I sat cross-legged on the end of the rock, looking about for the gun Mia thought he'd taken. There was no sign of it. 'D.A., why did you come here tonight?'
'It seemed time, I suppose.' He was entering one of his periods of lucidity now; I could tell by his expression and the tone of his voice. 'But I'm not all that clear on it, to tell you the truth. There were some pills, and some wine.'
'I see. What's the last thing you
'You'll have to refresh me as to what day this is.'
'It's Friday, near midnight.'
He looked down at his hands, making an effort to recall. 'As near as I know, this began a couple of days ago.'
'On Wednesday, when you went to San Francisco to see Tom Grant.'
His fingers clenched spasmodically.
'How did you know where to find Grant, D.A.?'
'… There was a map, drawn for me. It showed where his house was.'
Although it didn't surprise me, anger at Libby Ross rose, forcing me to choke back a curse. After I got it under control, I asked, 'Why did you go there?'
'Just to see. I wanted to know what had become of the man who betrayed us.'
'And you saw…?'
'He was afraid. Oh, there was something about someone just having attacked him, and a bump on the head, but I knew I was the one he really feared. He hid behind scorn and ugly words and threats-just as once he hid behind Andy Wrightman. But in the end, he was very afraid.'
I bit my lip, remembering the blood-spattered workshop and the ruin of what had once been human.
'Tell me about the ugly words,' I finally said.
Taylor made a motion with his hand, brushing the request away. 'They were very unpleasant.'
'Did he tell you about Jenny-about how he drove her to suicide by working on her guilt over turning you and Libby in, and gave her the gun?' It was the only explanation I'd been able to come up with for Grant going to such lengths to keep his past from coming under scrutiny. He'd rid himself of a woman who was a great liability, but he'd done it by providing her with a weapon that he should have turned over to his fellow agents when they'd searched the flat on Page Street.
But Taylor shook his head. 'He didn't need to. Libby and I knew; we've always known. Jenny could only have gotten that gun from the man who knew where the weapons were kept in the flat. No, what he said was worse than that. He said it was Perry who betrayed us.'
Again I wasn't surprised.
Taylor added, 'I couldn't listen to him say those things. Perry was the man I looked up to the most. If he betrayed us, then… there were no heroes.'
D.A. bowed his head again. A sudden gust of wind swirled through the clearing. From below I heard the faint noise of a motor-the overworked one on the boat I'd piloted earlier. Davey had reached safety; Ross was taking them home.
The lantern flickered, getting low on fuel. I stood. 'D.A., come back to shore with me. We'll work this out.'
He shook his head.
I went over to the lantern, turned it down lower. 'Come on,' I said. 'You'll be okay.' I stretched out my hand.
He didn't seem to see or hear me. His gaze moved around the clearing, stopping here and there, as if the trees and rocks and plants were cherished objects. Then his eyes met mine-their always fleeting light extinguished so totally that not even the rays from the lantern enlivened them.
'What happened to all the heroes?' he asked.
I had no answer for him, because I suspected there had never been any heroes-not in the world he was longing for. That was a world all too often re-created not from fact but from wishful fantasy, and none of us could ever know where the truth left off and the lies began.
I turned, bent to pick up the lantern. Behind me I heard Taylor make a sudden movement.
Then I heard the click.
I froze, skin acrawl; the click was the unmistakable one of a safety being flipped off an automatic. I glanced back, ready to run. And saw that the.22 he'd had concealed somewhere on his person was not pointed at me.
Taylor held the gun in both hands, muzzle in his mouth.
As I lunged at him, screaming for him not to do it, he pulled the trigger.
Twenty-Six
I left D.A. Taylor finally at peace on the slab on top of his island. Climbed back down, feeling sick, the lantern guttering and going out when I reached the easy section of the trail on the beach. There I rested until I heard the irregular stutter of the returning motorboat.
Ross was piloting it. I slogged through the shallow water and climbed aboard.
'D.A.?' she asked.
'Dead. He shot himself.'
She compressed her lips, turned the boat around. I made no effort to speak to her on the return trip. When we reached the dock behind Taylor's, I jumped from the boat as soon as it bumped against the pilings.
'Wait!' Ross said.
I turned, looked coldly at her. 'Before he killed himself, D.A. told me about the map you drew him. What did you do-go down to the city and case Grant's property before you sent D.A. out to exact revenge for you?'
The faint light from the restaurant's windows showed her face, surprise altering its set lines of strain.
'You knew what would happen,' I added. 'You're an accessory-more guilty than D.A., to my way of thinking.'
'… What do you intend to do about it?'
'Nothing. You'd only cover up with more lies. Besides, enough people are going to be hurt by this without me compounding it.'
She raised her hands, then let them fall limply to her sides. 'Everybody I ever cared about is dead. Everything that ever mattered to me is over.'
'And now you'll just have to live with what you did, won't you?' I strode up the rickety dock, away from her self-serving deceptions, out of her wasted life.
From the phone booth outside Nick's Cove I called the sheriffs department. Later, when I was finished dealing with them, I made two other calls.
The first was to Goodhue, relaying what had happened and saying that I would be able to leave her out of my version for the authorities. 'There's something I want you to do in exchange, however,' I told her.
'Certainly. What?'
'Since Taylor's dead, his share in the Hilderly estate will be divided between you and Libby Ross. The same with Tom Grant's. I want you to give the amount you receive beyond your original inheritance to Taylor's wife and children. They're going to need money to start a new life.'
Goodhue agreed without hesitation.
Next I called Greg at home. I asked him to meet me at the Hall in an hour, said I wanted McFate there, too. Greg didn't ask many questions; he was used to peculiar requests from me and, besides, he probably relished dragging McFate out of whatever bed he might occupy at that hour on a weekend morning.
By the time I parked at the nearly deserted curb in front of the Hall of Justice my anger had built to full pressure and I was primed for a confrontation. As I passed through the echoing marble-walled lobby, I glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes to four on Saturday morning-a week after I'd become involved in the case that for me had stripped away what little remained of the mythic charm of the 1960s.
