The Simple Truth by David Baldacci

Cassandra came and stood next to the bed. “Now, isn’t that a woman’s plight in life, always checking up on men?” Her words were funny, her tone was not. She looked at the monitors and made some notations in his chart, glancing at him as she did so.

“It feels good. I ain’t used to that.” He took care not to rattle his restraints as he sat up a little.

“I called your brother.”

Rufus’s expression grew serious. “Is that right? What’d he say?”

“He said he’d be coming to see you.”

“He say when?”

“Sooner than later. Today, in fact.”

“What all did you tell him?”

“I told him you were sick, but getting better fast.”

“He tell you anything else?”

“I found him to be a man of few words,” Cassandra remarked.

“That’s Josh.”

“Is he as big as you?”

“Nah. He’s a little guy. Six-three or so, not much over two hundred pounds.” Cassandra shook her head and turned to leave. “You got time to sit and talk?” Rufus asked.

“I’m supposed to be on my break. I just came to tell you about your brother. I’ve got to go.” She seemed a little unfriendly.

“You okay?”

“Even if I’m not, there isn’t anything you can do about it.” Her tone was now edgy, rough.

Rufus studied her for a moment. “Is there a Bible around here?”

She turned back, surprised. “Why?”

“I read the Bible every day. Have for as long as I can remember.”

She looked over at the table next to the bed, went across and pulled out a Gideon’s Bible. “I can’t give it to you. Can’t get that close. The people from the prison were real, real clear on that point.”

“You don’t have to give it to me. If you would, I’d appreciate if you could read a passage to me.”

“Read to you?”

“You don’t have to,” he said quickly. “You may not even be interested, you know, in the Bible and churchgoing.”

She looked down at him, one hand on her hip, the other closed around the green Bible. “I sing in the choir. My husband, God rest his soul, was a lay minister.”

“That’s real good, Cassandra. And your kids?”

“How do you know I have kids? Because I’m not skinny?”

“Uh-uh.”

“What, then?”

“You look like you’re used to loving little things.”

His words startled her, a smile quickly breaking through the cloud over her features. “I am going to have to watch you.” She noted that he looked at the Bible like he was thirsty and needed a drink, and she was holding the freshest, coldest glass of water in the history of the world.

“What do you want me to read?”

“Hundred and third Psalm.”

Cassandra debated for a moment and then pulled up a chair and sat down.

Rufus lay back on the bed. “Thank you, Cassandra.”

As she read, she glanced at him. His eyes were closed. She read a few more words, looked up and saw his lips moving and then stopping. She looked at the next sentence, quickly memorized it, and read it, while watching him. Rufus was silently mouthing each of the words at the same time she was saying them. She stopped, but he continued to the end of the sentence. When she did not start up again, he opened his eyes. “You know the Psalm by heart?”she asked.

“Know most of the Bible by heart. All the Psalms and Proverbs.”

“That’s pretty impressive.”

“I’ve had a long time to work on it.”

“Why did you want me to read it to you, then, if you already knew it?”

“Looked like you were a little troubled. I thought visiting the scriptures might help you some.”

“Help me?” Cassandra looked down at the page and read to herself. “He forgives all my sins. He heals me. He ransoms me from Hell. He surrounds me with loving kindness and tender mercies.” Work was depressing. Her teenage children were more and more beyond her control every day. She was on the north side of forty, fifty pounds overweight, and there wasn’t an eligible man in sight. With all that, as she watched this prisoner, this chained-up killer who was going to die in prison, she felt like bursting into tears in the face of his kindness, his unsolicited consideration for her plight.

The Hundred and Third Psalm also held special appeal for Rufus, one line in particular. He mouthed it to himself: “He gives justice to all who are treated unfairly.”

* * *

“Recognize it?” Chandler asked as they approached the 1987 silver Honda sedan parked in the police lot.

Fiske nodded. “We got it for him when he graduated from college. We all chipped in, my parents and me.”

“I’ve got five brothers. They never did that for me.”

Chandler unlocked the driver’s-side door and stepped back for Fiske to look inside.

“Where did you find the car keys?”

“On the front seat.”

“Any other personal items?” Chandler shook his head. Fiske examined the front seat, dash, windshield and side windows, his puzzlement clear. “Has it been cleaned?”

