The Simple Truth

by David Baldacci

  Ed crushed the beer can against his leg and threw it against the wall. He stood up and went over to the small window and looked out, the cigarette dangling from his mouth, his big hands closing and opening, the veins in his forearms swelling and then diminishing.

  “Have you seen him?” he asked without turning around.

  “I went up to identify the body this afternoon.”

  His father whirled around, furious. “This afternoon? Why the hell did you wait so long to come tell me, boy?”

  Fiske stood up. “I’ve been trying to track you down all day. I left messages on your answering machine. I only knew you were here because I asked Mrs. German.”

  “That should’ve been the first damn place you started,” his father countered. “Ida always knows where I am. You know that.” He took a step toward them, one fist balled up.

  Sara, who had risen along with Fiske, shrank back. She glanced over at the shotgun and suddenly wondered if it was loaded.

  Fiske moved closer to his father. “Pop, as soon as I found out, I called you. Then I went by your house. After that I had to go up to the morgue. It wasn’t any fun identifying Mike’s body, but I did it. And the rest of the day has been pretty much downhill from there.” He swallowed hard, suddenly feeling guilty that his father’s angry reaction was more painful to him than his brother’s death. “Let’s not argue about the timing, okay? That’s not going to bring Mike back.”

  All the anger seemed to go out of Ed as he listened to those words. Calm, rational words that did nothing to explain or reduce the anguish he was feeling. They hadn’t invented the words that could do that, or the person to deliver them. Ed sat back down, his head swinging loosely from side to side. When he looked back up, there were tears in his eyes. “I always said you never had to chase bad news, it always got to you faster than anything good. A helluva lot faster.” There was a catch in his throat when he spoke. He absently crushed his cigarette out on the carpet.

  “I know, Pop. I know.”

  “Do they got whoever did this?”

  “Not yet. They’re working on it. The detective in charge is first-rate. I’m sort of helping him.”

  “D.C.?”

  “Yes.”

  “I never liked Mike being up there.”

  He glared at Sara, who completely froze in the face of that accusing look.

  He pointed a thick finger at her. “People kill you for nothing up there. Crazy bastards.”

  “Pop, they’ll do that anywhere these days.”

  Sara managed to find her voice. “I liked and deeply respected your son. Everyone at the Court thought he was wonderful. I’m so, so very sorry about this.”

  “He was wonderful,” Ed said. “He damn sure was. Never figured out how we turned out such a one as Mike.”

  Fiske looked down at the floor. Sara picked up on the pained expression on his face.

  Ed looked around the trailer’s interior, memories of good times with his family nudging him from all corners. “Got his mother’s brains.” His lower lip trembled for an instant. “Least the one she used to have.” A low sob escaped from his mouth and he slumped to the floor.

  Fiske knelt down next to his father and wrapped his arms around him, their shoulders shaking together.

  Sara looked on, unsure of what to do. She was embarrassed at witnessing such a private moment, and wondered if she should just get up and flee to her car. Finally she simply looked down and closed her eyes, silently releasing her own tears onto the cheap carpet.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, Sara sat on the porch and sipped on a warm can of beer. She was barefoot, her shoes next to her. She absently rubbed her toes and stared out into a darkness that was occasionally broken by the wink of a lightning bug. She swatted at a mosquito and then swiped off a trickle of sweat that meandered down her leg. Holding the beer can to her forehead, she contemplated getting into her car, cranking up the AC and trying to fall asleep.

  The door opened and Fiske appeared. He had changed into faded jeans and an untucked short-sleeved shirt. He was barefoot as well. He held a plastic package strip with two beers dangling from it. He sat down beside her.

  “How is he?”

  Fiske shrugged. “Sleeping, or at least trying to.”

  “Does he want to come back with us?” Fiske shook his head. “He’s going to come over to my place tomorrow night.” He glanced at his watch and realized that dawn was not very far away. “I mean tonight. I need to stop by my apartment on the way back so I can pick up some clean clothes.”

  Sara looked down at her dress. “Tell me about it. Where’d you get those?”

  “I left them down here from the last fishing trip.”

  She wiped her forehead. “God, it’s so humid.”

  Fiske looked toward the woods. “Well, there’s a cooler breeze down by the water.” He led her over to the golf cart. As they drove along the quiet dirt roads, Fiske handed her a beer. “This one is cold.”

  She popped it open. It felt good going down, and managed to lift her spirits a little. She held the can next to her cheek.

  The narrow road took them through a mass of scrub pine, holly, oak and river birch with its bark unraveling like pencil shavings. Then the land opened up and Sara could see a wooden dock with several boats tied to it. She watched as the wooden structure moved up and down with the lap of the water.

  “It’s a floating dock; rests on fifty-gallon drums,” Fiske explained.

