“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.