The Summer House

Chapter 3

After my “workout” for the day, I’m resting on my bed at my condo rental just outside the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, reading Glory Road, the second book in Bruce Catton’s trilogy about the Union’s Army of the Potomac. I’m enjoying the book and hating Quantico, because it’s still not home, and it’s definitely not New York City.

My ringing iPhone quickly pulls me away from the year 1862, and my hand knocks the damn thing from the nightstand to the floor. Bending over to pick it up, I gasp as my permanently damaged left leg screams at me to stop moving.

And I quickly think of those poor Civil War soldiers, both blue and gray, how a shot in the leg with a bone-shattering Minié ball meant near-certain amputation. Some days I’m envious of them, suffering short-term grievous hurt and then living on without a damaged leg constantly throbbing with burning-hot pain. I declined a chance to get my left limb amputated, and some days I wonder if I made the right decision.

I grab the phone off the floor, then slide my fingers across the screen to answer.

“Cook,” I say, and a very familiar voice replies, “This is Phillips. What are you doing right now?”

“Besides talking to you, sir, I’m staring at my left leg and telling it to behave.”

Which is true. My left leg is propped up on a pillow. I’m wearing dark-blue athletic shorts and a blue-and-white NYPD T-shirt. My right leg is slightly tanned, slightly hairy, and highly muscular. My left leg is a shriveled mess of scars, burn tissue, and puckered craters of flesh where metal tore through it last year when I was deployed in Afghanistan.

But my left foot looks okay. Thank goodness for heavy-duty Army boots, which protected my foot during the long minutes when my leg was trapped and burning.

Colonel Ross Phillips, who’s probably a mile away from me in his office this bright Saturday afternoon, quickly gets to it. “We got a red ball case — a real screamer — down in Georgia.”

“Hold on, sir,” I say, and from my cluttered nightstand I pull free a small notepad and a pen from the Marine Federal Credit Union. I snap the pen into place and say, “Go ahead.”

He coughs, clears his throat, and says, “Sullivan, Georgia. About fifty miles from Hunter Army Airfield, near Savannah. We have four Army personnel in civilian custody, arrested by the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department. Their duty station is Hunter.”

“Four?” I ask.

“Four,” he says.

“Names and unit?”

“I’ve got someone tracking that down.”

“What are the charges?”

“Multiple homicides.”

My pen stops writing. I scribble and scribble and no ink appears.

“How many?” I ask.

“Another thing we’re tracking down,” he says. “We should know in a few more minutes. What we do know is that it was a house holding a number of civilians and that they were all shot. Some historical place called The Summer House. How original, eh? Our four guys were arrested by the county sheriff about forty-eight hours later, in a nearby roadhouse.”

“Who’s CID head at Hunter?”

“Colonel Brenda Tringali, Third MP Group,” he says. “But this case is no stolen Humvee from a motor pool. Mass killing of civilians by four Army personnel is one for you and your group. So far it hasn’t hit the news media, but it will soon enough.”

He coughs again. And again.

“Colonel... are you all right?”

“Shut up,” he says. “I expect you and your crew there by tonight. The sheriff for that county is Emma Williams. Get to her, use your folks to find out what happened, where it happened, and why. Do your job. And get it done. This brewing shit storm is going to rile up a lot of people and groups. Lucky for the Army you and your crew are going to be out there, taking the heat and whatever crap gets flung around.”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

“Good,” he says. “I’ll contact you once I have more information.”

My supervisor hangs up, and I throw the dead pen across the room, open the nightstand drawer — grimace again as my leg shouts at me — and find a new pen to scribble down a few more notes.

Then back to my iPhone. I need to reach out to the four members of my investigative unit, but there’s one call I need to make — and now — even though I’m dreading it.

I tap on the contact number — the number that last year was my home number — and wait for the call to be picked up in Staten Island, about 250 miles away.

It’s picked up after one ring, and the woman says, “What’s wrong?”

I rub the side of my head. “Sorry to do this, but I can’t come up tonight.”

“What about tomorrow?” she asks. “You know how much Kelli is looking forward to seeing you.”

“Tomorrow’s not going to work, and Monday won’t, either,” I say, hating to say these words.

“Jeremiah.”

“Yes.”

She says, “Work again?”

“Yes.”

“Germany?”

“No, that was last month. I’m leaving for Georgia later today. Is Kelli there?”

My ex-wife, Sandy, says, “No. But don’t you worry. I’ll tell her myself. How Dad is missing another volleyball tournament. And I’ll even tell Kevin you’re missing his Boy Scouts Court of Honor Monday night. Anything else I can do for you?”

Months ago these words were sharp blades that Sandy used so well, but now, after months of hearing them, the words have dulled some, though they still hurt.

“No, just tell them I’m sorry, that I’ll do my best to make it up to them.”

Sandy says, “Fine. And you got a call here from Gary O’Toole, wanting to know if you’re going to Pete Monahan’s retirement next month.”

“Pete?” I ask. “Pete’s pulling the pin?”

“That’s what Gary told me,” she says harshly, like I’m questioning her intelligence or her ability to listen carefully. “I guess Midtown South is planning a huge send-off. You should go.”

“No,” I say.

“You should go,” she repeats, “and you should kiss and make up with the chief of d’s... You know they were going to give you a nice desk job at One Police Plaza. I hear the offer is still out there, even if you’ve been a prick ever since you got hurt.”

I say, “Sandy, thanks for telling the kids I won’t make it. I’ll try to talk to them later this week.”

With that call out of the way, I send a text message to three members of my crew, giving them the raw basics. Rendezvous point and time to follow.

I pull up the contact of my fourth team member, but before I can call and speak to her directly, my iPhone chimes again. It’s Colonel Phillips.

He says, “More information, all bad.”

I get my new pen and pad and say, “Go ahead, sir.”

“The four Army personnel... they’re all Rangers. Assigned to the Fourth Ranger Battalion, stationed at Hunter Army Airfield.”

“Shit,” I say.

“Yeah,” Phillips says. “These aren’t four kids fresh out of Basic Training. Nope, these four are pros.”

“Names?”

“Jefferson, Barnes, Tyler, and Ruiz. Four-man fire team, part of Second Platoon, Alpha Company. Jefferson is a staff sergeant, fire-team leader.”

“Motive?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. And I got a count on the civilian deaths. Seven.”

Seven, I think. Seven civilians, gunned down by four Army Rangers. Jesus Christ on a crutch.

I’m in a race now, to see who’s going to get there first: my investigators and myself or CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and every journalist with a notepad, camera, or video equipment within a thousand-mile radius, ready to try to convict these men in thirty-second sound bites.

“Breakdown?”

He coughs once more. “Three men, three women. All shot at close range.”

I stop taking notes.

“Wait,” I say. “You said there were seven. And you said three men, three women. What’s the correct number?”

His breathing quivers for a long, long second.

“Six adults were shot,” he says. “And a two-year-old baby girl.”