  “I gathered. Is that a boat ramp?” she asked, pointing to a place where the road angled sharply into the water.

  Fiske nodded. “The people bring their cars up another road to get here. Pop has a little motorboat. That one over there.” He pointed to a white boat with red stripes that bobbed in the water. “They usually pull them out at night. He must have forgotten. He got it cheap; we spent a year fixing it up. It’s no yacht, but it’ll get you where you want to go.”

  “What river is this?”

  “Do you remember on the drive down 95 seeing signs for the Matta, the Po and the Ni Rivers?” Sara nodded. “Well, up near Fort A. P. Hill, southeast of Fredericksburg, they converge and it’s called the Mattaponi River.” He looked out at the water. There were few things more relaxing than skimming along the water, and he could think out there. “There’s a full moon, the boat has running lights and a guide beacon and I know this part of the river real well. And it’s a lot cooler on the water.” He looked at her questioningly.

  Sara didn’t hesitate. “Sounds good.”

  They walked out to the boat and Fiske helped her in.

  “Do you know how to cast off?” he asked.

  “I actually did some competitive racing when I was an undergrad at Stanford.”

  Fiske watched her expertly undo the knots and cast off the line. “The old Mattaponi must seem pretty dull, then.”

  “It’s all in who you’re doing it with.”

  She sat next to Fiske, who stuck his hand into a storage compartment next to the captain’s chair and pulled out a set of keys. He started the engine and they slowly pulled away from the dock. They got out into the middle of the river and he eased the throttle forward until they were moving at a fairly decent clip. The temperature was about twenty degrees cooler on the water. Fiske kept one hand on the wheel, his beer in the other. Sara folded her legs up under her and then raised herself up so that her upper torso was above the low-slung windshield. She held her arms out from her sides and let the wind grip her.

  “God, this feels wonderful.”

  Fiske looked out over the water. “Mike and I would race each other across the river. It gets pretty wide at some points. Couple of times I thought one or the other of us was surely going to drown. But one thing kept us going.”

  “What was that?”

  “We couldn’t bear the thought of the other winning.”

  Sara sat back down and swung her chair around until she was facing him, smoothing out her hair as she did so.

  “Do
you mind a really personal question?”

  Fiske stiffened slightly. “Probably.”

  “You won’t take this the wrong way?”

  “I will now.”

  “Why weren’t you and Michael closer?”

  “There’s no law that says siblings have to be close.”

  “But you and Michael seemed to have so much in common. He spoke so highly of you, and you obviously were proud of him. I sense you had some differences. I’m just confused as to what went wrong.”

  Fiske shut the engine down and allowed the boat to drift. He cut off the beacon and the moon became their only source of light. The river was very calm, and they were at one of the widest points. Fiske pulled his pants legs up, went to the side of the boat, sat on the edge and swung his feet into the water.

  Sara sat down next to him, hiked her skirt up a little and lowered her feet in.

  Fiske gazed out over the river, sipping his beer.

  “John, I’m really not trying to pry.”

  “I’m not really in the mood to talk about it, okay?”

  “But — ”

  Fiske sliced the air with his hand. “Sara, it’s not the place to do it, and it’s damn sure not the time, okay?”

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I just care. About all of you.”

  They sat there as the boat drifted along, the noise of the cicadas barely reaching them from shore.

  Fiske finally stirred. “You know, Virginia’s such a beautiful place. You’ve got water, mountains, forest, beaches, history, culture, high-tech centers and old battlefields. People move a little slower, enjoy life a little more here. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Hell, I’ve never been anywhere else.”

  “And they have really nice trailer parks,” Sara said.

  Fiske smiled. “That too.”

  “So does your segue into the travelogue mean the topic of you and your brother is officially closed?” Sara bit her tongue when she finished. Stupid mouth, she berated herself.

  “Guess so.” Fiske abruptly stood up. The boat rocked and Sara almost ended up in the river. Fiske’s hand shot out and gripped her arm. He squeezed tightly and looked down at her. She looked up at him, her eyes as big as the moon over them, her legs splayed out and gently drifting in the water, her dress wet where the river had touched it.

  “How about a swim?” she said. “To cool off?”

  “I don’t have any swimsuits,” he said.

  “My clothes are wet enough.”

  He pulled her up into the boat and then went over and started the engine, destroying the peace. “Okay.”

  “Why not swim here?”

  “Current’s a little too strong.”

  He swung the boat around and headed toward the dock. Three-quarters of the way there, he cut across and headed to the shoreline. Here the bank sloped gradually down to the water, and as they drew closer Sara could make out fifty-gallon drums floating about twenty feet apart. As they kept heading in, she could see that they were tied together by mesh rope forming a huge rectangular-shaped pool.

