Contagious (10 page)

FUN WITH SNOWMOBILES
The Jewell family reunion was turning out to be a smashing success, and Donald Jewell couldn’t have been happier.
Granted, there weren’t that many Jewells left.
Ma and Pa Jewell had gone to that big snowmobile trail in the sky. Ma five years ago, Pa less than six months later. They left behind their three children: Mary, Bobby and Donald.
Mary Jewell-Slater now lived in London with her husband. She couldn’t exactly fly overseas to see the family every Christmas. She called.
That was enough.
Bobby Jewell now lived in Ma and Pa’s house. He’d married his college sweetie, Candice, and promptly kicked out a bundle of joy named Chelsea, a curly blonde seven years old and worldly-wise.
Donald, the eldest member of clan Jewell, had divorced his bitch of a wife, Hannah, four years earlier. Hannah won custody of Betty, then twelve, now sixteen and hotter than a five-dollar pistol. Hannah moved from their home in Gaylord, Michigan, to Atlanta, taking Betty far away from her family. The divorce stipulated that Donald got Betty for every other holiday. So the first Christmas with Hannah, then Donald and so on.
This was his second Christmas as a divorced father.
Donald—now living in Pittsburgh—talked to his daughter at least every other day on the phone. They also chatted on webcam, emailed and even wrote some old-fashioned letters. They were as tight as a father and daughter separated by seven hundred miles can be.
Mostly from a distance, he’d watched his daughter grow from a gangly twelve-year-old into a stunning teenager who could have graced the cover of practically any magazine. She looked exactly like her mother, which annoyed Donald, because that made him hate Hannah just a little bit less.
He had thought he might be biased about his daughter’s looks, but when he showed pictures of her to his co-workers, their lewd hoots confirmed his fears. Those hoots had also, unfortunately, generated a couple of fights.
The same temper Hannah cited in the divorce papers hadn’t gone away.
His court-appointed psychologist called it “impulse-control problems.”
The shrink prescribed pills. Donald lied and said he took them. Everyone was happy.
His baby girl was growing up fast, and he didn’t want her to lose touch with her family. Thus the family reunion. A flight for Betty from Atlanta to Pittsburgh, then an eight-hour drive from Pittsburgh to Gaylord. Did they dread the drive? Nope, they got to talk the whole way up. Donald learned more about hot music, hot clothes, school gossip and backstabbing friends than he cared to, and he loved every minute of it.
Once she was back in Gaylord, the Southern Girl faded away and the Northern Girl came back to life. Betty hadn’t been on a snowmobile in two years, yet she hadn’t lost a step. In a white snowsuit on a blue snowmobile, she raced across an open field, with her father only fifty feet behind her and closing. Even over the roaring Arctic Cat engines and the whipping wind, Donald could hear her laughter. Let’s see Hannah compete with
this
. Bobby was at least a hundred yards back. He just didn’t have the aggression of Donald and, apparently, Betty.
Betty shouted something. Donald thought it was
Try and catch me, old man
, but he couldn’t be sure.
Bobby owned this whole area. Some places in the world, twenty acres was considered an “estate.” Near Gaylord, Michigan, twenty acres was just called “some land.” Mostly old cornfields, along with tall green pines, skeletal winter oaks and birch stands. Bobby lived smack in the middle of it all in total isolation—it took two minutes just to reach his house from the road.
Betty followed the trail into a left-hand bend that cut around a stand of pine trees. She slowed to start the turn, then gunned the engine, accelerating through the curve. She disappeared from sight for just a few seconds as Donald came around the curve behind her.
When he saw her again, he felt his nuts jump into his chest. Up ahead, the trail crossed a snow-covered road, and on that road was a brown and white Winnebago moving along at a good clip.
“Slow down, girl,” Donald hissed to himself. Betty couldn’t hear him or read his mind, obviously, because she poured on the speed. Donald tried to catch up and cut her off, but she had her throttle wide open.
The Winnebago started honking, but didn’t seem to slow. Betty apparently thought it would. Sick in his soul, Donald traced the two vehicles’ trajectories—she wouldn’t make it across in time.
Betty apparently saw the same thing. She locked up the brakes. The Cat’s back end fishtailed to the right, kicking up a wave of powder in front of it. The sled lost most of its speed but still tipped. Betty hopped off as the sled flopped onto its side and kept moving. She actually landed on her feet and slid for a few yards before she fell hard. The Cat skidded along the path for another ten feet, coming to rest right at the edge of the road.
