This was the piece I hadn't had.
"Smith!" MacGregor's voice burst, loud and distorted, from the electronic bullhorn all state cop cars carry, even unmarked ones. "Don't shoot. I'm coming up there."
Lydia turned to me. I said, "Let him come."
I heard MacGregor scramble up the rocks, watched as he appeared, crouching, in the narrow cleft we occupied. His face darkened when he saw me, the cuffs, the blood.
"What happened?" His voice was tight, cold.
"Your friends."
"They're no friends of mine."
"Crap, MacGregor." A shiver overtook me. "You're Grice's hip-pocket cop. You're why he's always a step ahead."
MacGregor exploded. "I warned you, you son of a bitch!" His voice was driven, full of fury. I squinted to look at him. "I begged you, stay out of this fucking case! I told you to go the hell back to New York!"
"That's true," I agreed quietly. "You tried. And I smelled something wrong with the way you did it. But I didn't add it up. I guess I didn't want to know."
"Oh, Christ, Smith, don't get holy on me! Small shit, that's all it is. I pass on what I hear. I bury a file or take a guy off something before he gets too close. So what? I don't have the manpower to go after every crook around. Someone's going to get away with something. What's the difference if it's Grice?"
"Uh-huh," I said. "And the kids shooting up in the Creekside? And guys who're barely squeezing out a living, then splitting their chickenshit take-home with Grice so they don't get their legs broken? That's okay with you, Mac?"
"Oh, come off it! If it weren't Grice it would be somebody else!" His face was purple with anger, but in his eyes there was something like pleading.
"And Ginny Sanderson?" I said softly. "That's okay with you?
MacGregor looked quickly from Jimmy to me. "What about her?"
"She's dead. Grice shot her. I think you'll find her if you drag the quarry." I looked at Jimmy. He was white as marble.
"She was a kid," Jimmy whispered. "She was a kid."
"Yeah," I said. "A kid. That's what it was about, right, Mac? Kids?"
It took MacGregor a long time to answer. "Tuition," he said, not to anyone, not looking at anyone. "Books, clothes. Travel. Piano lessons, painting lessons. There had to be something for them besides this. I had to find them a way out." He faced me suddenly, the pleading back in his eyes. His voice wavered. "I had to, Smith. I'm their father; I had to."
I had trouble speaking, too. "Ginny Sanderson had a father, Mac."
"I didn't know about her. I didn't know."
No one spoke. We watched each other, motionless, silent. Statues, all of us, cold and separate, powerless, and alone.
Lydia, finally, broke the silence. A quick, worried glance at me; then to MacGregor, "What do they want?" MacGregor gave her a blank, lost look. "What?" "They let you come up here. They're holding their fire. Why?"
He swallowed. "Jimmy. They'll let you two leave with me. They want to talk to Jimmy."
"Do it." Jimmy's words came fast, but they caught in his throat.
"Talk, bullshit." I didn't look at Jimmy, spoke to MacGregor. "They'll kill him. Then they'll call Brinkman. Here he is, the guy who killed Wally, the guy who killed Ginny. Sorry he's dead, but it'll save the cost of a trial. Any problems, call MacGregor." I paused, said, "Then they'll come for Lydia and me later."
He met my eyes, nodded slowly. "I know that. It was all I could think of, to get Grice to let me come up here. It'll buy time."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not the only cop who picked up the CB call. Brinkman's on his way, but he wasn't close."
I looked closely at him. "You could have stayed away, then," I said. "You could have kept out of it, and maybe you'd have stayed smelling clean."
"Yeah," he said. "But they said it was Jimmy, and he was asking for help. I had a feeling what was happening. And I'm a cop, Smith. Whatever you think." An engine roared to life below us. "Hey!" Lydia yelled. "They're moving!" "What the hell—!" MacGregor stuck his head up next to hers, dropped down again as a shot sliced the air. With a cop's instinct he reached for his gun, pawed an empty holster. He cursed, looked at me, shrugged. "Grice has it," he said. "That was the deal."
Grice's voice blared from the speaker on MacGregor's car. "You've got thirty seconds, folks. Come down, everyone can leave but Jimmy. How about it?"
"Do it, for Chrissake!" Jimmy said again.
Lydia and I exchanged a look that MacGregor caught, and MacGregor understood it. For the first time, he grinned. "Fuck you!" he yelled over the rock, and his words echoed in the dusty air.
"What's happening?" I asked Lydia. I struggled to sit up straighter, as though it would help me think.
"They're moving the Ford around this way. I can't get a shot."
But they could. As the Ford's engine shut off, a barrage of gunfire from our right almost hid the sounds of someone scrabbling up the rock. Lydia whipped around, fired where she couldn't see. Sudden silence; then a shot from behind her, the side MacGregor had climbed. She answered that, too, and then the Winchester was empty and Ted's sneering face appeared behind a Luger where the first shots had come from.
He swung the barrel of the gun to Jimmy, who was frozen, pressed against the rock; but before Ted could fire, MacGregor tackled him. They fell, struggled, tumbled down the rocks out of sight. Then a shot. Then nothing.
Lydia had reloaded. Suddenly we were fired on from both sides. Lydia shot again, twice, looked at me with frightened eyes. There was nothing I could give her. She shook herself, reloaded again, and as she did, a siren screamed and tires crunched and car doors slammed and a voice I had never been glad to hear before hollered, "Give it up, Grice! I got two more cars on the way!"
Shots screamed from our right, and two or three from ahead, near the shack. Lydia crept forward to the cleft shed been shooting from before, craned her neck. She yelled, "Sheriff, on your left!" She stood to get an angle, fired down the face of the rock.
Then, at the whine of another shot, she jerked, lost her footing, fell hard against the rock. She didn't get up, didn't move.
"Oh, Jesus, no," I heard myself plead. I was dimly aware of Jimmy grabbing the rifle, more shots, then silence, sudden and total. I saw nothing but Lydia's face. "Lydia, please," I whispered. "Please."
The silence ended, broken by shouting voices, slamming car doors, a confusion of smaller sounds. Through it all, Lydia's pale, still face.
"Antonelli, you bastard!" I heard Brinkman yell. "I'm coming up there. You gonna shoot me?"
"No," Jimmy answered, but it came out as a whisper, so he had to say it again: "No!"
"Stand up—where I can see you!"
Jimmy did, leaning the rifle against a rock, showing the cops below his hands were empty. Grunts and curses as Brinkman hauled himself up the rock pile. He appeared from behind a boulder like Godzilla coming to crush a city.
"Well," he drawled, with the mean little smile. "Don't you two look like shit."
Lydia groaned, moved her hand a little in the dirt.
"Help her!" I looked from Brinkman to Jimmy. "Jesus, help her!"
"Yeah," said Brinkman. He dropped to one knee, bent over Lydia. "Calm down, city boy. Nothing wrong with her. Just a bump on the head. I got the Rescue Squad coming."
"Sheriff," a voice called from below, "two of these guys are alive."
"Yeah?" Brinkman yelled back. "Which two?"
"The one with the cast. And Ron MacGregor."
Lydia groaned, stirred. "Don't move, little girl. You'll be fine," Brinkman told her.
Lydia's eyelids fluttered, opened. "Little girl," she murmured. "I'll kill you."
"It'd be a waste," Brinkman said. "You saved my life. Now just don't you move." He took off his jacket, covered her with it. He swiveled to face me, said, "You know, city boy, you look a hell of a lot worse than she does. Who has the key?"
I had no idea what he meant.
"The cuffs. The key to the cuffs."
I tried to remember. "Arnold."