The Summer House, Page 2

  There are slow and measured paces of someone walking through the room, and then going over to the open window.

  She shuts her eyes, her mother’s voice whispering to her from more than twenty-five years ago: There’s no such thing as the bogeyman, she would say. Just close your eyes and pray to Jesus, and everything will be all right.

  Oh, Mamma, oh, Jesus, please, please, please help me.

  He leans out the window, lowering his night-vision goggles to take in the view. More trees, more scrub, and a collapsed small wooden building that looks like it was once an outhouse.

  Possible. This place is so old it would fit right in.

  He looks closer to the side of the two-story summer house.

  He’s up about six or so meters. Hell of a drop.

  And what’s below here? Two rusty fifty-five-gallon oil drums, a roll of chicken-coop wire, and a pile of wooden shingles and scrap lumber.

  All resting undisturbed.

  He flips up the night-vision goggles, ducks back into the room, sees his squad mates have joined him. He holds a finger to his lips.

  Moves across the room.

  Lillian is still praying, still trembling, still biting into her fist when a strong hand slides under the bed and grabs her ankle, dragging her out.

  She shrieks and rolls over and puts her hands up and says, “Please, please, please, no, no, no!”

  Someone grabs her shoulders, holds her down. Another man—the one who just shot Gordy—drops to one knee and looks down at her. Lillian takes a deep breath, hoping it will calm her.

  It doesn’t.

  The man has military-type viewing equipment on his forehead, he’s wearing military fatigues with some sort of harness and belts, and over one pocket where there should be a name tag is a strip of Velcro, meaning the name tag has been stripped off so he won’t be identified. The ski mask from before is pulled up, revealing a friendly and relaxed face.

  “Please,” she whispers.

  “Shhh,” he replies. “Just a few questions. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

  Lillian just nods. Answer him, she thinks. Don’t ask questions. Just answer.

  He says, “There was a man in the bedroom on the other side, with a woman and a child. Downstairs there was a woman and two other men. Is there anybody else here?”

  “No,” she says, her whole body shaking, the hands of the man holding her shoulders down firm and strong.

  “Are you the owner of the Volvo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you come down here alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is anyone expecting you to return in the next few minutes?”

  She doesn’t process the question until it’s too late, for she answers truthfully, automatically, and hopefully and says, “No.”

  The man stays quiet for a few long seconds and then lifts his head to nod to the man behind her. When he removes a hand from her shoulder and she feels the cold metal of a pistol barrel pressing against the side of her head, Lillian knows her mamma has always been wrong, that the bogeyman does exist.

  Chapter 3

  AFTER MY “WORKOUT” for the day, I’m resting on my bed at my condo rental just outside the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, reading Glory Road, the second book in Bruce Catton’s trilogy about the Union’s Army of the Potomac. I’m enjoying the book and hating Quantico, because it’s still not home, and it’s definitely not New York City.

  My ringing iPhone quickly pulls me away from the year 1862, and my hand knocks the damn thing from the nightstand to the floor. Bending over to pick it up, I gasp as my permanently damaged left leg screams at me to stop moving.

  And I quickly think of those poor Civil War soldiers, both blue and gray, how a shot in the leg with a bone-shattering Minié ball meant near-certain amputation. Some days I’m envious of them, suffering short-term grievous hurt and then living on without a damaged leg constantly throbbing with burning-hot pain. I declined a chance to get my left limb amputated, and some days I wonder if I made the right decision.

  I grab the phone off the floor, then slide my fingers across the screen to answer.

  “Cook,” I say, and a very familiar voice replies, “This is Phillips. What are you doing right now?”

  “Besides talking to you, sir, I’m staring at my left leg and telling it to behave.”

  Which is true. My left leg is propped up on a pillow. I’m wearing dark-blue athletic shorts and a blue-and-white NYPD T-shirt. My right leg is slightly tanned, slightly hairy, and highly muscular. My left leg is a shriveled mess of scars, burn tissue, and puckered craters of flesh where metal tore through it last year when I was deployed in Afghanistan.

