The Summer House, Page 4

  “Sally Tisdale,” the sheriff says. “Also nineteen. A student at the Athens Beautician School in Savannah.”

  The next photo shows a woman crumpled up against the base of a wall, the back of her skull a familiar mess.

  “Gina Zachary, age twenty,” she says. “Dropout from Savannah Technical College. Her body was on the second floor, in a bedroom.”

  The sheriff pauses, and realizing her hesitation, I say, “The next one is bad, I gather?”

  Williams purses her lips. “The worst.”

  The photo comes over, there’s a sudden intake of breath from Connie, and I stare and look away, remembering the first time I saw something similar, back on the job, and the only way I kept it together was to pretend I was looking at a doll someone had broken. And I also remember Duffy, a detective counting out the days and weeks before retiring, and him telling me, Most of this new tech is good shit, helping us break cases, but I do hate color crime-scene pics. Black-and-white…you didn’t get as sick to your stomach.

  Sheriff Williams nearly whispers. “A little girl, around two years of age…I…I just don’t know.”

  We three sit there for a dark few seconds, and she says, “Last two.”

  Flip. Dead man in a rumpled bed, eyes and mouth open in surprise, another neat bullet hole, in his forehead. “Stuart Pike. Twenty-two. The dump was rented in his name. Also a dropout of Savannah Technical College.”

  Flip. I take a breath. Thank God, the last one.

  An older woman, and I instantly see she doesn’t fit. More mature, early thirties, a bit of makeup, the top of her blouse showing some taste and dollars, and the look on her face isn’t that of surprise but of terror. The right side of her head is a gaping, bloody hole.

  Sheriff Williams gathers up the photos. “Lillian Zachary. Thirty years old, resident of Atlanta and a Delta Air Lines employee.”

  Connie says, “Relative of Gina Zachary?”

  “Gina was her younger sister,” Williams says. “A Volvo parked in the yard was also registered to her.”

  The dead people go back into a file folder.

  Williams’s voice is somber. “Last homicide in this county…three, maybe four years ago? Millie Porter, she got tired of her boyfriend, Barry, tuning her up and so one night she cut him in half with a 12 gauge. That was a murder. These”—she taps the folder for emphasis—“were executions. And why? We don’t know why. But we’re sure it was done by your fellas.”

  I say, “Mind sharing what you’ve got so far?”

  “Oh, we’ve got a lot,” she says, “and our investigation is continuing, but the key part is a witness that places your Rangers at the murder scene, leaving in a pickup truck registered to Staff Sergeant Jefferson, right after there was gunfire.”

  Connie says, “And what else?”

  Sheriff Williams glances at her watch. “What else is that I’m missing my favorite nephew’s birthday party, and I think I’ve done enough for you folks tonight.”

  My words don’t match what I’m feeling, but I say them anyway. “Sheriff Williams, you’ve been exceptionally kind and gracious. My deputy and I thank you.”

  Williams gives me a slight smile. “Glad I can help the Army. Me? I’m just a small-town sheriff in a small rural county. This…this is a horror show. And I mean to see it right to the end.”

  I gesture to the photos of her in military uniform. “The Reserves?”

  She swivels and looks up at them as well. “Nope, Georgia National Guard. Ten proud years, in public affairs. Spent a lot of time deployed in Iraq.”

  “Same for me,” I say. “I was a detective, second class, in New York, and in the Reserves, Criminal Investigation Division. Then this happened,” and I spin my cane back and forth.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Mind me asking what happened?”

  “Don’t mind at all,” I say. “After all, we’ve both been there, done that.” I take a breath, hoping the good sheriff notices. “I was in a small convoy, heading out to a village as part of an investigation. I was the lead investigator. My Humvee got hit by an IED…typical story. Driver killed, gunner lost a leg, and I had a few broken bones, and I was trapped for a while as my left leg got roasted and toasted.” I shrug. “Made it out alive, which is a plus. Came back home after a few months at Landstuhl in Germany and Walter Reed near DC, and then One Police Plaza wanted to put me behind a desk. Can’t really blame them—I suck now at running—but the Army offered me a full-time role. That’s why I’m here.”

