The Summer House Read online

  “I appreciate what you’re saying, Jimmy, but we’re from the Army, trying to do a very hard job,” she says, her voice sweet and calming. “I know you don’t want to disappoint your father—he does seem very strict—but he did leave you in charge, didn’t he? And I know this area of the country is very, very patriotic. Don’t you want to help us? Support the troops right here by letting us into your business?”

  I think Connie is on the mark, but Jimmy shakes his head and starts closing the door. “Daddy’ll be here tomorrow, after 9:00 a.m. You can try him then.”

  The door gets closed and locked, and one by one, the lights here on the first floor switch off.

  Connie sighs, wipes her face. “Once, boss, I saw this horror movie about a funeral home, where the dead all rise during the night and tear the funeral home owner to pieces. Before they get really nasty, that is.”

  “Sometimes dreams don’t come true,” I say. “Send out the text. Let’s get back to the motel.”

  In the car, I sit down with a grimace and buckle up. Connie works her phone a moment before starting the Ford Fusion, then switching on the air conditioner and headlights. Just as she gets us back on the road, another car up the street pulls out.

  I grip my cane, occasionally glancing at the side-view mirror, as we drive along, taking a turn or two.

  Connie checks her phone quickly and says, “Done, sir. Everybody is coming back in. Should be ready in about thirty minutes.”

  “Good,” I say. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir,” she says. “Ever since we left that funeral home, we’ve been followed. I even made a slight detour, and those headlights never left us.”

  “Good call, Agent York,” I say, looking again in the side-view mirror. “Let’s do something about it.”

  “You want me to lose them?” she asks.

  I painfully shift in my seat, remove my SIG Sauer.

  “No,” I say. “I want you to stop them.”

  Chapter 22

  SPECIAL AGENT YORK has worked long enough with Major Cook to know that when he makes a request like this one, he doesn’t want to get a lot of questions in return. Just get the job done. Connie likes working for a supervisor who has confidence in his employees without micromanaging them.

  Connie says, “Yes, sir. I’m on it. Make sure your seat belt is nice and tight.”

  “It is,” he says, holding the pistol and the door handle. “Just don’t crash us.”

  Connie starts accelerating. “What, you don’t like my driving?”

  “I don’t like filling out motor vehicle accident paperwork,” he says. “Go.”

  Connie goes, speeding up even more.

  The car behind them speeds up as well.

  The lights from the small businesses and homes flash by as she quickly exceeds the forty-mile-an-hour speed limit and goes right up to sixty, which is as much as she dares on this narrow road.

  A look in the rearview mirror.

  Still there.

  She thinks of saying that maybe those are cops back there, but she keeps her mouth shut. The major certainly isn’t afraid or concerned about being pulled over, so why mention it?

  Focus on the driving.

  The road sweeps to the left, and there’s a squeal of tires as she handles the Ford nice and tight, keeping it in their lane, making sure they don’t drift over the solid yellow line.

  Sixty-three.

  Sixty-four.

  The road is a straightaway now, and the pursuing lights are getting closer, like they’re egging her on. She quickly wishes she was back with the Virginia State Police with backup only a radio call away.

  In a calm voice, Cook says, “Intersection coming up. Light’s still green.”

  Connie’s tempted to slow down with all that civilian traffic crowding up the intersection, but no, she’s getting angrier that she and the major are being chased at night in this rural town in Georgia, like moonshiners being chased by the cops.

  “Light’s turning yellow,” Cook says.

  “No worries,” Connie says.

  They race through the intersection, horns honking and screaming at them, Connie expertly passing a blue van slowing to make the stop. Up ahead the road swerves hard to the left, and she lets her foot off the accelerator, switches off the headlights. Turning hard, Connie pulls into the parking lot of a McDonald’s, quickly halting the Ford between a parked pickup truck and a mud-spattered Toyota, using the emergency brake to prevent any brake lights from popping on back there.