  Fiske cut the engine near one of the drums and let the boat’s momentum propel them along until he could reach out and touch the big container. Then he tied a line to a hook mounted on the drum and dropped a small anchor, actually a gallon paint bucket filled with concrete, over the side for added security.

  “It’s about eight feet at its deepest point inside the ropes. There’s a fence of wire mesh that circles the whole area and goes all the way to the bottom. That way if the current catches you, you won’t end up in the Atlantic.”

  When Sara started to slip out of her dress, Fiske quickly turned around.

  She smiled. “John, don’t be a prude. My bikini shows more than this.” In her panties and bra, she dove over the side, coming up a moment later treading water.

  She called out, “I’ll turn my back, if you’re too embarrassed.”

  “I think I’ll sit this one out.”

  “Oh, come on, I won’t bite.”

  “I’m a little old for skinny-dipping, Sara.”

  “Water’s really great.”

  “It looks it.” He still made no move to join her.

  A disappointed look on her face, she finally turned and swam away from him, her arms cutting powerful strokes through the smooth surface.

  As Fiske watched her, he absently ran his finger the length of the wound, touching the two circular humps of burned flesh where the bullets had entered him. He abruptly removed his hand and sat down.

  The name “Harms” kept reverberating in his head. An in forma pauperis petition probably would have come from a prisoner, if that’s what the handwritten document amounted to. He shifted in his seat and once more looked in Sara’s direction. Under the moonlight he could barely make her out, in the shallow end, drifting. Whether she was looking at him or not, he couldn’t tell.

  He looked out over the river, his mind taking him back. There was splashing in the water, the two young men swimming for all they were worth, one pulling ahead a bit and then the other. Sometimes Mike would win, other times John. Then they would race back. Day after day, growing more tan, leaner and stronger. So much fun. No real worries, no heartaches. Swim, explore the woods, devour bologna-and-mayo sandwiches for lunch; for dinner, skewered hot dogs on straightened hangers and cooked over the coals until the meat split open. So much damn fun. Fiske looked away from the water and forced himself to concentrate.

  If Harms was a prisoner, finding him would be easy. As a former police officer, Fiske knew that there were no categories of humanity better monitored than America’s inmate population of nearly two million. The country might not know where all its children or homeless were, but it religiously kept track of the cons. And most of the information was on computer database now. He looked back over and saw Sara swimming toward the boat. He didn’t notice the glow of a burning cigarette as someone sat on the shore and watched them.

  A couple minutes later Fiske was helping Sara into the boat. She sat on the deck, breathing deeply. “I haven’t swum that much in a long time.”

  Fiske held out a towel he had pulled from the small cabin, averting his eyes as he did so. She quickly toweled down and then slipped her dress on. When she handed him back the towel, their arms brushed. That made him look at her. She was still breathing deeply from her swim, the rise and fall of her eyelids hypnotic.

  He studied her face in silence for a moment, then looked past her at something in the sky. She turned her head to look too. Pink swirls were lapping against the dark edges of the sky as dawn began to break. Everywhere they looked, the soft glow of the coming light was apparent. The trees, the leaves, the water were cast as a shimmering facade, as the boat gently rocked them.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said in a hushed tone.

  “Yes, it is,” he said.

  As she turned back to him, she reached up her hand, slowly at first, her eyes searching his for some reaction to what she was doing. Her fingers touched his chin, cupping it, his beard stubble rough against her skin. Her hand moved higher, tracing his cheeks, his eyes and then pressing against his hair, each touch gentle, unhurried. As she gripped the back of his neck and pulled his head toward her, she felt him flinch. Her lips trembled when she saw his glistening eyes. Sara removed her hand and stepped back.

  Fiske suddenly looked out over the water, as though still seeing two young boys swimming their hearts out. He turned back to her. “My brother’s dead, Sara,” he said simply, his voice shaking slightly. “I’m just really messed up right now.” He tried to say something else, but the words would not come.

  Sara slowly walked over and sat in one of the seats. She wiped at her eyes and then self-consciously gripped the hemline of her skirt, trying to smooth it, to wring out some of the wetness. The breeze had picked up and the river bounced them. She glanced up at Fiske.

  “I really did like your brother. And I’m so damned sorry that he’s gone.” She looked down, as though searching at her feet for the right wor
ds. “And I’m sorry for what I just did.”

  He looked away. “I could have said something to you before now.” He glanced up at her, bewilderment on his features. “I’m not sure why I didn’t.”

  She stood up, wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “I’m a little cold. We should go back now, shouldn’t we?”

  Fiske hauled up the anchor while Sara cast off, and then he fired up the motor and they headed back to the dock, each unable to look at the other, for fear of what might happen, of what their bodies might do, despite the words they had just spoken.