I sat on a bench in a waiting-room in the hospital. Water from my
sodden clothing dripped onto the floor. Captain Marion sat beside me.
Prine leaned against the wall. A man I didn't know sat on the other
side of me. I looked at the pattern of the tiles in the floor as I
talked. From time to time they would ask questions in a quiet voice.
I told the complete truth. I lied about one thing only. I told them
that Fitzmartin had told me that he had hidden Grassman's body in a
barn eight or ten miles south of the city, on a side road. In a ruined
barn near a burned house. Marion nodded to Prine. He went out to send
men out to hunt for the barn. He had gone out once before, to send men
to the island. I had told how to find the cave, and told them what they
would find in the cave. I told them they would find the gun in my car.
I lied about Grassman, and I left out what I knew about Antoinette.
It would do them no good to know about her. They would learn enough
from the Redding police. They did not have to know more than that.
I told them all the rest. Why I had come to Hillston. Everything I
had seen and guessed. Everything Fitzmartin had said. Timmy's dying
statements. All of it. The whole stinking mess. It felt good to tell
about it.
"Let me get this straight, Howard," Marion said. "You made a deal with
Fitzmartin. You were going to have the girl find the money. Then you
were going to turn it over to Fitzmartin in return for Ruth's safety.
You made that deal yourself. You thought you could handle it better
than we could. Is that it?"
"I thought that was the only way it could be handled. But he crossed me
up. He followed us."
"We could have grabbed him when he got to the river. We'd have gotten
to Ruth earlier. If she dies, you're going to be responsible."
I looked at him for the first time in over an hour. "I don't see it
that way."
"Did he say how he killed Grassman? You told us why he did it."
"He hit him on the head with a piece of pipe."
"What do you think the Rasi girl was going to do when you turned the
money over to Fitzmartin? Assuming that it went the way you thought it
would go."
"I guess she wouldn't have liked it."
"Why didn't she come and get the money herself, once she knew where it
probably was?"
"I haven't any idea. I think she felt she needed help. I think she
decided I could help her. I think she planned to get away with all of
it somehow after we were both well away from here. When I was sleeping.
Something like that. I think she thought she could handle me pretty
easily."
"How many shots did he fire into the cave?"
"I wasn't counting. Maybe twenty."