Which meant that there was some kind of a big deal going down in Margrave. Because there’s no point in spectacular work unless it serves a purpose. The threat of it beforehand works on the guy himself. It had certainly worked on Hubble. He had taken a lot of notice of it. That’s the point of a threat. But to actually carry out something like that has a different point. A different purpose. Carrying it out is not about the guy himself. It’s about backing up the threat against the next guy in line. It says, see what we did to that other guy? That’s what we could do to you. So by doing some spectacular work on Hubble, somebody had just revealed there was a high-stakes game going down, with other guys waiting next in line, right there in the locality.

“Tell me what happened, Finlay,” I said again.

He leaned forward. Cupped his mouth and nose with his hands and sighed heavily into them.

“OK,” he said. “It was pretty horrible. One of the worst I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a few, let me tell you. I’ve seen some pretty bad ones, but this was something else. He was naked. They nailed him to the wall. Six or seven big carpentry nails through his hands and up his arms. Through the fleshy parts. They nailed his feet to the floor. Then they sliced his balls off. Just hacked them off. Blood everywhere. Pretty bad, let me tell you. Then they slit his throat. Ear to ear. Bad people, Reacher. These are bad people. As bad as they come.”

I was numb. Finlay was waiting for a comment. I couldn’t think of anything. I was thinking about Charlie. She would ask if I’d found anything out. Finlay should go up there. He should go up there right now and break the news. It was his job, not mine. I could see why he was reluctant. Difficult news to break. Difficult details to gloss over. But it was his job. I’d go with him. Because it was my fault. No point running away from that.

“Yes,” I said to him. “It sounds pretty bad.”

He leaned his head back and looked around. Blew another sigh up at the ceiling. A somber man.

“That’s not the worst of it,” he said. “You should have seen what they did to his wife.”

“His wife?” I said. “What the hell do you mean?”

“I mean his wife,” he said. “It was like a butcher’s shop.”

For a moment I couldn’t speak. The world was spinning backward.

“But I just saw her,” I said. “Twenty minutes ago. She’s OK. Nothing happened to her.”

“You saw who?” Finlay said.

“Charlie,” I said.

“Who the hell is Charlie?” he asked.

“Charlie,” I said blankly. “Charlie Hubble. His wife. She’s OK. They didn’t get her.”

“What’s Hubble got to do with this?” he said.

I just stared at him.

“Who are we talking about?” I said. “Who got killed?”

Finlay looked at me like I was crazy.

“I thought you knew,” he said. “Chief Morrison. The chief of police. Morrison. And his wife.”

I WAS WATCHING FINLAY VERY CAREFULLY, TRYING TO DECIDE how far I should trust him. It was going to be a life or death decision. In the end I figured his answer to one simple question would make up my mind for me.

“Are they going to make you chief now?” I asked him.

He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “They’re not going to make me chief.”

“You sure about that?” I said.

“I’m sure,” he said.

“Whose decision is it?” I asked him.

“The mayor’s,” Finlay said. “Town mayor appoints the chief of police. He’s coming over. Guy named Teale. Some kind of an old Georgia family. Some ancestor was a railroad baron who owned everything in sight around here.”

“Is that the guy you’ve got statues of?” I said.

Finlay nodded.

“Caspar Teale,” he said. “He was the first. They’ve had Teales here ever since. This mayor must be the great-grandson or something.”

I was in a minefield. I needed to find a clear lane through.

“What’s the story with this guy Teale?” I asked him.

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 donuts. 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 donut.

“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 toward 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.”