Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

He switches on the headlights.

Goes back to the road.

The license plate is clear. The color of the car is easy to make out, as well as the car brand.

That’s it.

He returns to the car, switches off the headlights, puts on the parking lights once more.

Goes back to the road.

Waits.

The overhead utility light fades in and out, the yellow light faint.

An engine loudly starts up, and his LAPD instincts kick in as he leaps away from the road, just as a pickup truck roars by, so close he feels the warmth from the exhaust pipe. The truck races down the road and brakes, squealing rubber.

The truck’s lights are doused.

It waits, somewhere down the road.

Sanchez’s SIG Sauer is in his hands. He doesn’t remember pulling it from his holster. He quickly goes to the Ford, switches off the parking lights. He drops to one knee, holding the pistol in both hands, over the hood of his rental car.

The truck is still there.

Engine running loudly.

No lights. No voices. No honky-tonk tunes coming from within. He’s pretty sure the driver switched off the engine some ways back and coasted down here before roaring by, to catch him by surprise.

Sanchez wishes he could trade the rented sedan for one of the unit cars he used back when he was a cop. Then at least he’d have some heavier firepower, a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun or a Bushmaster .223 semiautomatic rifle with a thirty-round magazine.

The driver revs the engine.

Sanchez whispers, “Come on, pendejo, come on back and let’s play.”

Another squeal of rubber and the truck roars down the highway, and a few seconds later, its headlights and taillights flick on, like the driver is taunting him.

Sanchez stands up, puts the SIG Sauer back in its holster.

The overhead streetlight is still weak, and he looks into the car interior and sees not a thing.

Chapter 20

STAFF SERGEANT CALEB JEFFERSON stares at his late-night visitor and says, “How the hell did you get in here?”

Major Frank Moore, executive officer for the Fourth Battalion, says, “I spun a tale. What else? I told the jail attendant I really, really needed to see you, and she wouldn’t let me in, and then I pulled the weary war vet who needs help bullshit story.”

Jefferson says, “And that got you here?”

Moore shakes his head. “Nah. I had to promise to give her a helicopter ride next week.”

“Sir, you need to leave, right now,” Jefferson says. “This isn’t helping.”

“But you need to know a couple of things, and I sure as hell don’t trust the phones here or at the post,” Moore says.

The major is a good guy and has run interference for him several times with the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Marcello, but Moore’s exposing himself, being an hour away from post and at this town jail.

“All right, sir, but please, make it quick.”

The major is still in his fatigues, and he lowers his voice. “The battalion commander was interviewed earlier today by two CID investigators.”

“I’m sure Marcello told the investigators what fine, upstanding troopers we are.”

Moore smiles. “I had my ear to the door. He threw all of you under the bus, you know, the heavy-duty one with spiked tires.”

“You drove out here to tell me this?” Jefferson asks.

“Staff Sergeant, I’m an officer, but I try not to be stupid,” he says. “The crew that’s here, looking into things…it’s not a typical CID investigation. They’re here from Quantico, and they’re going to poke into anything and everything.”

“I know that,” Jefferson says. “My guys and I were interviewed a few hours ago by a shrink, trying to find out what makes us tick.”

“What did you tell him?”

Jefferson says, “I told the nosy little shit I wet the bed a lot when I was a kid and had mommy issues. What do you think?”

“This isn’t a joking matter, Sergeant.”

“Again, you drove out here to tell me that, sir?” he asks. “Major Moore, did they talk to you as well?”

“That they did,” Moore says. “I told them I hardly knew you and your squad.”

“Good job, sir,” he says, pleased that this officer, at least, is on the beam. “Is there anything else?”

“Your aunt Sophie called me,” he says.

Oh, shit, Jefferson thinks. “No.”

“Yes,” Major Moore says.

“Is everything all right with Carol?”

Moore says, “Oh, yes, Carol is doing fine under the circumstances. What we talked about earlier is all set. But Aunt Sophie knows you and yours are in trouble, and she wants to—”

“No,” Jefferson says.

“Sergeant, all she wants—”

“Sir, no,” Jefferson says. “It’s all under control. Everything is under control, thanks to you. But if my aunt starts making a fuss, it’ll be all done. Game over. You call my aunt on your way home, tell her to keep quiet. Please. Keep quiet.”

“Sergeant, are you sure?”

“A hundred percent,” he says, scraping his chair back. “Call my aunt when you can. Tell her I’m fine, tell her thanks for taking care of my girl. And that I’ll come over for a visit when I can. But be careful. Call my aunt from a pay phone on your way back.”

“Might be hard to find one.”

“Sir, no offense, you better find one,” he says.

Ninety minutes later, Major Frank Moore pulls up to his townhouse in Georgetown, his late-night dinner—fried chicken from a Publix store nearby—sitting on the car’s passenger seat.

Besides a quick meal, this Publix also offered a rare public pay phone outside, which he used to call Staff Sergeant Jefferson’s aunt, Sophie Johnson. The strong-willed and strong-voiced woman seemed to reluctantly agree to her nephew’s request to keep quiet and not stir up a fuss about what was happening to the staff sergeant.

Moore gets out of his Honda CR-V, goes up the brick pathway to the front door. It’s a nice, quiet development, and his wife, Patricia—four months along with their first child—is spending the week visiting her mom in DC. He gets to the door, puts the plastic bag on the steps, and, as he takes the key out to unlock the door, hears rustling in the shrubbery over by the living room windows.

Damn white-tailed deer, he thinks, are getting more and more brazen, coming out and chewing up everyone’s yard, and as he steps back to take a closer look, a man emerges from the shrubbery and says, “Hey, Major Moore.”

Before Moore can reply, the man pulls a pistol with a sound suppressor from his waistband and shoots the Army major in the forehead.

Chapter 21

IT’S EARLY EVENING and I’m leaning so heavily on my cane that I think the metal might split. My left leg feels like it’s a carved roast sizzling under an infrared restaurant lamp. My leg throbs and throbs, seemingly in pace with my heartbeat, and what’s keeping me going is knowing that this is our last visit of the day, and when I get back to my motel room, it’ll be time for my early evening ration of Extra Strength Tylenol.

Earlier Connie and I visited the Route 119 Gas N’ Go convenience store, and an eager young Indian man working behind the counter who didn’t speak much English managed to tell us that we needed to speak to his uncle Vihan in the morning to get access to the store’s surveillance system.

Now we’re at the side entrance of Briggs Brothers Funeral Home after a bit of sleuthing—all right, maybe ten seconds’ work on Connie’s part—revealed that the Sullivan County coroner is Ferguson Briggs, owner of the largest funeral home in this part of Georgia.

The building is white with black shutters, with a mini steeple to make it look like a house of worship, and a three-car garage is off to the side of a large paved parking lot. There’s a lot of shrubbery and a wooden sign out on the road painted black and a faded maroon color.