The Simple Truth (50 page)

Sara looked past him, out the window, where a cardinal flitted by and settled on the branch of a weeping willow.

She said,
“I know. I’ve spent a lot of time with him the last few days. You know, I always thought I’d be able to tell, almost instantly: This is the person I want to spend my life with. I guess that notion seems silly. And unfair. Doesn’t it?”

A tiny smile creased the man’s face.
“The first time I saw Gladys, she was waitressing at this little diner across from where I worked. I walked in the door with a bunch of my buddies one day and from the moment I saw her I didn’t hear a word they said. It was like it was just me and her in the whole damn world. Went back to work and made a mess of a Cummins diesel engine. Couldn’t get her out of my head.”

Sara smiled.
“I’m well acquainted with the stubbornness of John and Michael Fiske. So I doubt if you just left it at that.”

Ed smiled too.
“I went back over to that diner for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next six months. We started going out. Then I got up the courage to ask her to marry me. I swear to God I would’ve done it that first day, but I thought she’d think I was crazy or something.”
He paused for a moment and then said with finality,
“We’ve had a damn good life together too.”
He studied her face.
“Is that what happened to you when you saw Johnny?”
Sara nodded.
“Did Mike know?”

“I think he figured it out. When I finally met John I asked him if he had any idea why the two of them didn’t seem to be close. I thought that might have been part of it, but they seemed to have drifted apart before then.”
Sara tensed.
“So that night in the boat, what you saw was me pushing myself on your son. He had been through the most hellish day imaginable and all I could think about was myself.”
She looked directly at him.
“He turned me down flat.”
She thought of last night, the tenderness she and John Fiske had exchanged, both in and out of her bed. And then the morning after. She thought she had figured it all out. That had been a good feeling. Now she was close to overwhelmed by the sense that she knew nothing about the man or his feelings. She let out a troubled laugh.
“It was a very humbling experience.”
She pulled a tissue from her pocketbook and dabbed at her eyes.
“That’s all I came to tell you. If you want to hate anyone, hate me, not your son.”

Ed studied the carpet for a minute and then stood.
“Just finished cutting the grass. I’d like an iced tea, how about you?”
With a surprised look, Sara nodded.

A few minutes later Ed came back with glasses of ice and a pitcher of tea. As he filled the glasses he said,
“I’ve thought a lot about that night. I don’t remember all of it. Had a damn bad hangover the next day. As mad as I was, I never should’ve hit Johnny. Not in the damn gut.”

“He’s pretty tough.”

“That’s not what I meant.”
Ed took a swallow of tea and sat back, chewing on his lip.
“Did Johnny ever tell you why he left the police force?”

“He said he had arrested some young kid for a drug offense. That the kid was so pathetic and everything, that he decided to start helping people like that.”

Ed nodded.
“Well, he didn’t actually arrest him. That boy died at the scene. And so did the officer that backed Johnny up on that call.”

Sara almost spilled her tea.
“What?”

Ed looked a little uncomfortable now that he had opened this subject, but he continued. “Johnny never really talked about it, but I got the story from the officers who arrived after it all happened. Johnny stopped the car for some reason. It was stolen, I think. Anyway, he called in for backup. He got the two boys out of the car. Found the drugs. That’s when his backup came. Right before they were going to search them, one of the boys dropped like he was having a seizure. Johnny tried to help him. His backup should’ve kept his gun on the other, but he didn’t, and the other fellow pulled a gun and killed him. Johnny managed to fire, but the boy put two rounds into him.

“They both went down, facing each other. The other boy had just been faking it. He jumped up and took off in the car. They caught him a little while later. The other fellow and Johnny were about a foot apart, both bleeding like crazy.”

“Omigod!”

