Echo Burning

the dust, or the noise, or the traffic, or the smells of the street. He felt like he was floating an inch above the sidewalk, insulated inside some kind of sensory-deprivation suit. Alice was talking to him, time to time, but he was hearing nothing that she said. All he could hear was a small voice inside his head that was saying you were wrong. Completely wrong . It was a voice he had heard before, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear again, because he had built his whole career on hearing it fewer times than the next guy. It was like a box score in his mind, and his average had just taken some serious damage. Which upset him. Not because of vanity. It upset him because he was a professional who was supposed to get things right.
    “Reacher?” Alice was saying. “You’re not listening, are you?”
    “What?” he said.
    “I asked you, do you want to get a meal?”
    “No,” he said. “I want to get a ride.”
    She stopped walking. “What now? Quadruple-check?”
    “No, I mean out of here. I want to go somewhere else. A long way away. I hear Antarctica is nice, this time of year.”
    “The bus depot is on the way back to the office.”
    “Good. I’ll take a bus. Because I’m all done hitchhiking. You never know who’s going to pick you up.”
    The morgue was a low industrial shed in a paved yard behind the street. It could have been a brake shop or a tire depot. It had metal siding and a roll-up vehicle door. There was a personnel entrance at the far end of the building. It had two steps up to it, framed by handrails fabricated from steel pipe. Inside, it was very cold. There were industrial-strength airconditioners running full blast. It felt like a meat store. Which it was, in a way. To the left of the foyer was a double door that gave directly onto the morgue operation. It was standing open, and Reacher could see the autopsy tables. There was plenty of stainless steel and white tile and fluorescent light in there.
    Alice put the lizard skin belt on the reception counter and dug in her pocketbook for the ring. She told the attendant they were for Texas vs. Carmen Greer . He went away and came back with the evidence box.
    “No, it’s personal property,” she said. “Not evidence. I’m sorry.”
    The guy gave her a why didn’t you say so look and turned around.
    “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