. They just rattle around in there. But they get the job done."

Reacher closed his eyes. Then he smiled. A big, broad grin.

"That's for sure," he said. "They get the job done."

There was a knock at the open door. A low sound, like soft knuckles against hard steel. Reacher opened his eyes again. Alice was standing there, shivering.

"What are you doing?" she called to him.

"What comes after quadruple-check?" he called back.

His breath hung in the air in front of him, like a shaped cloud.

"Quintuple-check," she said. "Why?"

"And after that?"

"Sextuple," she said. "Why?"

"Because we're going to be doing a whole lot of checking now."

"Why?"

"Because there's something seriously wrong here, Alice. Come take a look."

Alice walked slowly across the tile.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Tell me what you see," Reacher said.

She dropped her eyes toward the corpse like it required a physical effort.

"Shot in the head," she said. "Twice."

"How far apart are the holes?"

"Maybe three inches."

"What else do you see?"

"Nothing," she said.

He nodded. "Exactly."

"So?"

"Look closer. The holes are clean, right?"

She took a step nearer the drawer. Bent slightly from the waist.

"They look clean," she said.

"That has implications," he said. "It means they're not contact wounds. A contact wound is where you put the muzzle of the gun directly against the forehead. You know what happens when you do that?"

She shook her head. Said nothing.

"First thing out of a gun barrel is an explosion of hot gas. If the muzzle was tight against the forehead, the gas punches in under the skin and then can't go anyplace, because of the bone. So it punches right back out again. It tears itself a big star-shaped hole. Looks like a starfish. Right, doc?"