“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.”
“But when I got that letter, it was like somebody turned this big light on inside my head, and some part of my brain that had been all dark got real bright and everything came back to me. Every damn little bit.”
“And so you wrote the letter to the Court and asked Rider to file it for you?”
Rufus nodded. “And then your brother came to see me. Said he believed in justice, wanted to help me if I was telling the truth. He was a good man.”
“Yes, he was,” Fiske said hoarsely.
“The thing was, he had brought my letter with him. Rayfield and old Vic weren’t going to let him go. No way. I went crazy when I found out. They took me to the infirmary, tried to kill me there. I got to the hospital and Josh busted me out.”
“You said Tremaine and Rayfield are dead.”
Rufus nodded. He took another deep breath, watched the rain falling over the darkened Richmond skyline and then looked over at Fiske. “Now you know everything I know. So what are we going to do?”
“I’m not sure,” was all Fiske could manage to say.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
* * *
An hour after Fiske had driven off, Chuck Herman smiled as he passed Sara in the plane aisle. “This is the only time I’ve ever been paid not to fly.”
“This is Washington, Chuck. They pay farmers not to grow crops too,” Sara said dryly.
She picked up the cell phone for the tenth time and dialed Phil Jansen’s home number. His office had already told Sara that Jansen had left for the day. Luckily, Fiske had given her Jansen’s home number too. She was relieved when Jansen finally answered. She quickly introduced herself and explained her connection to Fiske.
“I don’t have much time, Mr. Jansen, so I might as well get to the point. In the past has the Army been involved in PCP testing programs?”