The Simple Truth (24 page)

“Oh, Enis is his son. But that doesn’t make somebody your father. Fathers don’t do what that guy did to his family.”

“What’ll happen to them?”

Fiske shrugged.
“I give Lucas two more years before they find him in some alley with a dozen holes in him. The really sad thing is, he knows it too.”

“Maybe he’ll surprise you.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“And Enis?”

“I don’t know about Enis. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

They remained silent until they pulled up in front of the Homicide building.

“I’m parked right in front.”

Sara looked at him in surprise.
“Pretty lucky. In the two years I’ve lived in this city, I don’t think I’ve ever found an empty parking space on the street.”

Fiske stared at one spot.
“I could’ve sworn I parked right here.”

Sara looked out the window.
“You mean right next to that tow-away zone sign?”

Fiske jumped out of the car just as the rain picked up, and looked at the sign and then at the space where his car used to be. He climbed back in her car, leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. Water droplets clung to his face and hair.
“I really can’t believe this day.”

“They have a number you can call to get your car back.”
Sara picked up the cell phone and punched in the numbers as she read them off the street sign. The phone rang ten times, but no one answered. She hung up.
“It doesn’t look like you’re going to get your car back tonight.”

“I can’t go to sleep until my dad knows.”

“Oh.”
She thought for a moment.
“Well, I’ll drive you.”

Fiske looked outside at the pouring rain.
“You sure?”

She put the car in gear.
“Let’s go find your dad.”

“Can we make one stop first?”

“Sure, just tell me where.”

“My brother’s apartment.”

“John, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I think it’s a great idea.”

“We can’t get in.”

“I’ve got a key,”
said Fiske. She looked puzzled.
“I helped move him in when he started working at the Court.”

“Won’t the police have it taped off or anything?”

“Chandler said he was going to go over it tomorrow.”
He looked at her.
“Don’t worry, you’re staying in the car. If anything happens, just take off.”

“And if maybe the person who killed Michael is there?”

“You got a tire iron in the trunk?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s my lucky day.”

Sara took a shallow breath.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Me too, Fiske thought.

When they reached Michael Fiske’s apartment, Sara pulled into a parking space around the corner.
“Pop the trunk,”
Fiske said, before getting out.

She could hear him rummaging through the compartment for a moment. She was startled for an instant when he appeared at her window. She quickly rolled it down.

“Keep the car doors locked, the engine running and your eyes open, okay?”
he said.

She nodded, noting the tire iron in one hand and a flashlight in his other.

“If you get nervous or anything, just leave. I’m a big boy. I’ll get to Richmond okay.”

She shook her head stubbornly.
“I’ll be right here.”

As she watched him head around the corner, a thought occurred to her. She waited a minute or so to allow him time to get into the building, then she pulled around the corner, back onto Michael’s street and parked across from the row house. She picked up her cell phone and held it ready. If she spotted anything remotely suspicious, she was going to call the apartment and warn Fiske. A good emergency plan, but one she hoped she wouldn’t have to use.

*    *    *

Fiske closed the door behind him, clicked on the flashlight and looked around. He saw no obvious signs that anyone had searched the place.

He entered the small kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a waist-high bar. He looked for and found a couple of plastic baggies in one of the kitchen drawers and covered his hands with them, so as not to leave any prints. There was a small door leading to the pantry, but Fiske didn’t bother with it. His brother wasn’t the type to have neatly arranged rows of canned corn and peas. It was no doubt empty.

He went through the living room, checked the small coat closet, but there was nothing in any of the coat pockets. Next he headed to the single bedroom at the rear of the apartment. The floors were worn tongue-in-groove and the creaks followed him with each step. He pushed open the door and looked in. Bed was unmade, clothes here and there. He checked the pockets — nothing. There was a small desk in the corner. He searched it carefully but came up empty. Hidden behind the desk he saw a power cord plugged into the wall and frowned as he held up the other end. He looked next to the desk but didn’t see what he had expected to see there: the laptop computer the cord should have been attached to. And his brother’s briefcase; Fiske had actually bought it for Mike upon his graduation from law school. He made a mental note to ask Sara about both the briefcase and the laptop.

