Darrigan lowered the broken slab back into position, quite gently. He climbed out of the pool.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I... think so.”
He rolled down his pants legs, pulled socks on over wet feet, shoved his feet into the shoes, laced them neatly and tightly.
“How perfectly dreadful,” Kathy said in a low tone.
“It always is. Natural death is enough to give us a sort of superstitious fear. But violent death always seems obscene. An assault against the dignity of every one of us. Now we do some phoning.”
They waited, afterwards, in the dark car parked across the road. When the Drynfellses returned home, two heavy men advanced on their car from either side, guns drawn, flashlights steady. There was no fuss. No struggle. Just the sound of heavy voices in the night, and a woman’s spiritless weeping.
At the Aqua Azul, Kathy put her hand in his. “I won’t see you again,” she said. It was statement, not question.
“I don’t believe so, Kathy.”
“Take care of yourself.” The words had a special intonation. She made her real meaning clear: Gil, don’t let too many of these things happen to you. Don’t go too far away from life and from warmth. Don’t go to that far place where you are conscious only of evil and the effects of evil.
“I’ll try to,” he said.
As he drove away from her, drove down the dark road that paralleled the beaches, he thought of her as another chance lost, as another milepost on a lonely road that ended at some unguessable destination. There was a shifting sourness in his mind, an unease that was familiar. He drove with his eyes steady, his face fashioned into its mask of tough unconcern. Each time, you bled a little. And each time the hard flutter of excitement ended in this sourness. Murder for money. It was seldom anything else. It was seldom particularly clever. It was invariably brutal.
Dinah Davisson’s house was brightly lighted. The other houses on the street were dark. He had asked that he be permitted to inform her.
She was in the long pastel living room, a man and a woman with her. She had been crying, but she was undefeated. She carried her head high. Something hardened and tautened within him when he saw the red stripes on her cheek, stripes that only fingers could have made, in anger.
“Mr. Darrigan, this is Miss Davisson and Colonel Davisson.”
They were tall people. Temple had his father’s hard jaw, shrewd eye. The woman was so much like him that it was almost ludicrous. Both of them were very cool, very formal, slightly patronizing.
“You are from Guardsman Life?” Colonel Davisson asked. “Bit unusual for you to be here, isn’t it?”
“Not entirely. I’d like to speak to you alone, Mrs. Davisson.”
“Anything you wish to say to her can be said in front of us,” Alicia Davisson said acidly.
“I’d prefer to speak to her alone,” Gil said, quite softly.
“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Darrigan,” the young widow said.
“The police have found your husband’s body,” he said bluntly, knowing that bluntness was more merciful than trying to cushion the blow with mealy half-truths.
Dinah closed her lovely eyes, kept them closed for long seconds. Her hand tightened on the arm of the chair and then relaxed. “How—”
“I knew a stupid marriage of this sort would end in some kind of disaster,” Alicia said.
The cruelty of that statement took Darrigan’s breath for a moment. Shock gave way to anger. The colonel walked to the dark windows, looked out into the night, hands locked behind him, head bowed.
Alicia rapped a cigarette briskly on her thumbnail, lighted it.
“Marriage had nothing to do with it,” Darrigan said. “He was murdered for the sake of profit. He was murdered by a thoroughly unpleasant little man with a greedy wife.”
“And our young friend here profits nicely,” Alicia said.
Dinah stared at her. “How on earth can you say a thing like that when you’ve just found out? You’re his daughter. It doesn’t seem—”
“Kindly spare us the violin music,” Alicia said.
“I don’t want any of the insurance money,” Dinah said. “I don’t want any part of it. You two can have it. All of it.”
The colonel wheeled slowly and stared at her. He wet his lips. “Do you mean that?”
Dinah lifted her chin. “I mean it.”
The colonel said ingratiatingly, “You’ll have the trust fund, of course, as it states in the will. That certainly will be enough to take care of you.”
“I don’t know as I want that, either.”
“We can discuss that later,” the colonel said soothingly. “This is a great shock to all of us. Darrigan, can you draw up some sort of document she can sign where she relinquishes her claim as principal beneficiary?” When he spoke to Darrigan, his voice had a Pentagon crispness.
Darrigan had seen this too many times before. Money had changed the faces of the children. A croupier would recognize that glitter in the eyes, that moistness of mouth. Darrigan looked at Dinah. Her face was proud, unchanged.
“I could, I suppose. But I won’t,” Darrigan said.
“Don’t be impudent. If you can’t, a lawyer can.”
Darrigan spoke very slowly, very distinctly. “Possibly you don’t understand, Colonel. The relationship between insurance company and policyholder is one of trust. A policyholder does not name his principal beneficiary through whim. We have accepted his money over a period of years. We intend to see that his wishes are carried out. The policy options state that his widow will have an excellent income during her lifetime. She does not receive a lump sum, except for a single payment of ten thousand. What she does with the income is her own business, once it is received. She can give it to you, if she wishes.”
“I couldn’t accept that sort of... charity,” the colonel said stiffly. “You heard her state her wishes, man! She wants to give up all claims against the policies.”
Darrigan allowed himself a smile. “She’s only trying to dissociate herself from you two scavengers. She has a certain amount of pride. She is mourning her husband. Maybe you can’t understand that.”
“Throw him out, Tem,” Alicia whispered.
The colonel had turned white. “I shall do exactly that,” he said.
Dinah stood up slowly, her face white. “Leave my house,” she said.
The colonel turned toward her. “What do—”
“Yes, the two of you. You and your sister. Leave my house at once.”
The tension lasted for long seconds. Dinah’s eyes didn’t waver. Alicia shattered the moment by standing up and saying, in tones of infinite disgust, “Come on, Tem. The only thing to do with that little bitch is start dragging her through the courts.”
They left silently, wrapped in dignity like stained cloaks.
Dinah came to Darrigan. She put her face against his chest, her brow hard against the angle of his jaw. The sobs were tiny spasms, tearing her, contorting her.
He cupped the back of her head in his hand, feeling a sense of wonder at the silk texture of her hair, at the tender outline of fragile bone underneath. Something more than forgotten welled up within him, stinging his eyes, husking his voice as he said, “They aren’t worth... this.”
“He... was worth... more than... this,” she gasped.
The torment was gone as suddenly as it had come. She stepped back, rubbing at streaming eyes with the backs of her hands, the way a child does.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She tried to smile. “You’re not a wailing wall.”
“Part of my official duties, sometimes.”
“Can they turn this into... nastiness?”
“They have no basis. He was of sound mind when he made the provisions. They’re getting enough. More than enough. Some people can never have enough.”