The Summer House

Chapter 29

My ringing cell phone wakes me up in the dim light, and I switch on the bedside lamp and grab the phone, resting on Bruce Catton’s Glory Road, which has traveled here with me and so far remains unread. At my side, my Panasonic Toughbook — my Army-issued laptop with which I’ve been reviewing and re-reviewing the four Rangers’ service records — falls to the floor. Which is fine, since the laptop is designed to perform even after being nearly blown up.

Like me.

“Cook,” I answer, and my caller replies with a series of heavy, deep coughs. When the coughing stops, I say, “Colonel Phillips?”

A weak voice says, “Good guess. Maybe you should be a goddamn detective or something.”

I check the time. It’s 6:00 a.m.

“You’re up early, sir,” I say.

“Got a lot going on,” he says. “I’ve read your email. Anything else to add before I brief the provost general?”

I rub at my sleep-encrusted eyes. “Nothing much except the news media are down here like sharks, smelling chum in the water after being starved for a week. They didn’t stop knocking on my door until about 1:00 a.m.”

“Gotta love the Constitution, don’t you?”

“All the time, sir,” I say.

He laughs and coughs twice, then says, “Game plan for today?”

“First I’m going over to Hunter to talk to Captain Rory O’Connell,” I say. “The entire Fourth Battalion has been dispatched, and he’s been assigned as rear detachment commander. I want to find out more about our four arrested Rangers.”

“What about the battalion commander? Or his XO? Or their platoon leader? They should be passing on that information to you, not a rear echelon officer.”

“They’ve all been deployed overseas. Sir. Just after we arrived.”

I can hear his labored breathing over the phone.

“That’s damn convenient, isn’t it?” he says. “Having the entire Fourth Battalion deployed. Making it damn near impossible to interview fellow Rangers and witnesses.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I reply.

“Good,” he says. “More you follow the way I think, the better your career will be. Get the job done.”

“Yes, sir,” and Phillips disconnects.

I swing out of bed, careful of my left leg, and damn if I don’t smell coffee. Not unusual since the coffee shop is just down at the other end of this strip of motel rooms, but it smells awfully close.

I toss a blanket over my shoulders, walk over, and see little squares of paper on the floor, like some odd cyclone dropped them off before I went to sleep. Bending over and catching my breath, I gather them up.

Handwritten notes from desperate journalists wanting interviews. Atlanta Journal-Constitution. USA Today. MSNBC. New York Times. Savannah Morning News.

And a sweet little scribbled note in red ink from Peggy Reese, of the Sullivan County Times, complete with phone number:

I crumple up the notes, toss them into a wastebasket, unlock the door, and peer out. It’s still dark outside, and there’s a shape of something in front of my door, and the sputtering and flickering of a small gas stove. My eyes adjust, and it’s Special Agent Manuel Sanchez, stretched out in a sleeping bag on top of a foam mattress, leaning against the wall, wearing a simple black T-shirt. Near him is the gas stove with a coffeepot gently boiling.

“Morning, sir,” he says, picking up the pot with a folded-over handkerchief. “Care for some fresh brew? Not sure what the shop over there is serving us, but it sure as hell isn’t good coffee.”

I drag one of the motel’s lawn chairs over and sit down next to my CID investigator. He’s smiling a good-natured smile, with his dark skin and perfect white teeth, but his eyes are always on alert, scanning back and forth. Sanchez is a man of reserved strength and violence. There’s a lot going on behind his eyes, and I’m glad he’s on my team.

He pours the coffee, and I say, “You’re the reason I stopped having people hammering at my door a few hours ago.”

“That’s right, sir,” he says, deftly lifting the cup to me. “Thought you needed a good night’s sleep after all the work yesterday.”

The coffee is hot, spicy, and sweet. “What is this?”

“It’s café de olla, Major,” he says, settling back with his own coffee cup in hand. “It’s a nice medium roast, but there’s cinnamon in there, along with an orange peel.”

I gingerly take another sip. I like it.

I ask, “How did you convince the news media to stop banging on my door?”

“Not just your door, sir,” he says. “Everyone’s.”

“Damn uncomfortable out here.”

He shrugs. “No worries. Besides, the doc, he snores something awful.”

“The reporters give you any trouble?”

Sanchez looks like I’ve just asked him if he cheated on a final exam. “Oh, no, they were quite sweet and cooperative. I love the press, and once they get to know me, the love comes right back.”

Right, I think.

I curl my hands around the ceramic cup, warm them. “What do you think?”

Sanchez frowns. “It’s a crap show for sure, Major. I don’t envy whoever’s going to rep those four... The evidence seems pretty overwhelming. You know? Lots of evidence and pieces... but...”

I wait. Sanchez will talk when he’s ready.

“It’s like, you know, we got a big puzzle and lots of pieces. The fingerprints. The shell casings. The witness supposedly seeing them drive out, even if her story’s kinda weak. The store surveillance tape. And now we find out from the sheriff that it looks like the Rangers killed all those folks for revenge. Lots of pieces.”

“Agreed,” I say.

Sanchez puts his cup down on the cracked concrete. “But the pieces aren’t fitting. Like, to make ’em fit, like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to do what my tio Pepe would do. When he’d get pissed doing a jigsaw puzzle, he’d take a pair of shears and cut the pieces to fit. That’s what I feel like. To make everything fit, we need to trim stuff.”

“You’re not liking the evidence?”

“Oh, no, Major, I’m loving the evidence. Makes me think we can wrap this up in a few days so I can go home to my familia. But still... I can’t see the Rangers killing all those innocents. Maybe the dealer, maybe a couple of others if they came after them with guns. But it looks like the civilians were surprised. A few of them were playing video games. The oldest woman, she was hiding and was dragged out from underneath the bed.”

I say the words I hate saying. “Then there’s the little girl.”

“Brrr,” he says. “That’s stone-cold, it is. I can’t see that. The Rangers, ’cept for the youngest one, they’re hanging tough. You’d think if they didn’t do it they’d be screaming that they’re innocent. So why aren’t they doing that? And then there’s my dog walker, who claims she saw that crew leave the house after all the shooting. Major, no way did she see that.”

I nod in reply, sip from my coffee, enjoying the dark pre-morning before the sun rises, before more phone calls and messages and questioning.

“After another briefing and a breakfast, you’re off to the dog walker again,” I say. “Get her story straight. Pierce is going back to the district attorney, get a read on when the first court hearing will be held. I’ll have Dr. Huang reinterview that young Ranger, and Connie and I, we’re off to that convenience store that caught surveillance footage of those four the night of the murders. And then we’re off to Hunter. When we come back, you’ll join us to examine the bodies at the funeral home.”

Sanchez nods. “Sounds like a full day.”

Recalling what I found earlier in the Rangers’ service records, I say, “By the end of the day, I want more pieces. And I want them to fit.”