The Summer House(44)

She passes a Walmart tractor-trailer truck and keeps on speeding.

“Then the rumors start, the stories, the tales,” she says. “Other Rangers get drunk at local pubs and roadhouses, swap tales about what they heard the staff sergeant and his squad did in Afghanistan. ‘Can you believe it?’ they say. ‘Jefferson and his Ninjas got away with it again.’”

I keep my mouth shut. When an investigator who works for you starts talking, you let them talk. You don’t want to disturb whatever slender thread their mind and gut have come up with.

“There’s resentment,” she says. “Anger. They know what happened in Afghanistan. They think the Ninjas got away with it. All right, a couple of them think. Let’s set them up here in the States. Do something that can’t be overlooked, can’t be ignored.”

I say, “So another squad of Rangers committed the murders?”

“That’s right,” she says.

“A hell of a stretch,” I say. “There’s a lot of evidence pointing to this squad. The fingerprints. The woman with her dog. The shell casings matching Jefferson’s pistol. The surveillance video from the store. One of the men in the house being the drug dealer for Staff Sergeant Jefferson’s stepdaughter. Jefferson telling Dr. Huang he knew what The Summer House looked like. The younger Ranger, Tyler, expressing guilt to Huang.”

Connie nods. “But the fact they were accused of exactly the same crime in Afghanistan, Major…there has to be a connection. Something.”

My phone rings and I pick it up, seeing the ID marking AGENT M SANCHEZ.

“Cook,” I say. “What do you have, Sanchez?”

His voice is clear and right to the point. “Nothing, Major,” he says. “Wendy Gabriel is gone from her house. And so’s her dog.”

I close my eyes for a brief second. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” he says. “Her car is still there. I gained access to the interior of the house and didn’t find any blood spatter or signs of a struggle or any evidence something bad happened. She and her dog…they’re gone.”

“All right,” I say. “Agent York and I are en route to Briggs Brothers Funeral Home. Meet us there.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, and we both disconnect, and Connie gives me a quick glance.

She says, “Sir?”

“Still here.”

“We’ve just found out that the Rangers were accused of a war crime in Afghanistan, something similar to what happened here in Sullivan County. I think we should be trying to find out more about what happened over there. See if we can talk to those few Rangers who haven’t deployed. Ask Captain O’Connell to revisit his sources. I don’t see why we’re still going to look at those bodies in the funeral home.”

I move my leg, and miracle of miracles, there’s no harsh spasm of pain.

“We’re going there because that’s our job.”





Chapter 36



ONE OF THE REASONS Special Agent Sanchez likes working for Major Cook is because deep down he’s still an NYPD detective, and once Cook got the news about the missing witness, he didn’t waste precious minutes grilling Sanchez on what happened and where Sanchez thought Wendy Gabriel could have gone. There are other matters to address, and now he and the major and Connie York are in the cool basement of Briggs Brothers Funeral Home.

With them is the owner, Ferguson Briggs, who’s also the duly elected coroner for Sullivan County. He’s a slim, gaunt man with a thick head of black hair combed back and basset-hound eyes and jowls. He’s wearing a white knee-length smock over his black pants, white shirt, and black necktie, and for the fifth time this grim day, he says, “Have you folks seen enough?”

Sanchez certainly has, but he’s not going to say a word. Before him and Agent York and Major Cook are the fifth and sixth victims of the shooting at the civilian house, and Sanchez sees that York is having trouble keeping it together.

He doesn’t blame her. This slide-out metal drawer has the young mother—Gina Zachary—and her two-year-old daughter, Polly. Like the other victims, the dead woman has been stripped of her clothing and her body has been washed. Her body is slightly bloated, and her skin is a dead gray-white color. A white sheet is pulled up to her shoulders.

Thankfully, her little girl is under a smaller sheet, completely covered.

But Cook surprises him.

“No, not yet,” he says. “Let’s see the little girl. Polly.”

It’s like the room has chilled down another ten degrees. Briggs looks surprised, and York says, “Sir, are you sure?”

“Yes,” he says. “We’re here to find justice. No matter how grim. Mr. Briggs?”

The funeral home director stiffly walks over, pulls down the sheet. The little girl’s head is turned, thank God. There’s a wound in the center of her little chest, and someone has dressed her in fresh white little-girl panties.

His eyes tear up, thinking of his own little girls. All that innocence, sweetness, pure little-girl joy…snatched away with a brief, harsh moment of violence.

The passing seconds hammer hard, and Sanchez waits, hoping to hear something from the major, until thankfully he says, “All right. Pull the sheet back up.”

Thank God for small favors.