Chapter 52: You Have the Right to Remain Silent!

April 2, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“Say that again?!” I demanded, shaking the cobwebs of sleep from my head.

“Alan’s plane crashed on approach to the airport in Bristol. Everyone on board was killed. Alan’s dead.”

“Oh fuck!” I swore, sagging onto the loveseat.

“Yeah,” Jason sighed.

“Tiger? Are you OK?”

I nodded to Jessica and held my hand up for silence.

“Now what?” I asked.

“We ain’t racin’ this weekend, obviously. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”

“Where are you?”

“Bristol. We got a team meeting in a few hours. I’ll know more then.”

“Do you want to talk to Abbie?” I asked.

“Yeah, I reckon’ I should.”

“I’ll go wake her,” I said.

I put the phone down.

“Alan Kulwicki died in a plane crash last night,” I said softly.

“No!” Kara gasped.

“That’s Jason on the phone. I need to go get Abbie.”

I grabbed my robe and hurried downstairs. I knocked softly on Abbie’s door and called her name. Then knocked a bit harder and called louder.

“Wha ... wha ... it’s 4:15am!”

I opened the door, “Abbie, Jason is on the phone. Take it in my study, please.”

“Jason? Is he OK? What happened?”

“Jason is fine. Nothing happened to him. But go talk to him, please. He’s on my line.”

She got out of bed and put on her robe. She went to my study and I quickly went upstairs and as soon as I heard her speaking, I replaced the receiver. I heard her shriek, and my wives and I quickly went back downstairs to my study where we found Abbie sitting in my leather chair, tears streaming down her face.

“Where are you going to be?” she asked, choking back her tears.

I heard Jason’s muffled voice, but couldn’t make out what he said.

“Call me as soon as you know,” Abbie said softly. “I love you, Jas ... Bye.”

She replaced the receiver.

“He needs me,” she said.

“How about you?” I asked. “Are you OK?”

“I guess. But Jason is in bad shape.”

“When Samantha gets up, I’m going to ask her to have the Gulfstream ready to fly you wherever Jason is going to be. And I won’t brook any argument from you,” I said. “And if that plane isn’t available, I’ll call Jeri about the other one she and Howard use sometimes for their weekend getaways.”

Abbie shook her head, “I won’t argue. I just can’t believe it.”

I walked over to the desk and held out my arms. She got up, and I pulled her tightly to me and hugged her. She cried. I was stunned. I had tears in my eyes, but I wasn’t crying. I sure felt like crying, but right now, Abbie needed me. I held her for a couple of minutes until she dropped her arms. She got a tissue from the box on the desk and blew her nose.

“So what happens now?” Kara asked.

“His team won’t race this weekend,” I said. “That’s what Jason said and I’m sure he’s right. They have a team meeting in a few hours, so he’ll know more after that. Normally, a team would hire another driver, but Alan owned his own team so I have no clue what will happen. He wasn’t married and doesn’t have any kids. I think his dad is still alive, which I guess means his dad owns the team, now.”

“This is unbelievable,” Abbie said. “He just won the Winston Cup!”

“Let’s go make some tea,” I said. “I’m certainly not going back to sleep at this point.”

“I need a few hours,” Jessica said. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize, Babe. We’re fine. Go on back to bed.”

We kissed and she went upstairs, accompanied by Kara. I’d go up in just over an hour to get ready to run with Gina, but for now, I took Abbie to the kitchen.

“Do you know what happens with Jason’s job?” Abbie asked as I put the tea kettle on the stove.

“He works for the team. His boss is Paul Andrews. I guess Paul will tell everyone what they’re doing. I honestly don’t know what will happen now. Let’s just wait for Jason to call after the team meeting later this morning. I suspect if you turn on ESPN, you’ll get the news right away.”

“I’m not sure I want to see pictures of the plane,” Abbie said.

“OK. Well, then we’ll just wait for Jason to call. Samantha will be down for breakfast in about forty-five minutes. I’ll ask about the plane then.”

“Who will watch the kids?”

“I will, or Elyse will. We’ll take care of it. You worry about your man.”

Abbie smiled, “That is the weirdest thing to hear.”

“I heard you tell the man you loved him, and not for the first time. And I do believe at some point y’all are gittin’ hitched. And havin’ a passel o’ young ‘uns!”

“Do you WANT me to kill you?” Abbie said fiercely.

“That IS what I was thinking the other day when you put Samantha up to her little ‘birthday present’ joke.”

“Joke? I was deadly serious!”

“Because you’re a troublemaker! But I’m glad you can be a little lighthearted now. Jason’s going to need you.”