  She smiles, a bit more warmth this time. “Good on you, Major Cook. I like your style.”

  I speak quickly. “One more thing, if I may, before you go to your birthday party. Any chance we can meet tomorrow morning for more of a debrief?”

  “I don’t see why not,” she says. “Let’s say…8:00 a.m. Just before church. Hey, you folks want to know the times and places for services on Sunday?”

  Connie speaks up. “Thank you very much, Sheriff, but the owner of our motel passed along a church list to me when I registered.”

  I have a confident feeling that Connie is lying and say, “All right, ma’am, 8:00 a.m.”

  “See you back here.”

  And I toss in, “And perhaps you’ll change your mind and allow us to visit the murder house?”

  Her slight smile widens. “See you tomorrow, Major. At 8:00 a.m.”

  The shock from going out of cool air-conditioning into the hot, muggy outside air nearly takes my breath away, but Connie and I keep pace as we get back to the silver Ford Fusion.

  “What a mess,” she says.

  “Biggest one I’ve ever seen,” I say.

  “What now, boss?”

  “You show me the grand lodgings you’ve secured, and we wait for the rest of our team to arrive.”

  I’m standing by the passenger door, and Connie is standing opposite me. She eyes me and says, “Sir?”

  She wants to talk, so I say, “Anything odd strike you about the good sheriff back there?”

  She taps the roof of the rental. “Where should I begin?”

  “Number one on the runway,” I say. “Go.”

  Connie looks back at the municipal building. “She didn’t ask for our IDs.”

  I nod, pleased. “That’s right,” I say. “Tell me more.”

  Connie says with confidence, “This is the biggest case she’s ever had. Seven dead civilians, four elite Army Rangers charged, in her jurisdiction. And a man and woman appear, claiming to be Army investigators, and she doesn’t ask for our identification?”

  I say, “She knew we were coming, and she knew who we were. Good job, York.”

  “And there were a lot of look-at-me photos with prominent politicians,” she adds. “But there was one photo that didn’t fit. Did you see it?”

  “The grumpy-looking old man standing on the steps of the Capitol?”

  “That’s the one,” she says. “Wonder who he is and why his photo is in her office.”

  “Then find out,” I say.

  “I will,” Connie says. “However you look at it, though, all those photos mean the sheriff is a player of some sort.”

  “That’s right,” I say, opening the car door. “Small-town sheriff my ass.”

  Chapter 8

  CAPTAIN ALLEN PIERCE of the US Army JAG Corps opens the door to his room at the Route 119 Motel and Coffee Shop in Sullivan, Georgia, flips on the light, and takes in his temporary home. Two sagging single beds separated by a nightstand with a light. A low bureau against the right-hand wall, a television chained to the floor. The carpet stained and scarred with cigarette burns. An open bathroom with a small shower.

  Several hours ago he was playing the fifteenth hole at the Nassau Country Club, on the outskirts of Glen Cove, odd man out in a foursome with Pop and two of his friends, all three Wall Street lawyers, all members of the Urban League, all summering at Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard.

  Pop was trying to grease the skids to ease the way forward for his lawyer son if he ever leave
s the Army, and the incoming text from Major Cook meant Pierce didn’t have to say no again to his father.

  Pierce decides to take the far bed, thinking it’ll be farther away from any noise in the parking lot, and dumps his go bag, then uses the bathroom to freshen up. He feels disoriented, like he did in the first few weeks after graduating from Columbia Law and going straight to Fort Benning, taking the direct-commission route from civilian to second lieutenant.

  While at Fort Benning for his six weeks of initial training, he was in a huge complex, under constant supervision and in the company of other soldiers and trainees. Today? He drove here from the airport by himself, along the twilit back roads of Georgia, and for thirty minutes he was followed by a car that slowed when he slowed, accelerated when he accelerated.

  Paranoia, he thinks, but he also thinks of his great-uncle Byron, who had his skull fractured during the Freedom Rides back in the early sixties.