  But my left foot looks okay. Thank goodness for heavy-duty Army boots, which protected my foot during the long minutes when my leg was trapped and burning.

  Colonel Ross Phillips, who’s probably a mile away from me in his office this bright Saturday afternoon, quickly gets to it. “We got a red ball case—a real screamer—down in Georgia.”

  “Hold on, sir,” I say, and from my cluttered nightstand I pull free a small notepad and a pen from the Marine Federal Credit Union. I snap the pen into place and say, “Go ahead.”

  He coughs, clears his throat, and says, “Sullivan, Georgia. About fifty miles from Hunter Army Airfield, near Savannah. We have four Army personnel in civilian custody, arrested by the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department. Their duty station is Hunter.”

  “Four?” I ask.

  “Four,” he says.

  “Names and unit?”

  “I’ve got someone tracking that down.”

  “What are the charges?”

  “Multiple homicides.”

  My pen stops writing. I scribble and scribble and no ink appears.

  “How many?” I ask.

  “Another thing we’re tracking down,” he says. “We should know in a few more minutes. What we do know is that it was a house holding a number of civilians and that they were all shot. Some historical place called The Summer House. How original, eh? Our four guys were arrested by the county sheriff about forty-eight hours later, in a nearby roadhouse.”

  “Who’s CID head at Hunter?”

  “Colonel Brenda Tringali, Third MP Group,” he says. “But this case is no stolen Humvee from a motor pool. Mass killing of civilians by four Army personnel is one for you and your group. So far it hasn’t hit the news media, but it will soon enough.”

  He coughs again. And again.

  “Colonel…are you all right?”

  “Shut up,” he says. “I expect you and your crew there by tonight. The sheriff for that county is Emma Williams. Get to her, use your folks to find out what happened, where it happened, and why. Do your job. And get it done. This brewing shit storm is going to rile up a lot of people and groups. Lucky for the Army you and your crew are going to be out there, taking the heat and whatever crap gets flung around.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “Good,” he says. “I’ll contact you once I have more information.”

  My supervisor hangs up, and I throw the dead pen across the room, open the nightstand drawer—grimace again as my leg shouts at me—and find a new pen to scribble down a few more notes.

  Then back to my iPhone. I need to reach out to the four members of my investigative unit, but there’s one call I need to make—and now—even though I’m dreading it.

  I tap on the contact number—the number that last year was my home number—and wait for the call to be picked up in Staten Island, about 250 miles away.

  It’s picked up after one ring, and the woman says, “What’s wrong?”

  I rub the side of my head. “Sorry to do this, but I can’t come up tonight.”

  “What about tomorrow?” she asks. “You know how much Kelli is looking forward to seeing you.”

  “Tomorrow’s not going to work, and Monday won’t, either,” I say, hating to say these words.

  “Jeremiah.”

  “Yes.�
�

  She says, “Work again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Germany?”

  “No, that was last month. I’m leaving for Georgia later today. Is Kelli there?”

  My ex-wife, Sandy, says, “No. But don’t you worry. I’ll tell her myself. How Dad is missing another volleyball tournament. And I’ll even tell Kevin you’re missing his Boy Scouts Court of Honor Monday night. Anything else I can do for you?”

  Months ago these words were sharp blades that Sandy used so well, but now, after months of hearing them, the words have dulled some, though they still hurt.

  “No, just tell them I’m sorry, that I’ll do my best to make it up to them.”

  Sandy says, “Fine. And you got a call here from Gary O’Toole, wanting to know if you’re going to Pete Monahan’s retirement next month.”

  “Pete?” I ask. “Pete’s pulling the pin?”

  “That’s what Gary told me,” she says harshly, like I’m questioning her intelligence or her ability to listen carefully. “I guess Midtown South is planning a huge send-off. You should go.”

  “No,” I say.

  “You should go,” she repeats, “and you should kiss and make up with the chief of d’s…You know they were going to give you a nice desk job at One Police Plaza. I hear the offer is still out there, even if you’ve been a prick ever since you got hurt.”