“I know. And you should accept your birthday present.”

I shook my head and got up to pour some tea for Abbie. Samantha came downstairs at her usual time.

“What are you two up to?” she asked.

“Abbie got a phone call from Jason,” I said. “The driver he works for died in a plane crash last night.”

“The guy from Wisconsin we met at the race?” she gasped. “Oh wow!”

“I’m going to ask you to break one of the rules,” I said. “Would the Gulfstream be available to fly Abbie to Bristol or Dawsonville?”

“If it’s not, I’ll make sure it is! When?”

“We need to hear from Jason. Probably tonight or tomorrow, I’d guess.”

“Let me call the FBO and find out.”

She went back upstairs to get the number, then called using the wall phone in the kitchen. The plane was there and wasn’t scheduled to be used, so she let them know that they might get a call from me or Abbie and they were to fly us wherever we asked.

“Want to go to Paris?” Abbie whispered.

“Ask Jason!” I replied. “Maybe you can join the ‘Mile High Club’!”

“All set,” Samantha said. “Call the number I just wrote on the whiteboard. Tell them your name and that you need the Spurgeon Capital plane. They’ll fly you wherever you need to go.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Thanks,” Abbie added.

Samantha gave me a quick kiss and set about her morning routine. I went upstairs to get ready for my run. I ran, had breakfast, and headed to the office. Abbie heard from Jason just after 10:00am and called me to let me know she was flying to Georgia at 4:00pm. I promised to be home by 2:30pm to watch the kids.

April 4, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“Thanks for coming to get us,” Abbie said when I picked her and Jason up at Meigs Field on Wednesday.

“You’re heading to Wisconsin on Tuesday?”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “The wake is Tuesday and the funeral is Wednesday. I can get you into the church if you want.”

I shook my head, “No. I don’t want to take the place of someone who really should be there. Do you know what’s going to happen?”

“Well, Felix Sabates is going to manage the team for Alan’s dad, Gerry. They ain’t named a driver yet. The rumor is Hooters is insisting on Loy Allen, Jr., but Paul Andrews said that Alan wanted Jimmy Hensley if something ever happened to him so he couldn’t race. I guess we’ll find out after Wednesday.”

“How are you holding up?”

“After you sent Abs to me? Just fine. I have to thank Samantha.”

“She’s at the house. I did tape the race today,” I said. “I watched.”

“Who won?” Abbie said. “I don’t feel like watching and I don’t think Jason does, either.”

“Rusty. He did a ‘Polish Victory Lap’ after he won. I cried.”

“Shit,” Jason said. “You have that on tape?”

“I do. You’re welcome to keep the tape if you want.”

“Make a copy,” Jason said. “If you can. If not, I can get one made.”

“I only have one VCR,” I said. “So yeah, if you can get a copy that would be fantastic. How long do you plan to stay?”

“I’m not sure. I probably need to be in the shop on Monday. We’re not racing until the 18th at North Wilkesboro.”

“Stay as long as you like,” I said.

“Thanks.”

April 8, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“The Russians had another nuclear accident,” I said.

“How bad?” Elyse asked.

“It’s not clear. It was at their ‘Tomsk-7’ nuclear processing plant. They had some kind of explosion and a cloud of radioactive gas, plutonium, and uranium was released. According to the article, this happened sometime on Tuesday when a steel tank containing a mixture of uranium and plutonium blew up after nitric acid was added to extract the plutonium. The explosion started a fire which was put out by local firefighters. Supposedly nobody received outrageous doses of radiation the way they did at Chernobyl.”

“Where is this place?”

“Siberia; about 1700 miles east of Moscow. Seversk, the actual name of the city, was a closed city that didn’t even appear on maps until last year. Supposedly, and you can take this with a couple of tons of iodized salt, the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry classified the accident as a ‘serious incident’. They assigned a ‘3’ rating on the seven-point international scale; Chernobyl was a 7.”

“On a scale of 1-7, Chernobyl was like a 12!” Elyse objected.

I nodded, “It was a catastrophe. They’re insisting this one isn’t.”

“Yeah, and they had a fucking children’s parade the day after Chernobyl to ‘prove’ it wasn’t a problem.”

“Let’s hope that Russia is NOT the USSR. It hasn’t been in many other ways.”

“True. Let’s hope.”

April 9, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“They buried him in St. Adalbert’s cemetery, next to his mother and his brother Kenny.”

“Damn. Do you know what happened to them?”

