Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor
boxes and glared at us. It was a glare which said: I gave him a gold watch and he gave me a shitload of worry.
I walked over and looked at the cartons. They were empty. I smelled a faint, sour odor in them. Then we went back upstairs. Judy got an album out of a cupboard. Sat and looked at a photograph of Sherman.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
It was a simple question. Deserved a simple answer.
“He was shot in the head,” I lied. “Died instantly.”
Judy nodded. Like she wasn’t surprised.
“When?” she asked.
“On Thursday night,” Roscoe told her. “At midnight. Did he say where he was going on Thursday night?”
Judy shook her head.
“He never told me much,” she said.
“Did he ever mention meeting an investigator?” Roscoe asked.
Judy shook her head again.
“What about Pluribus?” I asked her. “Did he ever use that word?”
She looked blank.
“Is that a disease?” she said. “Lungs or something?”
“What about Sunday?” I said. “This Sunday coming? Did he ever say anything about that?”
“No,” Judy said. “He never said much about anything.”
She sat and stared at the photographs in the album. The room was quiet.
“Did he know any lawyers in Florida?” Roscoe asked her.
“Lawyers?” Judy said. “In Florida? Why should he?”
“He was arrested in Jacksonville,” Roscoe said. “Two years ago. It was a traffic violation in his truck. A lawyer came to help him out.”
Judy shrugged, like two years ago was ancient history to her.
“There are lawyers sniffing everywhere, right?” she said. “No big deal.”
“This guy wasn’t an ambulance-chaser,” Roscoe said. “He was a partner in a big firm down there. Any idea how Sherman could have gotten hold of him?”
Judy shrugged again.
“Maybe his employer did it,” she said. “Island Air-conditioning. They gave us good medical insurance. Sherman let me go to the doctor, any old time I needed to.”
We all went quiet. Nothing more to say. Judy sat and gazed at the photographs in the album.
“Want to see his picture?” she said.
I walked around behind her chair and bent to look at the photograph. It showed a sandy, rat-faced man. Small, slight, with a grin. He was standing in front of a yellow panel van. Grinning and squinting at the camera. The grin gave it poignancy.
“That’s the truck he drove,” Judy said.
But I wasn’t looking at the truck or Sherman Stoller’s poignant grin. I was looking at a figure in the background of the picture. It was out of focus and turned half away from the camera, but I could make out who it was. It was Paul Hubble.
I waved Roscoe over and she bent beside me and looked at the photograph. I saw a wave of surprise pass over her face as she recognized Hubble. Then she bent closer. Looked harder. I saw a second wave of surprise. She had recognized something else.
“When was this picture taken?” she asked.
Judy shrugged.
“Summer last year, I guess,” she said.
Roscoe touched the blurred image of Hubble with her fingernail.
“Did Sherman say who this guy was?”
“The new boss,” Judy said. “He was there six months, then he fired Sherman’s ass.”
“Island Air-conditioning’s new boss?” Roscoe said. “Was there a reason he laid Sherman off?”
“Sherman said they didn’t need him no more,” Judy said. “He never said much.”
“Is this where Island Air-conditioning is based?” Roscoe asked. “Where this picture was taken?”
Judy shrugged and nodded her head, tentatively.
“I guess so,” she said. “Sherman never told me much about it.”
“We need to keep this photograph,” Roscoe told her. “We’ll let you have it back later.”
Judy fished it out of the plastic. Handed it to her.
“Keep it,” she said. “I don’t want it.”
Roscoe took the picture and put it in her inside jacket pocket. She and I moved back to the middle of the room and stood there.
“Shot in the head,” Judy said. “That’s what happens when you mess around. I told him they’d catch up with him, sooner or later.”
Roscoe nodded sympathetically.
“We’ll keep in touch,” she said to her. “You know, the funeral arrangements, and we might want a statement.”
Judy glared at us again.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “I’m not going to his funeral. I wasn’t his wife, so I’m not his widow. I’m going to forget I ever knew him. That man was trouble from beginning to end.”
She stood there glaring at us. We
Weitere Kostenlose Bücher