`His car is still here,’ she whispered. `He can’t have walked anywhere. He never walks anywhere. He always takes his Bentley.’
She waved vaguely toward the back of the house.
`Hub’s Bentley is green,’ she said. `It’s still in the garage. I checked. You’ve got to help us. You’ve got to find him. Mr Reacher, please. I’m asking you to help us. Hub’s in trouble, I know it. He’s vanished. He said you might help. You saved his life. He said you knew how to do things.’
She was hysterical. She was pleading. But I
couldn’t help her. She would know that soon enough. Baker or Finlay would come up to the house very soon. They would tell her the shattering news. Probably Finlay would handle it. Probably he was very good at it. Probably he had done it a thousand times in Boston. He had dignity and gravity. He would break the news, gloss over the details, drive her down to the morgue to identify the body. The morgue people would shroud the corpse with heavy gauze to hide the appalling wounds.
`Will you help us?’ Charlie asked me.
I decided not to wait with her. I decided to go down to the station house. Find out details like where and when and how. But I’d come back with Finlay. This was my fault, so I should come back.
`You stay here,’ I said. `You’ll have to lend me your car, OK?’
She rooted in her bag and pulled out a big bunch of keys. Handed them to me. The car key had a big letter `B’ embossed on it. She nodded vaguely and stayed where she was. I stepped over to the Bentley and slid into the driver’s seat. Backed it up and swung it down the curving driveway. Glided down Beckman in silence. Made the left onto Main Street up toward the station house.
There were cruisers and unmarked units sprawled right across the police parking lot. I left Charlie’s Bentley at the kerb and stepped inside. They were all milling around the open area. I saw Baker, Stevenson, Finlay. I saw Roscoe. I recognized the backup team from Friday. Morrison wasn’t there. Nor was the desk guy. The long counter was unattended. Everybody was stunned. They were all vague and staring. Horrified. Distracted. Nobody
would talk to me. They looked over bleakly. Didn’t really look away, it was like they didn’t see me at all. There was total silence. Finally Roscoe came over. She’d been crying. She walked up to me. Pressed her face against my chest. She was burning up. She put her arms around me and held on.
`It was horrible,’ she said. Wouldn’t say any more.
I walked her around to her desk and sat her down. Squeezed her shoulder and stepped over towards Finlay. He was sitting on a desk, looking blank. I nodded him over to the big office in back. I needed to know, and Finlay was the guy who would tell me. He followed me into the office. Sat down in the chair in front of the desk. Where I had sat in handcuffs on Friday. I sat behind the desk. Roles reversed.
I watched him for a while. He was really shaken up. I went cold inside all over again. Hubble must have been left in a hell of a mess to be getting a reaction like that from Finlay. He was a twentyyear man from a big city. He must have seen all there is to see. But now he was really shaken up. I sat there and burned with shame. Sure, Hubble, I’d said, you look safe enough to me.
`So what’s the story?’ I said.
He lifted his head up with an effort and looked at me.
`Why should you care?’ he said. `What was he to you?’
A good question. One I couldn’t answer. Finlay didn’t know what I knew about Hubble. I’d kept quiet about it. So Finlay didn’t see why Hubble was so important to me.
`Just tell me what happened,’ I said.
`It was pretty bad,’ he said. Wouldn’t go on.
He was worrying me. My brother had been shot in the head. Two big messy exit wounds had removed his face. Then somebody had turned his corpse into a bag of pulp. But Finlay hadn’t fallen apart over that. The other guy had been all gnawed up by rats. There wasn’t a drop of blood left in him. But Finlay hadn’t fallen apart over that, either. Hubble was a local guy, which made it a bit worse, I could see that. But on Friday, Finlay hadn’t even known who Hubble was. And now Finlay was acting like he’d seen a ghost. So it must have been some pretty spectacular work.