The Winnebago roared by, trailing a cloud of powder. The big vehicle slowed down, working toward a full stop on the snowy road.
Donald skidded to a halt and hopped off his sled. Betty was already sitting up. Sitting up and
laughing
.
“Betty, are you all right?”
She took off her helmet, black hair spilling out across the shoulders of her white snowsuit. She laughed again, then winced.
“Owww,” she said through a grimacing smile. “Oh, Daddy, I think I hurt my boo-tay.”
He heard the Winnebago come to a stop and his brother’s sled approaching. Donald didn’t care about either; he was too angry.
“Betty Jean Jewell, what the
hell
were you doing?”
“Trying to beat you, of course,” Betty said. “If I could have made it in front of that RV, you would have had to pull off, and I’d win.”
“You
idiot
. You could have been killed.”
Betty waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, re-
lax
. You taught me how to dump a sled, Dad, I’m fine.”
“You’re not going on a snowmobile again, and that’s
that
.”
Betty’s smile faded. “Dad, seriously, I’m fine. I think you’re getting a little fired up here.”
He was losing his temper again, the same temper that had fucked up his entire life. He took a deep breath and started to get a hold of it.
And he would have succeeded, were it not for the driver of the Winnebago.
“You stupid little brat!” the man screamed. “What kind of a stupid fucking stunt was that?”
Donald looked up. The driver—a red-bearded fat man well past middle age—had gotten out of the Winnebago and walked over. He was only ten feet away. Donald’s temper shifted targets in an instant, fueled by the language directed against his daughter.
“Don’t you yell at her, Dale Junior, you’re the one tearing up the road.”
“I was going the speed limit, dipshit.”
“Daddy, please,” Betty said.
Donny didn’t hear her—he was already too far gone. “Dipshit?
I’m
a dipshit? You ever heard of a fucking brake pedal?”
Somewhere in the back of his head, Donald heard his brother’s snowmobile slow and stop.
The man pointed to the road. “You
see
the snow-covered pavement there, genius? You think you can stop a
motor home
on a dime on
that
?”
“Maybe you should take some driving lessons then, you prick. You could have killed my daughter.”
“
I
could have killed
her
?”
“That’s what I said, numb-nuts.”
“Donny, Mark, stop it!” Bobby yelled, but neither man was paying attention.
“Well,” the man said, “if
you’re
her father, maybe running her over wouldn’t be so bad for the gene pool.”
That tore it. Donald threw down his helmet and stormed forward.
And found himself looking down the barrel of a gun.
“Daddy!” Betty screamed.
“Just hold your horses, pal,” the bearded man said. “I don’t really care for a fistfight today.”
“Oh, wow,” Bobby said. “Uh, Mark, could you put that down?”
The man looked to his right but kept the gun leveled at Donald. “You know this douchebag, Bobby?”
Donald didn’t move.
“Uh . . . yeah,” Bobby said. “This is my brother, Donny. Uh . . . Donny, this is my neighbor, Mark Jenkins.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Donald said. He kept himself very still while he said it.
The bearded man looked from Bobby to Donald, then back to Bobby again.
“Oh,” the man said, and lowered the gun. “Well, sorry about that, then.”
A huge breath slid out of Donald’s lungs.
“Bobby, sorry about drawing on your brother, but he was coming at me.” He clicked the safety on and slid the pistol somewhere in his ample back waistband. They all stood there in silence for a moment.
“This is just a bit uncomfortable,” Betty said.
“So, Mark,” Bobby said. “How was your hunting trip?”
“Pulled an oh-fer,” Mark said. “Got all new rifles, and the deer just didn’t show up. This might not be a good time for small talk, though, Bobby. How about you and the family come over for dinner? Next week.”
“Will do, Mark,” Bobby said. “Be seein’ ya.”
Mark nodded, turned and walked back to his Winnebago. The Jewells watched him get in and drive off.
“That gun legal?” Donald asked.
Bobby shrugged. “Probably. You know as well as I do you don’t ask around here. He moved in last year. Has a bit of a thing for Candice.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Bobby said. “He’s fairly open about it. Normally that would chap my ass, but he can look all he wants. I don’t really make a big deal of it, for reasons I’m sure you can now appreciate.”
“Yeah,” Donald said. “I think I see where you’re coming from.”
“
Gawd,
Daddy,” Betty said. “You can be
such
an asshole. Can you please pick up my sled so I can go back to Uncle Bobby’s house and die of embarrassment?”
Donald did just that. She hopped on, then raced off down the trail. The Jewell brothers watched her go.
