by John Russo
Lauren stepped closer for a hug too, and he folded her and Jodie both into his arms, in a loving cluster that included the three of them.
Pete Danko peeked in and gruffly demanded, “What’s going on here? Too much levity in my police station?” But he smiled to show he was just kidding—for him a rare display of good humor.
Lauren said, “We got great news today, Pete. Jodie’s allergies have cleared up. The doctor doesn’t know why. It’s almost like magic!”
“Great, I’m happy for you. I hope it lasts,” Pete said.
* * *
Within the hour, Dr. Marissa Traeger learned about Jodie’s miraculous reprieve, not only from Pete Danko, but also from Dr. Miller, who forwarded her a copy of the allergist’s report. She studied it in detail. The findings seemed to have been verified, and she had mixed feelings about that. It was definitely good news for the Curtis family, but from a scientific standpoint she didn’t know how to feel or what to think. She was puzzled because allergies as severe as Jodie’s didn’t simply go away. Usually they got worse. It could take a long time for the immune system to break down, but once it happened it couldn’t be undone. Gene therapy might help someday, but right now anything like that was on the far horizon.
Dr. Traeger considered the fact that the children of the plague were remaining disease-free up till now. Could that anomaly, that unique trait, somehow be passed on to an ordinary child? Jodie Curtis had been bitten by Darius Hornsby when she was six years old, and Darius was a Foster Project adoptee. Was there something unusual in his saliva? Contemplating the fact that rattlesnake venom was actually a form of saliva that was poisonous, but could also be used to cure certain diseases, Dr. Traeger wondered if, by some stretch, a cure for the plague might possibly be hidden in Darius’s saliva. But if so, why hadn’t any anomalies been revealed throughout all of his many tests? Could there be something happening here that modern science couldn’t detect?
Dr. Traeger realized that she had no choice but to more closely monitor the Curtis child as she grew older. Luckily, Dr. Miller was on hand to help, and as Jodie’s pediatrician he was in a trusted and very close professional relationship with the Curtis family. It was a good thing that Homeland Security had done a thorough job of infiltrating the community with well-placed professionals, including pediatricians like Miller.
* * *
That night, Bill made love to Lauren with renewed joy and abandon. A weight had been lifted from their shoulders. They confided their doubts as to whether their good fortune would last, but for now they were able to push aside trepidation and surrender to the moment. They cuddled after their lovemaking and talked intimately and unreservedly, opening up to each other the way they used to. For the first time in years, they dared to think that happiness might lie ahead.
Jodie’s fear of being in school and away from her parents slowly subsided. Her grades improved, and she started making the honor roll. Bill bought her a smartphone, and just having it with her eased her anxieties considerably because now she could readily get in touch with her mother, her father—or an ambulance, if need be. Thanking Bill for the phone, she said, “I never told you this, Daddy, but the school nurse and some of the teachers didn’t believe me when I said I would use my EpiPen if I had to, but they would still have to get me to the hospital within twenty minutes. The nurse called me a liar, she said there was nothing wrong with me and I just wanted attention. So I was scared that if something bad happened to me, they wouldn’t call an ambulance.”
“You should’ve told me, honey,” Bill said angrily. “I would’ve gone straight to the school board. I would’ve made them apologize and do the right thing.”
“I guess I knew that. But I didn’t want the kids to keep making fun of me.”
“Did you tell your mother what the nurse said?”
“No, I was sure she’d freak out. She freaks out over everything.”
“I don’t think she’s going to do that so much anymore,” Bill said. “I think a lot of our problems are behind us.”
“I think so too, Daddy.”
Bill kissed Jodie on her forehead and gave her a hug, holding her tightly. She was the most precious thing in his life, and he never wanted to lose her.
CHAPTER 19
When Jodie turned thirteen, she was on her way to becoming such a typical teenager that she was constantly giving her mother a hard time. On the way to the pediatrician’s office, she kept complaining, “Why do I have to waste my time seeing Dr. Miller? There’s nothing wrong with me, Mother! I haven’t been sick in two years!”
“He’s not supposed to only treat you while you’re sick, Jodie. He’s supposed to do regular checkups so you don’t get sick.”
