She leans against the fender of the car, the metal still warm, and pulls out a burner phone she purchased with cash and with a hat pulled over her eyes from the Walmart Supercenter on Abercorn Street.
Time check: 2:00 a.m. on the dot.
The phone rings, and she puts it up to her ear and says, “Yes?”
The connection is lousy, full of static and random pops and hisses.
“How’s it going?” comes the demanding male voice. It sounds like he’s on his way to the other side of the world.
“It’s going all right,” she says.
“You call that all right?” A louder burst of static and “…told me it would be open-and-shut, that the Army would come in for a day or…” More static. “…but they’re still there, aren’t they?”
“Yes, sir, they are,” she says. “But it’s a big case. I didn’t think they’d send down a special squad to work it.”
“Well, they did, didn’t they?” And his voice fades out. For a moment, she hopes he’s out of range.
No such luck.
He comes back and says, “What now? How much more coverage is this going to get?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll work it, don’t worry. We’ll get it wrapped up soon. I promise.”
“…better,” he says. “This Major Cook. You’ve seen and talked to him…” Another pause. “…next?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
He says, “I said, when are you talking to this Major Cook again?”
“Tomorrow,” she says. “I’m sure it’ll be tomorrow.”
“Tuesday? Tuesday?”
Shit, she forgot about the time.
“No,” she says. “Monday, later today.”
“Handle it, all right? Or you can forget ever…”
The line goes dead.
“Sir? Are you there? Sir?”
Dead air.
All right, then.
She switches the phone off, takes a penlight out of her pocket, switches it on, and removes the back of the burner cell phone, removes the SIM card, and snaps it in two. Then she walks to the edge of the road—damn it, thorns just scratched her left hand!—and tosses the broken SIM card and phone into the swamp.
For a moment, in the heavy air with the loud noises of the swamp, she looks over at the lights of Hunter.
Men, she thinks, shaking her head and going back to her civilian car. So damn weak.
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:
Dear Army officer,
It would really make me happy to talk to you about what happened at The Summer House.
Sincerely,
Peggy Reese
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.”
Chapter 30
DESPITE ITS NARROW AISLES, the Route 119 Gas N’ Go is well stocked. Its overflowing shelves boast everything from motor oil to fishing lures to canned goods to paper products, with coolers and freezers at the far end. Special Agent Connie York is up at the front of the store with Major Jeremiah Cook.
Behind the checkout counter topped with dispensers of cigarette packs and tins of chewing tobacco is Vihan Laghari, the store’s smiling owner dressed in jeans and a pink Lacoste polo shirt. He has a thick black moustache, two gold chains around his neck, and three gold rings on his hands, which he constantly rubs as he speaks. He says in barely accented English, “A bad deal, what happened. A very bad deal.”
“It certainly was,” Cook says, smiling. “And for the third time, please, Mr. Laghari, may we see the video surveillance from that evening?”
“Of course, of course. Right this way, good sir, good ma’am,” he says, going to the other end of the counter and gesturing them in. A young boy and girl look up from their cell phones, smile, and go back to whatever games they’re playing. They’re wearing khaki shorts and bright-yellow T-shirts printed with the store’s logo.
York takes in the crowded work area. More cigarettes, large plastic bins with lottery scratch-off tickets—or, as they’re called here, scratchers—and, underneath the counter and cash register, a color television with a bright, sharp picture. She’s not sure what the program is, but it’s some sort of musical number with young Indian men and women in bright clothes dancing in a meadow somewhere.
On the side counter, a large computer screen displaying four surveillance video feeds is hooked up to a laptop. One shows the store entrance, the second shows the outside with the four gas pumps, the third shows the rear of the store, and the fourth focuses on the cashier area. She sees herself, Cook, and Laghari on the screen.
“See?” he points out. “Recording all the time, twenty-four/seven. For two days, then records over. When we heard about those dreadful murders, dear me…Sheriff Williams, she asked me if I saw anything that night, and I said no, the usual customers.” Laghari shakes his head. “But later she came back and asked to review that Wednesday night. She was looking for something.”
Cook asks, “Did she tell you what?”
Another shake of his head. “No, no, no. Just a review of a few hours, and she spotted it. She thanked me very much for my help. Would you like to see that Wednesday night? I kept a copy of what I gave to the sheriff.”
“Very much so,” Cook says.
“My boy, Prince, he will help,” the store owner says. “He knows all this computer stuff.”
