Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

Instantly I reply, remembering the pleasant man I met a few days ago with Connie, before going up before the Fourth Battalion’s colonel. “Certainly. The executive officer for the Fourth Battalion.”

“That’s right,” she says. “His body was pulled from the Savannah River last night, local time, with a bullet to the forehead. It looks like he was murdered right after an unauthorized visit to Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson over in Ralston, in Sullivan County.”

Damn, I think.

Her voice changes in tone. “Major, do you remember a specialist from the Eighty-Second Airborne named Conner? Brad Conner? He was charged with stealing a crate of 7.62-millimeter ammunition and selling it to a gang in Charlotte.”

The name pops up in my memory, and I say, “Yes. Nearly three years back.”

“Right. Your investigation cleared him.”

“Well, Major, my investigation went to the evidence. That’s what cleared him.”

She says, “That’s your point of view. You knew that Specialist Conner’s dad was an Army Ranger, correct?”

“Well…yes, I did learn that during the course of my investigation, but that’s about it. It didn’t matter.”

The major on the other end of the line says, “Well, it matters to us. His father is Trent Conner. Former command sergeant major at the Ranger Training Brigade at Fort Benning, and prior to that…well, I don’t have the time to tell you his service record and list of awards and decorations. Let’s just say Command Sergeant Major Conner is a goddamn legend in the Ranger community, and you earned a solid, helping out his son.”

I know this is an exaggeration, but I’m not going to correct the major.

She adds, “So let’s you and me get together to figure out what the hell is going on with Fourth Battalion and that damn Ninja Squad.”

I say, “Yes, let’s.”

Chapter 69

EVEN THOUGH IT’S his day off, Dwight Dix of the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department—known to family and friends as DD—is not having a good morning. He pulled an unexpected late shift last night on direct orders from Sheriff Emma, and he’s still humiliated by how he was chased away by that slick spic who fooled DD into thinking he had a pistol in his hand.

He paces back and forth in the small kitchen of his double-wide, barefoot, wearing blue jeans and nothing else, drinking a cold cup of coffee. Out in the living room with the orange shag carpeting that stinks because his wife Penny’s two cats keep on pissing there, his son, Morris, and daughter, Tina, are yowling and tussling over some broken plastic toys.

“Penny!” he calls out to his wife. “Will you tell those two to settle down?”

Penny murmurs, “Tell ’em yourself,” and goes back to her late morning, hell, her now daily routine of lying on the couch with the scuffed and worn cushions, watching one of those damn chick chat shows on TV, balancing a bowl of cheddar snack crackers on her swelling stomach, where their third child is coming along.

DD pours the cold coffee down the sink and stares out the grease-stained kitchen window. He doesn’t belong here. He’s never belonged here. But after he was dismissed during his first deployment for some crazy reason due to his temper, he found himself working as a fry cook outside Savannah before Sheriff Emma recruited him. It was a sweet gig when it started—nice pay, bennies, and for once his temper was seen as an asset instead of a liability—but now it’s different.

Oh, he doesn’t mind doing shit for the greater good, like tuning up suspects or planting crystal meth in some toad’s pickup truck, making it easier for the district attorney to get a conviction, but the stuff he did and saw in The Summer House, the shooting, the screaming, and…

That poor baby girl. Why her?

He shakes his head. Enough is enough. It’s time to man up and get a deal, get the hell out of here and bring along Penny and the kids, and if she doesn’t want to move her fat ass off the couch to go with him, well, he’ll figure it out.

DD ducks into the bedroom, past piles of clothes, socks, and panties on the floor, and quickly gets dressed. He grabs the keys to his truck from an ashtray loaded with old coins and paper clips and heads back out to the kitchen.

“Where you going, DD?” Penny asks.

“Out,” he says, tugging on a pair of sneakers.

“Why?”

“’Cause I got to.”

“Got to do what?”

He doesn’t even look back at her when he heads to the door. “Out to finally make things right.”

Penny Dix waits until she hears DD’s truck roar out of the trailer park and then picks up the bowl of snack crackers, puts it on the cluttered coffee table, and, with an “Oomph” and a heavy sigh, gets off the couch. She moves into the kitchen, takes her cell phone out of her purse, and makes a call.

“Sullivan County Dispatch. What’s the nature of your emergency?”

“I need to speak to Sheriff Williams.”

The snotty-sounding woman says, “She’s in a meeting and can’t be disturbed.”

Her bratty kids are screaming again, and Penny sticks a finger in one ear so she can hear better. “Look, missy, this here is her cousin Penny calling, and I need to talk to Sheriff Emma right now.”

The woman says nothing. The line goes quiet.

A click and a reassuring voice comes on the line. “Hey, Penny, hon, what’s going on?”

“Sheriff Emma…it’s DD.”

The reply is quick. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Something’s been botherin’ him these past few days. He’s been using the chaw more than he does, drinking more, and at night he gets these awful dreams. And right now he left the house without even much saying good-bye.”

Her cousin says, “Did he say what was wrong? Or where he was going?”

Penny hesitates. She never got good grades in school, not ever, but she’s not stupid. She knows how Sheriff Emma runs the county and knows DD has to do some things that others would refuse. But if DD is in some kind of trouble…why wouldn’t Sheriff Emma help?

“Sheriff, he said he was off finally to make things right, something like that. Do you know what it means? Is it important?”

Even with the TV on and the damn kids screaming, she can hear her cousin just breathing on the phone.

“Emma, did I do right, calling you?”

And before the call is disconnected, the cold voice of her cousin says, “Penny, you have no idea.”

Chapter 70

SPECIAL AGENT CONNIE YORK is desperately trying to keep her yawning under control, but based on last night and the previous nights, it’s a damn losing battle. Her worn and dented rental Ford is parked at the end of a dirt road, and the other two Fords are parked a few feet away. Huang and Pierce arrived just a few minutes earlier with their late breakfasts: plastic-wrapped doughnuts, coffee, and orange juice in plastic containers, all purchased a while ago from a convenience store in Chatham County.

Sanchez says, “You sure you two weren’t followed?”

Pierce takes the lid off his coffee. “Look up the road. You see a cruiser coming down?”

Huang joins in. “Maybe there’s a black helicopter coming.”

“Shut up,” Sanchez says.

York says, “All of you, knock it off.”

Cold quiet comes to the group. York feels like a failure. All of them slept in the three cars overnight, though it wasn’t much of a sleep. Tired, achy, and facing a day of…

What?

What to do? Major Cook ordered her to push the investigation, but what was left to push? The dog-walking witness is missing, and so is the owner of the convenience store. The murder house and whatever evidence was inside are a pile of burnt rubble. Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson has cut a deal to plead guilty and is about to make it permanent at tomorrow’s court hearing, and, oh, yeah, the sheriff is corrupt and a criminal to boot, and her deputies are following them wherever they go.