“Well, I’m not going to. I feel fine.”
Lauren was glad when Jodie put on her earphones and started making her fingers go like mad on her smartphone. It was a tactic she used to block her mother out, but this time Lauren found some relief in it. People talked so much about the “terrible twos,” but the teen years were far worse in her estimation. Jodie could be a pain in the butt. She was exceptionally healthy now that her allergies had gone away, and her self-image had improved a great deal as well. But now she thought she deserved to be treated like an adult without demonstrating much of the necessary maturity.
As soon as they both got out of the car, she started up again. “Mom, I hate coming here! I’m thirteen!”
“I don’t like to change doctors if I don’t have to. Dr. Miller knows your whole medical history.”
“What medical history? I never get sick anymore. If my friends find out I’m still going to a baby doctor, I’ll curl up and die!”
“A pediatrician’s normal practice covers children from birth to age eighteen. So you shouldn’t find it embarrassing to come here.”
“Well, I’m sorry but I do!”
After arguing all the way across the parking lot, they entered the building, which was a ranch-style home converted to a small clinic. Jodie slinked sulkily into the waiting room with a sour look on her face that instantly brightened when she spotted her friend Tricia Lopez sitting with her mother, Hilda.
“Tricia! What are you doing here?” Jodie sang out.
Lauren said, “Hi, Hilda. Hi, Tricia.”
Tricia said to Jodie, “C’mon, let’s sit together by the window.”
They immediately moved to where they could be apart from their mothers. Watching them and pursing her lips, Hilda said, “They’re both showing too much midriff. There’s too much sex stuff aimed at teenagers these days.”
“What’re we supposed to do?” said Lauren. “They’re young and pretty and the boys flock to them. They could pass as sisters, or twins even.”
“Except Jodie’s a blonde and Tricia’s a brunette,” Hilda said. “I wish they wouldn’t wear their jeans so butt-hugging tight and low on their hips, and their blouses showing so much bare midriff.”
“Me too,” said Lauren. “Jodie waited to get dressed and out of the house till it was too late for me to make her go back in and change into something more modest.”
Hilda’s eyes widened and she shook her head, saying, “Gosh, Tricia did exactly the same thing!”
“Sex, sex, sex!” Lauren exclaimed. “It’s all over the Internet and the movies and TV! Not to mention those lurid and violent video games. Isn’t life scary enough?”
“I know,” said Hilda. “I feel like throwing my hands up.”
“Amen!” said Lauren. “By the way, Tricia has such smooth, blemish-free skin. She takes after you, doesn’t she?”
“Why, thank you,” Hilda said. “My husband is darker. He’s Cuban. His name is Umberto but he goes by Bert, for the sake of his insurance business. It’s a shame that people can be so prejudiced.”
Lauren said, “Jodie’s just here for a routine checkup. It bugs her to come so often, but Dr. Miller insists on it. She’s been very healthy the past few years.”
“Same with Tricia. Do you think Dr. Miller is just
especially good at what he does? I don’t know what he puts in those vaccinations of his but sometimes I wonder if they’d work on me.”
They both laughed.
Lauren said, “Our two girls seem to really like each other. It’s a relief to me. Jodie used to be shy around other children.”
“Sometimes Tricia shies away from kids her age,” said Hilda, “but then with certain others she really hits it off. She likes Jodie, though.”
Both mothers smiled and glanced toward their daughters on the other side of the room, who were lost in their own teenage world.
Out of their parents’ hearing, Tricia asked Jodie, “Can I see your scar?”
“I guess so, if my mom doesn’t freak.”
“She’s not watching right now,” Tricia said.
Eyeing her mom, who had her head turned, Jodie held out her arm.
Tricia asked, “How old were you when it happened?”
“Six. It was at the playground. I didn’t start the fight.”
“With who?”
“Darius Hornsby. That snotty brat!”
“Well, he’s far from a brat now, Jodie. He’s a hunk!” Tricia whispered, “I’d let him do me. Wouldn’t you?”
“Tricia!”
“Well, it’s the truth. Almost. I think.”
They both giggled.