“Johnny stuffed a finger in one of the holes. It stopped the bleeding a little. Well — and I heard some of this from him while he was in the hospital half out of his head — the boy said some things to Johnny. I’m not exactly sure what, Johnny never would say, but they found the boy dead and Johnny next to him, his arm around him. Must’ve dragged himself over there or something. Some of the cops didn’t exactly like that, what with one of their own lying dead because of the kid. But they checked everything out and Johnny was cleared. It was the other cop’s fault. Anyway, Johnny almost died on the way to the hospital. As it was, he was in there for about a month. Whatever load the boy was carrying in that pistol ripped Johnny’s insides to shreds.”

Sara suddenly thought back to Fiske’s pulling his shirt back down before they made love.
“Does he have a scar?”

Ed looked at her funny.
“Why do you ask?”

“Something he said.”

He nodded slowly.
“From his gut to his neck.”

“Too old for skinny-dipping,”
Sara said to herself.

“Guess they could’ve done some plastic surgery, but Johnny had had enough of hospitals. Besides, I think he figured if they couldn’t fix him on the inside, what the hell did it matter what he looked like on the outside?”

Sara’s face took on a stricken look.
“What do you mean? He fully recovered, didn’t he?”

Ed shook his head sadly.
“Those bullets ripped him bad, bounced around inside him like a damn pinball. They patched him up, but just about every one of his organs was damaged for good. Maybe they could make it all right if Johnny wanted to spend a bunch of years in the hospital, have transplants and stuff like that. But that ain’t my son. Docs say eventually things inside him are just going to stop working. They said it was like diabetes — you know, how a person’s organs get worn out and all?”
Sara nodded as her own stomach started to churn.
“Well, the docs said those two bullets will eventually cost Johnny about twenty years of his life, maybe more. And there wasn’t really nothing they could do about it. Back then we didn’t care. Hell, he was alive, that was enough. But I know he thinks about it. He pumped iron, ran like a damn demon, got himself in good shape, at least on the outside. Quit the police force. Wouldn’t even take damn disability, although he was sure as hell entitled. Became a lawyer, works like a dog for what amounts to chickenshit, and gives me and his momma most of it. I got no pension and Gladys’s medical bills added up to more than I made in my whole life. Hell, we had to mortgage this place again after spending thirty years paying it off. But you do what you got to do.”

As Ed paused, Sara glanced over at the table where John Fiske’s medal for valor sat. A little piece of metal for all that pain.

“I tell you all this so you’ll see Johnny doesn’t really have the same goals as you and me might. Never got married, never talks about having no kids of his own. Everything is sped up for him. He figures if he makes it to fifty, he’s the luckiest man on earth. He told me that himself.”
Ed Fiske looked down, his voice catching.
“Never figured I’d outlive Mike. I hope to God I don’t outlive my other boy.”

Sara finally found her voice.
“I appreciate your telling me this. I realize it was hard for you. You don’t really know me.”

“Depending on the situation, sometimes you can know a person better in ten minutes than someone you’ve crossed paths with all your life.”

Sara rose to leave.
“Thank you for your time. And John really needs to hear from you.”

He nodded solemnly.
“I’ll do that.”

As her hand touched the doorknob, Ed spoke one last time.
“You still love my son?”

Sara walked out without answering.

* * *

At the small café down from his office building, Fiske bought his coffee and sat down at an outside table. McKenna did the same. At first Fiske chose to completely ignore the hovering FBI agent and idly watched the passersby while he drank his coffee. He slipped on his sunglasses as the sun cleared the top of the building across the street and drew both men’s shadows across the bricks. McKenna silently munched on some crackers he had bought and fingered his Styrofoam cup of coffee.

“How’s the gut? Sorry I had to punch you like that.”

“The only thing you’re sorry about is that you didn’t hit me harder.”

“No, really. I saw the shotgun and got concerned.”

Fiske looked up at him.
“I guess you thought I might be able to somehow open the car door, pull the shotgun out, swing it around and get off a shot before you could blow me away from a distance of, what, six inches?”

McKenna shrugged.
“FYI, I read up on your police record. You were a good cop. Right up until the end, anyway.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

McKenna sat down at the table.
“Nothing, other than there being some questions about that last event in your record. Care to fill me in on it?”