  She turns and sees a black Dodge Charger roar by, and then she slips the Ford out of the parking lot and soon pulls up behind it, keeping the headlights off for a moment.

  Cook says, “Well done, Connie.”

  Even with the adrenaline rush from this ongoing chase Connie feels a spark of pleasure from her boss’s praise in a tight situation like this. She turns on the headlights, flicks them to high beams, and says in a heavy drawl, “The Virginia State Police aims to serve, suh.”

  No answer, but that’s fine.

  She barrels up right to the rear of the Charger, and she can see movement inside, like the passenger or driver is looking out the rear window, trying to see who’s now chasing them.

  “Sucks to be on the other side,” she says.

  And the major says, “Keep at it, keep hammering them.”

  The Charger makes an abrupt right onto a narrow road, and Connie swears, missing the turnoff. She slams on the brakes, the Ford sedan shivers and comes to a halt, and she slams the shifter into reverse, the transmission grinding a complaint.

  Cook looks behind and says, “Clear.”

  Into drive.

  Down the narrow road.

  The Charger’s lights are now off, but she catches a brief glimpse of it as it passes under a utility light, and she punches the accelerator down. The Ford roars into life as she resumes the chase, everything narrowed and focused into a tube before her, looking at the Dodge speeding away, barely noticing the flick-flick-flick of objects passing by, like trailers and dirt driveways and utility poles.

  As the road gets emptier, the taillights up ahead come on, and she knows the driver of the Charger is concerned about crashing into something in the dark, sacrificing stealth for safety.

  The lane gets narrower. No more driveways. No more distant lights.

  A yellow-and-black sign is visible for a second.

  DEAD END.

  “Good,” Cook says.

  A thump as the pavement gives way to dirt.

  “Sir,” she says, “I think—”

  The taillights up ahead drop from sight.

  Something moves across her field of vision.

  Connie slams on the brakes, the Ford sedan fishtailing as the tires try to grip the dirt-and-gravel road and—

  For the briefest of moments, a chest-high white metal pipe blocking the road snaps into view, and Connie closes her eyes as the car hits it hard.

  Chapter 23

  IN THE LAST few seconds of our chase I try to focus on Connie’s superb driving skills as we force the Dodge Charger into a dead-end lane, but my mind is racing back to last year, and the voices come to me:

  Move, move, move.

  Faster.

  We’re taking fire.

  Connie slams on the brakes.

  The Ford skids.

  Then a loud bone-shattering thud and metal scraping and screaming and—

  Not there.

  Here.

  We’ve hit a metal pole set across the dirt road, and my chest hurts from slamming against the shoulder harness. My cane is on the floor, but my hand is still holding my SIG Sauer.

  Dust clouds settle in front of us. The hood of the sedan is scraped and dented, the heavy white metal pole just a few inches away from the windshield. Any faster or lower, the pole would have shattered the windshield and taken off our respective heads.

  I hold the SIG Sauer with both hands so Connie can’t see the shaking. But my left leg, still quietly howling in pain, start
s a series of tremors.

  “You all right, Connie?”

  “Sir…yes. Sorry, are you okay?”

  Fire, I think. Slight chance, but what if that collision tore something in the fuel line and there’s a spark? We’re trapped here and Connie can easily get out, but—

  I take a breath. “Can you back us out?”

  She shifts the car into reverse, backs us out, metal groaning and moaning. The headlights pick up a large dip in the road, explaining why the taillights from the speeding car ahead of us had seemingly disappeared.

  Trees and brush are close by, and I see the bent metal pole, set across the dirt lane. At one end is a chain lock, and on the other side is a large bolt mechanism, allowing it to be raised and lowered at will.

  I take another breath, squeeze my hands tighter around the comforting grip of the pistol. “This is how it happened,” I say. “One of the guys in the Charger calls a friend. ‘We’re being chased.’ The friend says, ‘Go down this road, get a bit of a lead, and I’ll take care of it.’ The Charger races past the open gate, their friend drops the gate, almost in time to take our heads off. Just like in the ’stan. Villagers and the Taliban, out there keeping watch, talking on cell phones, ready to hit us when they’re good and ready.”

