The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)

“Not many Dinahs out there,” he said. “I’m figuring you were named for Dinah Washington. And your boys, maybe Charlie Parker and Miles Davis?”

“I’m impressed,” she said. “Yes, my father loved jazz. There was always music in the house when I was growing up. I suppose I caught it from him.”

She smiled to herself. “James, though. James was more of an old-time R-and-B guy. Ray Charles, Sam and Dave, the Staple Singers. Maybe that was why I fell in love with him in tenth grade. He loved to sing. We were in the church choir together.”

Peter thought of Jimmy in Iraq. He wasn’t singing. He was doing push-ups, or checking his gear, or studying maps. Mostly he was talking to his guys. Getting their heads straight. Keeping them right.

Dinah said, “When the boys were little, and James was home on leave, he’d sing them to sleep. He’d lie on the couch with them on his chest, his big arms around them, and sing so softly I could barely hear him. But that deep voice of his, it would go right through them. ‘Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me hooome . . .’” Her voice was smoky and low.

Peter didn’t even know that Jimmy had a music player. Some guys were like that, especially when they were fire team or squad leaders. They sort of put themselves aside. Submerged themselves in the squad. The war wasn’t about them. It was about the men they were charged with leading. With protecting, as much as possible, from the war. While still doing their best to win it.

Maybe if Jimmy had kept singing, he wouldn’t have killed himself.

Peter checked the mirror again. There was a black SUV a half-block behind them. A big Ford. Peter couldn’t see the driver’s face. But he thought there would be a starburst of scars marking the right side of his face, and his right earlobe would be missing.



He said, “So what happened? With Jimmy, I mean.”

Dinah said, “We got married out of high school. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea, but we just couldn’t wait. We wanted to eat each other up.” She gave Peter a sly look. “Do you know what I mean? Have you ever felt like that for someone, that kind of hunger?”

Peter looked at Dinah, at her cool blue eyes. He knew what she meant.

Dinah said, “Well, that’s how it was for us. James went to work as an apprentice plumber, and I went to nursing school. We had a plan. When I graduated and got a job, it would be his turn for college. Then the towers fell.”

She looked out the window. “Once they had him, they wouldn’t let him go. They said he had essential expertise. He did three tours and kept getting extended. Can you believe that?” She shook her head. “He had to get blown up to get sent home.”

Peter nodded. That’s how it was for a lot of guys. If you didn’t take the re-up bonus, they would keep you anyway. And maybe that was the story Jimmy told his wife. But Peter knew the real deal. They had talked about it. Jimmy stayed in for the same reason Peter did. He was good at war. And someone had to take care of his guys. To get them out alive.

The truck bumped along. The roads were getting worse as the neighborhood changed. More storefronts were vacant on each block. On the side streets, house after house with the shingles slipping from their roofs. Broken car windows covered with plastic sheeting and duct tape. The black Ford bounced in their wake.

“His physical injuries healed well enough,” she said. “But once he came home from the hospital, he seemed like a different person. He became angry at the slightest thing. Sometimes at nothing at all, as if he were looking for an excuse to explode. Then he was just angry all the time.”

Peter nodded. All those years of war had changed him, too. It was the white static, but also something else. He had become a vast reserve of energy kept at bay only with exercise and work. It was a physical need to keep moving, keep doing, to solve whatever problem he had set for himself. If he let his engine idle too long, the white static would rise up inside him until he stood and got back to the job at hand. Maybe it was the war. Maybe it was just who he was now.

Dinah kept talking. “He couldn’t find work because the economy had crashed. He was a Marine Corps veteran with an honorable discharge and years of service, but he only had a high school degree, and he couldn’t find a job. I tried to get him to start his own business, fixing people’s plumbing. But James just couldn’t get started. I’d nag him and he’d kick a hole in the wall.”

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