"I know where to look for the girl, for Ruth. North of town. Near the river. If she's alive. If she's dead I don't know where to look. She wouldn't be far from where he got the boat." "What boat?" "Will you have people look for her? Right now?" "What boat, damn it?" "I'll tell you the whole thing after you look. I want to come, too. I want to come with you." They sent cars out. They called Captain Marion and the Chief of Police. They sent people out to look in the rain. Scores of people searched. I rode with Prine. In the end it was a contingent of Boy Scouts who found her. They found the black coupé. The trunk compartment was open a half inch. We sped through the rain when word came over the radio. But the ambulance got there first. They were loading her onto the ambulance when we arrived. They closed the doors and drove away before I could get to the ambulance. The car was parked behind a roadside sign. It had been covered with roofing paper. Some of the paper had shifted in the wind. One of the Scouts had seen the gleam of metal. Two policemen in black rain-wet rubber capes were there. "What shape was she in?" Prine demanded. One of the men spat. "I don't think she'll make it. I think she was about gone. She looked about gone to me. You know, the way they all look. Just about breathing. Color of putty. Pretty banged up." 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.