  Connie rubs her face with both hands. “Seems like a good explanation, sir.”

  My heart rate is calming down. I look around at the darkness about us, imagine men hidden there, watching us, considering us, armed and waiting.

  At least we’re not on fire.

  “Ask you a question, Connie?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Your first marriage. To George. Why did it end?”

  She says not a word, which I expected.

  Chapter 24

  CONNIE TURNS AND stares at Major Cook. After this chase and the collision and nearly having both of their heads torn off, why in God’s name is he asking her about her first failed marriage?

  What the hell is going on?

  Cook is quiet, but Connie gives him a good long look, sees his cane on the floor, his left injured leg shaking, his hands gripping his SIG Sauer, and his eyes looking straight out there into the darkness.

  Now she knows.

  He’s not all here.

  Part of him is back in Afghanistan.

  Asking her about her first failed marriage…something safe, something domestic to talk about after this violent chase reminded him of a war zone.

  He’s trying to get back here, all of him.

  “Boxes, sir,” she says, noticing the Ford’s engine is running rough.

  “Go on.”

  “After we moved in together, he had about twenty cardboard boxes filled with books, clothing, all that stuff,” she says. “And when he got it all unpacked, he kept the empty boxes in the basement, all neatly piled up. Month after month I bugged him to get rid of the boxes, they were taking up so much space. And when he didn’t do that…”

  Her boss says, “You knew that deep down, where it counted, he wasn’t committed to the marriage. And Walter? What was his deal?”

  She tightens her grip on the steering wheel, lifts herself up a bit from the seat, peers ahead. The dust has settled and there’s nothing more to be seen.

  Connie says, “Walter was one for setting traps. Like cleaning out the dishwasher, folding the laundry, getting the oil changed in the car, all without me asking. And those were his traps. ‘Connie, didn’t you see what I did? Why don’t I get credit? Why don’t you notice me?’ And I told him, ‘Walter, you’re so big into ambushes, why the hell don’t you transfer from CID to an infantry unit?’”

  “Did he?”

  “No,” she says. “Left the CID and joined the FBI. Last I heard he was in Des Moines, chasing down farmers cheating on their government subsidies.”

  The engine is running even rougher. Cook reaches down, picks up his cane, and sets it across his lap.

  Connie says, “Sorry about the accident. I’ll do the paperwork.”

  “No,” her boss says. “My job. I’ll take care of it. But you can turn us around and head us back to the motel. We’ve still got lots of work to do.”

  Connie shifts the car into reverse again, and after a bit of careful three-point turning, she heads back up the road.

  “I’m also sorry I lost them,” she says.

  “Nothing to apologize for.”

  The Ford bumps some as they get back onto asphalt.

  “Sir?” she asks. “I don’t understand.”

  Cook puts his SIG Sauer back into his holster. “I wanted whoever’s out there to know we’re aware of them following us and that we’re going to do something about it. You did well, Connie. No worries. But do get us back to the motel without hitting anything else.”

  Connie smiles. “Can do, sir.”

  They drive on for a few more minutes, and she looks up in the rearview mirror, makes a quick turn, and then looks again.

  “Major.”

  “We’re being followed again,” he says.

  “That’s right.”

  “Let them follow us,” he says, the SIG Sauer coming back out into his hand. “But if they come too close, or try to do anything funny, throw us into a U-turn.”

  “And then try to shake them off?”

  “No,” Cook says, lowering his window with one hand, pistol firm in the other. “I have other ideas.”

  Chapter 25

  THE DRIVE GOES smoothly after that, with the not-so-friendly lights still behind us, and as we near our destination, I roll the window up. When Connie gets us back to the Route 119 Motel and Coffee Shop, there’s a huddled group of men and women outside our room 11. Connie parks our damaged Ford as close as she can, and she says, “Sorry, boss, the Fourth Estate has arrived, in all their assumed glory.”