  I say, “Sandy, thanks for telling the kids I won’t make it. I’ll try to talk to them later this week.”

  With that call out of the way, I send a text message to three members of my crew, giving them the raw basics. Rendezvous point and time to follow.

  I pull up the contact of my fourth team member, but before I can call and speak to her directly, my iPhone chimes again. It’s Colonel Phillips.

  He says, “More information, all bad.”

  I get my new pen and pad and say, “Go ahead, sir.”

  “The four Army personnel…they’re all Rangers. Assigned to the Fourth Ranger Battalion, stationed at Hunter Army Airfield.”

  “Shit,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Phillips says. “These aren’t four kids fresh out of Basic Training. Nope, these four are pros.”

  “Names?”

  “Jefferson, Barnes, Tyler, and Ruiz. Four-man fire team, part of Second Platoon, Alpha Company. Jefferson is a staff sergeant, fire-team leader.”

  “Motive?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. And I got a count on the civilian deaths. Seven.”

  Seven, I think. Seven civilians, gunned down by four Army Rangers. Jesus Christ on a crutch.

  I’m in a race now, to see who’s going to get there first: my investigators and myself or CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and every journalist with a notepad, camera, or video equipment within a thousand-mile radius, ready to try to convict these men in thirty-second sound bites.

  “Breakdown?”

  He coughs once more. “Three men, three women. All shot at close range.”

  I stop taking notes.

  “Wait,” I say. “You said there were seven. And you said three men, three women. What’s the correct number?”

  His breathing quivers for a long, long second.

  “Six adults were shot,” he says. “And a two-year-old baby girl.”

  Chapter 4

  AT SAM’S INN RESTAURANT on Potomac Avenue in Quantico, Virginia, Special Agent Connie York of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division glances at the dessert menu and quickly drops it on the table.

  “Sorry, Pete,” she says, trying to smile at her date, a pudgy gent who owns a landscaping business in nearby Southbridge. “I really don’t have the appetite for dessert.”

  Which is a lie, because she’s still hungry and loves sweets, and there’s a chocolate fudge cake on the menu that’s calling to her. But spending one more minute than necessary with Pete Laurion is going to be intolerable. Oh, not that he’s a bad guy, but her condo neighbor Claire hooked her up with him, and since Claire took care of her leaky toilet while Connie was on a recent deployment to Germany, it was a favor she was happy to do.

  But just this once.

  Pete seems intimidated by the other customers in the restaurant, mostly off-duty Marine and Navy personnel, and his thick fingers end with nails that still have a ridge of dirt under them. His heavy blue eyes flick around the place, like he’s expecting some officer to make him drop to the ground and do fifty push-ups. Yesterday Claire said, Pete’s a bit rough around the edges, hon, but he’s got a good heart. And it’ll be a nice change of pace from those gung-ho guys you always end up with.

  Which is true, for along with her ten years of service in the Army have come two failed marriages, both to fellow investigators in the Army’s CID. While she feels she’s good at solving crimes, Connie admits she so far hasn’t puzzled out the secrets of a happy relationship.

  Pete smiles with hope in his eyes. “I understand, you wanting to keep your figure and all that. Can I call you later?”

  Her iPhone starts chiming, and with a sense of relief, she pulls it out of her purse and sees a familiar name. To Pete she says, “Oh, I don’t think so. But thanks for the brunch.”

  With iPhone in one hand and purse in the other, she steps out onto a crowded deck, drops her purse onto the decking, and puts the phone up to one ear while plugging the other ear with a finger. “York,” she answers.

  “It’s Cook,” he says. “Call you at a bad time?”

  “Actually, Major, it’s a great time,” she says. “I needed the break.”

  “I hear people and music in the background. A date?”

  She shakes her head. “No, a dull brunch. What do we have?”

  The tone of his voice instantly changes. “A red ball case, down in Georgia. Seven civilians killed in a house in the town and county of Sullivan. Four Rangers from Hunter Army Airfield have been arrested and are currently in the custody of the county sheriff.”

