Fiske looked confused for an instant. “D.C.?” As soon as he said it, his body froze. “Mike?”
Hawkins nodded.
“Was it a car accident?”
“No accident.” Hawkins paused for a moment and cleared his throat. “It was a homicide, John. Looks like a robbery gone bad. They found his car in an alley. Bad part of town, I understand.”
Fiske let this horrific news sink in for a long minute. As a cop and now a lawyer, he had seen the results of many murders on other people, other families. This was new territory. “You haven’t told my dad, have you?” he said quietly.
Hawkins shook his head. “Figured you’d want to do that. And what with your momma the way she is.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Fiske said.
His thoughts were interrupted by Hawkins’s next words.
“The detective in charge has requested an ID from next of kin, John.”
As a police officer, how many times had Fiske told a grieving parent that same thing?
“I’ll go on up.”
“I’m so sorry, John.”
“I know, Billy, I know.”
After Hawkins had left, Fiske walked over to the photo of him and his brother and picked it up. His hands were shaking. It was not possible, what Hawkins had just told him. He had survived two gunshot wounds and spent nearly a month in the hospital, his mother and his little brother next to him for much of that time. If John Fiske could survive that, if he could be alive right now, how could his brother be dead? He put the photo back down. He tried to move to get his coat, but his legs were frozen. He just stood there.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
* * *
Rufus Harms slowly opened his eyes. The room was dim, shadowy. However, he was accustomed to seeing without benefit of light, becoming, over the years, an expert of sorts. The years in prison had also boosted the acuity of his hearing such that he could almost hear someone thinking. You did both a lot in prison: listening and thinking.
He shifted slowly on his hospital bed. His arms and legs were still in restraints. He knew there was a guard right outside the door to his room. Rufus had seen him several times now, as people had come and gone from his room. The guard was not a cop; he was in fatigues, and he was armed. Regular Army or maybe reserves, Harms couldn’t be sure. He took a shallow breath. Over the course of the last two days, Harms had listened to the doctors checking him. He had not suffered a heart attack, although apparently he had come close. He couldn’t remember what the doctors had called it, but his heartbeat had been irregular enough for him to stay in intensive care awhile.
He thought back to his last hour at Fort Jackson. He wondered if Michael Fiske had even made it out of the prison before they killed him. Ironically, Rufus’s near heart attack had saved his life. At least he was out of Fort Jackson. For now. But when his condition improved, they would send him back. And then he would die. Unless they killed him in here first.
He had scrutinized each of the doctors and nurses attending him. Anyone administering drugs to him was given special attention. He was confident that, if he thought himself in danger, he could rip the sides of the hospital bed off. For now, all he could do was get his strength back, wait, watch, and hope. If he could not gain his freedom through the court system, then he would obtain it another way. He was not going back to Fort Jackson. Not while he was still breathing.
For the next two hours he watched people come and go. Every time the door to his room opened, he would look at the guard outside. A young kid, looking very self-important in his uniform and wearing his gun. Two guards had flown with him on the helicopter, but neither was the one posted outside now. Perhaps they were doing a rotation. When the door opened, the guard would nod and smile at the person entering or leaving, especially if the person happened to be young and female. When the guard had occasionally looked into the room, Rufus had seen two emotions in his eyes: hatred and fear. That was good. That meant he had a chance. Both could lead to the one thing Rufus desperately needed the guard to commit: a mistake.