  Pierce walks outside and tenses up as a car drives right up to his motel unit, lights bright, and there’s his service pistol back in his luggage—which he’s fired a total of three times, on the range—but the engine and lights switch off, and Major Jeremiah Cook’s voice cuts through the Georgia darkness.

  “Good to see you, Captain,” he says. “Let’s get to work.”

  After retrieving his legal pad and laptop, Pierce follows Major Cook and Special Agent Connie York past two other rooms in this motel, which is L-shaped, with an office at the junction of the L and a coffee shop at the far end. Connie unlocks the door of the next room—marked 11 in stick-on numbers—and leads them in, switching on the lights. “It’s a hole, but it’s workable,” she says. “Allen, give me a hand, will you?”

  The motel room looks like it’s part storage facility, and he works a few minutes with Connie to push the beds against the walls and get a row of folding chairs and a table set up. Connie then digs around in the remaining clutter of boxes and shopping bags and emerges with a large whiteboard, which he helps her hang up on a wall. Connie is an attractive woman, and Allen not only enjoys working with her but also just likes being in her presence. Not enough to ask her out—one piece of advice he did take from Pop was never to dip one’s pen in the company ink—but he can still admire a smart and good-looking woman.

  Pierce takes a seat and says, “What do we have, Major?”

  Cook’s face is red and strained, and Allen recalls their last deployment, to Germany, where Cook insisted on going for a run every morning, despite his scarred and wounded leg. Allen wonders how his boss keeps it together.

  “Just a quick brief until Huang and Sanchez show up,” he says. “When they do, we’re each going to fire up our laptops and check out each Ranger’s service record. Connie, will you put up the photos?”

  York arranges the booking photos of four Army Rangers on the left side of the whiteboard and then writes the names of seven civilian dead on the right side. Allen keeps pace, taking careful notes on the details of the case and the soldiers’ arrest, pausing just once at hearing that a two-year-old baby girl is among the victims.

  His writing hand stills. Part of his JAG training at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville after his six weeks at Fort Benning involved looking at past incidents when Army personnel went beyond the normal bounds of civilized actions—No Gun Ri, My Lai, and Abu Ghraib—and he knows he shouldn’t be too surprised to see a case in which Army Rangers apparently went berserk and killed civilians.

  But a little girl? Two years old?

  “And that’s it so far,” Connie says, recapping her black marker. “Sir? Anything you’d like to add?”

  Cook struggles to his feet, goes to the whiteboard, taps at the photos and then the list of victims.

  “Here’s the gap,” he says, pointing to the clear section between the photos and the writing. “We need to fill it in. Find out what possible connection could exist between these civilians”—a tap to the board—“and these Rangers.”

  Allen says, “Do we know when Huang and Sanchez are arriving?”

  Connie says, “Just before midnight, if their flights are on time. There’s a rental car waiting for them at the airport. Sir?”

  Cook goes back to his chair, sits, winces, and stretches his left leg out. “The three of us are about to find out what kind of meal this motel’s coffee shop serves. Then tomorrow, bright and early, we’re going to send Huang and you, Allen, to the jail where these four are being held. It’s in Ralston, next town over.”

  “Sounds good,” Allen says.

  “Connie, you and I, along with Sanchez, we’re also getting an early start tomorrow.”

  She looks confused. “You mean the 8:00 a.m. meeting with Sheriff Williams?”

  “No,” he says. “I mean the three of us are going over to the murder scene. The so-called Summer House.”

  “But she said we couldn’t gain entry,” Connie says.

  Allen takes notice of that. The locals are already pushing back hard, even before they’ve been here a full day?

  “That she did,” her boss replies. “Let’s just show up and see what happens.”

  Connie says, “She’ll be pissed. Sir.”

  Cook nods, and Allen likes the tone of his boss’s voice.

  “I’m counting on it,” the major says.

  Chapter 9

  I LOOK AT the red numerals on the little digital clock on the nightstand. I’ve been awake for an hour. At night, when the dreams and the memories come back, it seems like the walls and ceilings and floor are conspiring to close in on me, choking out my breath, choking out my life.