“No. Just like we found it, except for the occupant.”

Fiske straightened back up and looked at the detective.

“If you put a heavy-caliber pistol flush against somebody’s temple and pull the trigger in a confined space like this you’ll have blood splatters on the seat, steering wheel, windshield. You’d also have bone and tissue throw-off. All I see are a few stains here and there, probably where his head was touching the seat.”

Chandler looked amused. “Is that right?”

Fiske clenched his jaw. “I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know. I take it this was another little test of yours?”

Chandler nodded slowly. “Could be. Could be another reason. Remember I said I had five brothers?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I started out with six. One of my brothers was murdered thirty-five years ago. Working at a gas station and some punk came in and popped him for the twelve bucks in the register. I was only sixteen at the time, but I remember every detail like it was maybe five minutes ago. Anyway, most families who come in to identify their loved ones don’t head over to my office and offer their services. They grieve and console each other, which is entirely proper. Oh, they rant and rave for a while about wanting to catch the SOB who did it, but they don’t really want to get involved in the process. I mean, who would? And they don’t usually have a law enforcement background. Add it all up, and I spotted you as somebody who might be able to really contribute. And you just proved it.

“I can understand the rage you must be feeling, John, whether you liked your brother or not. Somebody took something from you, something important — ripped it from you, in fact. It’s been thirty-five years and I still feel that rage.”

Fiske looked around at all the civilian cars in the police lot. He assumed each hunk of metal was waiting its turn to spill the secrets of another tragedy. He turned back to Chandler. “I guess rage will do.” He added quietly, looking down, “Until something else comes along.” His tone did not hold out much hope.

“Fair enough.” Chandler continued his analysis. “The absence of all the physical evidence you just mentioned does have me puzzled.”

“It doesn’t look like he was killed in the car.”

“That’s right. It looks like he was killed somewhere else and his body was then put in the front seat. Now, that single conclusion takes us into a whole new realm of possibilities.”

“Then we’re talking about something more deliberate than a random kidnapping and murder.”

“Possibly, although some punks could have kidnapped him, taken him out of the car to maybe hit an ATM. He refuses, they pop him. Get scared and then dump him back in his car.”

“Then there would have been some physical evidence at the ATM. Any sign of that?”

“No, but there are a lot of ATMs.”

“And a lot of people use them. If it’s been at least a day, you’d think someone would have noticed.”

“You’d think, but you can’t be sure. We’re trying to isolate your brother’s movements and whereabouts for the last forty-eight hours. He was last seen at his apartment on Thursday night. After that, nada.”

“If somebody carjacked him, what about prints? Most perps looking for ATM cards aren’t sophisticated enough to wear gloves.”

“We’re still processing that.”

“Would you like another observation?”

“Fire away.”

Fiske held open the car door and pointed at the inside part of the doorjamb, the section that you don’t see when the door is closed. Chandler fumbled for his glasses, put them on and saw what Fiske was pointing at. Chandler slapped on a pair of latex gloves he pulled from his coat pocket, gently lifted the small piece of sticky plastic off and held it in his palm, observing it carefully.

“Your brother just had his car serviced at Wal-Mart.”

“It recommends that the next oil service takes place in three months or three thousand miles, whichever comes first. They put the future date and future mileage reading on that sticker as a reminder for when you’re supposed to come back in. According to the date on that sticker, and subtracting out three months, my brother went in for service three days before his body was found. Now look at the mileage for when the next service is recommended and subtract three thousand miles from it. That’ll give you approximately what the odometer should read right now.”

Chandler swiftly did the math. “Eighty-six thousand, five hundred and forty-three.”

“Now look at the Honda’s current odometer reading.”

Chandler leaned back in the car and checked. Then he looked back at Fiske, his eyes slightly wide. “Somebody put about eight hundred miles on this car in the last three days.”

“That’s right,” Fiske said.

“Where the hell did he go?”

“The sticker doesn’t have which Wal-Mart he used, but probably it was one close to his home. You should call around, they might be able to tell us something useful.”

“Right. Can’t believe we missed this,” said Chandler. He slipped the plastic sticker in a clear zippered bag he pulled from his coat pocket and wrote some information on the outside of it. “Oh, and John?”

“Yeah?”

