The Simple Truth (53 page)

“Dyslexia is not a defense to murder.”

“No, but I know what is.”

“What?”
Sara asked excitedly.
“What?”

“First, a question: Leo Dellasandro — is he having an affair with his secretary?”

“Why are you asking that?”

“He had makeup on his coat collar.”

“Maybe it was from his wife.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so.”

“I really doubt he was having an affair, because his secretary just got married.”

“I didn’t think they were.”

“So why did you ask me?”

“Just covering all the bases. I don’t think Dellasandro got it from his wife either. I think he was wearing it.”

“Why would a man — a chief of police, no less — be wearing makeup?”

“To cover the bruises he got when I hit him in my brother’s apartment.”
Sara’s breath caught as Fiske continued.
“I haven’t seen Dellasandro since that night. He wasn’t at the meeting at the Court after Wright was murdered. I’ve been with Chandler a lot and the man never came by to check up on the investigation. At least while I was there. I think he was avoiding me. Maybe afraid I’d recognize him somehow.”

“Why in the world would Leo Dellasandro have been at your brother’s apartment?”

In response, Fiske held up a sheaf of papers.
“The list of personnel stationed at Fort Plessy. Luckily, it’s alphabetized.”
He turned toward the end of the roster.
“Sergeant Victor Tremaine.”
He turned another page.
“Captain Frank Rayfield.”
He flipped back through some pages and stopped.
“Private Rufus Harms.”
Then he went back near the beginning, circled a name with his pen, and said triumphantly,
“And Corporal Leo Dellasandro.”

“Good God. Then Rayfield, Tremaine and Dellasandro were the men in the stockade that night?”

“I think so.”

“How did you know Dellasandro was in the military?”

“I saw a photo of Dellasandro in his office. He was much younger, in uniform. His
Army
uniform. I think the three of them went there to teach Rufus Harms a lesson. I think we’ll find they all fought in Vietnam, and Rufus didn’t. He wouldn’t follow orders, was always in trouble.”

“But what the hell did they
do
to Rufus Harms?”

“I think they — ”

The car phone rang. Sara glanced at Fiske and then picked it up. Her face went pale as she listened.
“Yes, I’ll accept the call. Hello? What? Okay, calm down. He’s right here.”
She handed the phone to Fiske.
“Rufus Harms. And he doesn’t sound good.”

Fiske gripped the phone.
“Rufus, where are you?”

Rufus was inside the Jeep parked next to a pay phone. He had one hand on the phone, the other on Josh, who was now slipping into longer periods of unconsciousness, but still had the pistol wedged against his side.
“Richmond,”
he answered.
“I’m two minutes from the address on the card you gave me. Josh is hurt bad. I need a damn doctor and I need him quick.”

“Okay, okay, tell me what happened.”

“Rayfield and Tremaine caught up to us.”

“Where are they now?”

“They’re dead, dammit, and my brother’s about ready to join ’em. You said you’d help me. Well, I need help.”

Fiske glanced in the rearview mirror. The black sedan was still back there. He thought quickly.
“Okay, I’ll meet you at my office in four hours tops.”

“Josh ain’t got four hours. He’s shot the hell up.”

“We’re going to take care of Josh right now, Rufus. I’m meeting you, not Josh.”

“What the hell you talking about?”

“I’m going to call a buddy of mine who’s a cop. He’ll get an ambulance. They’ll take care of him. MCV Hospital is only a few minutes from my office.”

“No police!”

Fiske yelled into the phone,
“ Do you want Josh to die? Do you?”
Fiske took the silence as Rufus’s surrender to whatever help Fiske could give him.
“Describe the car to me and give me the intersection where you are right now.”
Rufus did so.
“My friend will have help there in a few minutes. Leave Josh in the car. As soon as you hang up, walk to my office building. It’s open. Go in the front door and go down the flight of stairs on your left. You go through another door. There’s a door on your right marked ‘Supplies.’ It’s unlocked. Get in there and sit tight. I’ll be down quick as I can. I also want you to take your brother’s wallet because I don’t want him to have any ID. If they know it’s Josh, they’re going to start looking for you nearby. That includes my office. The police cordoning off the area would throw a real wrench in my plan.”

“What if somebody sees me? Maybe recognizes me?”

“We don’t have much choice now, Rufus.”

“I’m trusting you. Please help my brother. Please don’t let me down.”

“Rufus, I’m trusting you too. Don’t let me down.”

When Rufus hung up, he looked at Josh. He slipped a gun under his shirt and reached out to touch his brother. He thought Josh was completely unconscious now, but when Rufus brushed his shoulder gently with his finger, Josh opened his eyes.

