The Summer House

by James Patterson

  The room is quiet and the air thick with disappointment. York, Huang, Sanchez, and Pierce all are downcast, looking at the worn carpeted floor. Huang shakes his head, looks up, face drawn.

  “Major, it was my fault,” he says. “I pushed Specialist Tyler too hard. His suicide is on me.”

  I raise my voice. “Knock it off, Lieutenant. You were doing your job. That’s it. The specialist was fighting demons. You were trying to help him. Show him a way out. A chance to recover. This time, the demons won. Aided by a jail attendant who should have followed procedures.”

  Huang’s expression doesn’t change.

  “Captain Pierce,” I say. “The district attorney told you the Rangers are planning to represent themselves at the upcoming hearing on Thursday. Any details?”

  “No, sir. He told me the Rangers would speak for themselves, and that was all.”

  Huang lowers his head. I think I know what he’s feeling. In his own and final way, Specialist Tyler has already done that, spoken for himself.

  “Sanchez,” I say. “Was there any evidence our dog-walking witness left that house under duress?”

  “No, sir,” he says. “Door was locked and secured, like she left and expected to come back. The inside of the house was a mess, but no sign that items were tossed around, no sign of violence.”

  York asks, “How did you get in, then?”

  Sanchez shrugs. “The usual way. You got a problem with that?”

  Before Connie can snap back at Sanchez, I say, “But her vehicle was still there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Neighbors?”

  “None within easy walking distance, sir,” he says.

  I heave myself off the chair, go to the whiteboard. The innocents on one side, the accused on the other. I uncap a marker, draw a line between Staff Sergeant Jefferson and the dead Stuart Pike, drug dealer and renter of the kill house.

  “This is the connection,” I say. “The man who supplied the fentanyl that nearly killed Jefferson’s stepdaughter, Carol Crosby.”

  I put the pen down, and then with my right index finger I erase parts of the marking so what remains is a dotted line.

  “I don’t like it,” I say. “The man has two broken wrists. That I can see. But killing him and everyone else…a little girl, her mother, kids playing video games, dragging a woman from underneath a bed to put a round in her head?” I turn away from the whiteboard. “I don’t like it.”

  I go back to my chair. “Huang, Pierce, go out to that coffee shop. See if you can find something for us to eat that isn’t deep-fried.”

  Pierce says, “Yes, sir,” and Huang is quiet as they both step out of the room.

  I say, “Sanchez, do what you do best. Go out and make friends with the news media, and make sure they leave us alone. With Tyler’s suicide, we’re going to have reporters dogging us every foot, every mile, every minute of the day. Get us some breathing room.”

  “On it, boss,” he says, and leaves, and there’s just Connie and me.

  I get my phone and dial a number. A sturdy male voice says, “Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department, Deputy Crane speaking.”

  “This is Major Cook, Army CID. Is Sheriff Williams available?”

  “Not at the moment, sir.”

  “Please have her call me at her earliest convenience.”

  With that task completed, I disconnect the call and sit still in the quiet room. Connie is quiet as well. I hear a few voices outside, think it’s Sanchez, on the job.

  “Sir?” she asks.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you going to call Colonel Phillips?”

  “Not at the moment,” I say.

  “Why?” Connie asks.

  “Because I’ll have to tell him that one of the four Army Rangers is dead, that we’ve got overwhelming evidence putting those Rangers at the scene of the murders, and that this evidence sucks. Too convenient, too helpful, and too screwy. I do that right now, I’ll be on the phone with him forever, and we don’t have the time. There are too many things moving too quickly.”

  I turn at the sound of the door unlocking, and Pierce and Huang are coming in, hands empty. I’m wondering what went wrong when Sheriff Williams follows them in, with Sanchez right behind her.

  Not a problem. Food can wait.

  Williams is wearing a worn camo jumpsuit, zippered up the front, hands covered with black leather shooting gloves. She’s holding her carrying case in her right hand and says, “Major? Heard you were looking for me.”

