Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

Like a PowerPoint presentation, faces of past patients he talked to after joining the Army come to him, men and women, young and old, privates to colonels, all sizes and shapes and colors, but one thing is the same for each of them: their eyes. Each has the same dull, blank look of someone who has gone into the abyss and is trying so desperately to climb out.

And he, Dr. John Huang of Stanford and the US Army Medical Corps, is lying along the lip of a precipice, reaching a hand out, anxious to rescue his patient down there in the darkness, and also desperately hoping that, listening to the bloody horrors they took part in and witnessed, he won’t also be pulled down.

John says, “I don’t know. It’s a gift, I guess.”

The shadow reappears, the door is unlocked, and this time it’s opened only a foot or so.

The jail attendant stands in the gap, nervous, face pale, no longer holding the kitschy coffee cup.

“Sorry, fellas, none of them wants to see you,” he says. “You need to leave. Now.”

Chapter 13

I WAIT FOR Sheriff Williams to take a breath and I step forward, keeping my voice soft and low. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Sheriff, and with all due respect, I’m not here to play games.”

“You got one funny goddamn way of showing it,” she says, nearly spitting out the words.

I say, “Sheriff, you have to admit you placed us in a box. You told me we couldn’t get access to the crime scene. I respect that. If I didn’t, then I would have had Special Agent Sanchez”—I gesture to him, standing about three meters away—“knock that door down and let us in. I didn’t do that.”

The sheriff folds her arms. “A goddamn good thing you didn’t or you and yours would be getting processed right now in my county jail.”

I smile, nod, trying to maintain a reassuring look. “I respect that, and appreciate that, Sheriff. Now, if I may, we’re all here. It’s still early on a Sunday morning. You’ve been active-duty, you’ve been exposed to enemy fire and danger in Iraq. Not many people can say that, now, can they? And you know that out in the field you have to bend sometimes to get your job done.”

Sheriff Williams lifts an eyebrow. “Like me bending to let you into the crime scene?”

“Sheriff, my detachment and I are here on official business. We need to get into that house. And I’m just asking you—from one Army vet to another—to allow us in.”

I wait, then a slight smile appears on her previously hard face, and she lets her arms fall free. “You’re a slippery and smart one, I’ll give you that. All right, we go in, but no photos, nothing taken from the house, you follow my lead.”

“Absolutely.”

She nods to me. “And don’t forget, Major, I’m a slippery and smart one, too.”

I follow her to the wide wooden steps leading to the door of the old home, and she removes the yellow-and-black police tape and gently drapes it on a railing. Up at the door she turns and says, “Years and years ago this was a famous place in our little town. It belonged to a rich fella named Callaghan, owned a shipping company over in Savannah. There’s a little lake nearby, and he and his family and rich friends loved coming here during the summer, ’fore air-conditioning came here.” She shakes her head. “Yeah, a nice little historical place. Poets, writers, politicians—they all made their way here. Including FDR, like I said earlier. And then the Callaghan family got hit hard during the Great Depression, had to give it up and other properties, and from generation to generation, it came to this. Being rented to a bunch of losers by some property management company. Okay, let me give you a bit of a timeline before we go in.”

Behind me, Connie and Manuel have notebooks and pencils in hand, both starting to scribble. She says, “This past Thursday Whitey Klamer, a friend of one of the deceased and a student at Savannah Technical College, came by for what he said was a random visit at about 7:00 a.m. Right. At that hour of the day? Based on what we’ve found in the house, he was probably coming for a drug buy. Nobody answered his knocks, the door was partially open, he went in, saw what he saw, came out and puked, and then called Dispatch. First unit responded, saw the extent of the crime scene, and I was next, along with everybody else on the force, including retirees.”

She squats and points to the hinges, where I note familiar-looking scorch marks and bent metal. “One of the first things I spotted. Look. The Rangers used det cord or some other explosive device to get in. Very quick, very pro.” She stands up and takes a folding knife from her pocket, opens it up, and cuts through the seal blocking the entry. “Give me a hand, will you?”

She drags the door to one side, and I do the best I can with one hand, the other one holding on to my cane, and I think, Good job, Sheriff, putting me in my place and showing us who ’s still in charge.

Williams says, “You can bet how much the shit hit the fan when we saw what was in here. My investigators got right to work, and we started canvassing the area.”

I ask, “Did you call for help from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation?”

She scoffs. “The GBI? The vampires? Nope, no thank you.”

Connie says, “Why do you call them vampires?”

The sheriff turns to Connie and Manuel. “Legend has it vampires can only come into your house if you give ’em permission. Same with the GBI. State law says they can only come in to work with local law enforcement if you let them in. Believe me, not many sheriffs in Georgia want that. Not going to happen in my county. Okay, let’s take a look-see.”

We cluster just beyond the entrance. My eyes adjust to the dim light. The first thing I see is an overturned couch. There are yellow and orange triangular evidence markers on the scuffed and worn wooden floor, now stained with blood.

Without notes—which I admire—Williams starts reciting the facts of the crime scene, pointing to different areas in the room.

“This is where we found the first three victims,” she says. “Gordon Tilly, Randall Gleason, and Sally Tisdale. This TV here was still on when their friend stopped by Thursday morning, paused on some kind of shoot-’em video game. Ironic, huh?”

“Yes,” I say. “Very ironic.”

We go farther into the home, and I spot more of the plastic triangles on the floor. The counter in the kitchen area has fingerprint dust residue, and the same is on the wooden walls leading to the stairs going up to the second story.

Williams says, “We recovered from the residence two 9mm pistols, a shotgun, and a .308 hunting rifle, along with scales, plastic bags, and about twenty pounds of marijuana. And before you ask, the pistols had not been recently fired.”

Manuel says, “Were these people known to you?”

The sheriff shrugs. “Some. But from what I heard from my sources and others, they were strictly small-time, not on my top ten. Upstairs?”

To me, the wide stairs look as daunting as the first time I saw a climbing rope, dangling in a gym when I was in seventh grade at PS 19.

“You go first,” I say. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

Six minutes later, I’m at the top of the stairs, with Williams, Connie, and Manuel all pointedly looking away from me, as I feel how warm my face is, the trickle of sweat down my neck and back, and the burning and screaming coming from my insulted left leg. Fingerprint dust is on the doorframes to both bedrooms.

“Thanks,” I say to no one in particular. “Sheriff?”

She takes an audible breath. “Worst scene is in here.”

“Then let’s get it over with.”

We cluster at the entrance to the bedroom while the sheriff goes in, points to a group of evidence triangles on the floor and stains on the floor and against the cracked plaster wall.