“Stepson,” he said. “Kliner’s kid by his first wife. Mrs. Kliner’s his second. I’ve heard she don’t get along so good with the kid.”
“I think so,” the guy said. Sounded confident.
“What would you have done?” she said. “Killed four men?”
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.
Saturday morning, a long fax was in from the Pentagon about my service record. Thirteen years of my life, reduced to a few curling fax pages. It felt like somebody else’s life now, but it backed my story. Finlay had been impressed by it. Then my prints came back from the FBI database. They’d been matched by the tireless computer at two thirty in the morning. U.S. Army, printed on induction, thirteen years ago. My alibi was solid, and my background checked out.
“How do you know Hubble’s dead?” Finlay asked me.