The Summer House

She turns, and Sanchez, Pierce, and Huang are inside the room.

“Quick,” she says. “Anybody know where they dump the trash for this place?”

Huang says, “I went out for a run early yesterday morning. There’s a Dumpster out behind the coffee shop.”

She brushes by them, goes out, and, damn it, a herd of reporters is out there, with cameras, notepads, pens, and they pepper her with questions as she makes a quick walk to the coffee shop.

“Excuse me, do you have any comment on the suicide...”

“Will the Army defend these killers of innocents...”

“Do you think the Army is responsible for the death of that little girl...”

She pushes through, gets around the corner of the building, and Sanchez is behind her, and bless Pierce and Huang, they hang back, block the reporters, trying to give her a few seconds to herself.

There’s low brush, plastic bags of trash, broken bottles, wooden pallets leaning up against the concrete-block wall. Ventilation fans hum in the side of the building. A dirt lot bordered by brush and saplings. A green Dumpster is next to the rear entrance of the coffee shop. She stops, sees a puddle near the bottom of the metal container, where grease, waste, and other nasty fluids have seeped out. Clouds of flies are buzzing around the open cover.

Sanchez says, “Damn,” but he’s smiling at her, like he’s daring her.

Dare taken.

She steps up to the Dumpster, grabs the greasy metal edge, hauls herself up, and falls in, losing a shoe in the process.

York tries breathing through her mouth, but it’s hard to keep focused. She’s knee-deep in trash, sludge, bottles, empty cans. No recycling program here in Sullivan County. There are vegetable peelings, cold mashed potatoes, clumps of grease, chewed rib bones, crumpled and soiled napkins, chicken bones. So many flies are buzzing and hovering that she’s afraid she’s going to swallow some.

Get to work, she thinks. Get to work.

Using bare hands — damn it, why didn’t she get a pair of gloves before diving in so quickly? — she moves piles of trash, broken green bags, more trash and peelings and sludge tumbling out, and she makes a mistake, breathing through her nose, and her mouth starts filling with saliva. Nausea is coming at her in waves.

“You okay in there, Agent York?” Sanchez asks from outside.

She’s afraid if she tries to talk, the vomiting will begin, and she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

In a corner is a pile of smaller, white plastic trash bags.

Like the ones motel and hotel maids use on their carts. She trudges over, breathing hard, something sharp poking her left leg, and she tears open the near bag. Crumpled paper towels, used tissues, scraps of plastic, and—

Bits of paper. Note paper.

Sopped through with coffee.

Connie carefully unfolds the notes, laying out the little bits of paper on a nearby piece of cardboard. CNN, the New York Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A note in careful cursive, with a phone number at the bottom.