The Simple Truth

by David Baldacci

  meeting. But I didn’t know. No one told me. The door to his office was unlocked. Christ!” He pushed the files away, then looked up sharply. “So what are you two doing here? Why is the Army involved?”

  Tremaine and Rayfield exchanged glances. “There’s been an escape from the military prison nearby.”

  “Good Lord, you think whoever escaped is around here?”

  “Don’t know. Fact is, Rider was the escapee’s lawyer. We thought he might hit this place for some cash or something. Who knows, the prisoner might have murdered Rider, for all we know.”

  “But you said it was a suicide.”

  “That’s what the police think. That’s why we’re here. To look around, catch the guy if he’s here.”

  Fiske watched with a sinking heart as Tremaine headed to the bathroom door.

  “Susan, can you please come out here?” Fiske called in a loud voice.

  Tremaine stared hard at Fiske as they all heard the toilet flush. And then the door opened partially and Sara came out, trying her best to look astonished. She did a pretty good job, Fiske thought, probably because she too was scared shitless.

  “John, what’s going on?”

  “I told these gentlemen about our meeting with Sam Rider. You’re not going to believe this, but he’s dead.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Susan is my assistant.” She nodded at both men.

  “I didn’t get your names,” Fiske said.

  “That’s right,” Tremaine shot back.

  Fiske hurriedly continued: “These men are from the Army. They’re looking for an escaped prisoner. They think the person might have had something to do with Sam’s death.”

  “Oh, my God. John, let’s just get back on the plane and get out of here.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Tremaine said. “We can search the place a lot faster with you two out of the way.” He once again looked over at the bathroom door. Holding his gun with one hand, he reached out to push the door all the way open.

  “Well, I can tell you there’s no one hiding in there,” she said with as straight a face as she could.

  “If you don’t mind, ma’am, I like to see these things for myself,” Tremaine said curtly.

  Fiske watched Sara. He was sure she was going to start screaming. Come on, Sara, hold on. Don’t lose it.

  Behind the door of the darkened bathroom, Josh Harms had his pistol pointed directly at Tremaine’s head through the slight gap between the door and doorjamb.

  Josh had already sized up the tactical advantages he had, slight though they were. Vic Tremaine first, and then Rayfield, unless Rayfield got him first, which was a real possibility given Josh’s very limited field of vision. Well, there was no way he could miss the little Sherman tank of a target Vic Tremaine represented. His hand tightened on the trigger as his brother loomed over his shoulder, pressing his bulk up as far as he could against the wall. But there was barely an inch of space between him and the door. As soon as Tremaine touched the wood, it would be over.

  At that moment Fiske started to stuff the files in his briefcase. “I can’t believe it. First two black guys almost run us over and now this.”

  Tremaine and Rayfield jerked around and stared at him. “What two black guys?” they said in unison.

  Fiske stopped what he was doing and looked at them. “We were coming in the building and they ran by us, almost knocked Susan down.”

  “What’d they look like?” Rayfield asked, his voice strained as he edged closer to Fiske. Tremaine quickly moved away from the bathroom door.

  “Well, they were black, like I said. Now, one of them looked like he was ex-NFL or something. You remember how big he was, Susan?” She nodded and then started breathing again. “I mean, he was huge. And the guy with him was pretty big too, six-two, six-three at least, but a lot leaner. They were running like the devil and they weren’t young either. Forty-five, fifty if they were a day.”

  “Did you see which way they went?” Tremaine asked.

  “They jumped in some old car and took off on the main road heading north. I’m not good with cars, I don’t know the make or anything, but it was an old model. Green, I think.” He suddenly looked frightened. “You don’t think it was the escaped prisoner, do you?”

  Tremaine and Rayfield didn’t answer because they were rushing out the door. As soon as they heard the outer door open and the boots running down the hallway, Fiske and Sara looked at each other and then they both, as though tied together with string, collapsed onto the sofa. They reached for each other and huddled together.

  “Glad I didn’t have to shoot you. You think fast on your feet.”

  They looked up at the grinning face of Josh Harms as he jammed his pistol into his pants. “We’re both lawyers,” Fiske said hoarsely, still clutching Sara tightly.

  “Well, nobody’s perfect,” Josh said.

  Rufus appeared behind his brother. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

  “I hope you believe us now,” Fiske said.

  “Yeah, but I ain’t gonna take your help.”

  “Rufus — ”

  “Everybody’s tried to help me up till now, they’re dead. Except Josh, and we all almost bought it tonight. I ain’t having that on my conscience. You two get back on that plane of yours and stay the hell out of this.”

  “I can’t do that. He was my brother.”

  “Suit yourself, but you’re gonna do it without me.” He went to the window and watched as the Jeep sped off, heading north. He motioned to Josh. “Let’s get going. No telling when they might get the itch to come back.”