Jodie said, “I can’t think rationally about him. I’ve been seeing him in my nightmares for too long.”
“He must’ve bit you pretty hard. Did it hurt?”
“Sure it hurt. It bled a lot, too.”
“Do you know Amy Haley? She goes to our church. She has a scar like yours on her shoulder. I think Darius must’ve bitten her, too, just like he bit you.”
“Well, he’s not a little kid anymore. Maybe he doesn’t act like that anymore. But he still thinks he’s God’s gift to every girl he sees.”
“He could tie himself in a bow and be a gift to me anytime he wants to,” said Tricia.
“Why isn’t anybody being called in?” Jodie griped. “Where the heck is the doctor? I want out of here.”
* * *
Dr. Miller was in his office, putting off seeing patients because Dr. Traeger was sitting in front of his desk, confiding in him about a personal matter that might also have a bearing on the Foster Project. After listening in patient silence, Dr. Miller voiced his surprise. “You’re telling me you’re afraid of your own daughter?”
“Not afraid . . . suspicious,” Dr. Traeger said. “The kids she hangs around with seem nice enough, almost too nice. I can’t quite put my finger on it. They stick together in their own little clique, and now even the Curtis girl seems to be becoming part of it. They give each other sly, sneaky looks—and strange smiles.”
“Kids think they know everything at their age,” said Dr. Miller. “To them, all parents and authority figures are either invisible or else riding herd on them all the time. Kathy will grow up and change. Don’t let it bother you so much.”
“Well, her friends are all she cares about. Ever since my husband died, she acts like I don’t even exist. She shows me no warmth or affection whatsoever. She was like that before, but now it’s worse.”
“Does she blame you for her father’s death?”
“Maybe she blames herself. But she was only seven, and she wasn’t responsible.”
“Even though it wasn’t her fault,” said Dr. Miller, “she still could be carrying a lot of guilt. I think you should try not to be so uptight about her. The poor kid probably doesn’t know how to please you, so she keeps her distance.”
Those words hit home with Dr. Traeger. She knew she was hard to live with because she was so preoccupied. Her mind was always on her work. Yet she believed that her experiments would turn out to be a tremendous boon to people everywhere, including her own daughter. Wasn’t that a worthy sacrifice?
She said to Dr. Miller, “The funding for the Foster Project is going to run out in two years, after the children reach age fifteen. I’ve applied for another grant, but I don’t think it’s going to go through. The Homeland Security Department has other fish to fry, and the consensus is that our studies haven’t uncovered anything worth pursuing. I think they’re wrong, but nobody is listening to me.”
Dr. Miller said, “I promise you I’ll back you up if anything goes drastically wrong and they try to lay it at your feet.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Dr. Traeger.
CHAPTER 20
Detective Bill Curtis parked in front of a modest ranch-style home ringed by crime scene tape. A police car and a coroner’s van were already there, in the driveway. He took a deep breath, steeling himself against the horrors of what he was about to face.
Pete Danko was standing with the coroner in front of a big maple tree in the backyard, and Ron Haley’s body was hanging from a rope tied to a thick lower branch. A picnic bench was lying in the grass under the body’s legs, the bench tipped over onto its side.
Ron Haley had hanged himself.
Ron’s wife, Daisy, and his daughter, Amy, age sixteen, were also dead.
Bill had great respect for the way they had moved on with their lives, up till now, and so what had happened to them today was especially devastating to him. Amy was the same age as his own daughter, Jodie. It was sixteen years since the plague outbreak caused by infected needles, when Bill had helped rescue Ron and Daisy from the swarming mob of undead at the Rock ’n’ Shock. Since then he had seen Ron and his family fairly often, for instance at the American Legion Hall for the memorial service some years ago and since then at softball games or Legion picnics. Ron had become an English teacher at Chapel Grove High School and also gave private guitar lessons. Daisy had been a wife and homemaker and also a volunteer at a church-run day care center. Bill sadly wondered what could have caused Ron Haley, a decent family man, to kill his loved ones and then himself. Anytime he had seen them together, the Haleys had struck him as a cohesive and loving family unit. He had attributed that to the rough, drugged-out life Ron and Daisy had led and their resultant thirst for normality. It had looked to him that they had successfully separated themselves from the Hateful Dead and their groupies and hangers-on and had built a more rewarding life. And now it was suddenly and disastrously over.