“Josh — ”

“I heard.”
The voice was weak; everything about him was now.

“He wants me to take your wallet, so they won’t know who you are just yet.”

“In my back pocket.”
Rufus slid it out.
“Now get going.”

Rufus considered this for a moment.
“I can stay with you. We go together.”

“No good.”
Josh spit up some more blood.
“Docs’ll sew me up. I been hurt a lot worse than this.”
Josh moved a shaky hand out, touched his brother’s face, brushed away the wetness from his eyes.

“I’m gonna stay with you, Josh.”

“You stay, all this is for nothing.”

“I can’t leave you alone. Not like this. Not after all these years away.”

With a painful grimace, Josh sat up.
“You ain’t leaving me alone. Give it to me.”

“Give you what?”

Josh said,
“The Bible.”

Without taking his eyes off his brother, Rufus slowly reached behind the seat and handed him the book. In return, Josh held out the pistol that had been wedged against his ribs for all these hours. Rufus looked at him questioningly.
“Fair swap,”
Josh said hoarsely.

Rufus thought he saw a smile flicker across his brother’s lips before Josh closed his eyes, his breathing shallow but steady. One large hand gripped the Bible so tightly the spine of the book twisted.

As Rufus climbed out of the Jeep, he looked back once more, and then left his brother behind.

* * *

Fiske finally reached Hawkins at home.
“Don’t ask me why or how, Billy. I can’t tell you who it is. For now he’s a John Doe. Stall the paperwork and drive the Jeep to the hospital.”
Fiske hung up.

“John, how are we going to meet Rufus with the FBI right behind us?”
Sara said.

“I’m meeting Rufus, you’re not.”

“Wait a minute — ”

“Sara — ”

“I want to see this through.”

“Believe me, you will. You have to make a phone call for me, to my friend at the JAG.”

“What about? And you still haven’t told me what you think happened in that stockade twenty-five years ago.”

He put one hand on top of hers.
“
U.S. v. Stanley
. An innocent soldier and LSD,”
Fiske said, watching her eyes go wide.
“Only worse,”
he added.

* * *

After making a quick stop at Sara’s home, they drove to National Airport and parked. Fiske tugged the trench coat around him and pulled his hat down tightly over his head as the rain began to fall harder. He opened a big umbrella and covered Sara with it. They went to the general aviation terminal, and then out the other side to the boarding area, where they climbed in a sedan with tinted windows. A couple minutes later the car pulled away from the curb.

Behind them were two FBI agents, one of whom was already communicating this development to his superiors. Then he went over to the service counter to determine the destination of the flight Fiske and Sara were about to get on. The other agent went out and watched as the sedan pulled up to the private jet.

Inside the sedan, Fiske and the driver, Chuck Herman’s copilot, were busy switching places. The driver put on the trench coat and hat. From a distance he would look like Fiske. Their plan was to have Sara stay on the plane for an hour, during which time she would attempt to contact Fiske’s JAG friend, Phil Jansen. Then she would leave. They knew the FBI would question her about Fiske’s disappearance, but they would have no grounds to detain her.

The FBI agent watched as a thin, white-haired man came down the steps from the plane and greeted Sara and the man whom he assumed was Fiske as they climbed out of the car. The group went up the steps and into the plane. The sedan pulled away. The FBI agent kept his eyes on the plane as the sedan passed by him and continued on to the main road leading out of the terminal.

Driving the sedan, Fiske let out a deep breath as he pulled onto the George Washington Parkway. Within ten minutes he was headed south on Interstate 95 toward Richmond. Traffic was heavy; it was almost three hours before he pulled the car up to his office building. He had already checked in with Billy Hawkins. Josh Harms was in surgery at MCV. It didn’t look good, Hawkins had told him. Fiske parked the car and went around to the office’s rear entrance, just in case.

He made his way to the lower level and approached the supply room. Please be there, he urged Rufus. He tapped on the door.
“Rufus?”
he said quietly.
“It’s John Fiske.”

Rufus cautiously opened the door.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Rufus gripped his arm.
“How’s Josh?”

“He’s in surgery. All you can do is pray.”

“That’s all I been doing.”

They went out the rear entrance, walked quickly to Fiske’s car and climbed in.

“Where we going?”
Rufus said.

“You want to tell me about the letter from the Army?”

“What about it?”

“They wanted to follow up on the phencyclidine testing, right?”

Harms stiffened.
“Phen-what?”

“You know, PCP.”

“How did you know about that?”

“Same thing happened to another guy in the Army named Stanley, who was in a bogus program. They used LSD on him.”

“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.”