Lee Child: Killing Floor

“Who was he, Reacher?” Finlay said again.

I ignored him and looked at Baker.

“Why before one o’clock?” I asked him.

“The heavy rain last night began at one o’clock,” he said. “The pavement underneath the body was bone dry. So, the body was on the ground before one o’clock when the rain started. Medical opinion is he was shot at midnight.”

I nodded. Smiled at them. The time of death was going to let me out.

“Tell us what happened next,” Finlay said, quietly.

I shrugged at him.

“You tell me,” I said. “I wasn’t there. I was in Tampa at midnight.”

Baker leaned forward and pulled another sheet out of the file.

“What happened next is you got weird,” he said. “You went crazy.”

I shook my head at him.

“I wasn’t there at midnight,” I said again. “I was getting on the bus in Tampa. Nothing too weird about that.”

The two cops didn’t react. They looked pretty grim.

“Your first shot killed him,” Baker said. “Then you shot him again, and then you went berserk and kicked the shit out of the body. There are massive postmortem injuries. You shot him and then you tried to kick him apart. You kicked that corpse all over the damn place. You were in a frenzy. Then you calmed down and tried to hide the body under the cardboard.”

I was quiet for a long moment.

“Postmortem injuries?” I said.

Baker nodded.

“Like a frenzy,” he said. “The guy looks like he was run over by a truck. Just about every bone is smashed. But the doctor says it happened after the guy was already dead. You’re a weird guy, Reacher, that’s for damn sure.”

“Who was he?” Finlay asked for the third time.

I just looked at him. Baker was right. It had got weird. Very weird. Homicidal frenzy is bad enough. But postmortem frenzy is worse. I’d come across it a few times. Didn’t want to come across it anymore. But the way they’d described it to me, it didn’t make any sense.

“How did you meet the guy?” Finlay asked.

I carried on just looking at him. Didn’t answer.

“What does Pluribus mean?” he asked.

I shrugged. Kept quiet.

“Who was he, Reacher?” Finlay asked again.

“I wasn’t there,” I said. “I don’t know anything.”

Finlay was silent.

“What’s your phone number?” he said. Suddenly.

I looked at him like he was crazy.

“Finlay, what the hell are you talking about?” I said. “I haven’t got a phone. Don’t you listen? I don’t live anywhere.”

“I mean your mobile phone,” he said.

“What mobile phone?” I said. “I haven’t got a mobile phone.”

A clang of fear hit me. They figured me for an assassin. A weird rootless mercenary with a mobile phone who went from place to place killing people. Kicking their dead bodies to pieces. Checking in with an underground organization for my next target. Always on the move.

Finlay leaned forward. He slid a piece of paper toward me. It was a torn-off section of computer paper. Not old. A greasy gloss of wear on it. The patina paper gets from a month in a pocket. On it was printed an underlined heading. It said: Pluribus. Under the heading was a telephone number. I looked at it. Didn’t touch it. Didn’t want any confusion over fingerprints.

“Is that your number?” Finlay asked.

“I don’t have a telephone,” I said again. “I wasn’t here last night. The more you hassle me, the more time you’re wasting, Finlay.”

“It’s a mobile phone number,” he said. “That we know. Operated by an Atlanta airtime supplier. But we can’t trace the number until Monday. So we’re asking you. You should cooperate, Reacher.”

I looked at the scrap of paper again.

“Where was this?” I asked him.

Finlay considered the question. Decided to answer it.

“It was in your victim’s shoe,” he said. “Folded up and hidden.”

I SAT IN SILENCE FOR A LONG TIME. I WAS WORRIED. I FELT like somebody in a kid’s book who falls down a hole. Finds himself in a strange world where everything is different and weird. Like Alice in Wonderland. Did she fall down a hole? Or did she get off a Greyhound in the wrong place?

I was in a plush and opulent office. I had seen worse offices in Swiss banks. I was in the company of two policemen. Intelligent and professional. Probably had more than thirty years’ experience between them. A mature and competent department. Properly staffed and well funded. A weak point with the asshole Morrison at the top, but as good an organization as I had seen for a while. But they were all disappearing up a dead end as fast as they could run. They seemed convinced the earth was flat. That the huge Georgia sky was a bowl fitting snugly over the top. I was the only one who knew the earth was round.

“Two things,” I said. “The guy is shot in the head close up with a silenced automatic weapon. First shot drops him. Second shot is insurance. The shell cases are missing. What does that say to you? Professionally?”

Finlay said nothing. His prime suspect was discussing the case with him like a colleague. As the investigator, he shouldn’t allow that. He should cut me down. But he wanted to hear me out. I could see him arguing with himself. He was totally still, but his mind was struggling like kittens in a sack.

“Go on,” he said eventually. Gravely, like it was a big deal.

“That’s an execution, Finlay,” I said. “Not a robbery or a squabble. That’s a cold and clinical hit. No evidence left behind. That’s a smart guy with a flashlight scrabbling around afterward for two small-caliber shell cases.”

“Go on,” Finlay said again.

“Close range shot into the left temple,” I said. “Could be the victim was in a car. Shooter is talking to him through the window and raises his gun. Bang. He leans in and fires the second shot. Then he picks up his shell cases and he leaves.”

“He leaves?” Finlay said. “What about the rest of the stuff that went down? You’re suggesting a second man?”

I shook my head.

“There were three men,” I said. “That’s clear, right?”

“Why three?” he said.

“Practical minimum of two, right?” I said. “How did the victim get out there to the warehouses? He drove, right? Too far from anywhere to walk. So where’s his car now? The shooter didn’t walk there, either. So the practical minimum would be a team of two. They drove up there together and they drove away separately, one of them in the victim’s car.”

“But?” Finlay said.

“But the actual evidence points to a minimum of three,” I said. “Think about it psychologically. That’s the key to this thing. A guy who uses a silenced small-caliber automatic for a neat head shot and an insurance shot is not the type of guy who then suddenly goes berserk and kicks the shit out of a corpse, right? And the type of guy who does get in a frenzy like that doesn’t then suddenly calm down and hide the body under some old cardboard. You’re looking at three completely separate things there, Finlay. So there were three guys involved.”

Finlay shrugged at me.

“Two, maybe,” he said. “Shooter could have tidied up afterward.”

“No way,” I said. “He wouldn’t have waited around. He wouldn’t like that kind of frenzy. It would embarrass him. And it would worry him because it adds visibility and danger to the whole thing. And a guy like that, if he had tidied up afterward, he’d have done it right. He wouldn’t have left the body where the first guy who came along was going to find it. So you’re looking at three guys.”

Finlay thought hard.

“So?” he said.

“So which one am I supposed to be?” I said. “The shooter, the maniac or the idiot who hid the body?”