The Summer House(45)

Briggs steps forward, pulls the sheet back over the dead girl, and slides the drawer back into the opening, closes the door. The basement is tile and steel and has the heavy smell of formaldehyde and other chemicals. There are two metal examining tables in the center of the room, with drains underneath, and cabinets and shelves on the other side. The room is well lit.

“Now,” Briggs says, “here’s the last of ’em. Stuart Pike. He’s the gent who was renting The Summer House and who was found in his bed up on the second floor. That girl Gina and her poor little girl, they were both on the floor near the bed. Too bad about that place…all that fine history that happened there and now it’s only gonna be known for all these killings.”

Sanchez looks at the body and then over to Connie. Her face is almost the color of the dead young man in front of them, probably still in shock at having seen the dead little girl. Sanchez doesn’t think Connie has had much experience with homicide victims, having worked most of her police career with the Virginia State Police. He thinks she probably saw a fair amount of traffic accident victims, but there’s a hell of a lot of difference between looking at someone who was killed in an accident—a tire blowing out at a high rate of speed, for instance—and someone like this guy, shot right in the forehead by someone intent on killing.

Cook says, “And are the county investigators finished with their examination?”

“That they are,” Briggs says. “We’ve heard from all the families, and with the investigation complete, we expect we’ll be releasing to them shortly. The poor folks.”

Sanchez says, “No offense, but the bodies haven’t really been autopsied, now, have they?”

Briggs shakes his head. “What, you want me to cut them all open and check their stomach contents? Or saw off the top of their heads, take out their brains and weigh them? What the hell would that prove? You’ve seen it with your own eyes how these poor folks died. What else do you want?”

Sanchez thinks, A complete autopsy and investigation, that’s what we want, and Cook is staring at something. Sanchez tries to see what.

The sheet has fallen off the left side of the drawer, exposing Pike’s right arm.

“Excuse me,” Cook says. “I want to look at this.”

The major limps over and leans his cane against the metal tray. He peers down at the right arm, and Sanchez steps in next to him. Connie stands on the other side of the major.

Sanchez sees a slight lump on the man’s forearm. Cook gently picks up the arm and runs his fingers up and down the cold gray skin. He says, “Do you see it?”

Connie says, “No,” but Sanchez thinks he knows what the major has learned.

“Let me try, sir,” Sanchez says, and like handing off some dreadful prize, Cook holds out the arm to Sanchez. The skin is cold indeed, but there’s something wrong with the wrist. He can actually move it from a midpoint down the length of the forearm.

“It’s broken,” Sanchez says. “Midway down.”

Cook limps around the body of the dead man and goes to his left arm. As before, he lifts up the arm, running his fingers across the forearm.

“Same here,” the major says. “Broken.” He looks at the funeral director. “Were his lower wrists bandaged in any way?”

Bragg rubs at his chin. “I remember so. Both wrists were wrapped up tight with those brown ACE bandages, you know? But no hard cast.”

Cook places Pike’s left arm back onto the metal tray, pulls the sheet over.

Connie says, “Both arms broken.”

“Like someone was sending a message,” Cook says.

Sanchez looks at the single bullet hole in Pike’s forehead. “This guy was on the second floor, in bed. Now we know why he didn’t get out of bed when the door blew open and the gunfire started. He probably couldn’t move quick enough.”

Sanchez follows the major’s lead, replacing the dead right limb back under the sheet. “Breaking both arms…I can see that, boss. You want to hurt someone for hurting your daughter.”

Connie cuts in. “That’s a fair message, for an Army Ranger who’s going after the drug dealer who hurt his stepdaughter. But killing everyone in the house…what kind of message is that?”

Cook limps back, retrieves his cane, leans on it, and then nods to the funeral director. “All right,” he says. “Now we’re done.”





Chapter 37



AT THE RALSTON town jail, Police Chief Richard Kane isn’t having a good day, and Dr. John Huang really doesn’t give a crap. The two are in Kane’s office—both standing, since the chief didn’t take a chair and Huang wasn’t about to do so and have this beefy cop with a thick moustache stand over him—and Kane says, “The hell do you think you’re doing, coming in here again, wanting to see one of them Rangers?”

Huang says, “My job—what else?”

Kane says, “You embarrassed me by coming in yesterday and foolin’ one of my jail attendants. You think you can come back here today and do the same thing?”

“Not at all,” Huang says.

“Then why are you here?”

“To interview Specialist Tyler,” he says.

“Why should I let you do that?” Kane says, his voice louder. “Why should I show you that courtesy when you faked your way in here on Sunday?”