Джеймс Паттерсон - The Summer House

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.