  I get out of bed and drape a sheet and blanket around my shoulders, unlock the motel room door, and go outside. There’s a lawn chair, and I sit down, wrapping everything about me.

  Outside it’s still warm and muggy, and flying insects are swarming around the motel parking lot lights. The lot is nearly deserted. It’s just about 2:00 a.m., and the other two members of my squad are delayed due to flight problems.

  Typical hurry up and wait.

  I shift and tug the sheet and blanket closer. Army planning. Still hard to believe I’m now Army, through and through. For years I was with the NYPD, climbing the ladder, making good collars, going from precinct to precinct, and putting in my time in the Reserves. I was just out of high school when the Towers came down, and after graduating from the Academy I felt I could do a bit of payback while still wearing the shield, if luck came my way.

  But luck and payback came to somebody else first on a dirt road in Afghanistan. A place that still haunts me but where I will never return.

  The drone of an approaching car jolts me back to my present assignment. I think of Colonel Phillips, still not liking the depth of his cough during my last talk with him. Nearly a year ago he called me into his office at Quantico and said, I’m setting up a special squad. You’re going to lead it. It’s going to have CID investigators, a JAG lawyer, and a psychiatrist. Your job is going to take on major crimes, here and abroad, make sure justice gets done, that there are no cover-ups, and most of all, that the locals don’t frame our folks.

  And I said, Yes, sir, and now I’m in Georgia. In 1864 General William T. Sherman made his march from Atlanta to Savannah, and just before Christmas Day he sent a message to President Lincoln:

  I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.

  Up there in Quantico, my Colonel Phillips is waiting for a gift, and I know it cannot wait until Christmas, or even until next week.

  A car pulls into the lot and parks near me. The headlights switch off. Two doors open up, and the men inside get out and approach me.

  “Major Cook,” the first one says. It’s Lieutenant John Huang, US Army Medical Corps, psychiatrist.

  “Sir,” the second one says. Special Agent Manuel Sanchez, US Army CID, former LAPD officer.

  I say, “Glad to see you, gents
.” I swivel in my chair and add, “You’re in room 9. It’s unlocked. Two sets of room keys on the bureau. Agent York and Captain Pierce are in room 8. We’ll be getting up at 0600 later this morning. We’ll check the service records for the four Rangers and prep the rest of our day. Get organized and try to get some sleep.”

  Both say, “Yes, sir,” and they get their gear and head to their room.

  I sit and wait, the parking lot quiet again, and the bugs continue surging around the bright lights.

  More sounds of cars approaching.

  At this hour?

  I think about our meeting with the county sheriff and how she described the last murder in this county, years back, when the abused Millie Porter took her vengeance against her Barry.

  A common secret among us cops is that most murders get cleared in just a day or so. They’re easy, they’re blatant—drug deal turns bad, husband or wife gets tired of abuse, an armed robbery goes south.

  Two cars and a rental van pull into the lot, come to a stop. Doors fly open, there are loud conversations, and I see two men go to the rear of the van, haul out television equipment.

  The members of the Fourth Estate have rolled in, ready to pass sentence and convict with a few chosen words or sixty seconds of videotape, always able to duck out with that blessed word alleged.

  Not me. I’m old-fashioned, I know, but I still want to see where the evidence leads us.

  I get up from the chair, blanket and sheet still over me, wanting to get back to my room before one of the reporters decides to see who this odd man is. Once inside, I plan to stay awake.

  As for Sheriff Williams and myself, we don’t have a crime to solve but a mystery.

  And I hate mysteries.

  Chapter 10

  IN HIS CELL at the Ralston town jail, Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson is awake, sitting up against the concrete wall, legs stretched out, listening to one of his squad mates snore. It sounds like Specialist Ruiz, originally from El Paso and a good man to have at your side in a foxhole. Ruiz is a great shot and a great scrounger on post, and he has the amazing ability to fall asleep at any place or time, whether in a cold, ice-crusted trench high up in the mountains or in an FOB shelter with mortar rounds dropping in.