  I stand up, left leg complaining once more. “I am.”

  “Good,” she says, holding up her bag. “Same here. And sorry to say, because I love the Army and such, I’ve got the final nails in those Rangers’ coffins.”

  Chapter 39

  WILLIAMS SITS AT the near table, takes a laptop out of her bag, and says, “I was on my way to have a peaceful afternoon at the range when I got a phone call and then an urgent email.” She powers up her laptop. “Then you contacted my office, and here I am.”

  Chairs are pulled in, and I try to keep my leg out of the way.

  As the sheriff’s computer comes to life, she says, “I see a hell of a lot of reporters out there. I bet it’s gonna get worse for you once the news gets out about that Ranger who just died. When I leave, I can send a couple of my off-duty deputies to set up a little cordon—at least they’ll keep the reporters at a distance.”

  Huang looks like he’s been gut-punched, and I say, “No, we’ll be fine. What do you have, Sheriff?”

  I know I should feel grateful to the sheriff for coming by, but it’s unsettling. I wanted to talk to her over the phone, on my terms, not have her barrel in, like she’s once more showing off that this is her town, her county, and ultimately her investigation.

  Biting her lower lip, she works the keyboard and says, “Harold Blake, over at the GBI, gave me a frantic phone call and a screamer email a while ago about our Stuart Pike and his merry gang of drug dealers.”

  I say, “You said earlier you considered the Georgia Bureau of Investigation vampires, that you never let them into an investigation because they’d take it over.”

  “Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I?” she says. “But that’s if I invite them. And this was no invite. This was a sharing of information. Big difference.”

  Sanchez—my former LA cop—says, “Cooperation is nice, when it happens.”

  Williams flashes a smile at Sanchez. “Who said anything about cooperation? It was a sharing, that’s all. Investigator Blake and I go way back…including a weekend at Myrtle Beach when we were both younger and he was married. Okay, here we go.”

  From the laptop’s tiny speakers comes a burst of static, and she says, “All right. This is what we have. My buddy Harold, he’s working on the South Georgia Drug Task Force. It’s a mix of GBI, the FBI, the DEA, and even the State Police. They’ve been doing a lot of investigating, tracking, and surveillance of drug dealers in this part of the state.”

  Connie leans over the table. “Stuart Pike was being watched, then.”

  “That’s right, young lady. They had The Summer House wired. Stem to stern. And Harold sent me—strictly on the QT—an excerpt from what was being recorded in Pike’s room the night of the shootings. I’ve listened to it three times…and by Christ, I get the chills each time. Now it’s your turn, I’m afraid.”

  Williams rotates the laptop, and there’s an icon in the center of the screen, depicting a recording system. She puts her finger down on a button, and the hiss of the static gets louder.

  Muffled voices. Music and little bursts of fake gunfire and explosions.

  “Got you, you…” one of the voices calls out.

  A low squeaking noise and a slight moan, and a louder man’s voice: “Will you shut up down there? Trying to get some rest…”

  Williams says, “That figures to be Pike, in his bedroom. The other noise is from the two guys and gal downstairs, playing that video game. Okay, in about two seconds…”

/>   I think, One one-thousand, two one-thousand…

  A loud thump bursts out of the speakers. In my imagination I know what’s just happened: using det cord, the assailants have blown open the door.

  Shouts.

  Screams.

  Muffled pop, pop, pop.

  I know that sound.

  Pistols with sound suppressors.

  More screams.

  Footsteps pounding on stairs.

  “Go!” a woman screams. “Go!”

  Sound of a door slamming open.

  Man’s voice: “Gina, what the hell—”

  “Stu, please, please—”

  A little girl is crying.

  I know I’ll never forget that sound, ever.

  Two more muffled shots, then a low voice murmuring a sentence, and one more shot.

  A few seconds pass by.

