Breakfast came and we ate it. The whole bit. Pancakes, syrup, bacon. Lots of coffee in a thick china jug. Afterward, I lay back on the bed. Pretty soon started feeling restless. Started feeling like it had been a mistake to wait around. It felt like we weren’t doing anything. I could see Roscoe was feeling the same way. She propped the photograph of Hubble and Stoller and the yellow van on the
nightstand and glared at it. I glared at the telephone. It wasn’t ringing. We wandered around the room, waiting. Then I stooped to pick up the Desert Eagle off the floor by the bed. Hefted it in my hand. Traced the engraved name on the grip with my finger. Looked across at Roscoe. I was curious about the guy who’d bought that massive automatic.
`What was Gray like?’ I asked.
`Gray?’ she said. `He was so thorough. You want to get Joe’s files? You should see Gray’s paperwork. There are twenty-five years of his files in the station house. All meticulous, all comprehensive. Gray was a good detective.’
`Why did he hang himself?’ I asked her.
`I don’t know,’ she said. `I never understood it.’
`Was he depressed?’ I said.
`Not really,’ she said. `I mean, he was always sort of depressed. Lugubrious, you know? A very dour sort of guy. And bored. He was a good detective, and he was wasted in Margrave. But no worse in February than any other time. It was a total surprise to me. I was very upset.’
`Were you close?’ I asked her.
She shrugged.
`Yes, we were,’ she said. `In a way, we were pretty close. He was a dour guy, you know, not really that close to anybody. Never married, always lived alone, no relatives. He was a teetotaller, so he would never come out for a beer or anything. He was quiet, messy, a little overweight. No hair and a big straggly beard. A very self-contained, comfortable type of a guy. A loner, really. But he was as close to me as he was ever going to get to anybody. We liked each other, in a quiet sort of a way.’
`And he never said anything?’ I asked her. `Just hanged himself one day?’
`That’s how it was,’ she said. `A total shock. I’ll never understand it.’
`Why did you have his gun in your desk?’ I said.
`He asked if he could keep it in there,’ she said. `He had no space in his own desk. He generated a lot of paperwork. He just asked if I could keep a box for him with the gun hidden in it. It was his private weapon. He said he couldn’t get it approved by the department because the calibre was too big. He made it feel like some kind of a big secret.’
I put the dead man’s secret gun down on the carpet again and the silence was shattered by the phone ringing. I sprinted for the nightstand and answered it. Heard Finlay’s voice. I gripped the phone and held my breath.
`Reacher?’ Finlay said. `Picard got what we need. He traced the car.’
I breathed out and nodded to Roscoe.
`Great, Finlay,’ I said. `So what’s the story?’
`Go to his office,’ he said. `He’ll give you the
spread, face to face. I didn’t want too much con
versation on the phones down here.’
I closed my eyes for a second and felt a surge of
energy.
`Thanks, Finlay,’ I said. `Speak to you later.’ `OK,’ he said. `Take care, right?’
Then he hung up and left me sitting there hold
ing the phone, smiling.
`I thought he’d never call,’ Roscoe laughed. `But I guess eighteen hours isn’t too bad, even for the Bureau, right?’
The Atlanta FBI was housed in a new federal building downtown. Roscoe parked at the kerb out
side. The Bureau reception called upstairs and told us Special Agent Picard would come right down to meet with us. We waited for him in the lobby. It was a big hall, with a brave stab at decoration, but it still had the glum atmosphere government buildings have. Picard came out of an elevator within three minutes. He loped over. He seemed to fill the whole hall. He nodded to me and took Roscoe’s hand.