  As the two men started to turn away, Fiske reached in his pocket and took out something, which he held out to Rufus. “This is my business card. It’s got my office and home numbers on it. Rufus, think about what you’re doing. By yourself, you’re not going to get anywhere. When you finally realize that, call me.”

  Fiske looked surprised as Sara lifted the card from him and wrote something on the back. She held it out to Rufus. “That’s my home and car phone numbers on the back. Call either one of us, day or night.”

  Slowly, the huge hand reached out, took the card. Rufus slipped it in his shirt pocket. In another minute Sara and Fiske were all alone. They again stared at each other, completely drained. A full minute passed before Fiske broke the silence.

  “Well, I have to admit, that was pretty close.”

  “John, I never, ever want to do that again.” Sara walked unsteadily to the bathroom.

  “Where are you going?”

  She didn’t bother to look back at him. “To the bathroom. Unless you want me to throw up out here.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  An hour after his conversation with Warren McKenna, Chandler climbed out of his car and walked slowly to his house. It was a comfortable brick and siding split-level set in a neighborhood of like structures. A nice, safe place to raise kids — at least it had been twenty years ago. It wasn’t as safe or as nice today, but then what was? he thought.

  Many years ago, when he wanted to unwind after work, he would shoot a few hoops in the driveway with his kids using the basketball net he had hung over the garage doors. That net had long since rotted away and the hoop and backboard had been removed. Now he went into the small backyard, where he sat down on a weathered gray cedar bench, situated near a spreading magnolia and in front of a small in-ground fountain. His wife had pestered him into putting in the fountain and he had bitched and complained the whole time. It was only after he had finished the project that he had understood her insistence. Building the thing had been cathartic for him: the planning, the measurements, the selection of materials. It was a lot like detective work, meaning a jigsaw puzzle where, if you were equal parts competent and lucky, all the pieces fit.

  After ten minutes of quiet he finally lurched to his feet, his coat thrown over his shoulder, and ambled into the house. He looked around the quiet, dark kitchen. It was well decorated, the whole house was, due entirely to the ef
forts of his wife, Juanita. Kids raised, doctor visits made, bills paid, flowers tended to, grass clipped, beds made, clothes washed and ironed, meals cooked, dishes cleaned — she did all those things while he worked horrendous hours on his way up. That had been their partnership. After the kids were gone, she had gone back to school, become a nurse and worked at a local hospital on the pediatric wing. Married thirty-three years now and still going strong.

  Chandler had no idea how much longer he could continue being a detective. It was all getting to him. The stench of the work, the feel of his hands in rubber gloves, the taking of tiny, measured steps for fear of trampling a bit of evidence that might cost somebody his life or let a butcher go free. The paperwork, the slick defense attorneys asking the same questions, plotting the same verbal traps, the bored judges reading off the sentencing guidelines like they were parceling out test results. The robotic looks of the defendants who said nothing, showed no emotion, went to prison with all their buddies, their institution of higher learning, coming out much more accomplished criminals.

  The ringing phone cut short these depressing thoughts.

  “Hello?” He listened for a couple of minutes, gave a series of instructions and hung up. A slug had been found in the alleyway where Michael Fiske’s body had been discovered. It apparently had ricocheted off one wall and gotten wedged in some trash that had fallen behind a Dumpster. From what Chandler had been told, the slug was in very good shape with little projectile deformity. The lab would have to confirm that it was actually the bullet that had killed the young clerk. That would be fairly easy to determine for a sickening reason: The slug would have blood, bone and brain tissue residue on it that could be linked pretty much conclusively to the head of Michael Fiske. With the bullet in hand, they could now search hard for the murder weapon. Ballistics could match the slug to the gun that had fired it with the reliability of matching fingerprints to a human hand.

  Chandler rose and went into the living room, purposely leaving his own gun behind. He sat down in a recliner that matched his bulky proportions. The room was dark and he did not move to turn on a light. He had too many lights around him at work. Lights in his office beating down on him every day. Harsher lights in the autopsy room, that made every piece of flesh enormous, ominously raw, memorable to the point of Chandler’s excusing himself every once in a great while to go to the men’s room, where his stomach showed its appreciation for the polished skill of official dismemberment. The popping lights of the photographers at a crime scene or a courthouse. Too many damn lights. Darkness was quiet, darkness was soothing. Darkness was how he wanted his retirement to be. Cool and dark. Like his fountain in the backyard.

  Warren McKenna’s words had disturbed Chandler, though he had tried hard not to show it. He couldn’t bring himself to accept that John Fiske could murder his own brother. But, truth be known, wouldn’t that be exactly what Fiske wanted Chandler to believe? But then he had something else to think about. Michael Fiske’s phone calls to Fort Jackson. And now Rufus Harms’s escape. Were they connected? Fiske was covering for Sara Evans, that was clear. Chandler shook his head. He would have to sleep on it, because his old brain was running on empty.