  Williams swallows. “We’re sure that’s Gina Zachary and her little girl, Polly. That third shot was for Stuart Pike.”

  Just the faint murmur of voices, and then one last muffled shot.

  “The older sister, Lillian,” Williams explains. “She was the last one.”

  I say, “There are a few words on the recording, just before Pike gets shot. Can you play that back, louder?”

  Williams says, “Sure. I know exactly where to replay it…and I know what it says, but I want you folks to make up your own minds on what you hear.”

  We’re all leaning into the laptop that is offering so much, and Williams touches a few keys. The sound is louder, with the hissing of the static, and the sound of the gunshot is so loud it seems like it’s coming from inside the room, and then a man’s voice, low and full of anger and strength:

  “This is what you get when you screw with a Ranger’s family.”

  I slowly sit back.

  Williams scratches at the back of her head. “Sorry, folks, this about wraps it up, doesn’t it? Those Rangers are guilty as sin, and we all know it now, don’t we?”

  Chapter 40

  IT’S EITHER LATE at night or early in the morning—depending on one’s point of view—and Special Agent Connie York is awake in her damn uncomfortable bed, sitting up, her laptop in front of her.

  Her temporary roommate, Pierce, is only three feet away, but he’s sleeping soundly, which is a gift. She has foam earplugs that she always brings with her on trips, to deaden any noise out there that would prevent her from sleeping, but she could be in the middle of a dead desert tonight with no sounds and she still wouldn’t be able to get to sleep.

  Too much is going on.

  Since Sheriff Williams left with that one last and compelling piece of evidence, and after a lousy evening meal and even lousier discussion about what to do next with the major and the rest of the crew, she’s now here in her shared room, watching and rewatching the convenience store surveillance tape.

  Something is bugging her, and she can’t figure out what it is.

  The lights are off in their cruddy room. Occasionally she hears voices outside, from either drunks leaving the town’s few bars after closing time or members of the press, still hovering around them like the vultures they are.

  The only illumination comes from her laptop, and the brief bit of surveillance tape she views again and again.

  Outside the store, near the gas pumps, Specialist Vinny Tyler and Specialist Paulie Ruiz are smoking, talking, pointing at each other. Voices seemingly raised. An argument going on.

  “Oh, damn,” she whispers. “Too bad there’s no audio. I’d love to hear what you fellows are saying.”

  Inside the store, Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson and Corporal Curtis Barnes move briskly and efficiently, going to the rear to get energy drinks and then coming up to the counter to pay for their purchases.

  Money is passed over and change is received. Outside Tyler and Barnes are still talking, and it seems like Tyler is on the defensive. Hard to pin it down, but it looks like poor Tyler is making an argument to Barnes and is losing.

  Poor Tyler indeed, his life ending not on some foreign battlefield in the service of his country but in some steel-and-concrete cell in a small Georgia town.

  She goes through the surveillance tape two more times. Yawns.

  Something is still wrong.

  Again, she goes back to the beginning and sees the big pickup truck roll in, and the owner, Vihan Laghari, is sitting on a metal stool, smoking a cigarette, watching the television set underneath the counter.

  When the door opens up, Laghari stubs out the cigarette, stands up, and—

  She rewinds the video.

  Watches.

  Rewinds the video.

  Even in the poor black-and-white quality of the video, she can make out what Laghari is watching on the hidden television.

  It’s not a Bollywood program.

  It’s one of those reality housewives shows on the Bravo network.

  “Damn,” she whispers.

  She opens a browser window, gets to work, and there’s a pounding on the door that goes on and on and on.

  York instantly slaps the cover down on her laptop—getting rid of a light source—then she rolls over onto the floor and thrusts her right hand into her open go bag.

  On the other side of the room Pierce wakes up and says, “What the hell is going on?”

  The pounding is heavy, hard, determined.

  “Keep your voice down,” she says to the JAG lawyer. “Somebody either wants in or wants our attention.”