Finished with the bedroom, he moved back down the hallway and toward the kitchen. He stopped for a moment, listening intently. As he did so, he tightly gripped the tire iron.

With a sudden lunge he jerked open the pantry door, the tire iron raised, the light shining directly into the small space.

The man burst out and hit Fiske right in the stomach with his shoulder. Fiske grunted, the flashlight flew away, but he held his ground and managed to clip the man across the neck with the tire iron. He heard a pained cry; but the man recovered more quickly than Fiske had anticipated, lifted him off the floor and threw him over the bar. Fiske landed hard and felt his shoulder go numb. Even so, he managed to twist sideways and kick the legs out from under the guy as he hurtled past, going for the door. He swung with the tire iron again, but in the darkness missed and it hit the floor instead. A fist connected with his jaw. Fiske swung out and hit solid flesh as well.

The guy was on his feet and through the door in a few seconds. Fiske finally lurched up and raced to the door, holding his shoulder. He heard feet clattering down the steps. He hustled after the man and heard the front door to the building crash open. Ten seconds later Fiske was out on the street. He looked right and left. A horn blew.

Sara rolled down her window and pointed to the right. Fiske sprinted hard through the rain in that direction and turned the corner. Sara put the car in gear, but had to wait for two cars to pass, and then she spun rubber after him. She turned the corner, raced down the next block but didn’t see anyone. She backed the car up and turned down another side street, and then another, growing more and more frantic. She let out a shriek of relief when she saw Fiske in the middle of the street, sucking in air.

She jumped out of the car and ran over to him.

“John, thank God you’re okay.”

Fiske was furious that the man had gotten away. He stomped around in tight circles.
“Dammit! Shit!”

“What the hell was that all about?”

Fiske calmed down.
“Bad guys one, good guys zip.”

Sara put an arm around his waist and walked him over to the car. She eased him into it. Then she climbed in the driver’s side and they started off.
“You need to see a doctor.”

“No! It’s just a stinger. Did you see the guy?”

Sara shook her head.
“Not really. He came out so fast, I thought it was you.”

“My size? Distinguishing clothing? White, black?”

Sara thought hard for a moment, trying to visualize what she had seen.
“I don’t know about his age. He was close to your size. He had on dark clothing and a mask, I think.”
She sighed.
“It happened so fast. Where was he?”

“In the pantry. I didn’t hear him on my first pass through, but I heard the floor squeak on my way back out.”
He rubbed his shoulder.
“And now comes the hard part.”
He picked up her cell phone and pulled a business card from his wallet.
“Telling Chandler what just happened.”

Fiske paged Chandler and the detective called back a few minutes later. When Fiske told him what he had done, he had to hold the phone away from his ear.

“Slightly upset?”
Sara asked.

“Yeah, like Mount Saint Helens
slightly
erupted.”
Fiske brought the receiver back to his ear.
“Look, Buford — ”

“What the hell were you thinking, doing something that stupid?”
yelled Chandler.
“You were a cop.”

“That’s how I was thinking. Like I was still a cop.”

“Well, you’re not a damn cop anymore.”

“Do you want the description of the guy or not?”

“I’m not finished with you yet.”

“I know, but there’s plenty of me to go around.”

“Give me the damn description,”
Chandler said.

After Fiske finished, Chandler said,
“I’ll get a squad car over there right now to secure it, and I’ll request a tech team ASAP to go over the place.”

“My brother’s briefcase wasn’t at his apartment. Was it in his car?”

“No, I told you we found no personal items.”

Fiske looked at Sara.
“Is the briefcase in his office? I don’t remember seeing it. Or his laptop computer.”

She shook her head.
“I don’t remember seeing the briefcase. And he usually didn’t bring his laptop to work, since we all have desktops.”