He held up the zippered bag. “No more tests, okay?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


A half hour later, Chandler and Fiske walked through the front entrance of the United States Supreme Court.

Inside, the place was large and intimidating. What really engaged Fiske’s attention, though, was the quiet, so extreme as to be unsettling. It seemed to border on the hallucinatory — trying to imagine a functioning world right outside the doors. Fiske thought of the last very silent place he had been today: the morgue.

He said, “Who are we supposed to be meeting?”

Chandler pointed to a group of men walking purposefully down the hallway toward them. “Them.” As they drew nearer, their collective footsteps became the boom of cannon in this acoustical tunnel. One of the men wore a suit; the other two were in uniforms and carried sidearms.

“Detective Chandler?” The man in the suit extended his hand. “I’m Richard Perkins, marshal of the United States Supreme Court.” Perkins was about five-nine, skinny, with the stuck-out ears of a boy, and white hair combed straight over his forehead like a frozen waterfall. He introduced his companions. “Chief of Police Leo Dellasandro; his second-in-command, Ron Klaus.”

“Good to meet you,” Chandler said, and he watched Perkins look expectantly over at Fiske. He added, “John Fiske. Michael Fiske’s brother.”

All of them rushed to provide their condolences.

“A tragedy. A mindless tragedy,” Perkins said. “Michael was so highly thought of. He’ll be sorely missed.”

Fiske managed an appreciative demeanor in the face of all this instant sympathy.

“You’ve locked up Michael Fiske’s office, as I requested?” Chandler asked.

Dellasandro nodded. “It was difficult, because he shared it with another clerk. Two to an office is the norm.”

“Let’s hope we won’t need to keep it off limits long.”

“We can meet in my office if you’d like and go over your agenda, Detective Chandler,” Perkins offered. “It’s right down the hallway.”

“Let’s do it.”

As Fiske started off with them, Perkins stopped and looked at Chandler.

“I’m sorry. I was assuming that Mr. Fiske was here for another reason unrelated to your investigation.”

“He’s helping me out with some background information on his brother,” Chandler said.

Perkins looked at Fiske with what Fiske gauged as unfriendly eyes.

“I didn’t even know Michael had a brother,” said Perkins. “He never mentioned you.”

“That’s okay, he never mentioned you either,” Fiske replied.

Perkins’s office was right off the hallway leading to the courtroom. It was furnished in an old-fashioned colonial style, the architecture and craftsmanship from an era of government unburdened with trillion-dollar national debts and budgets awash in red.

At a side table of Perkins’s office sat a man in his late forties. His blond hair was cut very short, and his long narrow face carried an unshakable air of authority. His self-assured manner suggested that he enjoyed the exercise of that authority. When he rose, Fiske noted that he was well over six feet tall and looked as though he spent regular time in the gym.

“Detective Chandler?” The man extended one hand and with the other flashed his identification card. “FBI Special Agent Warren McKenna.”

Chandler looked at Perkins. “I wasn’t aware that the Bureau had been brought in on this.”

Perkins started to say something, but McKenna said briskly, “As I’m sure you know, the attorney general and the FBI have the legal right to fully investigate the murder of any person employed by the United States government. However, the Bureau is not looking to take over the investigation or step on your toes.”

“That’s good, because even the tiniest bit of unwanted pressure and I just go nuts.” Chandler smiled.

McKenna’s expression remained unchanged. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

Fiske held out his hand. “John Fiske, Agent McKenna. Michael Fiske was my brother.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Fiske. I know it must be damn tough for you,” McKenna said, shaking his hand. The FBI agent focused again on Chandler. “If conditions dictate a more active role for the Bureau, then we would expect your full cooperation. Remember that the victim was a federal employee.” He looked around the room. “Employed by one of the most revered institutions in the world. And perhaps one of the most feared.”

“Fear out of ignorance,” Perkins pointed out.

“But feared nonetheless. After Waco, the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City, we’ve learned to be extra careful,” McKenna said.

“Too bad you people weren’t faster learners,” Chandler said dryly. “But turf battles are big wastes of time. I do believe in share and share alike, though, okay?”

“Of course,” McKenna said.

Chandler asked a half hour’s worth of questions, trying basically to establish if any case Michael Fiske had been working on at the Court could have led to his murder. The same answer kept coming back to him from each of the Court representatives: