The Quiet Game by Greg Iles

months before, a forty-five.”
    My heart slaps against my chest wall. “He killed Hillman with that pistol?”
    â€œNo. But he was always borrowing things from me back then. Guns, books, my Nikon for a stakeout, that kind of thing. You know I can’t say no to anybody. Anyhow, I’d lent him another pistol about a year before, a little featherweight thirty-eight. So, when he handed me the forty-five, I asked about the thirty-eight.” Dad takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “He told me it had been stolen.”
    I close my eyes as though to shield myself from what is coming.
    â€œHe told me not to worry about it, that he’d get me another thirty-eight. But he was really telling me that reporting the murder wasn’t an option. He’d killed Hillman with my thirty-eight, and he still had the gun. If I tried to report him, he could tell the police that I’d asked him to commit the crime and had given him the gun to do it.”
    â€œHow soon did he start blackmailing you?”
    â€œHe didn’t mention it again for twenty-five years.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHe had no intention of blackmailing me, Penn. Ray Presley idolized me back then. Still does, I think. But last year he got prostate cancer, and he doesn’t have health insurance. He needed money, so he started getting it wherever he could. For all I know, he’s blackmailing ten other people besides me. The point is, he had me over a barrel. I couldn’t see any option but to pay him.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you call me when he first came to you?”
    â€œDo you really have to ask? I was ashamed. Because of me, a man was murdered.”
    â€œYou had nothing to do with that! You didn’t solicit the thing, for God’s sake. You couldn’t know Presley would kill the guy.”
    Dad dismisses this rationalization with a wave of his hand. “Do you remember Becket ?”
    â€œThe movie or the historical archbishop?”
    â€œThe movie. After Becket makes his moral stand against King Henry, the king is alone in the palace with his nobles. These so-called nobles are a nasty bunch, greedy, violent, and drunk. And though King Henry loves Becket, he says out loud: ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ And of course they do. They go to Canterbury and murder him with swords.”
    Sometimes I wish my father had less rigorous moral standards.
    â€œHenry knew what he was saying, Penn. He knew the company he was in. And that made him guilty of murder. That’s why he submitted to the lashing by Becket’s monks.”
    â€œYou’re not a king. You couldn’t know what Presley would do.”
    Dad is too wracked by guilt for me to get through to him. “I’ve spent years thinking about this. I didn’t know Presley would kill the man, but when he asked for the name, I knew he might do something . I’d treated his parents for free, and he felt indebted to me. He’d just gotten out of prison. From the moment I told Presley that name, Hillman was bound to get hurt, maybe killed. There’s no getting around that.”
    I know what it has cost my father to admit this. He may even be right. But that’s not my primary concern at this point. “That’s not how the law would see it. Technically, your only crime was accessory after the fact. And the statute of limitations ran out on that in 1975.”
    â€œWhat about the gun?”
    â€œThat’s another story. If Presley will lie to the D.A. and say you asked him to kill Hillman, and that you gave him the gun—and if he still has the gun—that adds up to capital murder. It puts you in line for what I’ve got to witness in two days. Lethal injection.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought.”
    â€œWhy did you decide to tell me this today?”
    â€œYou want to find out who killed Del Payton. I know you do, and you’re right. Maybe you even have an