  She slides along the wall, SIG Sauer in hand, and she quietly unbolts the chain to the door. There’s a peephole in the door, but there’s no way she’s putting an unguarded eye up to it. Too many memories of horror movies with ice picks driving through the peephole into dumb victims…which she most certainly is not.

  York grabs the doorknob, gives it a good spin, and quickly pulls the door open.

  Outside an angry-looking Major Cook is there, metal cane in hand, dressed in gym shorts and a gray-and-blue NYPD T-shirt, and he says, “Choir practice. Now.”

  He limps off to room 11, and after grabbing her laptop she follows him, with Pierce right behind her, yawning and scratching at his head.

  Pierce says, “Mind telling me what ‘choir practice’ means?”

  The laptop is warm under her arm. “Old cop slang. An after-hours meeting, unofficial, no records kept. Usually it means an after-shift party. Or an ass kicking. Care to guess what we’re in for?”

  “No,” Pierce says.

  Inside room 11 it’s warm and stuffy, and it smells of sweat and old grease, just like her own room with Pierce. If there’s housekeeping at this motel, Connie has yet to see it.

  Huang and Sanchez are there, sitting next to each other, wearing shorts and T-shirts. Sanchez has a number of tattoos on his large upper biceps. The major waits until everyone is seated and then slams the door shut.

  Nobody says a word. Everyone is paying attention. Cook’s face is mottled red, and York thinks this is the first time she and the others have seen his wounded leg. She’s shocked at how pale and thin it is, and how the flesh is puckered and ridged with scars and burn tissue. The pain her boss goes through every day must be tremendous.

  He says, “Listen up. Look around. This is a special unit, coordinated by the Criminal Investigation Division of the goddamn United States Army, tasked to investigate crimes of high interest and severity. That means Colonel Phillips and myself thought at one point you had the experience and guts to get the job done.”

  York’s computer is on her lap, and she’s slowly manipulating the keys, wanting to take a closer look at what the new browser window is revealing.

  Cook leans into his cane, and she thinks he’s standing here, leg exposed, to shock all of them, and the major’s doing a good job. Even though she’s quietly working on something else, his words shoot out at them like chunks of cold stone.

  “Right now, damn it, you’re failing. All of you. You’ve done some preliminary work gathering information and evidence, but you kno
w what? It’s all been fed to us! All of it! The police reports, the witnesses, the surveillance tape, the forensics, the county coroner…everything has been set up on the proverbial goddamn silver platter, and right now it stops!”

  York freezes the browser.

  My God.

  Can this be true?

  Cook nearly shouts, “Sanchez!”

  He sits up. “Sir!”

  “Wendy Gabriel, the witness who has the dog. Find her or find someone who knows why she’s gone, or where she’s gone. You hit every mobile home and shack within five miles of that place. You go back to her home and you look it over, see if there’s anything there that says why she left and where she went.”

  “Sir, she’s a hoarder and—”

  “I don’t care if she collects her dog’s urine in mason jars. You get back into that house and find something. Pierce.”

  “Sir,” Pierce says.

  York slowly moves her fingers, the digits feeling fat and clumsy, because she can’t believe what she’s just found.

  “Pierce, you get your ass back to the Ralston jail. Do whatever you have to do to talk to the Rangers. Why in hell are they planning to defend themselves without outside counsel? Are they being pressured? Blackmailed? And when you go to Ralston, you take Huang with you.”

  Huang says in a tired voice, “But, sir, I mean—”

  “Doctor, shut up and do your job,” Cook says, his face even more red. “You suck it up and get back to Ralston, and you do your damn professional best and get in there and talk to those Rangers. What happened to them in Afghanistan with that civilian house they supposedly hit? What rivalries and jealousies do other members of their battalion have against them? What do they think drove Tyler to kill himself?”

  York is staring at her computer screen, hoping she’s right, hoping she’s—