Fiske spoke back into the phone.
“Looks like his briefcase is missing. And so is his computer; I found the power cord to it.”

“Did the guy maybe have either of the items on him?”

“He was empty-handed. I know. He clocked me good with one of those empty hands.”

“Okay, so we got a missing briefcase, missing laptop and a dumb-as-shit ex-police officer who I’ve got half a mind to arrest right this instant.”

“Come on, you guys already towed my car.”

“Put Ms. Evans on the line.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Fiske handed the phone over to a perplexed Sara.

“Yes, Detective Chandler?”
she said, nervously twirling a strand of her hair.

“Ms. Evans,”
he began politely,
“I thought you were simply going to drive Mr. Fiske to his car and maybe get a little dinner, not engage in filming a James Bond movie.”

“But you see, his car was towed and — ”

Chandler’s tone quickly changed.
“I don’t appreciate you two making my job even more difficult. Where are you?”

“About a mile from Michael’s apartment.”

“And where are you headed?”

“To Richmond. To tell John’s father about Michael.”

“Okay, then you drive him to Richmond, Ms. Evans. Don’t let him out of your sight. If he wants to play Sherlock Holmes again, you call me, and I will come directly over and shoot him myself. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Detective Chandler. Absolutely.”

“And I expect to see both of you back in D.C. tomorrow. Is that also understood?”

“Yes, we’ll be back.”

“Good, Tonto, now put the Lone Ranger back on.”

Fiske took back the phone.
“Look, I know it was stupid, but I was only trying to help.”

“Do me a favor, don’t try to help anymore unless I’m with you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“John, any number of things could’ve happened tonight, most of them bad. Not only to you, but to Ms. Evans.”

Fiske rubbed his shoulder and glanced over at the woman.
“I know,”
he said quietly.

“Give my condolences to your father.”

Fiske put down the phone.

“Can we go to Richmond now?”
Sara asked.

“Yes, we can go to Richmond now.”

In his friend’s pickup truck, Josh Harms drove along the deserted country road. The dense forest bracketing the narrow lanes gave him a certain comfort. Isolation, a buffer between himself and those who would hassle him, had been Josh’s one constant goal in life. As a carpenter of considerable skill, he worked alone. When he was not working, he was either hunting or fishing, again alone. He did not desire the conversation of others, and he very rarely offered any of his own. All of that had changed now. The responsibility he had just acquired had not yet fully sunk in, but he knew it was considerable. And he also knew his decision had been the right one.

The truck had a camper and his brother was back there supposedly resting, although Josh had doubts as to whether the man could really be sleeping. The back of the camper was also filled with a month’s worth of food and bottled water, two deer rifles and a semiautomatic pistol in addition to the one he had tucked in his belt. That arsenal was insignificant compared to what would soon be coming after them, but he had faced long odds before and survived.

He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke cleanly out the window. They were already two hundred miles from Roanoke and he was putting as much distance between it and them as he could. The escape would have been discovered by now, he knew. The roadblocks would be set up, but not out this far, he figured. They had gotten a head start, but that gap would quickly close. The boys in green had a big advantage in manpower and equipment. But Josh had fished and hunted around the area for the last twenty years. He knew all the abandoned cabins, all the hidden valleys, the smallest opening in otherwise solid forest. His survival skills had been honed as much from scraping for an existence in America as from dodging death halfway around the world in Vietnam.

Even with his outright distrust of all authority, he didn’t break the law lightly. He had never figured his little brother for some crazed killer. Rufus never should have joined the Army, wasn’t cut out for it. Ironically, Josh had been the decorated war hero, and he had been drafted. His brother had volunteered and had spent his career in the stockade. Josh hadn’t been too thrilled about taking up a rifle for a country that had largely failed him and anyone his color. But once in the service he had fought with great distinction. He had done it for himself and the men in his company, and for no other reason. He had no other motivation to fight and kill men with whom he had no personal quarrel.