Laghari speaks loudly in a burst of Hindi, and the young boy gets off his stool, puts down his handheld device, and comes over. “Sure, bapu,” he says. The young boy works the keyboard, and the live feed of the surveillance cameras shrinks to a small square in the corner. His fingers rapidly go to work, and then…
Up comes a recording.
“Here,” the boy says. “Here’s what the sheriff copied.”
York’s throat thickens as she watches the footage, and she feels her heart rate increase.
A pickup truck pulls up to the front of the store. Four men get out, and she recognizes the four Rangers: Staff Sergeant Caleb Jefferson, Corporal Curtis Barnes, Specialist Vinny Tyler, and Specialist Paulie Ruiz. Jefferson and Barnes go to the store’s rear cooler section, grabbing some type of power drinks. As they’re in the store, Tyler and Ruiz remain outside, smoking cigarettes and having a heated discussion, lots of finger-pointing and arm-waving.
Connie checks the time stamp. The day is last Wednesday. The time is 7:40 p.m.
Twenty minutes or so before they’re seen leaving the site of the killings.
Jefferson pays cash for the drinks. Barnes is behind him, face hard and determined.
Laghari works the cash register, and then the two Rangers leave. Tyler and Ruiz drop their cigarettes on the ground.
“See?” Laghari asks. “Just what I saw that night…soon before the dreadful murders.”
Cook says, “Connie? Get a copy of this, will you?”
“Yes, sir,” she says, going into her bag, fumbling around for a second, coming out with a thumb drive.
But she knows she won’t need it.
What she’s just seen in the surveillance tape will remain sharp and clear in her mind for years to come.
The four Rangers, all dressed in fatigues, boots, and MOLLE harnesses.
Jumping into their truck and quickly driving away.
Off to perform a mission.
Chapter 31
CAPTAIN ALLEN PIERCE finds the law offices of Cornelius Slate busier this Monday morning than during yesterday’s visit. It’s already been a grueling time since he arrived here, and he hasn’t gotten much sleep. At first he thought it might be a treat—okay, sexist and rude, but he’s male after all—to share a room with Agent York, but she has been brisk and no-nonsense, and goes to bed in shorts and a T-shirt. Nothing untoward has happened.
Which is fine.
He yawns repeatedly and barely has enough energy to do his job.
Slate’s waiting area has five chairs, and all of them are occupied. A man holding metal crutches stares at the cast on his lower left leg. A young man in jeans and a T-shirt sits slumped, fingers working on his cell phone, baseball cap sideways. An older couple sit stiffly next to each other, one periodically turning a head to whisper harshly to the other.
The interior door opens. A woman in a floral dress belted in slim black leather steps out. Her brown hair is cut short, and her round glasses look vintage 1985.
; “Captain Pierce? Attorney Slate will see you now.”
“Thanks,” he says, getting up and grabbing his case, following the woman into Slate’s office. He sees her belt has missed a loop at the rear and decides to keep that observation to himself.
Slate is better dressed today—blue shirt with a white collar, red necktie, gray slacks—and he comes around his desk to say, “Captain Pierce! Good to see you again. Glad I could make time to fit you in. Have a seat, have a seat. Coffee?”
Remembering the vanilla swill he had yesterday, Pierce says, “No, thanks. I’ve already had my morning allotment.”
Slate grins, goes back to his desk, and says, “Well, I’ve got some news for you, Captain Pierce.”
Great. No more son. At least Slate didn’t call him boy instead, which Pierce sees as a small victory. He says, “What’s that, Mr. Slate?”
Slate looks down at his desk. “We’ve got the arraignment hearing set up for those four Rangers this coming Thursday, only three days away. Circuit judge Howell Rollins shuffled his schedule, so the judicial process is starting to grind its way along.”
“But not much is going to happen at the hearing, correct?”
“Nope, not at all,” Slate says. “Official reading of the charges and pleas entered. That’s about that.”
“How about representation?” Pierce asks.
“That’s a funny thing,” Slate says.
There’s a line from a Joe Pesci movie Pierce is tempted to use—Funny how?—but instead he says, “Could you explain?”
“Sure,” the district attorney says. “I visited the prisoners this morning, just to see where things are. And those four are refusing outside representation.”
“But…you’re saying the hearing is still scheduled for Thursday? Even without representation?”
Slate nods. “That’s right, Mr. Pierce. You see, the thing is, these four plan to represent themselves.”
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