  “Oh, shit,” she says.

  “Get down to Georgia, soon as you can. I’ve called out Pierce, Huang, and Sanchez, but you’ll be the first on the scene.”

  “Yes, sir,” she says.

  “And once you get there, arrange transport to Sullivan and get us accommodations with an extra room to use as a meeting area. You’re not going to talk to the county sheriff, the State Patrol, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, or any news media.”

  “Yes, sir,” she says again, biting off the words. “You want me to set up housekeeping, am I right?”

  “Agent York,” he says, his voice just as sharp, “that’s right. And I’m trusting you, as my second-in-command, to do that job to the best of your abilities. Got it, York?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” he says. “And among the civilian dead is a two-year-old girl. So enough with the pushback.”

  “Oh, boss,” she says, “that’s horrible.”

  “It’s bound to get worse,” he says. “See you in Georgia.”

  Chapter 5

  IT TOOK LESS than four hours to fly via Delta from Dulles to Savannah and its small, fifteen-gate airport—grandly named Savannah/Hilton Head International—and I was fortunate to have an aisle seat to stretch my leg. The long, brick terminal is topped by a glass atrium. Using a cane and rolling my black carry-on luggage, I walk past a number of potted tropical trees in the few minutes it takes to get outside.

  It’s just past 5:00 p.m., with less than two hours of daylight left, and I’m planning to use as much of that time as possible. It’s muggy warm—low eighties, it seems—and I spot among the coach buses and other vehicles trundling through the ground transportation area Special Agent Connie York standing next to a parked silver Ford Fusion, the rental vehicle of choice for government travelers.

  She has on a simple black suit-jacket-and-slacks outfit, with a plain white buttoned blouse, and I have a quick, inappropriate observation that I’ve never seen her in a dress. That’s the atavistic, chauvinist part of me, which thankfully is almost always overruled by the competent lead
ership part of me that recognizes her skills as a CID investigator.

  Besides, I’m also plainly dressed in one of my two black suits, and like her, I’m armed with a 9mm SIG Sauer P228 pistol.

  Connie pops open the trunk, respectfully allowing me to pick up and toss in my luggage.

  “How many history books do you have packed in there, boss?” she asks, slamming the lid shut.

  “Just enough,” I say. “Barely.”

  She steps to the driver’s door, and as I enter the pleasant, clean, and cool passenger side of the car, I struggle for only a moment, fastening the seat belt without it tangling around my cane.

  Connie accelerates from the concrete parking area into a flat landscape dotted with trees and mowed grass, and she says, “How was your flight?”

  “On time.”

  “And how’s your leg doing?”

  “Still connected to my hip, still hurting like a son of bitch,” I say. “What quarters did you get for us?”

  We’re out of the airport proper and on I-95, heading south, and Connie says, “The best the town of Sullivan has to offer. The Route 119 Motel and Coffee Shop. Less than an hour out. We have three rooms plus a room to use for work.”

  “Good job,” I say. “What else do you know?”

  She speeds up the Ford. “You told me to set up the unit’s housekeeping. That’s what I did.”

  “And I know you did more,” I say. “Give.”

  The traffic on the interstate is moving fast and freely, and suddenly I’m back in my convoy roaring through the desert. Mouth dry, I scan for slow-moving trucks or cars, or clusters of men standing at the side of the road, looking for a particular man who holds a cell phone programmed to trigger a bomb.

  I chew my tongue, try to get the saliva working. Georgia, I tell myself. We’re in Georgia. We’re not in bandit country. We’re in the Peach State, so relax already. We’re not in Afghanistan. We’re never going back to Afghanistan.

  “The story’s now made all the papers, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Savannah Morning News to the local Sullivan County Times, but no television coverage yet, though that will change,” she says. “The initial reporting just has four Army personnel in custody, with no mention of their Ranger affiliation or the number of civilians murdered. But once the news gets out about who they are, who they killed, the headlines and coverage will go berserk.”