Prine whirled toward me. "All right. We've got her now. How about Fitzmartin? Start talking."
"He's dead."
"How do you know he's dead?"
"I killed him. I'll tell you the rest later. I want to go to the hospital."
[FOURTEEN]
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.