“She can really drive that thing,” Bobby said.
Donald nodded.
“Donny, I’m going to throw out a wild guess here. You haven’t been taking your meds, right?”
Donald shook his head.
“I figured as much,” Bobby said. “What I love about you is your consistency—you never learn. Come on, Candice is working on a big lunch, and my daughter the Blond Tornado wants to watch the Pistons with her
Unkie Donny.
Think you can manage that without trying to beat somebody up?”
“I can give it the old college try.”
They got on the sleds and headed back down the trail. Donald felt like a complete idiot, losing his temper like that in front of his daughter. What if the guy hadn’t been Bobby’s neighbor? What if he’d just been some jackass with a gun? Then Donald, and his daughter, could have been in real danger. Maybe he’d start taking those meds as soon as he got back to the house.
MOTEL -ROOM COFFEE
Dew sat in his motel room sipping a cup of motel-room coffee. He remembered when it was all fancy to have one of those little single-cup coffee machines in your room. Now they were everywhere, and they all skimped on the vitals—who the hell made coffee with only one creamer and one sugar?
Shitty as the coffee was, he needed that caffeine kick for this conversation. He held the coffee in one hand, his old bricklike secure satellite phone in the other.
“It was a bloodbath, Murray,” Dew said.
“You screwed the pooch this time, Top,” Murray said, using the shorthand for
top sergeant
, Dew’s rank back when they served together. Dew hated that phrase, and Murray knew it.
“You’ve put me up against it,” Murray said. “The new chief of staff is going to have my balls on a platter for this. I told them Dawsey was under control.”
“Yeah, well, that was a pretty stupid thing to do, L. T.” Murray’s old wartime shorthand for
lieutenant
annoyed him just as much as
Top
annoyed Dew.
“It’s not all bad,” Dew said. “At least Margaret has that test for the hosts. That’s a big step.”
“True, that will help some,” Murray said. “I don’t know if it’ll be enough—Vanessa Colburn has it in for me.”
“Something else might help, too,” Dew said. “After I sent my report, the guys found the daughter, Sara McMillian, in a shallow grave in the backyard. Killed by a hammer blow to the head. So it’s not like Dawsey was butchering innocents here.”
“Nice,” Murray said. “How’s the baby and the oldest son?”
“Baby is fine. No infection. Oldest son, Tad, he’s physically okay. Psychologically . . . well, turns out the father made Tad dig the grave for the sister.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I shit you not,” Dew said. “That’s what the boy said. And he’s probably telling the truth, because his hands are all blistered. It’s pretty hard to dig through frozen ground. Hence the
shallow
part of the shallow grave.”
“Jesus. Well, I guess I can say Dawsey actually saved Tad while I’m at it. Less psycho, more brave hero.”
“Murray, listen. I’m thinking maybe it’s time we put Dawsey away.”
A pause. “Define
put him away
.”
“Not
that
kind,” Dew said. “A sanitarium or something. A supermax. Whatever.”
“Come on, Dew,” Murray said. “You know we can’t do that.”
“He attacked two agents.”
“Baumgartner has a broken nose and Milner has a black eye, for fuck’s sake,” Murray said. “They’ve probably got worse in a pickup basketball game.”
“Doesn’t matter. Assaulting an agent is a federal offense.”
“Oh, are you going to start obeying the letter of the law all the sudden?
Let’s make that happen, Top. Maybe you and I can share a cell and have some quality time together before they give us the chair.”
Dew said nothing.
“That’s what I thought,” Murray said. “You know what? The kid’s no different from us. He just doesn’t have a badge.”
That one hit home. Was Dew actually like Perry? Willing to do whatever it took to get the job done? No, they weren’t alike for one key reason Dew didn’t want to admit—he’d killed a lot more people than Dawsey had.
“He wrecked that car,” Dew said. “He wants another one.”
“So get him another one. It’s only taxpayer money. Enough bitching about this kid already. Dew, we need a live host.”
“Why the fuck do you think I’m bitching
about
him? How am I supposed to get a live host when Dawsey is running around killing them like a fucking wild animal?”
Murray was silent for a second. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Oh, Christ,” Dew said. “Are you firing up a rah-rah speech?”
“Just shut the fuck up and listen,” Murray said. “And that’s an order. Your job used to be getting men to follow you, because if they didn’t, they’d wind up dead, and you probably along with them. This isn’t any different. Find a way to get the job done. Do it in the parameters set before you. I don’t want to hear about your obstacles or any kind of pressure you’re under.”