  Damn it, I think, because I wanted to get to my room first to secure some painkillers, but I’m not in the mood to maneuver my way twice through that enthusiastic mob. No pain relief any time soon.

  “As before, Connie,” I say, grabbing my cane. “I’ll take the lead.”

  She unsnaps her seat belt. “You’ll take the lead in answering questions, sir. I’ll take the lead in blocking us a path.”

  The next few seconds are a mess as I stay close behind Connie while she forces her way through the dozen or so men and women, dressed in everything from jeans and T-shirts to carefully styled suits, for the network correspondents, and lights from three television cameras glare at us as we get to the door.

  “Are you the Army investigators here about the murders?”

  “No comment,” I say.

  “Are the four Rangers being defended by the Army?”

  “No comment.”

  A younger voice screams out, “You’ve got blood on your hands, killers! Blood on your hands!”

  That doesn’t deserve any kind of response, so I keep my mouth shut and we finally get into our meeting room.

  The room is still small, still crowded with furniture. I find the first available chair and sink heavily into it. Up on the whiteboard are the list of civilian victims and the booking photos of the four Rangers.

  “Before we start,” I say, “just a reminder when it comes to talking to the news media. Don’t.”

  My crew all nod, and Captain Pierce comes over with a cardboard cup of coffee, which I sip. It’s cold. No surprise.

  Connie takes a chair, joining Special Agent Sanchez and Dr. Huang.

  “We’ll go first,” I say. “Connie?”

  Connie removes a legal pad from her shoulder bag and starts off.

  “Major Cook and I met this morning with Major Frank Moore, the executive officer for the Rangers’ Fourth Battalion at Hunter Army Airfield. He was stunned that these four would have been arrested for such a crime. He said Sergeant Jefferson and his fire team are known as the Ninja Squad, for their ability to enter a house full of hostiles and kill them all.”

  Captain Pierce frowns. “That’s a hell of a precedent. I mean no disrespect, Ma
jor, but if that’s what they’re known for in Afghanistan, it certainly complicates things.”

  I say, “It certainly does. Connie?”

  She nods, flips a page. “After meeting with Major Moore, we had a brief session with their CO, Lieutenant Colonel Vincent Marcello. He also repeated Major Moore’s point, that these are highly skilled, professional, and decorated soldiers. But he would not go out of his way to praise them. He said that while on post, out of a combat zone, they can be a disciplinary problem, even though no law enforcement agency has officially filed a complaint against them.”

  “Anything more than that?” Sanchez asks. “Can we talk again to the colonel?”

  I say, “Marcello is currently airborne with three companies of the Fourth Battalion, heading out for a deployment. The best we can do is talk to a Captain Rory O’Connell. He’s the rear detachment commander, handling battalion affairs while they’re deployed, but he’s gearing up for ETS, so we need to get to him quick.”

  Huang looks around, looking embarrassed, and says, “What’s ETS, Major?”

  “Expiration of term of service,” I explain. “Meaning Captain O’Connell is a few months away from being discharged.”

  Connie continues with another flip of a page. “The major and I also went to the convenience store the four Rangers visited prior to the killings. The worker said we need to talk to the store’s owner before viewing any surveillance recordings.”

  When Connie pauses, I say, “We also visited the coroner’s office to examine the victims. In this county, the coroner is an elected position. And he’s also the local funeral director. His son was working alone tonight and refused us entry. We’ll try again tomorrow. And just so all of you know, Agent York and I were followed after we left that funeral home. No big surprise, some folks around here are curious about what we’re doing. Anybody else encounter anything similar?”

  Sanchez quietly says, “A truck with its lights and engine switched off tried to scare me away while I was out working on Route 119 at the driveway to The Summer House. Sped by so quick I could feel its breeze.”