The Simple Truth

by David Baldacci

  “I wasn’t in no damn PCP program, even if they said I was.” He pulled out the letter and gave it to Fiske.

  Fiske took a moment to read it and then looked at him. “Tell me about it, Rufus.”

  Harms sat back as much as he could. He was so large that his knees touched the dash and his head brushed the car’s ceiling. “They’d been out to get me for a while. Tremaine and Rayfield.”

  “And Dellasandro? Corporal Leo Dellasandro?”

  “Yeah, him too. I guess they didn’t take too kindly to me sitting nice and snug in the States, even if it was in the stockade.”

  “They didn’t know about your dyslexia?”

  “You seem to know a damn lot.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’d had plenty of run-ins with that group before. Tremaine got thrown in the stockade with me one night for drinking. He told me real directly what he thought about me. I guess they planned this thing out. They came in the stockade one night. Leo had a gun. They made me close my eyes, get on the floor. The next thing I knew, they stuck something in me. I opened my eyes and saw the needle coming out of my arm. They all stood there laughing, waiting for me to die. I could tell from what they said, that was their plan. OD me on the stuff.”

  “How the hell did you go from getting shot up with PCP to escaping from the stockade?”

  “My whole body seemed to swell up like somebody was pumping air in me. I remember getting up and it felt like the room wasn’t big enough to hold me. I tossed ’em all aside like they were made of straw. They had left the door unlocked. The guard on duty came running up, but I hit him like a truck and then I was running free.” His breathing had accelerated, his huge hands clasping and unclasping, as though reliving what he had done with them so long ago.

  “And you ran into Ruth Ann Mosley?”

  “She was there visiting her brother.” Rufus slammed his fist down onto the dash. “If only God had struck me down before I got to that little girl. Why’d it have to be a child? Why?” Tears streamed down the man’s face.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Rufus. PCP can make you do anything, anything. It wasn’t your fault.”

  In answer Rufus held up his hands and bellowed, “These did it. No matter what shit they put in me, ain’t nothing gonna change the fact that I killed that beautiful little girl. Ain’t nothing on this earth gonna make that go away. Is it? Is it?” Rufus’s eyes blazed at Fiske, but then he closed them and slumped back, as though lifeless.

  Fiske tried to keep calm. “And you remembered nothing, until you got the letter?”

  Finally Rufus came around. “Hell, all those years the only thing I remembered from that night was sitting in the stockade reading the Bible my momma give me. The next thing I knew I’m next to this dead little girl. That’s all.” He wiped the tears away with his sleeve.

  “PCP can do that too. Screw with your memory. Probably the shock of it all too.”

  Rufus took a heavy breath. “Sometimes I think that crap’s still in me.”

  “But you pleaded guilty to the murder anyway?”

  “There was a bunch of witnesses. Samuel Rider said if I didn’t take the deal, they’d convict me and then they’d execute me. What the hell else was I supposed to do?”

  Fiske thought about that for a moment and then said quietly, “I guess I would’ve done the same thing.”

  “But when I got that letter, it was like somebody turned this big light on inside my head, and some part of my brain that had been all dark got real bright and everything came back to me. Every damn little bit.”

  “And so you wrote the letter to the Court and asked Rider to file it for you?”

  Rufus nodded. “And then your brother came to see me. Said he believed in justice, wanted to help me if I was telling the truth. He was a good man.”

  “Yes, he was,” Fiske said hoarsely.

  “The thing was, he had brought my letter with him. Rayfield and old Vic weren’t going to let him go. No way. I went crazy when I found out. They took me to the infirmary, tried to kill me there. I got to the hospital and Josh busted me out.”

  “You said Tremaine and Rayfield are dead.”

  Rufus nodded. He took another deep breath, watched the rain falling over the darkened Richmond skyline and then looked over at Fiske. “Now you know everything I know. So what are we going to do?”

  “I’m not sure,” was all Fiske could manage to say.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  An hour after Fiske had driven off, Chuck Herman smiled as he passed Sara in the plane aisle. “This is the only time I’ve ever been paid not to fly.”

  “This is Washington, Chuck. They pay farmers not to grow crops too,” Sara said dryly.

  She picked up the cell phone for the tenth time and dialed Phil Jansen’s home number. His office had already told Sara that Jansen had left for the day. Luckily, Fiske had given her Jansen’s home number too. She was relieved when Jansen finally answered. She quickly introduced herself and explained her connection to Fiske.

  “I don’t have much time, Mr. Jansen, so I might as well get to the point. In the past has the Army been involved in PCP testing programs?”

  Jansen’s voice tensed. “Why exactly are you asking that, Ms. Evans?”

