Lee Child - MatchUp

He leaned his head back against the bars. “I get the lesson, Hoss. Are you gonna let me out of here or not?”

“Chief Eustace DuPree is the man’s name. Nice fella. Worked three murder cases in his thirty-two-year career, all of them domestics, which means he arrested the husband and that was that.”

“Will he take my help?”

“Last I heard the DEA was sending some boys down from Cleveland to give DuPree a hand, but you know nobody likes that kind of help.”

DEA meant federal. They wouldn’t want help any more than the locals. Still, he lowered his voice. “There’s a few things I can follow up on.”

“Just try not to get arrested again.”

He heard the phone click as Hoss hung up. For Sergeant A. Fuller’s sake, he said, “I appreciate your confidence in me, sir. Thank you.” He handed the phone back through the bars, but A. Fuller was already sitting at her desk.

She nodded to the phone base.

“Hang it up yourself, Slick. The door’s not locked.”

Jeffrey tentatively pushed at the cell door. It swung open. He shoe-socked to the desk and hung up the phone. “Did you find those two guys in the blue truck?”

“Nope.”

“Did you find the black guy from the hotel?”

“You mean Homey D. Clown? Yeah, they got him locked up in the other jail.”

Jeffrey ignored the sarcasm and looked down at his shoes so she couldn’t see the hate in his eyes. “Does the chief want to talk to me?”

“I’d say that falls under the headline of ‘When Hell Freezes Over.’ ”

“I want to help.”

“I’m sure you do, Auburn, but we got it covered.” A. Fuller pulled a large brown paper evidence bag from a drawer. She took out his left shoe and offered it to Jeffrey. He put it on. She handed him a sock. He took off his right shoe and donned the sock. She handed him his jeans.

“Really?”

He grabbed them, slid off his shoes, slipped on the jeans, then shoved his feet back into his sneakers.

“No wallet?” he asked. “Pager? Keys? ChapStick?”

She dug around in the bag, a blank expression on her face. Just when he was about to give up, she tossed him his keys.

“You’re free to go, Mr. Tolliver.”

He should’ve let it slide, but he couldn’t. “Detective Tolliver. Good thing I didn’t bring my Sugar Bowl ring on this trip to your beautiful town.”

“You mean from back when you tied with Syracuse?” She snorted. “Weren’t we the only team that beat you that year?”

“I don’t remember seeing you on the bench, Sergeant.”

She rested her hand on the butt of her gun. “I can put your ass back in that cell and nobody’ll think to look for you till Monday.”

He let it go and walked into what turned out to be an empty squad room. Two desks, each with a phone and stacks of papers. He guessed the nice leather chair belonged to the chief, and the Kmart special lowered about an inch from the ground belonged to Paulson. The kid wouldn’t be able to stick his knees under the desk otherwise.

He gave the front door one push and it was immediately snatched out of his hand by a strong gust of wind. His T-shirt rattled against his chest. He squinted his eyes against the stinging wind. Of course the trek back to the hotel was straight into the wind tunnel. The gust came down off the mountains like a scythe. He jammed his hands into his jeans pockets, bent his knees, and forced himself forward.

His first stop was not at the Schussel Mountain Lodge but at the trash can on the sidewalk outside the building. He had seen the Mustang stop here for a second, and sure enough, Nora had taken the opportunity to dump his wallet. What a break it was still there. His cash and cards were gone, but Nora had left his driver’s license and his key card to his hotel room. Next, he headed downwind to his Mustang. He unlocked the trunk, holding his breath until he found his badge and spare gun in the wheel well. He stuck the badge in his back pocket. The gun went into the waist of his jeans.

He felt whole again.

The lobby desk inside the Schussel was unmanned. Instead of waiting for the elevator, he used the stairs. His room was on the second floor, which happened to overlook the alleyway between the Schussel and the Linderhof. Once inside he pushed open the window overlooking the alley, his teeth chattering before he even had a chance to look down. The Mustang was two stories below, abandoned but for the police tape warning people away.

He saw flecks of white floating in front of his eyes. He blinked, thinking his brain was so tired it was throwing up hallucinations, but no—he really was seeing snow. In March. In Georgia. It was falling steady like you saw in movies, thick white flakes that looked like they had no intention of stopping.

He closed the window and rifled through his suitcase until he found some clean, nonnovelty underwear. He slipped on a new T-shirt and a flannel button-down that he almost hadn’t packed because he was afraid the weather would be too warm. He stepped into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. Then washed his face, combed his hair, and looked at himself in the mirror.

His reflection in the mirror revealed a man who appeared even more hungover than he had this morning.

Hoss’s earlier admonishments rang in his ears, but there was nothing he could do about changing his entire life right now. He left his room and took the steps down two at a time. When he opened the door to the lobby he found the front desk occupied by a teenager sporting a Chia-like goatee and a V-neck T-shirt that showed the top of a tattoo that probably read Damn Skippy.

The kid was reading Catcher in the Rye, because it wasn’t disaffected enough to have a tattoo and a goatee. He looked up as Jeffrey approached. “You’re the underwear guy.”

He let the comment slide. “Where’s the woman who was working here this morning?”

“Corinna?” The kid laid down his book. “At the funeral home. Nora was her daughter.”

He scratched his chin. He’d forgotten to shave. “Did you know Nora?”

A derisive noise came out of the back of the kid’s nose. “Not like you did.”

He leaned over the desk.

Like a switch being hit, his hangover evaporated and his cop brain took over. The kid seemed to get that things were different now. He cowered away, quickly understanding that Jeffrey was ready to punch him in the throat if he didn’t start talking.

“Nora was two years ahead of me in school, but I knew her.”

He felt the color drain out of his face. The kid looked around fifteen. “How old was she?”

“Twenty-two.”

He allowed some air out of his lungs. “Did she do this a lot?”

“What do you mean?”

The kid scratched at his hairless chest peeking out of the V-neck. A vein throbbed in his pimpled forehead. His visible fear heightened Jeffrey’s aggression. He leaned farther across the counter and turned on the dead in his eyes.

“What I mean, you stupid piece of shit, is that they were working a scam. Corrina gets the signal from the bartender that he’s got a live one. She sends in Nora. Nora gets the mark drunk, takes him up to an empty room, and pours more liquor down his throat until he passes out. Then she robs him, steals his car, and he wakes up the next morning thinking his only option is to lie to cops about how his car got stolen and get the hell out of town before his wife finds out he cheated on her.”

“Don’t sound like you passed out.”

“Lucky for me,” Jeffrey said, uneasy with his role in the situation. “Do the local cops know what you’re running here?”

“No, sir.” He held up his hands. “And I got no part in it. I promise on a stack of bibles.”

He knew that was a lie, but didn’t care. He glanced around the lobby. “Where did those missionaries go? I didn’t see their bus in the parking lot.”