“Sounds like she was very close to Joe,” Finlay said. “Sounds like they may have had a thing going. She was very upset. Floods of tears.”
“Yo, white boy, come here,” he said. To Hubble.
“Two things, Reacher,” he said. Precise articulation. “First, if necessary I’ll take care of Chief Morrison on Monday. Second, I am not a coward. You don’t know me at all. Nothing about me.”
“Because he was talking to an investigator?” he said.
“Everybody used to stop off here,” he said. “North side of town was just pretty much a mess of bars and rooming houses to cater to the folks passing through. All these fancy gardens between here and the firehouse is where the bars and rooming houses used to be. All tore down now, or else all fell down. Been no passing trade at all for a real long time. But back then, it was a different kind of a town altogether. Streams of people in and out, the whole time. Workers, crop pickers, drummers, fighters, hoboes, truckers, musicians. All kinds of those guys used to stop off and play and my old sister would be right in there singing with them all.”
“Great,” I said. “So what can you tell me?”