Pete ordered Bill to have one of the uniforms show him into the house, telling him, “I’ve already doped out how it must’ve gone down, but you need more exposure to this kind of thing, so get with it.”
Bill thought, Maybe I haven’t investigated as many homicides as you have, Pete, but I’m not a total novice and you shouldn’t treat me like one. He vowed that someday he was going to tell Pete off. Probably he would do it in a tactful way. Or maybe not so tactful.
The sergeant in uniform led him up to the master bedroom, where Daisy lay in bed, a bullet hole in her forehead, her blood soaking the pillow and mattress. There were no casings in sight; either a revolver had been used or the shooter had picked up the ejected shell. Bill moved around the room and took in everything of note, of which there wasn’t much more to analyze. The photos of Bill, Daisy, and Amy on the nightstands on either side of the queen-sized bed showed smiling people who appeared to be immune to this kind of tragedy.
He didn’t see any bloodstains on the carpets or on the stairs as he followed the sergeant back outside. He saw no bloodstains on the grass, either, as the sergeant led him dutifully to the side yard and showed him where Amy had fallen. She was wearing filmy pink pajamas and had been shot twice in her upper body, one a direct bullet hit to the chest that pierced her right breast, and the other a large bloody exit wound that must have come from a bullet in her back.
Bill had to fight back tears. He had seen many young corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet he never got over the deaths of those who should have had long lives to live, lives of joy and purpose instead of brutality.
He was also a bit shaken when he saw an old scar on Amy’s shoulder that looked like teeth marks. It reminded him of the similar scar
on Jodie’s forearm, from the bite by Darius Hornsby at age six. Jodie’s scar was now less pronounced than Amy’s, so Amy’s was probably more recent.
Bill came around the side of the house and looked toward Pete, who was watching the coroner’s men take Ron Haley’s body down from the tree. He walked over as they were zipping up the body bag.
“What do you make of what you saw?” Pete asked sharply, as if giving a pop quiz.
Bill parried with, “Where’s the gun? Did you find it?”
“In the garage, on the workbench. A .38 revolver, Smith & Wesson. A six-shot cylinder with three cartridges expended.”
“Okay,” Bill said. “A revolver is what I figured. He likely shot his wife first, then he went to do his daughter, but she ran out of the house and he had to chase her. Brought her down with a bullet in her back, then finished her off with one to the chest.”
“Why did he hang himself?” Pete challenged. “He had three rounds left.”
“We’ll probably never know the answer to that. People behave in strange ways when they’re under extreme duress, and he must’ve been. Sometimes suicidal people don’t think they can pull a trigger on themselves, but hanging only takes an instant of enough gumption to jump off a bench.”
Pete’s follow-up question was “It looks like Ron Haley was the shooter, but how will we know for sure? Somebody could’ve strung him up, right? It’s been done before.”
“Did anybody do a GSR test?” Bill asked. “If not, his hands should’ve been bagged so they can be tested for gunshot residue at the morgue.”
“Already done,” said Pete. “Positive for GSR.”
He didn’t question Bill’s deductions on chain of events, so Bill supposed that he agreed with it. Otherwise he’d have picked holes.
Just then they were interrupted by a loud, angry voice, and they turned around and saw Reverend James Carnes storming onto the crime scene and halting behind the yellow tape. “Allow me to do the Lord’s work!” he demanded. “The dead will arise unless they are spiked!”
Bill’s feeling about people like Reverend Carnes was still that, in the face of something they could not understand, they naturally gravitated toward easy religious or superstitious explanations, like primitive peoples did when they could not understand lightning and thunder, not to mention the many revelations of modern science. In the absence of a cure for the plague, they resorted to prayers, charms, and potions so they wouldn’t feel utterly hopeless. The plague was a great boon to Bible thumpers like Reverend Carnes because it was so unfathomable that it seemed supernatural. Thus it seemed to validate a belief in gods, devils, angels, and miracles.