  “John thinks that Rufus Harms was involuntarily given PCP when he was in an Army stockade at Fort Plessy twenty-five years ago. He thinks the exposure to PCP caused Harms to go berserk and kill a little girl. He’s been in prison for the crime ever since.”

  Sara recounted all that she and Fiske had deduced, along with what they had learned from Rufus at Rider’s office. Sara continued, “Rufus Harms recently received a letter from the Army asking him to participate in a follow-up test to determine the long-term effects of PCP. That’s what happened to Sergeant James Stanley, right? The Army sent him a letter. That was the only reason he knew the Army had given him LSD. Well, we think a group of Army personnel forcefully administered PCP to Harms in the stockade, but not as part of any program. We think they intended to use the drug to kill him. Instead he broke free and committed the murder.”

  Jansen said, “Wait a minute. Why did the Army send him a letter saying Harms was in the program, if he wasn’t?”

  “We think whoever gave Harms the PCP enrolled him in the program.”

  “And why would they do that?”

  “If they killed him with the PCP and there was an autopsy, presumably the substance would have been found in his bloodstream.”

  “Yes, it would,” Jansen said slowly. “So they enrolled him in the program to cover that up. The coroner would chalk it up to an unfortunate reaction to the drug. I can’t believe this.”

  “Right. So such a program existed?”

  “Yes,” Jansen conceded. “It’s public information now. All declassified. It was run jointly by the Army and CIA in the seventies. They wanted to determine if PCP could be used to ‘build’super soldiers. If Harms was listed in the program’s records, he would have recently received a follow-up letter.” Jansen paused for a moment. “What are you and John going to do now?”

  “I wish we knew.” Sara thanked Jansen and hung up.

  She waited awhile longer and then left the plane and walked across the tarmac to the terminal. She was immediately stopped by the two FBI agents.

  “Where’s Fiske?” one of them demanded.

  “John Fiske?” she asked innocently.

  “Come on, Ms. Evans.”

  “He left a while back.”

  The agents looked startled. “Left. How?”

  “I assume he drove. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  She smiled as the stunned men took off at a dead run toward the plane. They had no grounds to detain her. She took the opportunity to hop on the shuttle bus to the garage and got her car. She drove out of the airport and headed south. A sudden thought hit her and she pulled off the road and into a gas station. Keeping the motor running, she opened Fiske’s briefcase and took out the packet of documents they had received f
rom St. Louis. She wasn’t sure how closely Fiske had examined them, but it had occurred to her that it was possible the Army might have put a copy of the letter they had sent to Rufus Harms in his official file — although technically it had been closed upon the occasion of his court-martial. It was worth a look.

  A half hour later she sat back, disappointed. She started returning the papers to the briefcase when her hand closed around the personnel list from Fort Plessy. She leafed through the pages, noting the names of Victor Tremaine and Frank Rayfield. Then her eye sadly passed over the name of Rufus Harms. So many years of his life gone.

  As she was thinking this, she was continuing to turn pages, running her eye down the personnel list; as soon as she saw the name, she froze. When she finally broke out of her trance, she did so with such force that she bumped her head against the window. She threw the file down and slammed the car into gear, burning rubber on the slick pavement as she sped out of the gas station. She glanced down at the floorboard where the personnel list had landed, where the name Warren McKenna seemed to stare back at her, taunting her. She never looked back, so she didn’t notice the car that had followed her from the airport.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Harold Ramsey leaned back in his chair, a grave look on his face. “I never imagined that anything like this could have happened here.”

  McKenna and Chandler sat in Ramsey’s chambers. McKenna watched the chief justice closely. They seemed to make eye contact for a moment, and then McKenna looked away and glanced over at Chandler.

  “Well, we don’t have any solid proof one way or another about whether Michael Fiske actually stole an appeal, or if there even was an appeal,” Chandler said.

  Ramsey shook his head in disagreement. “After the discussion with Sara Evans, can there be any doubt?”

  Discussion? Inquisition was more like it, Chandler thought. “It’s still speculation. And I would advise against going public with this information.”

  “I agree,” McKenna said. “It could complicate the investigation.”

  “I thought you were convinced that John Fiske was behind it all,” Ramsey said. “If you’re changing your position now, I don’t see how we’re any farther ahead than we were two days ago.”

  “Murders don’t just solve themselves. And this one is a little more complex than usual. And I never said I had changed my position,” McKenna said. “Fiske’s gun was missing from his office. No big surprise there. Don’t worry, things are falling into place.”

  Ramsey looked unconvinced.

  “I really don’t see why waiting a bit will hurt,” Chandler said. “And if things turn out the way we hope, maybe the public never has to know.”