“His brother had hemophilia and died when Alan was in eighth grade. His mom died when he was in second grade, but I don’t know what from. It’s a hard-luck family, that’s for sure.”

Here was a man who married a girl with cancer who died less than a year later, and whose idol had just died, saying that his idol’s family was ‘hard-luck’. Jason was a good man, that was for sure.

“So now what?” I asked.

“I need to talk to Samantha, but I suppose I should go home on Saturday. I need to be at the shop on Monday.”

“As I said, stay as long as you like. And come back whenever you want. I don’t know that I can send a plane for you every time, though.”

Jason laughed, “I can’t believe that little girl can just call up and have a multi-million dollar aircraft fly wherever she wants!”

“She’s usually not allowed to. I mean by me, that is. Her dad is cool with it. But she has to live the way us commoners do when she’s at our house. I made a special exception this time. Well, and for the race last summer. We’ll drive this year. I don’t want to get into bad habits.”

“That’s a bad habit I wouldn’t mind having!” Jason said.

“The plane?” I teased. “Or Samantha?”

“I do believe if I answer that I might be missing body parts when I go home!”

Abbie laughed, “You can look all you want so long as you don’t touch!”

That was also new for Abbie. Strict monogamy. I continued to be amazed at how much she’d changed since she’d moved to Chicago.

“Samantha will be home for dinner, so you can talk to her then. Did they announce the driver?”

“Jimmy Hensley according to Mr. Sabates. I think that’s the right thing to do because that’s what Alan wanted.”

“I agree,” I said. “Are they going to sell the team?”

“I think so,” Jason said. “We’ll see. I know Mr. Kulwicki doesn’t want to run the race team without his son, that’s for sure.”

When Samantha arrived home, she checked on the availability of the plane and arranged for Jason to fly home on Saturday as he requested.

April 12, 1993, Chicago, Illinois

“Happy Birthday, Bethany!” I said.

I would have said ‘Sweetheart’ but I didn’t know enough about Tom Quinn at this point to know how he’d feel about me calling her that. Bethany had invited him to her 30th birthday party at our house, and he’d accepted. They had gone out the night before to celebrate privately. Nicholas had spent the night with Jesse, so I wondered if Bethany and Tom had moved to that stage of their relationship. I was sure she’d tell me at some point.

“Steve Adams, Tom Quinn. Tom, Steve.”

We shook hands and sized each other up. I was sure Bethany had explained something about our relationship and I was evaluating him as an older brother would look at a suitor for his sister.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Tom said. “Both from Bethany and some doctors and nurses!”

“Don’t believe a word of it!” I chuckled. “It’s all lies!”

“Including from Doctor Jessica?” he grinned.

“Especially from HER!” I laughed. “Come on in and meet the family. Jess is on a surgery shift tonight, so she won’t be able to join us, but everyone else is here, including some friends of ours.”

The friends were Kathy and Kurt and Pete and Melanie. That made for a complete madhouse with all the extra kids, but there were enough adults to ride herd on them.

I went back to the kitchen to finish making dinner with help from Abbie and Jesse.

“Dad, when does Nicholas start school?” Jesse asked.

“He’s only four, so it’s another year. He’ll start kindergarten when you start third grade.”

“Birgit starts kindergarten when I start second grade and Matthew starts first grade?”

“Yes. Michael and Albert will go to kindergarten with Nicholas. But only if Aunt Bethany keeps living where she is. If she moves, then Nicholas might go to a new school.”

“Then she can’t move,” Jesse declared firmly.

“The Lord High Ruler of the Universe hath spoken!” Abbie laughed.

“I think that’s up to Aunt Bethany to decide. Do you like her friend?”

“The fireman? He’s nice! Will he be a new dad for Nicholas?”

“That’s also up to Aunt Bethany. But we don’t ask her about that when Tom is here. OK?”

“OK!”

“Abbie, how’s Jason doing?”

“He’s back at the race shop today. He’s supposed to call later. He’s concerned about who might buy the team.”

“Are there any rumors?”

“What do your Navy friends say? Just ‘scuttlebutt’? Nothing worth repeating. Jason said even last week they had a half-dozen inquiries.”

“You know that team was all Alan. All you’re getting is people and equipment. Not the TEAM.”

“Jason said the same thing. I guess it would be like NIKA without you.”

“Let’s not think about that for a LONG time!” I said.

We finished making dinner and called everyone to the table. After we ate, we had a birthday celebration for Bethany with cake and ice cream, and after she opened her presents, I passed her an envelope which she simply stuck in her purse.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Tom asked quietly.

She shook her head, “That’s not how it’s done.”