  He started to get up and then stopped abruptly. The arms suddenly encircled his neck, startling him. His hands gripped the person’s forearms as his eyes popped huge. His gun — where the hell was his gun?

  “Working hard or hardly working?”

  He immediately relaxed and looked up into Juanita’s face. The edges of her mouth were crinkled into the beginnings of a smile. Her face always held that same look, as though she were about to tell a joke or laugh at one. That look never failed to cheer him up no matter how lousy his day had been, no matter how many bodies he had poked and probed.

  He put a hand on his heaving chest. “Damn, woman, you sneak up on me like that again, the only thing I’m going to be working is my angel wings.”

  She sat down on his lap. She was wearing a long white robe, bare feet showing. “Come on, now, a big, strong fella like yourself? And aren’t you being a bit presumptuous about those angel wings?”

  He slid an arm around her waist, which, after three children, wasn’t as small as on their wedding night, but then neither was his. They had grown together, he often liked to say. Balance was essential in life. One fatty and one skinny was just heading for disaster.

  There was no one alive who knew him better than Juanita. Maybe that was really the one important product of a successful marriage: the knowledge that there was one other soul out there who had your number, all the way down to the last possible decimal place, out there with pi, maybe more; if that was possible, Juanita had his.

  He smiled back at her. “Sure, I’m one big, strong guy, but sensitive, baby. Us sensitive types, you just never know what might knock us over. And after a life spent fighting crime, I thought the Lord would be up there right now sewing together a nice fancy pair of angel wings for me, size extra-large, of course. He’s all-knowing, so He’ll be aware of the fact that I’ve spread some in my old age.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek and they held hands. She swept her fingers through his disappearing hair. She could sense that his humor was forced.

  “Buford, why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you so we can talk about it and then you can come to bed? It’s getting pretty late. Tomorrow’s always another day.”

  Chandler smiled at her remark. “Hey, what happened to my poker face? As I look a culprit in the eye and wear him down without ever revealing what I’m really thinking.”

  “You stink at poker. So talk to me, baby.”

  She rubbed at his kinked-up neck and he reciprocated by massaging her long feet.

  “You remember that young man I was telling you about? John Fiske? His brother was a clerk at the Supreme Court?”

  “I remember. And now another clerk dead too.”

  “Right. Well, I was over at his brother’s apartment tonight, going through it for evidence collection. McKenna, that agent from the FBI, showed up.”

  “The one you said was wound up like a grenade ready to blow? Couldn’t figure him out?”

  “He’s the one.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Well, we found a life insurance policy that pays John Fiske half a million dollars upon his brother’s death.”

  “So, they were family, weren’t they? You have life insurance, don’t you? I get rich if you die, right?” She lightly smacked the top of his head. “You better have, anyway. Promising me all this nice stuff my whole life and never delivering. I better be rich when your sorry butt kicks off.”

  They both laughed and exchanged lingering hugs.

  “Fiske never told me about the insurance policy. I mean, come on, that’s a classic motive for murder.”

  “Well, maybe he doesn’t know about the policy.”

  “Maybe,” Chandler conceded. “Anyway, McKenna laid out this whole theory that has Fiske killing his brother for the money, getting another clerk at the Court to help him because she’s got a thing for him and then throwing all this misdirection at us, offering to help with the investigation and whatnot. Even lying about an intruder at his brother’s apartment. I have to admit, he put together a pretty convincing argument, at least on the surface.”

  “So John Fiske was at his brother’s apartment?”

  “Yep. Claims some guy hit him there and took off. Maybe stole some stuff from the apartment, something that tied in to the murder.”

  “Well, if John Fiske was at his brother’s apartment and made up the story about this intruder person, and he knew about the life insurance policy, why didn’t he search his brother’s apartment for the policy? Why leave it for you to find and get suspicious?”

  Chandler stared at her, wide-eyed.

  “Buford, are you okay?”

  “Damn, sweetie, I thought I was the detective in the family. Now, how the hell did I miss that one?”

  “Because you’re overworked and underappreciated, that’s why.” She
got up and extended her hand to his. “But if you come upstairs right now, I will show you some extra-special appreciation. Leave your sensitive side down here, though, baby, and just bring your other parts upstairs.” She looked at him with heavy-lidded eyes that he knew did not indicate sleepiness.

  Chandler quickly rose, took her hand and together they walked up the stairs.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  As the Jeep raced down the road, Tremaine scrutinized the passengers of each car they passed.

  “The damn luck,” Rayfield moaned. “We couldn’t have missed them by more than a few minutes.”

  Tremaine ignored him, focusing instead on the car in front of them. The dome light of the car came on as they passed, revealing the driver and passenger. The passenger was unfolding a map.

  As Tremaine stared at the car’s interior he hit the brakes, ripped the Jeep to the left and went across the median. The vehicle bumped and jostled in the grassy ditch before the tires found