Nevada Barr - A Superior Death

With an accuracy that would have done Holly Bradshaw credit, Patience pulled up short, came alongside, and caught the Gone Fishin‘ with her stern line before the wake could wash it out of reach.

“Let me handle this,” she said as Anna belatedly deployed the fenders.

Anna was more than happy to let her do the honors. She put herself in the stern of the Venture where she had a clear view, and settled in to watch the fireworks.

Patience stopped at the cabin door and drew her five feet two inches up to what appeared a quite formidable height. Anna was glad it was not she who was about to be discovered in flagrante delicato.

Patience knocked, opened the door a crack, and softly called: “Carrie, honey, it’s Mom.” Then she waited a few moments as if to give her daughter time to drag on enough clothes to cover the worst of her embarrassment.

From within the cabin came a frantic scuffling that, despite the situation, made Anna smile. One of her least favorite aspects of being a park ranger was coitus interruptus. She’d inadvertently waded into more than one wilderness frolic.

The cabin light flicked out. Patience pushed open the door and stepped inside. “It’s me, baby. You’re not in any trouble,” Anna heard her say. Seconds later a huddled form was pushed gently out. Patience followed. She tried to put her arms around her daughter, but the girl shrugged them violently off.

At some point in the two hours it had taken to locate Carrie, she had lost her blouse. She crossed her arms protectively over her flat chest. She’d retained black denim trousers, and her high-topped sneakers were on and still laced. They’d arrived in time to save her, if not from sex, Anna thought uncharitably, then from the memory of having had it with Jim Tattinger.

Carrie was crying like a baby, great whooping sobs and hiccups. Whether from humiliation or fear or just plain anger at being caught, Anna couldn’t tell.

Patience pulled off the sweatshirt she was wearing and Carrie struggled into it awkwardly, twitching away from her mother’s helping hands.

“Get on the Venture ,” Patience ordered, maternal softness turned back to asperity by rejection. She caught up something from the floor just inside the cabin door. “You forgot this,” she added acidly, dangling a white bit of cloth from her fingers. It was a training bra. In the light from the stern, Anna could see the little spandex cups and the thick sensible straps.

With a shriek Carrie grabbed it and, gulping air and sobs, clambered over the gunwale into her mother’s boat and disappeared into the cabin, slamming the door behind her. From the muffled sounds that followed, Anna guessed she had thrown herself down on the seat and cried into folded arms.

During all this Jim Tattinger had not appeared. The light in the cabin on the Gone Fishin‘ had stayed resolutely out, and there hadn’t been a single sound from within.

Patience pushed the cabin door wide. An unseen hand pushed it shut again. With a force that made Anna flinch, Patience kicked the thin wood. The veneer cracked and the door banged inward. There was a sharp scream of hinges or of pain. Anna hoped it was the latter. Patience stood to one side of the black opening. “Come out or I will burn your fucking boat to the waterline,” she said quietly. “I swear to God I will.”

A rustling followed, then a pale shape began to insinuate itself into the darkness of the doorway.

“All the way out,” Patience said coldly. “I’ve never seen a child molester up close.”

Tattinger came out into the unflattering white light. He’d either retained or dragged on his tee-shirt and underpants. They were white Fruit of the Looms, baggy like ill-fitting diapers. The undershirt was tucked into the panties. He had blue socks on his feet and his carroty hair was standing on end.

From the shadows of the Venture , Anna braced herself for the familiar whine, the stream of self-justification that was bound to follow. Just as she began to think that for once he had the good taste to be ashamed of himself, he began to speak.

“Look here, Mrs. Bittner,” he said as if Patience, instead of being his peer, were decades older than he. “It’s not what you think.”

One graceful hand shot out, plucked the blue and white band of his underpants away from his bony frame and let it snap back. Tattinger turned pigeon-toed and grabbed his crotch in a parody of masculine modesty.

“It’s what I think,” Patience said. “Just shriveled and uglier.” Tattinger opened his mouth to speak but she forestalled him. “You will not talk to me,” she commanded. “You will not talk to nor come near Carrie. If you do I will kill you. Really. If you stay away, I will content myself with telling Lucas, getting you fired, getting you sent to jail. There you will be the little girl the ugly men want and I shall rejoice in every day you spend facedown bent over some bench with your trousers down around your ankles.”

Finished, Patience stepped away from him, took a solid stance, doubled one fist inside the other, and, straight-armed, swung a roundhouse. Her knuckles collided with Jim’s jaw just below his left ear and he went down.

As the Venture motored away, Anna could hear him screaming, “That’s assault! That’s assault! I’ll press charges!”

“He will, you know,” she said. “He’s that slimy.”

“So will I,” Patience returned. “And mine will stick.”

Carrie Ann began to howl.

Counseled!“ Patience fumed, spitting out the word. At Patience’s request Anna had followed her and her daughter back to Rock Harbor in the Belle Isle , then accompanied them to the Chief Ranger’s house on Mott Island. After talking with Lucas Vega, the two women and the eternally weeping thirteen-year-old returned to Patience’s apartment behind the lodge. Carrie had stumbled off to bed to cry into her stuffed animals. Anna sat on the couch watching Patience stomp around the tiny kitchen.

“Counseled again ,” Anna said unhelpfully. She wasn’t feeling much like defending the Park Service. Though Lucas had been as shocked as they, if the flashing of his usually somber dark eyes was to be believed, all he could promise was that Jim Tattinger would be forced to undergo psychological counseling. For reasons Anna could understand, Patience didn’t want to drag her daughter-or herself-through the courts trying to prove attempted statutory rape or child molestation. Lucas would lodge a complaint, but without Patience pressing charges, he didn’t have the power to fire or even suspend Tattinger without pay. Chances were good the higher-ups wouldn’t want to be tainted by the tawdry goings-on below. As in any bureaucracy, the best way up in the Park Service was to produce a smokescreen of paperwork, an avalanche of plans and studies and proposals, but to be very careful to never actually do anything.

“I’m getting cynical in my old age,” Anna said to break her train of thought.

“Cynicism is the fool’s synonym for realism,” Patience snarled. Anna laughed. At first the other woman looked angry; then her face cracked and she laughed. “Pretty bad, aren’t I? This has been one of the those life’s-a-bitch-and-then-you-die days. The worst of it is, I remember being happy. I remember when I was a nice woman: cheerful, optimistic, fun. I remember, but just barely. The good old days are getting older by the minute.” There was a satisfying pop as she eased a cork from a bottle and the familiar, comforting glugging noise as the wine was decanted.

Patience brought the glasses over to the couch and handed Anna one. “To counseling,” she said and raised the glass.