Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor

inked my hands. Her fingers were smooth and cool. No wedding band. Afterward she handed me a wad of tissues. The ink came off very easily. Some kind of new stuff I hadn’t seen before.
    The woman unloaded the camera and put the film with the prints card on the table. She repacked the camera into the flight case. Baker rapped on the door. The lock clicked again. The woman picked up her stuff. Nobody spoke. The woman left the room. Baker stayed in there with me. He shut the door and it locked with the same greased click. Then he leaned on the door and looked at me.
    “My chief’s coming on down,” he said. “You’re going to have to talk to him. We got a situation here. Got to be cleared up.”
    I said nothing back to him. Talking to me wasn’t going to clear any situation up for anybody. But the guy was acting civilized. Respectful. So I set him a test. Held out my hands toward him. An unspoken request to unlock the cuffs. He stood still for a moment then took out the key and unlocked them. Clipped them back on his belt. Looked at me. I looked back and dropped my arms to my sides. No grateful exhalation. No rueful rubbing of my wrists. I didn’t want a relationship with this guy. But I did speak.
    “OK,” I said. “Let’s go meet your chief.”
    It was the first time I’d spoken since ordering breakfast. Now Baker was the one who looked grateful. He rapped twice on the door and it was unlocked from the outside. He opened it up and signaled me through. Stevenson was waiting with his back to the large open area. The shotgun was gone. The backup crew was gone. Things were calming down. They formed up, one on each side. Baker gripped my elbow, lightly. We walked down the side of the open area and came to a door at the back. Stevenson pushed it open and we walked through into a large office. Lots of rosewood all over it.
    A fat guy sat at a big rosewood desk. Behind him were a couple of big flags. There was a Stars and Stripes with a gold fringe on the left and what I guessed was the Georgia state flag on the right. On the wall between the flags was a clock. It was a big old round thing framed in mahogany. Looked like it had decades of polish on it. I figured it must be the clock from whatever old station house they bulldozed to build this new place. I figured the architect had used it to give a sense of history to the new building. It was showing nearly twelve thirty.
    The fat guy at the big desk looked up at me as I was pushed in toward him. I saw him look blank, like he was trying to place me. He looked again, harder. Then he sneered at me and spoke in a wheezing gasp which would have been a shout if it hadn’t been strangled by bad lungs.
    “Get your ass in that chair and keep your filthy mouth shut,” he said.
    This fat guy was a surprise. He looked like a real asshole. Opposite to what I’d seen so far. Baker and his arrest team were the business. Professional and efficient. The fingerprint woman had been decent. But this fat police chief was a waste of space. Thin dirty hair. Sweating, despite the chilly air. The blotchy red and gray complexion of an unfit, overweight mess. Blood pressure sky-high. Arteries hard as rocks. He didn’t look halfway competent.
    “My name is Morrison,” he wheezed. As if I cared. “I am chief of the police department down here in Margrave. And you are a murdering outsider bastard. You’ve come down here to my town and you’ve messed up right there on Mr. Kliner’s private property. So now you’re going to make a full confession to my chief of detectives.”
    He stopped and looked up at me. Like he was still trying to place me. Or like he was waiting for a response. He didn’t get one. So he jabbed his fat finger at me.
    “And then you’re going to jail,” he said. “And then you’re going to the chair. And then I’m going to take a dump on your shitty little pauper’s grave.”
    He hauled his bulk out of the chair and looked away from me.
    “I’d deal with this myself,” he said. “But I’m a busy man.”
    He waddled out from behind his desk. I was standing there between his desk and the door. As he crabbed by, he stopped. His fat nose was about level with the middle button on my coat. He was still looking up at me like he was puzzled by something.
    “I’ve seen you before,” he said. “Where was it?”
    He glanced at Baker and then at Stevenson. Like he was expecting them to note what he was saying and when he was saying it.
    “I’ve seen this