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“So what should I have done? Let him drown by himself? I was trying to rescue him, but he was too hysterical to let me.”
“I know that. But we have to be prepared for the prosecution to say that you believed McNab’s man, specifically Pettifer, to be responsible for the fiasco of the gunrunning arrest, and therefore, obliquely, for Orme’s death. You wanted revenge, and this was your chance to take it. If they’re clever, they may even provide a chain of evidence to link Pettifer to the betrayal, and in one stroke, acquit McNab of it, and give you an overwhelming motive to kill Pettifer. Some people would even understand it. But however morally or emotionally justified it seems, it is still murder.”
“I meant to rescue him,” Monk said again, but his voice was hollow.
“I know that,” Rathbone agreed. “But I have to find a way to prove it.”
“Pettifer killed Blount.” Monk was searching frantically for anything at all that would add weight to what he was saying.
“Who is Blount?” Rathbone asked.
“The first prisoner to escape McNab’s custody, a week or two before Owen. He was drowned, then shot in the back afterward. I don’t know why, but it looks now as if it were to draw me into the case.”
“Proof? A witness?”
“No one you’d believe. Although I have a corroborating witness: Fin Gillander.”
Rathbone’s eyes widened slightly. “I’m not sure how much that’s going to help. What was he doing assisting you in the case?”
“He pulled Owen out of the water. Owen told him he was McNab’s man, and Gillander believed him.”
“So Gillander took you down the river to find evidence?”
“Yes…” Another pitfall was looming up: the fact that Gillander could remember Monk from the gold rush, and Monk could remember nothing. “I’m…I’m not sure if you want to put him on the stand.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Rathbone said in agreement. “And I daresay McNab has also.”
Monk felt as if the walls were closing in on him, not only metaphorically but physically. There was less air. The fear of it almost stopped him breathing. Of course. If Rathbone called Gillander, then it would be child’s play for the prosecution to get from him that he had known Monk in San Francisco, and that Monk could not remember anything about it. He could say anything he wanted about Monk’s character, temper, his abilities, how he earned a living, honest or not. Monk couldn’t rebut any of it. It could be true, for all he knew. He was as trapped as if his ankles were manacled to the floor.
“What are you going to say?” he asked Rathbone.
“I don’t know yet,” Rathbone said. “I need more evidence. We’re handicapped because your enemies know so much more than you do.”
“I don’t even know who they are! I’m…lost!”
Rathbone put his hand on Monk’s arm. “Well, you know who your friends are. And you have friends, Monk. Never forget that.”
“Perhaps I don’t deserve them. I really don’t know if I am involved in Piers Astley’s death or not. This could be justice finally catching up with me.”
Rathbone sighed. “Well, you’d better tell me all you know, or have deduced.”
As briefly as he could, Monk did so, including Hooper’s encounter with Mad Lammond, for whatever that was worth.
Rathbone did not interrupt him until he was finished.
“And you don’t remember Astley at all?” He looked bewildered. He was putting as good a face on it as he could, but he was overwhelmed.
“I might have killed him,” Monk said miserably.
“It’s not this court’s jurisdiction,” Rathbone pointed out, but his voice was flat. “They have no proof, and even if they had, California is five thousand miles away, and Astley died nearly twenty years ago.”
“But if I had killed him, then it might be the real motive for all of this,” Monk pointed out. “A long-delayed revenge. McNab’s brother’s death is almost as long ago.”
For several moments Rathbone did not answer. He looked thin and pale.
“If I killed Astley, it could have been over almost anything,” Monk said. “A debt one of us owed, and didn’t pay, a gold claim, a woman, a perceived insult. I had a quick temper, Gillander told me. And I was something of a chancer. The more I learn about myself, the less I like the man I was then.”
“There’s nothing you can do from here,” Rathbone told him. “Except remember, if possible. Anything, any detail at all, and how it tied up with other things.” He stood up. “Don’t give up, Monk. We’ve been in some hard places before, and come out of them.”