  “I don’t see how that is possible,” Ramsey said angrily. “But I suppose it won’t make this disaster any more horrible by taking your advice. For now. What about Fiske and Evans? Where are they?”

  “We have them under surveillance,” McKenna answered.

  “So you know where they are right now?” Ramsey asked.

  McKenna maintained his stone face. He wasn’t about to admit that in fact both Sara and Fiske had managed to elude his FBI surveillance team. McKenna had just gotten that message a minute before he had stepped into this meeting.

  “Yes,” McKenna answered.

  “Where are they?” Ramsey asked.

  “I’m afraid I can’t give out that information, Mr. Chief Justice.” He added quickly, “As much as I’d like to accommodate you. We really need to keep that confidential.”

  Ramsey looked sternly at him. “Agent McKenna, you promised to keep the Court informed about the progress of this case.”

  “I did. That’s why I’m here right now.”

  “The Court has its own police force. Chief Dellasandro and Ron Klaus are out right this very minute trying to solve this thing. We have our own investigation ongoing and it’s in the best interests of everybody that we have full disclosure. Now please answer my question. Where are they?”

  “What you say makes a lot of sense, but I’m afraid I still can’t divulge that information,” he said. “FBI policy, you understand.”

  Ramsey arched his eyebrows. “I think I should speak to someone else at the Bureau, then,” he said. “I don’t like going over people’s heads, Agent McKenna, but this is a unique situation.”

  “I’d be glad to give you some names to call at the Bureau, starting with the director himself,” McKenna offered pleasantly.

  “Do you have anything of actual importance to report,” Ramsey said dryly, “or is that it?”

  McKenna stood up. “We’re trying as hard as we can to get to the bottom of this. And I’m convinced that, with a little luck, we will.”

  Ramsey stood up too, towering over them. “A word of advice, Agent McKenna. Never leave anything to chance. Anyone who does that usually lives to regret it.”

  * * *

  Sara unlocked the door to her cottage and hurried inside. From her car she had tried phoning Fiske’s home and office; then had tried Ed Fiske too, but he had heard nothing from his son. She threw her purse down on the kitchen table, went upstairs and changed out of her wet clothes and into jeans and a T-shirt. She was nearing panic and she wasn’t sure what to do. If Dellasandro was in on this, that was bad enough. He was privy to what was happening with the investigation. The fact that FBI Agent Warren McKenna was also involved was potentially catastrophic. He was practically running the damn investigation. She could now see the subtle manipulations of the FBI agent at every juncture in the case. Fiske implicated, herself forced to quit the Court; all of it building motive for John’s killing his brother. It was all untrue, and yet, for someone just looking at the bare facts, it would make sense.

  She tried Chandler’s office. She wanted to know definitively if Agent McKenna had been stationed at Fort Plessy, or if it had been simply someone else with the same name. She couldn’t believe two McKennas would be involved here, but she needed to be sure. Unfortunately, Chandler wasn’t in. Who else could she call who would have that information? Jansen might be able to find out, but it would probably take him a while. She tried his number anyway, but there was no answer. Who else? It suddenly hit her. She dialed the number. After three rings a woman answered. It was the housekeeper.

  “Is he in? It’s Sara Evans.”

  A minute later Jordan Knight’s voice came on the line.

  “Sara?”

  “I know this is terrible timing, Senator.”

  “I heard what happened today.” His tone was cold.

  “I know what you must think, and I’m sure nothing I could say would change your mind.”

  “You’re probably right about that. However, for what it’s worth Beth feels terrible about what happened. She was one of your strongest supporters.”

  “I appreciate that.” Sara held the phone away from her ear as she struggled to hold her nerves in check. Every second counted now. “I need a favor.”

  “A favor?” Jordan sounded perplexed.

  “Some information on someone.”

  “Sara, I hardly think this is appropriate.”

  “Senator, I will never, ever call you again, but I really need to know the answer to my question, and with all your information resources, and your personal clout, you’re the only person I can think of to ask. Please? For old times’ sake.”

  Jordan pondered this for a moment. “Well, I’m not at my office right now. I was just settling down to a late dinner with Beth, in fact.”

  “But you could call your office, or maybe the FBI.”

  “The FBI?” he said loudly.

  She hurried on. “A phone call would be all that it would take. I’m at home. You can even have the person call me back directly. You and I won’t even have to speak again.”

  Finally, Jordan relented. “All right, what’s your question?”

  “It’s about Agent McKenna.”

  “What about him?”

  “I need to know if he ever served in the Army. Specific
ally at Fort Plessy during the seventies.”

  “Why in the world do you need to know that?”