Echo burning. A Jack Reacher Novel. Lee Child

“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.”

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