The Summer House(29)
“Might be hard to find one.”
“Sir, no offense, you better find one,” he says.
Ninety minutes later, Major Frank Moore pulls up to his townhouse in Georgetown, his late-night dinner—fried chicken from a Publix store nearby—sitting on the car’s passenger seat.
Besides a quick meal, this Publix also offered a rare public pay phone outside, which he used to call Staff Sergeant Jefferson’s aunt, Sophie Johnson. The strong-willed and strong-voiced woman seemed to reluctantly agree to her nephew’s request to keep quiet and not stir up a fuss about what was happening to the staff sergeant.
Moore gets out of his Honda CR-V, goes up the brick pathway to the front door. It’s a nice, quiet development, and his wife, Patricia—four months along with their first child—is spending the week visiting her mom in DC. He gets to the door, puts the plastic bag on the steps, and, as he takes the key out to unlock the door, hears rustling in the shrubbery over by the living room windows.
Damn white-tailed deer, he thinks, are getting more and more brazen, coming out and chewing up everyone’s yard, and as he steps back to take a closer look, a man emerges from the shrubbery and says, “Hey, Major Moore.”
Before Moore can reply, the man pulls a pistol with a sound suppressor from his waistband and shoots the Army major in the forehead.
Chapter 21
IT’S EARLY EVENING and I’m leaning so heavily on my cane that I think the metal might split. My left leg feels like it’s a carved roast sizzling under an infrared restaurant lamp. My leg throbs and throbs, seemingly in pace with my heartbeat, and what’s keeping me going is knowing that this is our last visit of the day, and when I get back to my motel room, it’ll be time for my early evening ration of Extra Strength Tylenol.
Earlier Connie and I visited the Route 119 Gas N’ Go convenience store, and an eager young Indian man working behind the counter who didn’t speak much English managed to tell us that we needed to speak to his uncle Vihan in the morning to get access to the store’s surveillance system.
Now we’re at the side entrance of Briggs Brothers Funeral Home after a bit of sleuthing—all right, maybe ten seconds’ work on Connie’s part—revealed that the Sullivan County coroner is Ferguson Briggs, owner of the largest funeral home in this part of Georgia.
The building is white with black shutters, with a mini steeple to make it look like a house of worship, and a three-car garage is off to the side of a large paved parking lot. There’s a lot of shrubbery and a wooden sign out on the road painted black and a faded maroon color.
Without asking for direction from me, her commanding officer, Connie picks up the courtesy phone.
“Hello?” she says. “Yes, who’s this, please? Jim Briggs, thank you. Could you meet me at your door, please? I’m Special Agent Connie York from the US Army, here with Major Jeremiah Cook. Yes. We’re Army investigators and—thank you, we’ll wait.”
Connie’s face is red and shiny with perspiration, and strands of her blond hair are sticking to her forehead, but she still looks great. She catches me looking at her and says, “What?”
“Been a long day,” I say.
“Yeah, and not much progress,” she says. “I hope the others have something to show for it.”
“When we’re done here, send out a group text,” I reply. “Time for a session back at the motel before we call it a night.”
Connie looks over my shoulder at a nearby brick building with a concrete chimney and then the three-car garage and says, “Think that’s where they keep the hearses?”
“Watch your language,” I say. “They’re called coaches.”
Inside the funeral home lights click on.
“Duly noted,” Connie says. “Funny thing, the county coroner being a funeral director.”
“Lots of funny things here in Sullivan County,” I say. “And it’s an elected position. Meaning the good citizens of this county didn’t vote him in just because he’s got a degree in forensics or forensic anthropology. He’s here because probably he treats the locals with respect, sympathy, and doesn’t overcharge them for pretty boxes with shiny handles.”
“Aren’t you the cynic today,” she says, smiling. “Sir.”
Flying insects are hammering themselves against two yellow light bulbs when the rear door is unlocked, and a young man steps out, straightening his thin black necktie.
To Connie I say, “It’s a day ending in y…Thank you, sir, for coming to see us. Mr. Briggs, I’m Major Cook, and this is Special Agent York. We’re with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division.”
He’s about a half foot taller than me, early twenties, skinny, and he runs one hand through a thick tangle of brown hair while trying to tighten the knot on his necktie with the other. He has on black trousers, black shoes, a white dress shirt that’s wrinkled, and I have three quick assumptions: one, he’s wearing this clothing on a Sunday evening because his father told him to; two, like it or not, he’s going to inherit this family business one of these days; and three, he’s probably not alone back there in the funeral home. He’s either with someone else or a video game. I know I wouldn’t want to be alone, with bodies being stored in the building’s basement.