Fiske took off his glasses and stared at the man.
“Why don’t you put a bullet in my head instead? I think that would be more fun for me.”

McKenna leaned his chair back against the side of the building and lit up a cigarette.
“You know, if you’re so anxious to prove your innocence, then you might want to start being a little more cooperative.”

“McKenna, you’re convinced I killed my brother, so why should I bother?”

“I’ve worked a lot of cases over the years. Half the time my original theory didn’t turn out to be right. My philosophy is: Never say never.”

“Boy, you really sound sincere.”

McKenna assumed a friendlier tone.
“Look, John, I’ve been doing this stuff a long time, okay? Nice, neat little cases aren’t the norm. There are twists on this one and I’m not ignoring them.”
He stopped and then added as casually as he could,
“So why was your brother interested in Rufus Harms, and what exactly was in the appeal?”

Fiske put his sunglasses back on.
“That doesn’t fit into your theory of me killing my brother.”

“That’s only one of my theories. I’m down here following that up by looking for your suddenly vanished nine-millimeter. While I’m waiting on that, I’m looking at it from another angle: Rufus Harms. Your brother took the appeal, it looks like he visited the prison.”

“Chandler told you that?”

“I have a lot of information sources. You and Evans have both been snooping around into Harms’s background. He escaped from a prison in southwest Virginia. And you two took a chartered plane to that area last night. Why don’t you tell me about that? Where’d you go and why?”

Fiske sat back, stunned. McKenna had put them under surveillance. That wasn’t unusual, yet somehow Fiske hadn’t even thought about the possibility.
“You seem to know so much — why ask me?”

“You might have some information I could use to solve this case.”

“Ahead of Chandler?”

“When people are getting killed, what does it matter who stops it first?”

That statement made a lot of sense, Fiske knew. On the surface, at least. But of course it mattered a great deal who stopped it. People in law enforcement kept score, just like people in other lines of work. Fiske stood up.
“Let’s check in with Billy. By now he’s probably found those two bodies I stuffed in my file cabinet last week.”

Hawkins was just finishing up when they returned.

“Nothing,”
he said in response to McKenna’s look.
“You can search it yourself if you want,”
he added defiantly.

“That’s okay, I trust you,”
McKenna said amicably.

Fiske was staring at Hawkins.
“What’s that, Billy?”
Fiske pointed at his neck and collar.

“What’s what?”

Fiske touched Hawkins’s collar with his finger and then held it up for the man to see.

Hawkins blushed a little.
“Oh. Damn, that was Bonnie’s idea to cover the bruises. That’s why my face doesn’t look so beat up. I’ve never been hit that hard in my life. I mean, the guy was big, but so am I.”

McKenna said,
“I would’ve emptied my clip in the bastard.”

Fiske stared openmouthed at McKenna as he said this.

Hawkins nodded.
“I was tempted. But anyway, the guys would give me hell if they knew, but it’s so hot outside and you start sweating, and the stuff just comes off on your clothes. I don’t know how women do it.”

“Then you’re saying it’s — ”

“Yeah, it’s makeup,”
he said sheepishly.

Despite the revelation that had just occurred to him, Fiske tried his best to appear calm. He unconsciously rubbed his still-tender shoulder.

McKenna was staring at him.

Just then the phone rang. Fiske picked it up. It was the nursing home where his mother lived.

“I read about Michael in the paper. I’m so sorry, John.”
The woman had worked at the home for years and Fiske knew her very well.

“Thanks, Anne. Look, right now is a real bad time — ”

“I mean, Michael was just here and now he’s gone. I can’t believe it.”

Fiske tensed.
“‘Here,’as in at the nursing home?”

“Yes. Just last week. Thursday — no, Friday.”

The day he disappeared.

“I remember because he usually comes on Saturday.”

Fiske shook his head clear.
“What are you talking about? Mike didn’t visit Mom.”

“Sure he did. I mean, not nearly as often as you did.”

“You never told me that.”

“Didn’t I? Well, I guess if you have to know, Michael didn’t want you to know.”