Finlay shrugged. Tried to find a way to explain it.
`He’s just a southern asshole,’ he said. `Old Georgia family, probably a long line of southern assholes. They’ve been the mayors around here since the beginning. I dare say this one’s no worse than the others.’
`Was he upset?’ I said. `When you called him about Morrison?’
`Worried, I think,’ Finlay said. `He hates mess.’
`Why won’t he make you chief?’ I said. `You’re the senior guy, right?’
`He just won’t,’ Finlay said. `Why not is my business.’
I watched him for a moment longer. Life or death.
`Somewhere we can go to talk?’ I said.
He looked over the desk at me.
`You thought it was Hubble got killed, right?’ he said. `Why?’
`Hubble did get killed,’ I said. `Fact that Morrison got killed as well doesn’t change it.’
We walked down to the convenience store. Sat side by side at the empty counter, near the window. I sat at the same place the pale Mrs Kliner had used when I was in there the day before. That seemed like a long time ago. The world had changed since then. We got tall mugs of coffee and a big plate of doughnuts. Didn’t look at each other directly. We
looked at each other in the mirror behind the counter.
`Why won’t you get the promotion?’ I asked him.
His reflection shrugged in the mirror. He was looking puzzled. He couldn’t see the connection. But he’d see it soon enough.
`I should get it,’ he said. `I’m better qualified than all the others put together. I’ve done twenty years in a big city. A real police department. What the hell have they done? Look at Baker, for instance. He figures himself for a smart boy. But what has he done? Fifteen years in the sticks? In this backwater? What the hell does he know?’
`So why won’t you get it?’ I said.
`It’s a personal matter,’ he said.
`You think I’m going to sell it to the newspaper?’ I asked him.
`It’s a long story,’ he said.
`So tell it to me,’ I said. `I need to know.’
He looked at me in the mirror. Took a deep breath.
`I finished in Boston in March,’ he said. `Done my twenty years. Unblemished record. Eight commendations. I was one hell of a detective, Reacher. I had retirement on full pension to look forward to. But my wife was going crazy. Since last fall, she was getting agitated. It was so ironic. We were married all through those twenty years. I was working my ass off. Boston PD was a madhouse. We were working seven days a week. All day and all night. All around me guys were seeing their marriages fall apart. They were all getting divorced. One after the other.’
He stopped for a long pull on his coffee. Took a bite of doughnut.
`But not me,’ he said. `My wife could take it. Never
complained, never once. She was a miracle. Never gave me a hard time.’
He lapsed back into silence. I thought about twenty years in Boston. Working around the clock in that busy old city. Grimy nineteenth-century precincts. Overloaded facilities. Constant pressure. An endless parade of freaks, villains, politicians, problems. Finlay had done well to survive.
`It started last fall,’ he said again. `We were within six months of the end. It was all going to be over. We were thinking of a cabin somewhere, maybe. Vacations. Plenty of time together. But she started panicking. She didn’t want plenty of time together. She didn’t want me to retire. She didn’t want me at home. She said she woke up to the fact that she didn’t like me. Didn’t love me. Didn’t want me around. She’d loved the twenty years. Didn’t want it to change. I couldn’t believe it. It had been my dream. Twenty years and then retire at forty-five. Then maybe another twenty years enjoying ourselves together before we got too old, you know? It was my dream and I’d worked towards it for twenty years. But she didn’t want it. She ended up saying the thought of twenty more years with me in a cabin in the woods was making her flesh crawl. It got really bitter. We fell apart. I was a total basket case.’