Lee Child - MatchUp

You needed a key to do this, of course, but the thing about the ignition switch on a ’68 Mustang is that it’s twenty-five years old. He was twenty-six and wasn’t holding up so well himself. The pins inside the cylinder weakened over time, so all you had to do was jimmy in a flathead screwdriver, or a pocketknife, turn it gently to the left, push in the paper clip, and pop out the cylinder.

A pro could do this in under ten seconds. A really smart pro, someone who wanted to be able to easily crank the engine again and again, possibly on a trip up from Florida, through Georgia, and onto farther points north with some coke and guns in the trunk, would shave down the tumblers inside the cylinder so that any key would turn on the engine.

Which he was able to do with the key to his own Mustang.

The engine coughed and sputtered against the freezing temperature. He pumped the gas to keep it going. While he was at it, he turned up the heater. Cold air blew in his face.

Now what?

He sat back in the seat, trying to consider his options. The kid at the hotel needed a second round, but not enough time had passed. Whatever he was lying about needed to fester like a rusted piece of metal inside his intestines.

Corinna was at the funeral home, but he doubted he’d get much out of the grieving mother, and besides, he wasn’t exactly working with the blessing of the locals. There was a fine line between what Chief DuPree would see as helping and what might come across as hindering.

Double up on the mountain was an obvious suspect to follow—drug dealer, connected to the victim—but he knew better than to go into some desolate holler without someone watching his back.

Not to mention that the snow was accumulating, which to a person living in the South was the most bloodcurdling thing that snow could ever do. Cars would be abandoned. Children would be locked behind doors. Grocery stores would be purged of milk, bread, kerosene, toilet paper, and Cheetos—all the vital necessities.

Anna Ruby Falls was half an hour drive and a quick hike into the Chattahoochee National Forest. The kid at the Shussel had said Double and his family lived on Millar Road. Second trailer on the right. American flag. Double’s neighbors would be watching out the windows. They might be involved in the family business, or making money off not being involved. Around these parts, crack was the new moonshine. The same people you saw in church on Sunday were the same people dealing on Monday.

He tried to turn on the wipers. The motor sent back a pained groan over the weight of the snow. He cut the engine and looked at his key, making sure the jimmied lock hadn’t damaged it. He could see white breaths in the air in front of his face.

The radio clock read 4:01.

The roads would be locked up by sundown, not because of the snow, but because even when it was cold, it always got warm enough in the afternoon to melt the snow, then it got cold enough to freeze it and come rush hour, people who thought they were driving home in the snow realized that they were sliding across sheets of ice.

All this talk about snow made him think of something.

He reached down and pulled the trunk release. He got out of the car, shivering like a beat-down dog as the wind cut open his skin. He had to squint his eyes almost closed as he walked to the back of the Mustang and pushed up the trunk.

The guns were still there.

The brick of coke was still there, but there had to be more than one brick of coke, otherwise, why bother?

“Shit,” he mumbled.

He didn’t have to think hard about how this had gone down. The chief, freaking out about the murder, the death notification, the hit to his budget, the risk to his department’s reputation, had run off to make phone calls, but not before telling Officer Paulson to secure the car. Paulson had put up the tape thinking that no one would violate the sacred words that beseeched all good citizens to DO NOT CROSS. Then he’d clapped his Jolly Green Giant hands together and ho-ho-ho’d off thinking job well done.

“Shit,” he repeated.

He would have to call A. Fuller and tell her to come get the coke and the guns. And then he would have to listen to her tell him that Alabama was going to be ranked number one or two this year, depending on where Florida State fell.

“What have we got here?”

He turned around.

The question had been posed by a guy with a northern accent who stood like a cop, legs apart, shoulders relaxed. He had a sidekick, another cop, a little younger, with a Glock in hand.

Police issued, it seemed.

The sidekick said, “Looks like we’ve got a guy with a bunch of guns and some coke in his trunk.”

The older guy said, “At least he’s put on some pants.”

4:04 P.M.

“HOLSTER THE SIDE ARM,” JOE told Lincoln Perry.

Joe had heard decent things about Detective Jeffrey Tolliver of Birmingham, Alabama, already from the DEA, and the surveillance video had proven beyond question that he hadn’t killed anyone today. But more important, Tolliver hadn’t packed up his shit and headed home once they kicked him loose from the holding cell. Joe had an idea that he was going to like the reason why.

“How long you been out of that cell?” he asked.

“Less than an hour.”

“And you’re here nosing around the car. Why?”

There was a little spark in the other man’s eyes that Joe liked an awful lot when Tolliver said, “A woman was gut shot in an alley and left to die. They never charged me, never searched me or my room or my car, and never asked me why I was here or what I was doing. The fact that I was locked up until the second shift came on—which consists solely of the chief’s wife—leads me to believe that the locals aren’t all that good at the detecting business.”

“So you came back here to work,” Joe said, which was exactly what he’d have done in Tolliver’s shoes.

Or shoe, as it were.

Tolliver nodded. “It’s been made clear that my help isn’t wanted, but it seems like they could use it.”

Joe said, “Okay. Here’s what I’d like to suggest. You close that trunk before we compromise the scene any more than already has been done, which would take some real effort.”

Tolliver closed the trunk with his elbow.

“We’ve got a surveillance video that will clear you completely, if they’re still talking about charges,” Joe said. “But we’ve also got a few questions. We came down here from Ohio to serve a warrant on the guy who did shoot the girl. What we’ve been told is that you think she stole your car. But this isn’t your car.”

Tolliver told him about the shaved tumblers, his theory about Antonio going to get a cup of coffee at the wrong place at the wrong time. He ended with, “Nora probably saw the Mustang on my key, thought she had the right ride, and ended up making the last mistake of her life.”

“The first cop who was on scene. What did you think of him?”

“Paulson?” He didn’t look impressed. “Young. Built like a radio antennae. Real jittery.”

“Jittery because he’s young, or jittery because he was scared?”

“Both, I guess.” Tolliver cocked his head and studied Joe through the falling snow. “Why’re you asking?”

Joe blew on his hands to warm them and then said, “Why don’t we talk in the car. Our car. We’ll drive, you ride, we’ll talk.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’ve got three possible addresses in the mountains for a guy named Double Simpson, who may have been waiting to inherit a stolen Mustang from his sister this morning.”

“I can pin that down for you. Millar Road near the falls. Second trailer on the right. I heard he’s a small-time pimp, wannabe big-time pusher. Runs his own sister. And mother.”